Fine motor skills – 5 Ways to improve fine motor skills in children
Independence! As parents, isn’t that our number one goal when raising our kids? It starts with small tasks like brushing their teeth or combing their hair. As they grow older, we want them to dress themselves or tie their own shoes. We want them to develop confidence in their abilities as they learn how to do those important tasks. So what we need to do is help them develop their fine motor skills. And for that, we’ve put together this list of 5 simple activities to do to boost those very important skills
Painting
Start with a dedicated space for art. That means a small table in a corner of the house or their room they can use for artmaking. For toddlers, you can start by giving them a piece of white paper and a black crayon as a start. Toddlers love the contrast between the white paper and the black crayon.
Scribbling helps toddlers build wrist and grip strengths. It helps them develop hand eye coordination. It is also the first step towards learning to write.
Other art materials like watercolous, metallic markers, paint sticks, if you’re trying to avoid the mess, or coloured chalk are great to have around. Provide plain paper and encourage them to create cards and drawings to give their family and friends
Making Jewelry
For children aged six and above, making jewelry is an exciting way to build fine motor skills. You can make necklaces and bracelets using beads, wire or string. Make it even more challenging by inviting them to make beads out of paper.
Clay and Play Doh
Building with clay is a wonderful way to spark creativity. It’s also a great way to build hand-eye coordination. The choices are limitless with colourful play doh, air dry clay, polymer clay and model magic. Added tools like cookie cutters, roll pin, or popsicle sticks enhance the fun.
Weaving
Teaching weaving develops fine motor skills , hand eye coordination and concentration. It also helps kids learn problem solving skills. And for an added bonus, it can be a great calming activity for children. If you’ve never tried it, you can buy complete kits from any toy store and start, it’s that easy!
Practice cutting and gluing
Younger kids holding scissors for the first time should start with blunt tips. You can practice cutting on magazine papers and make a collage. You can give them coloured or tissue paper, coloured tape and glue and let their creativity shine. You can also use our guide here to practice cutting shapes and lines.
When using liquid glue, encourage them to only use one drop at a time and practice drawing with glue dots. Emphasis that we twist at the top, not the bottom. When we twist and end up with a space, that means the bottle is open. Make sure you remove any glue residue from the top. When we finish we twist it back, when the two parts are touching again then we’re done and we set it aside.
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