Fine Motor Movement Activity Table

 

You can also use numbers and letters!

Fine Motor, Art, and Science Small Group and Table Time Ideas - FREEBIE

 

LINK

Playdough Shapes: Fun Way to Teach Preschoolers Geometry

Link Here

Try It!

Genius At-Home Ideas, Part 1

Yarn or string will work just as well. Cap off the ends first with tape so that it easily passes through the pasta.

All children need to learn to tie their shoes. If you don't have a cardboard model, use an adult shoe for practice.

Dr. Seuss Green Eggs and Ham Game

Learn How to Make and Play Here

From 21st Century Teachers - Education for All v2.0

From 21st Century Teachers - Education for All v2.0

A perfect activity for your kids 😍
Color Recognition ✔
Fine Motor Coordination ✔
Gross Motor Coordination ✔

Cognitive Development ✔

Divide the class into 2 groups.
They can only take 1 toilet paper roll at a time to place on a construction paper square.
Excellent Pre-Kinder activity, especially during bad weather days.

Drawing Under the Table

This is both great for developing upper arm strength and fine motor skills.

Tinkering Trees

This craft not only encourages creativity, but it also strengthens eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills!

Click here to see more.

Really Quick Fine Motor Play

By using shorter pieces of straws, this would also work exceptionally well with patterning (AB, ABA, etc.)

Get more information here.

Fine Motor Skills Trick - Cutting With Scissors

Keep That Typewriter in the Classroom

I'm sure if you looked around, you'd find an old electric or manual typewriter around. Put it in the classroom, along with some scratch paper. Here are some skills they can practice that a computer can't give them (especially if you don't have a printer.) And the best part? They can keep the paper!

Benefits: learning the keyboard, alphabet practice, spelling, sentence structure and punctuation, fine motor skills, and much more!

* Their names, the names of their family members
* Their address and phone number
* A simple sentence (either copied or of their own creation) GT students can try for a whole paragraph.
* spelling words, seasonal words, their reading words

How many more can you come up with?

Scissor Practice

Over the years, several Pre-K and Kinder teachers have asked me how I got my kiddos to cut so well. Granted that the majority of the time when it's required, it's usually to cut out squares to glue onto boxes. But I believe children need more dexterity than that.

So I use these simple templates. I've included a sample below. (You can click on the photo for the full size and copy to save on your computer.)

Normally, I draw several different kinds of lines per sheet of scratch paper. I've also drawn loops. These practice sheets are perfect for when a student has finished his work early, and needs something to occupy his time before going on to the next lesson.

Penny a Pompom Game

Not only do my kids work on their fine motor skills (and so many of them this school year need it), but they also work on one-to-one correspondence.

I got the deviled egg trays at the dollar store. A handful of pompoms go in the center.
They shake the penny cup.
Heads = Put one pompom in one cup.
Tails = Take one pompom out.
Want to amp it up? Have them pick the pompoms with tweezers or clothespins.
Want to make it seasonal? Use orange pompoms in the fall (to resemble pumpkins.) You can even call it "Penny a Pumpkin"!
First person to fill up their tray wins!

How I'm Planning to Use Pinterest Pictures in the Classroom, Idea 3

Idea 3 - Fine Motor Skills

Providing the materials, see if they can reconstruct this "fighter".
Materials needed:

Sharpie (this one has a blue cap)

4 brads

1 large binder clip

2 small binder clips

4 blue Bic pen caps (can substitute other pen caps)

2 sharpeners (can substitute small erasers)

A Lesson From the Olden Days, Part 1

While cleaning out our garage a few months ago, I found the old manual typewriter I'd used back when I was in college ('72-'76, then thru '78 - Yeah, I'm that old. ;). I took it to school for the kids to play on it, and it was like they had discovered a fantastic new toy. In fact, I had to put a time limit on how long each child could remain on it so the others wouldn't get upset!

Talk about a great way for them to work on their fine motor skills!

Another Set of Texas Activities

Remember that flag from my post of March 5th? I put that flag on tagboard, then each child had to tear red, white, and blue strips into "finger tip size pieces" and glue them to the template. This "mosaic" idea has always been among the best ideas for strengthening fine motor skills. To finish, we wrote the state pledge on the back.

Additional activities included:
* playing Texas bingo
* watching a short video about the Battle of the Alamo
* learning to dance the Cotton-Eyed Joe and Chicken Dance

Q is for "Quilt"

Using old wallpaper books, each child made a "quilt square".
We'll "stitch" them together tomorrow to hang out in the hallway.

It's as Easy as 1-2-3

To give my students a little something different, and to challenge them to think in ways other than laterally, I started having them make "number boxes". Each child gets a sheet of large construction paper.

* Fold it in half "hamburger" length, then open and fold "hot dog" length.
* In one box, they cut out a picture from a catalog that contains the number of items they're studying
* In another box, they write/copy the name of the number
* In the third box, they get one of the numbers (large and tracing) to color, cut out, and glue on
* In the last box, I have objects that they can glue - the number of objects depends on the number

As you can see, we glued a cotton ball for 1, toothpicks for 2, and paper clips for 3, but you can use any items you want. I'm planning on having gold stars for 4 and buttons for 5.

The best thing about this activity is that it reinforces their cutting and other fine motor skills, as well as helps them with their counting.