10 Summer Fine Motor Fun Activities
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Whether your child is typically developing or has special needs, summer is a great time to take a break from the hustle and bustle of the typical school year. Time spent with family and friends engaging in meaningful conversations and meaningful activities (hello…. that’s the whole BASIS of OT) can help to make fond memories for years to come!
While most children get a break from school for the summer, that doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to work on the skills they may be working on during the school year. Consistency is KEY for seeing growth. If your child is only exposed to handwriting and cutting tasks when at school, the likelihood of seeing significant, meaningful progress is much lower than if you are able to expose them to fine motor tasks across different environments (school, home, day care, playground, etc.) consistently throughout the year.
The good news is that you DON’T need to find a way to fit “one more thing” into your already hectic life. Fine motor skills are involved in many daily activities that you may already be doing! While there are many wonderful fine motor apps available, we OT’s typically caution against using them frequently since there is more research coming out to suggest that increased screen time is causing most of our children a disservice and can lead to attention and over-stimulation problems. Children tend to learn best when engaged in hands on activities and summer is a great time to explore! So here are 10 fine motor activities that can be done at home (or out in the community) to give your child a technology break this summer, while also developing fine motor skills needed for school, home, and many other daily tasks!
#1 Finger games
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These are great activities that can be done anywhere without any equipment or supplies (other than just your fingers). Waiting to be seated a restaurant or waiting at the doctor’s office? Play one of these games to pass the time! Games and songs like “Where is Thumbkin,” “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” and “Little Bunny Foo Foo” all work on finger isolation, finger opposition, and some even incorporate bilateral skills to work on using both hands together to complete a task. You can also play the mirror game by asking your child to copy the movements you make with your own hands and then you can copy them. This works on not only fine motor skills, but also short term memory skills. If you’re familiar with Youtube or Google, the possibilities are literally at your finger tips, just look up some finger games and find your favorites!
#2 Spray bottle games
One of the foundational skills needed in order to complete fine motor tasks is having sufficient hand strength. While you could always try to get your child to do more traditional hand strengthening exercises, games are far more exciting and engaging ways to build those skills without it seeming like work! You can easily make a target out of paper and some markers then fill some spray bottles with water and set the nozzle to stream. Then have fun aiming for the bull’s eye!
You could also fill the bottles with water, add a couple of drops of food coloring and spray designs onto paper or white fabric that you can use for decor later on.
Using plain water and the stream setting on the nozzle, you can head outside and “spray paint” designs, letters, or tic-tac-toe onto the sidewalk. Then once they evaporate, start all over again with new designs!
Another option is to place some paper cups upside down on a counter or table and see who can spray their cup off of the table first. Or you can use the tiny dixie cups and see who can fill their cup the fastest!
There are so many other options, just use your imagination!
#3 Side Walk Chalk
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Investing in side walk chalk is usually a hit with most kids. The thrill of getting to draw and write on what is usually a “forbidden” surface can be super exciting! And the best part is that you can use the spray bottles from the second activity to help clean the chalk off of the pavement. Playing games like tic-tac-toe and hang man can also help to work on pre-writing and handwriting skills! The great thing about side walk chalk is that there is no “right” or “wrong” it’s all about creativity and allowing your child to explore their inner artist. Side walk chalk also has the added bonus of being a bit messy, so your child will also get to work on their sensory regulation skills in the process!
#4 Tong/Tweezer Games
Tongs and tweezers (the plastic kid kind, not your favorite eyebrow tweezers) are great ways to work on hand strengthening. The squeezing movements help to promote muscle strength in both sides of the hand and build the arches of the hand, which are vital to so many fine motor activities that everyone participates in throughout the day! If you have a pair of kitchen tongs you can ask your child to pick up ping pong balls, cotton balls, or legos and place them into a cup or bin. To make it more fun you can add the element of competition by seeing who can pick up the most items in 30 seconds! If you have child sized tweezers you can do similar tasks by picking up cotton balls, pom poms, or small plastic toys/ bugs. If you don’t have tweezers available at home you can easily make a pair by using 2 thick wooden popsicle sticks with a cotton ball or firm pom pom between them on one end and then wrap a rubber band around the cotton ball area to hold it together. If your child likes animals you can print and cut out an animal mouth (make sure to cut an opening for the mouth), tape it over a cup and then ask your child to “feed” the animal using the tweezers.
The tongs will work more on the whole hand and are usually a little bit easier to handle (depending on how stiff the hinge is) while the tweezers tend to require finer movements of the fingers. There are also some board games that incorporate tweezers like Operation and Feed the Dog.
