The term “fine motor skills” has become quite popular in the near past. Some years ago only professionalists – remedial teachers, kindergarten teachers, development teachers – were using it, but nowadays we can see it on a regular basis. But do we know what it really means?

To make it simple, fine motor skills make the ability to perform tiny movements with our fingers, hands, to handle small objects, and move in a fine way. Tearing, crinkling, tweaking movements can be really challenging for children even if they seem easy for adults. These movements have to be practiced during everyday life.

And why is the accurate level of fine motor skills important? On the one hand, children at the end of preschool can have bad self-esteem for being less skilled than the others, and on the other hand, the lack of these skills can make it hard to learn to write and have a nice exercise book as it is expected during the first years of school.
It looks obvious that we help children the most if we buy expensive games that are labeled as developing games. They can have many functions but their disadvantage is that they can be used only for those exact functions and nothing else. Real experts believe that every game and activity develops, even the simplest ones that wouldn’t come to our minds. Kids are happier to play with simple objects because they can use them in a lot of ways. The children are less likely to get bored with the simple objects because this way their creativity functions as well. Let us offer some game ideas that contribute to the development of fine motor skills without spending too much money.

Every child loves playing with play-doh. The movements they use improve the coordination of the little fingers as well as the fantasy and vocabulary. We can easily form snakes, snails, or pretzels. You can find plenty of children’s rhymes and songs on YouTube that you can sing during shaping.
It is also fun to form a play-doh ball and then flatten it on the table. First, you can push different seeds, pasta, bids in it, forming different figures and shapes. Then you can put a long spaghetti pasta in it on which you can place bids. It gives the opportunity to practise colours and shapes.

If you have an empty egg carton at home, you can make a game out of it using clothespins, little furballs, a bowl, and some paints of matching colours of the balls. Paint the cups of the egg carton to different colours (children can do it too) and when it’s dry, try to place the furballs from the bowl into the cups according to the colours, using the clothespins. If the children work from left to right, it prepares them for the direction of reading and writing. If your children cannot use the clothespin yet, it is fun to play with spoons or simply their fingers as well. You can also help them hold the balls with 3 fingers, to contribute to the correct pencil holding of the future. The game is also fun using toilet paper rolls instead of egg carton holders.

We wish you a pleasant time! Soon we will share more ideas to play.

Nikoletta Széki – Forest Tale Daycare

This article is translated by Anita Nagy.
Click here for the Hungarian version.