One super easy way to build your child’s fine motor skills

If you want to boost your child’s fine motor skills easily and effectively they will need to build strength and improve their coordination in the small muscles that make up those little hands. Here are some ideas for doing exactly that and ONE super easy way that will simplify your task of finding and planning activities for your toddler / preschooler.

Fine motor skills ARE important

Fine motor skills are used in EVERYTHING your child does, from zipping up their jacket and tying their shoelaces to, writing, drawing and cutting with scissors.

Equipping our children with the right skills as early as possible can determine their future success and mastery in other areas of their lives.

Fine motor skills help with school

The first and most obvious area is in their school work, they will need to perform various tasks that depend on their hands. The muscles in their hands and fingers need to be strong enough and work in a coordinated manner to be able to draw pictures, write their letters and numbers, cut out pictures and work with manipulatives like when they’re building a model of sorts. If a child finds it easy and effortless to perform these tasks, they will have more confidence and achieve better results.

Fine motor skills help at home

In their home lives, children need to be able to help out with chores around the house and take care of themselves. Good fine motor development can help them do this with ease and limit the amount of frustration and negativity towards these tasks.

From hanging up clothes on the wash line, to sweeping a floor; from wiping up a mess on the table to picking up their books and replacing them on the bookshelf. Strength and coordination of the muscles in their hands help them to do these chores.

And when they day is done and it’s time to wash themselves in the bath, brush teeth and change into their pajamas. You’ll be thankful they can hold the sponge or toothbrush correctly and coordinate its movement to clean all the places.

Fine motor skills help your child express their creativity

So many creative tasks, that could become hobbies your child loves, thrive on good fine motor coordination and strength. Maybe your child would love to paint or do pottery. Or perhaps they would love to build a robot with their intricate Legos. Maybe they would love to cook or bake something delicious, or sew or knit some special designs. Or perhaps they’d like to write amazing poems or a even a book!

Providing them with opportunities to use their fine motor skills and explore their gifts and talents is such an important part of them learning more about themselves and glimpsing their potential.

Building strength and coordination for fine motor skills

Building strength and coordination in the hand and fingers is the cornerstone for fine motor development. There are over 30 tiny muscles in the hand and they must all have the right strength and be able to move together in the right way for the hand to perform its tasks.

Next time you pick up your cup of coffee, or when you zip up your child’s jacket, just take a quick look at your hand and think about how many muscles are working and how they’re working together in that moment. Wow!

Activities to build fine motor strength and coordination.

Your child needs to do activities that can use these muscles and practice coordinating their motion. There are many ways to do this. Playing with play-dough is a great starting point. They can squeeze the play-dough, roll it into a long thing sausage, or into a ball. They can flatten it out on the table and start to use cookie-cutters and other tools to create shapes or patterns or textures on their dough. Eventually they’ll be able to form various shapes and use it to play with in a more imaginative way.

Doing these and different activities will make your child’s muscles will stronger, able to do more, while building their confidence and encouraging their creativity.

Other activities your child might enjoy include threading, stickers, tracing, cutting with scissors, driving a toy car along a track, decorating pictures with pompoms and other little decorations, colouring, painting with various media, and so much more!

Finding fine motor activities every week can be tough

It might feel like a laborious task, searching for hours through heaps of worksheets and ideas on Pinterest or Google. Knowing what is age appropriate and finding examples and instructions you can actually follow and gain from can be daunting. Knowing the activities you have selected are actually developing the right skills and setting your child up for developmental and academic success can feel overwhelming.

Here’s an easy way to do all this and more!

Confident Little Hands is a fine motor skills subscription that equips you, as a mom, with the tools to build your toddler / preschooler’s fine motor and other developmental skills.

In the Confident Little Hands Fine Motor Skills Subscription, you’ll get access to printable activities that boost your child’s fine motor and other early developmental skills every month.

Here’s what’s included every month:

* 20 printable activity sheets with instructions

* Sensory play ideas for the month

* Outdoors / Gross motor activity ideas for the month

* Access to a vault of videos to support you as you boost your child’s early development (new one added monthly)