30 Fine Motor Activities for Toddlers! Pinch! Thread! Trace! (2024)

FAQs

30 Fine Motor Activities for Toddlers! Pinch! Thread! Trace!? ›

The pincer grasp is the ability to hold something between the thumb and first finger. This skill usually develops in babies around 9 to 10 months old. The pincer grasp is an important fine-motor milestone.

The pincer grasp is the ability to hold something between the thumb and first finger. This skill usually develops in babies around 9 to 10 months old. The pincer grasp is an important fine-motor milestone.

Examples of fine motor skills are: buttoning up a shirt. holding a pencil. picking up food.

Squeezing fine motor skills activities to try

Slit a tennis ball, add googly eyes, a nose and hair. Squeeze your ball buddy to open his mouth and feed him counters, pompoms or water beads for hours of fun. The smaller the mouth slit, the harder children must squeeze the ball to open the mouth.

◗ Play with a bowl of rice or lentils – pouring, mixing or finding hidden toys. ◗ Drawing with crayons or textas while using the other hand to hold the paper steady. ◗ Taking lids on and off thick textas. ◗ Read books together.

We mainly think of hand, wrist and finger movements when it comes to fine motor skills, like picking up an object by pinching it with your pointer finger and thumb. But you can also make fine movements with your foot, ankle and toes.

Examples of fine-motor skills include brushing your teeth, holding a pencil/pen to write, using a fork or spoon to feed yourself, cutting with a knife, buttoning a shirt, zipping a zipper, typing on a computer, cutting with scissors, turning a key in a lock, turning a doorknob, turning the pages of a book, and tying ...

At age 3, children are developing fine motor control: they're more able to move their fingers independently, using them in more complex tasks such as holding writing utensils like an adult, cutting with scissors and making more complex and precise drawings.

Anything a child does to get from one spot to another is locomotion. Examples of gross motor skills in the locomotion category can include rolling, belly crawling, crawling on hands and knees, scooting, walking, running, climbing, leaping, jumping, and hopping.

What is squeezing activity for toddlers? ›

Squeezing Water Fine Motor Activity for Toddlers

Kids love water, so use it to your advantage. Grab a bucket of water and turkey baster and let your little one have a blast squeezing the baster to fill it with water and then squeezing it again to shoot the water out. This game is wonderful to play during bath time.

Mixing, squeezing, pouring and spreading during cooking help to develop fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills. Rolling and flattening dough with the hands or with a rolling pin helps children practice using both hands in a coordinated way.

Fine motor skills involve the use of the smaller muscle of the hands, commonly in activities like using pencils, scissors, construction with lego or duplo, doing up buttons and opening lunch boxes.

Typically, a child will develop a whole hand grasp known as a palmar supinate grasp around 1-1.5 years of age. By the age of 2-3 a child will develop a digital pronate grasp where the writing utensil is held in the hand with the tip of the crayon being help on the thumb side of the hand.

Make a hole in the box or boxes, big enough to fit your child's forearm. Fill each box with different materials and let your child guess what it is each time. Switch up the materials to keep it interesting.

Dexterity refers to a baby's ability to work with their hands for different tasks, like holding a bottle or turning the pages of a book. Even small movements, like pointing at an object, can build dexterity, muscles, and hand strength. Hand strength and dexterity go beyond fine motor skills.

Fine motor skills are smaller movements that use the small muscles like in the finger, toes, wrist and ankles. These are intricate movements that require a high level of control. Some examples include reaching, holding, grasping, squeezing, gripping, etc.

Poking and Pointing

Isolating the index finger to poke and point helps develop motor coordination for activities such as picking up small items, activating toys with buttons, and buttoning clothing.

Generally thought of as the movement and use of hands and upper extremities, fine motor skills include reaching, grasping and manipulating objects with your hands.