5 Eco-Friendly Fine Motor Skills Activities That You Can Make With Your Child
by Jennie Lyon, 11/09/12
Fine motor skills aren't only necessary for the movement of small muscles in the fingers, they are great for eye coordination as well. It's important to encourage your child to strengthen those fine motor skills when they are still infants and toddlers since it makes life as a small child much easier. You can help your child hone his/her fine motor skill development by making fun activity games with them. Read on to learn 5 activities I created with my own son when he was an infant and toddler, then hit your recycling bin for all of the supplies that you will need. The best part, your child will have just as much fun making the games with you as he will using the games.
What you will need for all 5 projects:
- muffin tin
- recycled paper (from your recycling bin)
- golf tees
- marbles
- yarn
- egg carton
- recycled cardboard (from your recycling bin)
- buttons or milk caps
- scissors
- hole punch
- craft knife
- 2 empty cardboard food containers with lids
Project #1: Counting Fine Motor Skills Game
What you will need:
- an empty cardboard food can with lid (I used a baking powder one)
- discarded buttons, milk caps or other circular items
Directions:
Simply clean out the inside of an empty cardboard can. Then, cut slots the same size of your circular items with your craft knife. This is a great way for little ones to practice their fine motor skills by putting the circular items into the small slot. You can also color code each piece to help with color identification.
Project #2: Color Fine Motor Skills Game
What you will need:
- muffin tin
- colored buttons, milk caps or other small items of the same color
- paper (from the recycling bin)
Directions:
Another great fine motor and sorting activity is encouraging your little ones to sort all of the items by color into separate sections of the muffin tin. I used paper from the recycling bin to color code the bottom of each muffin tin. This fine motor skill activity is great for color recognition, sorting and counting.
Project #3: Hand-Eye Coordination Fine Motor Skills Game
- an empty cardboard food can with lid (I used a baking powder one)
- toothpicks or discarded straws
Directions:
Manipulating small items such as toothpicks and inserting them into the slot is great not only for fine motor skill development, but also for hand-eye coordination. If you choose to use straws, you can punch holes in the lid of the container instead of pushing the toothpicks through to make holes.
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