YOUR HEALTH Wellness Centre

Fine motor skills activities

Liz Day - Senior Therapist, Hon. BA, Rehab Dip.

Often children with special needs have difficulty with fine motor skills. Fine motor control or skills require use of the smaller muscles in the hands, fingers, toes as well as oral motor muscles such as the mouth, lips, tongue, and eyes. Control of these smaller muscle groups are dependent on the gross or large muscle groups so working on the large or gross motor skills will in turn help with fine motor. However, practice and the building of these smaller muscles are necessary for many preschool tasks such as: printing, colouring, cutting, gluing, stickers, zipping backpacks, opening lunch containers and dressing skills such as zipping, snaps buttoning, Velcro shoes etc.

So what are some activities that can be fun and used to practice and strengthen these smaller muscle groups? Many items within your house can be utilized, here are some ideas:

Tweezers, salad tongs or clothes pins are great for having a game of pick up. Pick up cotton balls or pom poms or any other small (not too small that they could choke on if they are toddlers or mouth things) items.
Hide small treasures (rocks, gems, plastic bugs) in a bowl full of rice or dried beans or in water. Have your child use their hands to find the treasure by feeling through the rice/beans/water. This is also good for tactile discrimination.
Playdough of different consistencies (more stiff is harder work) - rolling, pinching, creating things, hide treasures in the playdough for them to find.
Puzzles
Lite Brite - create designs with small pegs in holes
Pennies into a piggy bank
Popping “bubble wrap” between the thumb and index finger (the noise can be fun too!)
Use food chunks like marshmellows or cheese cubes with toothpicks to create structures. Then eat them after!
Make squirt guns out of plastic bottles such as soap detergent bottles. The squeezing motion is great for developing hand strength as well as hand eye coordination if they are aiming the water at objects.
Try pick up games of transferring objects with toes to strengthen foot and toe movements.

A good book for reference is "The Out of Sync Child Has Fun: Activities for Kids with Sensory Processing Disorder", by Carol Stock Kranowitz.

For more information about our programs or to book an appointment with one of our therapists, please contact the clinic.