Child working on a Fine Motor Skill activity.

Fine Motor Skill Activity List

Fine motor activities are essential for preschoolers as they help strengthen hand-eye coordination, improve dexterity, and support early writing skills. These activities not only promote physical development but also encourage focus and problem-solving in young children. Check out this page for fun and engaging fine motor activities that will help your child build these important skills!

image by marie

Why is Fine Motor So Important?

Fine motor skills are critical for preschoolers as they form the foundation for many everyday tasks. Developing these skills helps children gain control over their hand and finger movements, which are essential for tasks like holding a pencil, cutting, getting dressed, and manipulating small objects. Fine motor activities also promote brain development, as they require coordination between the hands and the eyes. Through activities such as playing with play dough, building, or stringing beads, children not only enhance their physical abilities but also boost their concentration, patience, and problem-solving skills. These activities play a vital role in preparing children for more complex tasks in school and life.

If a child struggles with or dislikes activities like coloring, writing, or manipulating small objects at an age-appropriate level, they may have a delay in fine motor skills. Insufficient muscle strength can often show up as a dislike of coloring, using scissors, or buttoning a shirt.

The good news is that there are many fun activities to help strengthen fine motor skills! The activities below can easily be incorporated into a child's playtime. If you would like specific ideas, the 1-5 Year Preschool Curricula contain weekly fine motor activities tailored to the development of the child.

And if I may share a quick thought—while scrolling on a screen with an index finger can be fun, it's important to remember that fine motor practice really happens when a child physically manipulates objects. The activities listed below strengthen hand muscles and build essential skills. For more ideas, check out "When Technology is Out of Control in Your House."

Puzzles

1st: Peg Puzzles

To introduce a child to puzzles, start with peg puzzles—those with large knobs on the pieces. These are great for helping the child develop the pincer grasp, where they use their thumb and index finger to pick up and place the pieces. As the child gains confidence and strength, you can move to puzzles with smaller knobs to continue strengthening those fine motor skills. Peg puzzles come in a wide variety of themes, such as shapes, letters, colors, and animals, which also provide opportunities for additional learning. These puzzles help children not only build physical strength but also enhance their cognitive development as they engage with the images and themes.

Big Discoveries Wooden Puzzle - Animal Wood Puzzles for Toddlers 2+ Years Old | Montessori Learning Puzzles for Kids - Great for Preschool Aged Boys and Girls (Farm Animals)

2nd: Chunky Wooden Puzzles

After mastering peg puzzles, move to chunky wooden puzzles. These puzzles have larger, easier-to-grip pieces but require more coordination to place correctly, helping to further strengthen the pincer grasp.

Large Puzzles for Kids Ages 4-6, 24 Piece Wooden Puzzles for Toddlers 2-4,Jigsaw Puzzles for Kids Ages 3-5,Preschool Educational Puzzles Board Toys Gifts for 3 4 5 6 Boys Girls

3rd: Interlocking Puzzles

Once the child is comfortable with chunky puzzles, try interlocking puzzles. These puzzles, often made of wood, cardboard, or foam, require the child to fit pieces together without the use of knobs. This step encourages more hand-eye coordination and control, as the child must align the pieces correctly. My children loved jumbo floor puzzles.

Play Dough

The modeling, pulling, and pushing or play dough strengthens small muscles.

- Child playing with play dough. Play dough is available to purchase or you can quickly make your own. (image by Christina)

- Add scissors, rolling pins, and extra equipment such as rollers and cookie cutters to manipulate the play dough.

- Child playing with play dough. Hide buttons or beads in play dough for the child to discover. (image by kari)

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Cutting

Using Children's Safety Scissors requires the child to squeeze and spread the blade. This activity requires fine motor muscles. Click to learn how to teach the child to correctly use scissors.

- Cut play dough or clay snakes.

- Cut up old magazines and junk mail. This process will make a mess but can easily be cleaned up with a broom and dustpan. Sometimes learning is messy!!

- Practice cutting different shapes. The 3 Year Curriculum focuses on this activity.

- Help the child draw around their hand and let them cut it out

Glue and Stickers

Manipulating a glue stick, squeezing a glue bottle, and piecing items together build fine motor strength. Removing and placing stickers requires the small muscles.

- Glue together or on paper items like cotton balls, paper, tissue, wax paper, buttons.

