Posts Tagged ‘Fine Motor Skills’
This simple activity requires very few supplies. All you need are scissors, craft foam, yarn, a marker, and a hole punch (can use scissors instead).
First cut strands of yarn about 4-5 feet long. Tie them to something extremely sturdy, such as a doorknob. This yarn is going to see a lot of action. Make a strand for each child playing.
Cut craft foam in squares and punch or cut a hole. Be sure to make the hole large. Your children will be threading the yarn through this hole.
Draw shapes, letters, words, whatever you would like them to practice learning onto the craft foam squares.
Ask your child to grab the square that is a specific color or has a certain shape/letter on it. Have them thread the yarn through the square.
The best part of this activity is that it is perfect for different stages in development. I instructed one child to do colors (2 yrs old), while the other child did shapes (3 yrs old). Later on when my 4 yr old returned home from preschool I had him play along with letters.
Now to get some great use out of competitiveness and sibling rivalry. Have each child hold the end of their yarn strand with the square at their hands. Tell them to shake the yarn to get the square to the doorknob. Make it a race!
This activity is also great for one child, too. Use their determination (which we all know they have) to jump and shake that square to the doorknob.
Be prepared for a lot of jumping, wiggling, and giggling. This was so much fun for everyone, especially me standing back watching them burn off some energy while learning and having a blast.
PLEASE NOTE: This activity is designed to be parent involved. Do not use this activity as a busy activity while you leave the room. The long strands of yarn can be dangerous with young children if not supervised. You will need to monitor your children closely and be sure they do not wrap themselves with the yarn.
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Kim is a contributing writer for No Time For Flash Cards, a mom to a toddler, a preschooler, and a foster parent, too. She juggles her day by trying out fun activities and crafts with the kids. After all, she is just a big kid herself. See what she has been up to over at Mom Tried It.
We live so far south that we very rarely get to experience actual snow. When we do get snow, it’s often not enough to make a snow man. Even so, there are lots of holiday songs and stories about snowmen, so I thought I’d show my son how snowmen are made with a little play doh.
I used black and white play doh for this activity.
I went ahead and rolled all of the pieces in advance. My son has a lot of sensory issues, so he’s not a big fan of play doh. I still run him through the motion of rolling the big pieces, but if he had to do it all himself, we’d have a meltdown before we finished. 
So, we took each white ball, rolled it once or twice in his palm, and then stacked them. He was extremely resistant to the play doh with his left hand, so we switched it up and used his right–much better!
We then took the smaller black balls and helped him use his pointer finger to press them into the snowman creating eyes, a nose, and some buttons. We’ve worked on using pointer finger before, so this is a good way to reinforce that skill. Overall, using one finger was much better than using his whole hand. 
When you’re finished, you have a snowman guaranteed not to melt.
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Katy is a mom of one who loves art, mystery novels, and anything involving peanut butter–she blogs about raising her little miracle at Bird on the Street.
My son likes lacing activities, but sometimes he needs to be more creative than those can allow. What can I say, I have created a monster.
So we tried this activity and it was a huge hit. I wanted to share it with you. You will need scissors,paper, marker, plastic craft grid, yarn needle, and yarn (or embroidery floss).
Draw a rough sketch of the shape you would like. Remember, the simpler the design the easier. I did a regular rectangle and heart, but I did a dump truck and a bulldozer, too. You do not need to have artistic abilities for this, as you can see.
Place the plastic grid on top of the paper.
Cut out the designs.
Thread your yarn needle. Here is a closer look at the needles I used. I purchased these at JoAnn Fabrics, but they are at Walmart and other craft stores.
Start your kids off by tying the end of the yarn to a spot on the cutout.
Then let them have a blast as they thread the needle into the small squares.
This activity is great for fine motor skills. It also introduces them to grids and creating lines. Creating lines this way is so different from drawing them. Your child will understand points of origin and plotting the lines. Of course you don’t tell them that is what they are learning. The journey is so much more fun!
This activity is great for quiet time. It travels really well, too. That fact makes it a plus for road trips or doctor offices.
While you won’t be selling them at the local craft fair, you will have a cool keepsake. This activity could easily be adapted into ornaments, too. You can use cookie cutters to create fun shapes such as bells or gingerbread men.
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Kim is a contributing writer for No Time For Flash Cards, a mom to a toddler, a preschooler, and a foster parent, too. She juggles her day by trying out fun activities and crafts with the kids. After all, she is just a big kid herself. See what she has been up to over at Mom Tried It.
For this activity you will need a paper plate, clothes pins, brown and yellow construction paper, scissor, glue, and something to color with. For some reason I had craft confusion and used paint and markers, but that’s overkill.
First, make your paper plate brown–we finger painted because that allows us to work on sensory stuff at the same time. I’m seeing major progress in that my son will paint and also that he’s stopped trying to put the paint in his mouth. Little victories! 
Next, cut out a head and beak from the construction paper. Glue them to the plate.
Then you need to color your clothespins. I used markers and did it myself since it’s a little beyond Charlie’s abilities. If your child can do it by themselves, then let them.
Now, for the fun part!
The clothespins become the turkey’s feathers. Use the feathers to do a variety of activities. For us, we were working on identifying colors. You could also do patterns
Since this was our first time doing the activity, we started with only two clothes pins and asked Charlie to select “red” or “blue.” Trying to grab the clothespins has the added bonus of being fine motor practice, but if he’s not able to squeeze properly, they still come off with a tug. If your child has trouble with fine motor, be sure to place the pins far apart to make it easier. 
When Charlie correctly identified the blue pin and threw it on the floor, we called it a day!
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Katy is a mom of one who loves art, mystery novels, and anything involving peanut butter–she blogs about raising her little miracle at Bird on the Street.
I love the simplicity of this Halloween Craft. Many parents comment that they could never do a craft with treats without their child loosing focus and eating up the whole bowl. I have done many of these kids activities over the years with my son and other children and never had that problem. The tick is that you have to allow some to be eaten but make deals. With my son he had to put 10, then 15, then 20 marshmallows on the ghost before he was allowed to eat just one single marshmallow. When the ghost was completed he had another. 4 in total, not bad. If you simply can not use treats try cotton balls or packing peanuts instead. Another bonus is that your child is using fine motor skills the whole time, something essential to literacy!
- Gather your materials. You will need some glue, mini marshmallows, and black construction paper.
- Start by making an outline of a ghost in glue on your paper. I tried, no begged my son to do this step but he didn’t want to. He wants things to be perfect and well – we are working on doing things himself and not needing things to be so particular. I’ll keep you posted!
- Next start adding the mini marshmallows. I love the system we use with a treat after counting, because he loves to count and has fun doing it. Even if you are using a non edible item give your child numbers to use as mini goals when adding on items like this. You can even make predictions about how many it will take to complete the ghost.
- Add glue for the eyes. I was pleased when he wanted to do this, and even more so when he added 3 eyes !
- Add the marshmallows , three if you want!
- Let dry. The marshmallows will dry but not mold.
Halloween Books
The Perfectly Horrible Halloween 
10 Trick-or-Treaters
Mouse’s First Halloween 
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