Fine motor activities for kindergarten! These hands-on activities and ideas are perfect for back to school in a kindergarten classroom. Kids will love these fun and educational fine motor ideas. Plus a free file!
Why do we work on fine motor skills in kindergarten?
Studies show that fine motor skills directly correlate with literacy and math development. One of the most important reasons we want students to strengthen their small muscles is so they can learn to write. A Kindergarten classroom is the perfect place to work on fine motor development, especially during the first few months! Here are 15 simple activities and ideas for fine motor skills development.
Fine Motor Activity #1: Pom Poms Sorting
Sorting pom poms with jumbo tweezers makes an amazing fine motor activity! Kindergarten friends will have so much fun sorting the poms poms into colored cups. This makes a great color recognition task, too!
Fine Motor Activity #2: Tracing
Tracing takes fine motor control. This simple activity is also great for working on pencil grasp.
Fine Motor Activity #3: Playdough Activities
Young children love play dough! Dough activities are perfect for little hands in the sensory bin.
The play dough mats can be found in this bundle:
There is also a set of themed play dough mats. You can check it out here:
Fine Motor Activity #4: Digital Fine Motor Activities
You can use classroom devices to work on fine motor skills all while developing academic skills, too!
Students use Seesaw to complete these digital fine motor activities. Here is the ELA and math kindergarten bundle:
Fine Motor Activity #5: Clothes Pin Activities
Children work on their small hand muscles using clothes pins. You can practice a variety of literacy and math skills all while improving fine motor development. These Clip-It literacy cards are a great way to practice letter recognition.
There are other literacy skills included in the bundle. Check it out here:
Fine Motor Activity #7: Threading Beads
A classic way of strengthening those little muscles. Put out some beads and pipe cleaners and you have a fun activity for your little learners! This is a great option to have during free play.
Fine Motor Activity #9: Lacing Cards
These lacing cards are an easy way to incorporate fine motor development into your day. Add these activities to a center, early finisher tub, or busy bags!
Good news, you can snag this free file at the end of the blog post!
Fine Motor Activity #12: Geoboards
In kindergarten, geoboards are so cool! They love them!! Manipulating the rubber bands to make different designs is a great fine motor activity.
Fine Motor Activity #13: Word Building
Use word-building cubes in a literacy center to practice making words. You could also have students build their sight words.
Fine Motor Activity #14: Cutting with scissors
Of course, we work on developing our scissor skills in kindergarten. Cutting takes a lot of practice! We practice cutting while making crafts and various other activities. One idea for scissor practice is to add all of your recycled papers to a tub and let students cut out designs or zig-zag lines… really anything to build finger strength.
Fine Motor Activity #15: Blocks
Building with blocks is great fine motor practice for young kids!
There are so many ways to have some fine motor fun in kindergarten! These are just a few of my favorite fine motor activities! Enjoy!