Fun Ways to Build Fine Motor Skills In Your Children

Fine motor skills development is the coordination of small muscle movements usually involving thumb fingers hand and wrist movements.

In early years in children they help refine pincer grasp which is basically movement of thumb and pointer finger and it’s precursor to handwriting. By using these muscles we exercise them so that children can gain control and strength while colouring,drawing,cutting and forming letters or writing when it’s age appropriate so if fine motor skills are not strong kids will get frustrated while doing tasks such as writing hence leading to poor self esteem anxiety and even stress!!!

These skills begin right from birth when at birth they have a very strong palmar grasp i.e when they holdout finger securely in their palm too gradually holding big to small objects.

In toddlers it’s especially very important as they perform tasks like reaching grasping which in turn improves their hand eye coordination,moving and using various tools like crayons pencils scissors etc

Hence making them more independent  and confident!!!

By the age of 2 to 3 years a child must be able to do the following activities:

• Filling up and dumping contents
• Dressing/undressing some items of clothing
• Stacking/sorting
• Stringing beads
• Folding clothes and / or paper
• Turn pages
• Cutting paper with scissors
• Making bits of paper/tearing
• Stack tower or cup
• Use of spoon and fork
• Holding crayons pencil pen
• Scribbling or attempting to write and draw

Here are some materials and activities for these skill development..

• Play dough kneading making ball using shapes cutters  and moulds scissors all this can be used with play dough to create a fun activity in turn helping to improve these skills.
• Chopping and cutting fruits and vegetables velcro plastic fruits and vegetables are a big hit with kids helping in fine motor skills..later as they become big one can also give real ones eg banana cucumber and a butter knife
• Coins piggy bank or even a plastic container and making a slit in the lid become a fun activity along with improving hand eye coordination
• Pompoms sorting dropping with tongs or hand in a narrow bottle or picking them up with a clothes pin..
• Beads or even pasta stringing them together in a lace or thread is one of our favourite activity..it’s good for hand eye coordination.
• Stickers they are my life saviour…always have them with me whenever I travel its great  for them to do independently and later can ask them to stick in a line so helps with the coordination and skill development.
• Punching give them a paper and punch and ur sorted! Of course they will initially require help to be able to press them but once they get the hang of it nothing like it!
• Blocks making tower stacking one can never be tired of blocks!!
• Rubber bands give them few and an empty toilet paper roll or any tin and ask the to tie it…aithr wonderful activity..
• Painting which kid wouldn’t like painting and getting messy…various  mediums are available in the market sponges different thickness and sizes brushes q tip of a cotton bud bubble wrap fork and the best of all hand and figure painting!
• Paper start of with crepe paper as it’s easy to tear ask them to do bits of paper and later fold them..
• Pounding and grating in a wooden mortar and pestle one can give biscuits and chana to pound and cheese can be grated and later eaten…fun activity isn’t it?
• Scissors introduce only when your child is older and confident with these skills and should be done around adult supervision only..child friendly scissors are easily available nowadays.

All the above activities definitely will help in fine motor skill development but are even useful when one is stuck indoors due to bad weather conditions and or a cranky unwell baby..

Do try the above activities and let me know how it went!!

Till them

Happy parenting !!!

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This article is an entry for BLOG-A-THON.

Also Read – DIY Activity Alert! Make Colouring Fun!

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