Activities to Strengthen Your Child’s Fine Motor Skills

We don’t give enough credit as to how much we use our fine motor skills to get through life: from the moment we wake up to when we head to sleep we’re using our hands and fingers to guide us.

When we were young we often took part in activities and games to get us to use our fine motor skills often; repetition and practice strengthen our muscles and brain signals to use our hands, fingers and arms in the way that we do.

Here are some activities you can try with your child to improve their fine motor skills, from a private girls school in London.

Test their balancing skills
A game you can make by using plastic cups or old plastic tupperware and straws will test your child’s skills as they try to poke the straws through the holes you’ve made within the plastic. You can also use popular games like Jenga or Kerplunk to give you the same results - it’s about using their hands to balance the items they’re holding.

Making jewellery
These days you can pick up a range of jewellery-making kits from most stores catered to children of all ages. Allowing them to hold beads of various shapes and sizes as they go through a piece of string will give them the chance to hold and feel different textures.

Building 3D models
Whether they’re pre-made or you give them the chance to learn by themselves to build shapes, 3D model building can test your child’s skills in making something unique with what they have in front of them.

Colouring by using rocks
This is done by getting a piece of plain paper and laying it on a rock, then your child should grab a crayon and start colouring on the paper for them to discover the rock’s unique textures and shape. It’s a great way of testing how fast they can colour with their crayons by using swift hand and arm movements.

*Collaborative Post