Tracing, Cutting and Coloring: Fine Motor Practice

You may hear your teacher, other parents or other educators referring to fine motor skills and how important it is to build up these fine motor muscles, but you may not actually understand this term "fine motor" so first lets talk about what fine motor skills actually are. Simply put fine motor is your ability to move your small muscles in your body. Usually this means within your hands and wrists. I also teach swimming and in swimming it refers to your ability to point your toes and move your ankles in a controlled way.

SO! Fine motor = your little muscles. Having good fine motor skills leads to:
clean handwriting
ability to trace lines
better strength in your hands
ability to cut lines with scissors
coloring inside the lines cleanly
can manipulate things like tweezers/ chopsticks/ tools with more control
better control over the small movements your hand/ wrist makes
more accuracy with your hands
tie shoes easier

Children are working on developing their fine motor skills birth-about 6 years old. Come 2nd grade, the expectations around children at home and school tend to require more developed/ confident fine motor skills. So it's vital that kids are working those fingers and toes early on in many different ways.

I love Pinterest for finding fine motor skills practices activites that use common household items. Here are a few items you may have around your home that are GREAT for fine motor practice.
single hole punchers
tongs
tweezers
clothespins
beads
cereal like Cheerios
rubberbands
pool noodles
play doh
spaghetti noodles
straws
pipecleaners
Legos
Waterbottles/ squirt guns
paperclips
paper towel/ TP tube
Barbie clothes
Small toy parts
Baster/ eye dropper
General tools (especially nuts and bolts)
Stickers (peeling it from the backing)
Lacing shoes/cards

I love working on fine motor skills because it's so easy to integrate educational topics into the activities or just have a really fun, creative activity. For activities you can do at home check out my Pinterest board called Sensory/ Motor Skills. (Some of these make for good busy bags you can take in the car, to the drs office, or other places kids get impatient easily at!)