This post on Fine Motor Skills Activities is part of my 21 Challenge. I am taking The 21 Challenge to raise money to support homeless and at-risk young people in Australia. There are more than 32,000 young people who sleep on our streets every night and I blogging a kids activity daily to raise funds to go to Open Family Australia who support these youths.
My challenge is to blog daily an activity I do each day with my kids, using only things we have at home or use what we have on hand when we are out. You can see all the children’s activities I have posted as part of the 21 Challenge by clicking on the tag 21 Challenge here.
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Description:
Our preschooler is very much into practicing his fine motor skills – he just doesn’t know it is called that! He has worked out how to cut with scissors and loves it. I am finding piles of cut up paper all over the place at the moment.
This signaled to me, it was the perfect time to put together a special box just for him, filled with items that will help him practice further his fine motor skills.
Age:
3 – 5 years old
Materials needed:
In his box he has:
- Coloured pencils
- Pencil sharpener
- Scissors
- Rubber
- Stapler
- Hole punch
- Ruler
- Sticky tape
- Cutting practice sheets
- Pre writing Sheets
- Blank paper
- Envelopes (Oh my how much does he love these! I think we have less then half left already!)
Aim:
To allow our preschooler to have a box of his very own that he can access as he wants to practice his fine motor skills. Cutting and pasting, tracing, free drawing, sharpening pencils all require fine motor co-ordination. Practicing these types of skills are important before he even begins to try and learn to write.
Opportunities for learning:
Skills like cutting and pasting and drawing are all essential in primary school. A prep teacher recently said to me that she often has kids in prep who can read before they start school, but they can’t hold a pencil correctly for their age nor use scissors effectively. She felt that fine motor skills were something that needed much more practice.
Additional resources:
- How To Create A Preschool Writing Box – in this post of mine you can download Pre-writing Practice Worksheets. At this stage of the writing process the most important skill for our preschooler to master is pencil control. The works sheets are not about tracing letters, but simple shapes to help them improve his pencil control.
- Fine Motor Skills Activities – Cutting – you can download a two page PDF document that has lines for preschoolers to follow to practice their cutting.