- A multitude of stickers and sticker books are available to purchase. Larger stickers with smooth edges are easier to use.

Threading & Beading

Threading and beading involves placing small items (e.g. beads, fruit loops, cheerios) with a hole in the middle on a string or line (e.g. pipecleaner, string, spaghetti noodle). The manipulation of the item to match the hole with the string requires fine motor, visual perception, hand-eye coordination, and muscle control.

- Beading kits are available to purchase. Begin with large beads.

- Thread colored or plain pasta on a piece of string. It may help to cover the end of the string with tape to provide a tight end for threading. Tie the string together in a loop to make a necklace.

- For many generations children have threaded empty spools of thread.

- Spaghetti Patterns Create patterns by beading with Primary Lacing Beads or by threading fruit loops onto spaghetti pieces stuck vertically into play dough.

- ABC Lacing Beads are available to purchase for further learning.

Paper Dolls

Playing with paper dolls allows older preschool child to develop gentleness as they match and fold pieces on the dolls.

- Magnetic, wooden doll sets are available for younger children.

- Free Paper Doll Printables at Activity Village

Painting

Manipulating a painting object or fingers in paint strengthens fine motor skills.

- Alternate between large, stubby brushes and smaller, finer brushes. The smaller the brush is, the more control needed over the little hand.

Blocks

Pushing together, pulling apart, and stacking blocks strengthens fine motor skills to prepare the child for handwriting.

- Duplo Legos Begin with larger blocks like Duplo Legos and move toward the smaller variety.

- Wooden blocks add hand control to build tall towers.

Games

Board games with pieces and parts to pick up and move are ideal for developing fine motor coordination.

- Jenga is a strategy game using fine motor skills that particularly focuses on the pincher grip, which is used in writing.

- Games like Connect Four or Battleship allow a child to create patterns. Count the disc and pegs for additional learning.

Click to see additional game ideas.

Water

Playing with water is a fun way to build fine motor skills without the child knowing it.

- Our kids love to play with squirt bottles. Fun during bath time, to help in cleaning, or to cool off in the summer.

- Pour water between containers. Do this activity in the bathtub or outside for limited mess.

- Squeeze a sponge full of water from one bucket to another or on a chalk drawing on a sidewalk.

Construction

- Provide the child with several nuts and bolts to put together.

- Demonstrate for the child how to hammer golf tees into Styrofoam or a large piece of play dough.

Pinch and Squeeze

Using tools such as tongs, tweezers, hole punches, and clothes pins work the child's fine motor muscles.

- Align on a stiff piece of paper clothes pins, hair bobby pins, or paper clips.

- Transfer small items (craft pom poms) using tweezers, tongs, and clothes pins.

Drawing and Handwriting

The ultimate goal of fine motor skills is for the child to be have the life skills to dress, write, play an instrument, and manipulate small objects.

Through out the ABCJLM Curriculum, it is suggested that a child use a broken crayon to color and write. Occupational therapists have discovered that broken crayons (under 1” in length) force a child to correctly hold a writing utensil so no bad habits develop. The end goal is that the child will hold a utensil with her thumb and index finger while supporting it on the middle finger. Use of markers or pens in craft and writing activities is discouraged as they do not strengthen fine and gross motor skills as much as crayons and pencils.

- Grip Use of a Stetro Pencil Grip help a child correctly hold a pencil.

- Tape a large piece of paper under a table. Having the child lay on his back, draw for fun make simple shapes on the paper.

- Draw a large shape (e.g. circle, square, etc) on a place a piece. Place the paper on the carpet. Using a push pin, instruct the child to punch around the edge of the shape until the shape is free from the paper,

- Dot-to-Dot worksheets help in pencil control

- Play “Draw What I Draw” and have the child draw what you draw and then reverse. Begin with lines and then move to simple shapes.

- Give the child different shaped objects to draw around. You can also make these out of cardboard.

Shaving Cream 6 Children develop fine and gross motor skills best when they work on a vertical surface. While holding a writing utensil or brush against a vertical surface, muscles in the wrist and hand are strengthened. Also, additional core muscles are used when standing to write or paint. These same muscles are not used when writing or painting on a horizontal surface. For this reason, place craft, writing, and drawing projects on a vertical surface as much as is feasible.

This page may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.