Fine Motor Skills in Children

What are fine motor skills?

Simply put, these are small movements everyone makes with their fingers, hands and wrists. By developing these skills, we learn to do the finer things in life like fastening shoelaces and buttons, writing and using cutlery. Like every skill, it improves with practice, so employing a range of activities to strengthen and develop these muscles will develop finer skills with greater control over time. It is important to start this work as early as possible in infancy so that children can be successful as they grow. But it’s not all about handwriting!
 

What else can be supported by fine motor skills?

Fine motor skills support brain development, specifically the areas of the brain which develop coordination. By strengthening these neural pathways at an early age, the brain learns to develop broader cognitive functions like problem-solving, concentration and memory. Self-help skills are learned more quickly through refined fine motor skills, which builds independence and develops a sense of accomplishment.  Mastering tasks such as fitting jigsaw pieces, colouring, drawing and playing with toys develops social and emotional relationships as children are able to more effectively engage with others. Ultimately, secure fine motor skills will support academic success in the long term. By being able to clearly record and illustrate their learning, children can see their own success.
 

How to support development of fine motor skills?

In the first two years of life, children develop skills through reaching, grasping and tracking. Even something as simple as tummy time helps to develop the muscles of the neck and the arms, so that there is a strong foundation to build the finer skills on top. We can develop these skills by laying colourful toys just out of reach in front of or above a baby or toddler. Similar activities might help children with special educational needs or disabilities. Additional activities for more mobile children would include block stacking, which also helps to develop hand-eye coordination, chunky inset puzzles and toys with buttons and switches which produce noise or lights in order to reward efforts with an outcome!
 

Activities for fine motor skills development in schools

During the Early Years, it’s a good idea to offer as many messy activities as possible to introduce risk-free, error-free fine motor skills practice. Here are a few ideas to think about:

Dough: encourage children to squeeze, roll, flatten, tease and push the dough using every finger on both hands. If you can colour or scent the dough, then that’s even more fun! This great salt dough recipe can be adapted for different occasions.

Threading: from threading shoelaces onto cotton reels to weaving laces around shapes, as in this star threading resource, there are lots of ways to develop this skill. Threading pasta shapes onto spaghetti develops concentration and a more delicate hand, and then sticking these to paper can help create pictures. Using long grasses to thread through buttons is a lovely way to introduce some elements of nature. Perhaps you can even make daisy chains like we did in our childhoods!

Painting: and not just with paint! Yes, finger painting with paints encourages sensory tolerances as well as the freedom to create and make marks in so many ways, but you can also paint with water outside on a warm day (if we get any!) and you can mix chalk in water for painting as well.

Messy mark-making: cornflour gloop, which can be coloured, mixed with glitter or leaves, is a messy way to encourage mark-making which will magically disappear!

Dabber fun: fun activities with bingo dabbers develop fine motor planning and control and hand-eye coordination. Try something like this coloured dot challenge with dabbers (or finger paints, or chalk), and build up towards the children developing their own creations!

Dressing up: rather than costumes with fasteners, introduce other clothes with buttons, zips and laces to challenge coordination as well as fine motor skills. There are lots of activity boards and cushions, but clothes do the same thing!

Cutting skills: practice using scissors to cut out shapes with this Old MacDonald’s Farm themed resource or create snowflakes at winter for window decorations.

Pompom tasks: football with pompoms? Why not! Try an activity like this pompom football resource to create a fun challenge.

Pens, pencils and crayons: tracing shapes, lines and free-marking are a great way to refine mark-making skills into handwriting, and provide a great opportunity to model and then correct pencil grip to ensure that children have a good grasp of their writing implement for recording. Perhaps have the mark-making table underneath the whiteboard, or at a table with a large iPad, and share a handwriting video to support low-demand practice.
 

Further development of fine motor skills

There are lots of other activities you can share with children — see the full range of fine motor skills activities on CGP+. And it’s important to remember that fine motor development doesn’t stop when children graduate to Year 1.

Children will benefit from these activities over time, including more complex colouring activities and art-based tasks, such as working with clay or building spaghetti and sticky-tack bridges. Here are a few suggestions for older children who would still benefit from the practice:

• Pipette Creations — a great activity which could be adapted into more complex colour mixing for art, or introduce ice panels and warm colouring to explore melting at the same time!
• Drawing Basic Symbols — after practising the basic symbols, pupils could move onto developing symbols for school features and design maps in geography.
• Weaving through Time — this art activity develops weaving skills which can support fine motor control into Key Stage Two.

I have been working in mainstream and special primary schools for the last 18 years. Over those years, I've coordinated every subject, and currently lead on curriculum development for our specialist provision. I'm also a published author of a YA fantasy series, have delivered private tuition on and off, and currently enjoy developing CGP+ resources in my free time. 

To see resources written by Joanne, click here.