Learning a skill can be quite stressful for children, but when it is FUN and done in an AIMS way, your children won’t even notice they are learning!

Today, I am here to share with you some of the activities that we use to work on developing fine motor skills in a fun and practical manner.  

First, what are FINE MOTOR SKILLS? 

Fine motor skills are the ability to use the small muscle on our hands and wrist. Where do we use these skills? Holding a pencil, using scissors, threading beads and other activities that require the use of our hands.  If your kids struggle with fine motor skills, he/she might have trouble with moving small objects, grasping objects such as utensils, pencils and other materials that are required to use our fingertips. 

4 FUN AIMS WAY FINE MOTOR ACTIVITIES THAT YOU COULD DO AT HOME:

1. Feeding the animals

Oh dear! Looks like our pet animals are hungry! Feeding the animals with buttons or any small materials you have at home such as pom poms, bottle caps, cotton balls or Popsicle sticks. This activity encourages learners to hold the buttons in a pincer grip manner, which can strengthen the ability to hold utensils in tripod manner. Also, it helps them to sort according to colors. You could change the pictures to your child preference. At AIMS, we focus on our child’s INTERESTS and with this activity, one of our learners LOVE animals!

Things you need:

Paper bag (I made my own paper bag with brown paper)

Printed animals 

Buttons or any small colorful objects based on your preferred animals.

2. Spray bottle painting:

What could possibly go wrong with your kids favorite cartoon character? Aside from strengthening your child’s hand muscles, it also works on manipulating scissors. It’s fun and easy to make. You just need to draw your child’s favorite character, and then prepare a spray bottle, food coloring and water.  

3. Rescue the animals

Here comes our learner to the rescue! You just need mini animal toys and tape (if you have cloth tape or masking tape that would be better!). You could put it around your house, stairs, table or on the floor.  What would be our goal here? For the learner to remove the tape not just on the wood but also on his/her hands! It won’t just strengthen your child’s fine motor skills but also his hand-eye coordination and problem solving too!

4. Artsy-Handsy!

Did your Play-doh just dry out? Planning to order a new set? Here’s good news!

You don’t always need to order Play-doh, because you could always make some at home with your kids! At AIMS, we love cost-efficient activities and we DIY our materials. Aside from strengthening your child’s fine motor skills, you will also have a fun time in the kitchen!  You just need the following ingredients that you could find in your pantry:

Ingredients:

1 cup of flour

¼ cup of salt

¾ cups of water 

1 tablespoon of vegetable oil or olive oil

Food coloring

Steps: 

1. Combine the water and food coloring in the cup.
2. Combine Flour and Salt
3. Put the flour mixture in the water 
4. Put the oil on top
5. Mix and knead the dough until you are satisfied with the texture of your dough.

If the dough is too wet you could add more flour. 

That’s all for today! If you want to have more ideas on your child’s next fine motor activities, you could always visit the AIMS Global Instagram, website and Facebook accounts. Enjoy your FUNtastic and AIMS-zing time with your kids!

-Raissa, an AIMS Global therapist