This awesome list of fine motor activities is just what you need to help develop early childhood skills. Try these fun activities to engage fine motor work in everyday play. Fine motor fun is just a roundup away. 

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Many activities in everyday play support fine motor skills. Cutting and coloring, snapping small blocks together, and shaping play dough, are activities that specifically target small motor muscles in the hand, fingers and thumb.

Fine motor skills help do the work of exploring, testing, and creating for early learners.

Related: What exactly do we mean by fine motor skills?  article from The OT Toolbox

Crafts like our lace butterfly engage fine motor skills with small craft items and a lacing activity.

Props like a tissue box theater and a shoebox farm prompt the positioning of mini toys in small world play. 

This roundup will help you find easy and fun ways to engage fine motor skills in daily play.

Fine motor activities 

Early childhood skills such as fine motor are exercised through hands-on exploration and experimentation. Kids benefit from activities simply by playing and having fun. 

Coloring, drawing, building with small blocks, squeezing play dough, are all activities that help strengthen the fine motor skills that are important for later use in other areas of learning and developing.

Choose from this list of fun and easy activities to promote fine motor practice.

Squeeze and shape and cut play dough or modeling clay.

Stretch elastics around crayons in a geoboard activity.

Build a bowling game with small blocks or set up a small world equestrian activity.

Pull threads from burlap to make a fish craft.

Make a hand print lacing craft with a doily.

Glue paper shapes in fun patterns.

Arrange felt cut-outs on a flannel board to make a cute caterpillar.

Sort scrabble tiles.

Twist and pull small gadgets on a portable busy board.

Build a bird nest with mixed materials.

Sort small twigs to make letters of the alphabet.

Practice using fasteners in a homemade busy book.

Apply pompoms to sticky tape in a fun art activity.

Set up small world play with a cardboard box.

Sort tiny seeds found in foods.

Paint with creative paint tools made with craft sticks.

Make a beautiful bouquet with artificial flowers and a funnel.

 More fine motor fun!

 Fine motor activities from Preschool Inspirations.

Help for the hands from Mosswood Connections

Fine motor skills activities from The Imagination Tree