Games and Activities to Improve Fine Motor Skills at Home

By: Jenna Sarinelli, OTR/L

Fine motor skills are an integral part of a child’s ability to explore and navigate their environment, and to complete their daily occupations. Activities such as writing with a pencil, coloring with a marker or crayon, fastening buttons, opening and closing containers, and manipulating small objects, are all examples of activities that a child may engage in on a daily basis. These activities require fine motor skills such as precision, dexterity, grasp strength, and coordination of the hands.

While occupational therapy sessions focus on these skills within a sensory gym setting, there are plenty of fun ways to incorporate these skills into fun games and activities at home! Here are 5 examples of games/activities that you can utilize at home to enhance fine motor skills.

Jenga

This classic game is a great way to incorporate pincer grasp, dexterity, precision, and motor control into game play. In addition to these skills, Jenga blocks can be used in building activities to incorporate creativity and imaginary play.

PlayDoh

PlayDoh is a wonderful tool not only to encourage your child’s creativity, but to enhance their fine motor skills. By kneading and molding the Playdoh, it improves hand strength, use of pincer grasp, and bilateral coordination.

Straw Constructor STEM Building Toys

Straw Constructor STEM Building Toys are great for allowing your child to use their imagination and creativity to create something new, while also utilizing various fine motor skills. Some skills required while engaging with this toy are bilateral coordination of the hands, in-hand manipulation, and hand strength. Additionally, it requires the use of pincer and tripod grasps, which can carry over into handwriting skills.

Noodle Knockout!

Noodle Knockout! is a fun game created with fine motor skills in mind. The use of toy chop sticks to retrieve game pieces incorporates the use of a tripod grasp which can enhance skills required for handwriting. It utilizes skills such as dexterity and pincer grasp, while also incorporating direction following and color recognition!

Pom Pom Crafts

There are endless ways that you can use pom poms to create fun and engaging activities, that also work on fine motor skills! For example, you can glue colored pom poms onto color-by-number pictures, using tweezers or tongs to place in colored containers (use empty spice containers), and glue them together to make caterpillars. Working with pom poms focuses on skills such as in-hand manipulation, pincer grasp, dexterity, and precision.

These are just a few of the many toys and activities that are easy and fun ways to promote fine motor skills at home! Always feel free to reach out to us for additional ideas or activities. Also, find more information about common household items that can be used for fine motor activities here https://communikidsnj.com/how-to-use-everyday-household-items-to-improve-fine-motor-skills/.