20+ Essential Fine Motor Activities to Delight Your Toddler

Here are 20+ ideas for fine motor activities for toddlers using simple, everyday household objects you have lying around!

Being a toddler is all about discovering and developing new skills.

As parents, one of the most important ways we can help our toddlers grow is by providing fun activities that help them develop their fine motor skills.

From finger painting to threading beads, there are plenty of great ideas for activities that can provide lots of enjoyment and constructive ways for toddlers to learn how to refine their manual dexterity.

In this post we’ll discuss why fine motor skills are so important for toddlers, the best activities for toddlers that can help with this, and the benefits these activities can provide. With these tips and activity ideas, you’ll have your toddler mastering the art of fine motor control in no time!

This post is about fun and educational fine motor activities

What are fine motor activities?

Just like physical exercise helps kids build strong bones and muscles, fine motor activities help children strengthen the small muscles in their hands, wrists, and fingers. Not only can kids practice fine motor skills at home or in the classroom, but such activities also play an important role in their development.

Studies have shown that kids who develop fine motor skills have an easier time learning handwriting, using scissors, and manipulating small objects. All of these are essential for developing independence and successfully completing everyday tasks like lacing shoes and zipping up jackets.

20+ Fine Motor Activities That Are Educational and Fun

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Fine motor skills foster the development of the smaller muscles in children’s hands and fingers. The muscle development helps them to hold, grasp, pinch, and grip objects. Small movements such as picking up food and buttoning up clothes all lead to children being able to hold a pencil, and eventually write.
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Here are some super simple, no mess, no prep fine motor activities that you can easily do at home with your toddler using supplies you most probably have lying around the house.

Peeling Stickers

Did you know about the benefits of peeling stickers? It utilizes the same skill i.e. the pincer grasp that is required to manipulate a button. And I don’t know a single kid who doesn’t get excited over stickers!

You can draw circles on a piece of paper to give your child targets on where to place the stickers.

Ideally you should use reusable stickers that can be used over and over.

These bestselling extra large reusable stickers by Melissa and Dough feature fun backgrounds where your child can recreate scenes using the stickers.

Stringing/Lacing Activities

Stringing and lacing activities require the use of both hands to coordinate two different tasks i.e. holding one object and stringing the other one through it.

Ideas for stringing activities include:

stringing cheerios onto pipe cleaners
lacing yarn through lacing cards (you can make lacing cards out of many things such as empty cereal boxes, cardboard boxes or egg carton pieces. Just punch holes through them and cut them to your desired shape and they are ready for lacing. If you’d prefer something quicker you can get a ready made lacing set like this one: Melissa & Doug Lace and Trace Activity Set: Pets)
stringing wooden beads and blocks through string (this is a bestselling stringing set on Amazon for toddlers!)

Activities Using Clothespins

Squeezing a clothespin and then releasing it requires the same skills as those of opening and closing a scissor. Activities involving clothespins are excellent for developing the small muscles in the fingers.

Here are some super cute and simple clothespin activities you can try out:

have your child attach clothespins to a book to give it some legs
let your child color a paper plate with different colors and then have your child match the different colored clothepins to the colors (bonus: this doubles as a color recognition activity too!)

take a paper plate and write different numbers on it. Then write those numbers on the clothespin. Have your child match the numbers on the clothepins to the numbers on the paper plate (bonus: this doubles as a number recognition activity too!)
Take a piece of yarn and stick it on the wall using some glue tack. Then give your child some socks and have them hang the socks on the yarn using some clothespins.

The only thing you need for the above activities are some clothespins (these are some wooden, colored clothespins that are ideal for tiny hands to grasp)

“Fine motor is an almost continual part of all our lives. Humans are continually moving, picking things up, manipulating objects, and so on. The more children are able to develop these skills, the more aptly they can access the world around them.” Earlyimpactlearning

Busy Books

A Busy Book is not only super educational and fun, but it also includes many activities that are great for developing fine motor skills. These include sorting, matching, categorizing and tracing which all involve strengthening the small muscles in the hands.

The Sweet n Sour Busy Book is an insanely cute Toddler Busy Book (if we do say so ourselves!). Featuring bright and unique illustrations, each page has been crafted to perfection.

Designed to keep toddlers busy, engaged, learning and out of trouble, this little printable bundle is a life saver for toddler parents. Take it along during travel, in the car, at the restaurant or anywhere you’d prefer to replace screen time with something that actually benefits your child and enhances their fine motor skills and cognitive developement.

Check out the Sweet n Sour Busy Book for a limited time crazy low price (we promise you won’t be disappointed!).

Sidewalk Chalk

Sidewalk chalk is a super cheap item that we all have lying around the house and it’s an excellent fine motor activity. Drawing with sidewalk chalk helps children strengthen the muscles in their hands and improves coordination too.

Bestselling sidewalk chalk for little hands

Busy Boards

Busy boards come in a large variety. What they all have in common is that they feature various activities that are excellent for developing fine motor skills.

This bestselling busy board on Amazon features activities involving tying laces, closing and opening buckles and handling buttons and belts.

It’s a terrific way to practice basic life skills with your toddler which will especially help them out in school.

Pipe Cleaner Activities

Pipe cleaners are so versatile and can be used in so many different ways. They can be bent, twisted and made into any shape you can think of. They are also magnetic which adds to the fun.

Pipe cleaners are an absolute must have for fine motor activities (not to mention most craft projects for toddlers and preschoolers)

Here are some really cute ideas that you must try out with your little one:

sticking piepe cleaners into a collander. This activity requires concentration as kids try to poke pipe cleaners into the collander holes

stringing cheerios onto pipe cleaners
stringing large beads onto pipe cleaners
making a pipe cleaner train. Take cut up pieces of egg cartons which have holes punched in them and string the pipe cleaner through them to create a train
creating pipe cleaner flowers – there’s no right or wrong way!
creating pipe cleaner animals
creating a pipe cleaner tree and then stringing beads onto the branches

These are all simple activities you can easily do at home and the only thing you need are pipe cleaners.

Drawing and Painting

Drawing and painting are again super simple activities but they are crucial to laying the foundation for your child’s future writing skills.

Be sure to provide your child with a variety of art tools to experiment with including finger paint, jumbo crayons that are easy to grasp and a variety of painting tools like rollers, paint brushes of different thickness and paint sponges.

Early Learning Kids Paint Set Washable Finger Paint with Assorted Painting Brushes Sponges

Playdough

Playing with playdough has immense benefits for tiny hands. Squashing, rolling and pinching playdough all help to strengthen the muscles in the hands.

Be sure to use non toxic playdough along with a playdough mat to make for easy clean up.

Paper Tearing

Did you know that tearing up paper is really good for developing fine motor skills?

Simply hand your child some paper, let them tear it up to their hearts content and then use the torn paper for a mosaic project.

You can draw a few shapes on a piece of paper and then have them stick the torn bits on to the shapes to create a cute mosaic art piece.

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This post was about fun and educational fine motor activities

I hope these ideas helped give you some inspiration for fine motor activities you can do with your toddler. What did I miss? Let me know in the comments section if you have more ideas to share.