#5 Play Doh activities
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This childhood favorite molding compound is a GREAT way to work those tiny hand muscles and your child’s creativity! Between squeezing, rolling, smashing, patting, cutting, and everything in between, your child’s hands will get a work out without even seeming like exercise! And in my opinion, the best kind of exercise is the kind that doesn’t feel like exercise! You can either buy regular play doh or another molding clay or make your own at home using one of the many recipes available online. Cookie cutters, rolling pins, and scissors are great ways to work those muscles in a fun, and engaging way. Molding with their hands is also a great way for your child to get some sensory input from the resistance of the dough, which can help them to calm themselves. You can even join in too to reap the benefits of this childhood classic!
#6 Coloring Pages
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Most people think of drawing or writing when they think of fine motor skills. So it’s no surprise that coloring pages are so popular and important for children! Nowadays you can find free coloring pages online or find a coloring book at just about any dollar store on the corner without having to pay much money. If your child has a preferred cartoon character, consider getting one of their favorites to help motivate them to color.
The important thing when coloring is not that they stay within the lines, but how they grip their crayons. If your child is over the age of 3.5 to 4 years old you want to encourage them to work toward using their fingers more than their fists when holding writing tools. One way to encourage a proper grasp is to use broken crayons or short markers. Children can’t hold a broken crayon with a fisted grasp, so it forces them to move the crayon to their finger tips. Another way to encourage a functional grasp (especially for older children) is to give them “treasure” to hold in their palm using the pinkie and ring fingers while coloring and writing. Small items like pom poms, marbles, and beads are great “treasure” to protect!
#7 Sensory Bin/ Sensory Writing
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Sensory bins are fun ways to introduce your child to a variety of textures in a non-threatening and engaging way. They are also helpful for fine motor development. One of my favorites is to use colored sand or sugar in a shallow box and then ask them to use their index finger to write lines, shapes, and letters! You can also use bigger items like beans, rice, or small pasta to offer different textures. This works on finger isolation as well as pre-writing skills. Another great way to use sensory bins for fine motor development is to hide small items in the bin and ask your child to pull them out using their thumb and pointer fingers or tweezers/tongs from #4!
#8 Water painting/ Cotton swab painting
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Painting is a great way to build finger strength and coordination.The good news is that you don’t need any fancy painting supplies. If you don’t have access to water colors you can use plain water on colored construction paper. The water darkens the color of the paper to show the lines and shapes that you draw and once it dries you can always reuse the paper! If your child would rather use colors you can make some water colors with a few drops of food coloring in a small cup of water. Don’t have paint brushes? No problem! Use cotton swabs, a cotton ball on the end of a clothes pin, or even your fingers to paint your heart out!
#9 Rainbow Writing
While I’m not a huge fan of tracing, in young kids it can be helpful to introduce letter formation. Rainbow writing is a fun way for kids (mostly for ages 4 or 5 and up) to work on letter formation. All you need for this activity is crayons of varying colors and some paper. To begin, write a word or your child’s name on a piece of paper. Then pick several different colored crayons one at a time, and ask your child to trace over the letters using the different colors. You can start with tracing the word in red, then trace it in yellow, green, or whatever combination of colors your child would like. The important thing to remember for this task is to monitor your child’s letter formation as they are writing. You DON’T want to reinforce improper letter formation, trust me, it’s much easier to teach them appropriately from the start than change bad habits later on. Make sure they start letters from the top-down and DON’T segment the letters inappropriately. So pull out those crayons and make a colorful rainbow of letters!
#10 Tear Art
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Tear art is one of my favorite ways to work on fine motor skills, especially with kids who may not be able to use scissors or participate in other crafts. You can make your art as simple or complex as you like based on the picture that you use. For this task you’ll need a black and white picture (either printed or hand drawn works well), some colored paper (tissue paper or construction paper work well), and some glue (either a glue stick or a bottle of glue). For the summer a great simple picture would be a basic picture of the sun. You can grade the difficulty of the task by using colored tissue paper (which is easier to tear) or construction paper (which is more difficult to tear). If your child just can’t seem to figure out how to tear the paper on their own, you can cut the paper into strips and start the rip of the paper which will help make the task easier. Tear art helps to promote bilateral integration by using both hands together, finger strength, pinch strength, sensory processing when interacting with glue, and visual attention to the task (you have to look at the image to know where to put the glue and paper). If your child can handle a more complex version you can make the picture more detailed or involve more colors of paper!
As you can see there are so many different ways to encourage your child to work on their fine motor skills through play using everyday items! So go out, have fun, and work those hand muscles!
