Most commonly, children attend preschool between the ages of three and five three years old. Some preschools allow children as young as two and two-and-half years old to enroll; it all depends on the nature of the preschool. Often, preschool years also refer to as early childhood education.

It is a critical time to gain knowledge and preparation for kindergarten. It is such an exciting developmental time. Preschoolers enjoy learning, and they love to play and explore. They are active and enthusiastic about the world. 

They are curious, observant, and inquisitive. Preschoolers learn through play, and they are like sponges; they soak up everything around them. It is fun to watch kids through their eyes and observe their colorful imaginations and creativeness. As preschoolers skills blossom, their new abilities expand, and their competence grows in many areas of development.  

I love working with preschoolers, and it is ultimately my favorite age group. Children demonstrate enormous growth, and we can witness how their skills advance quickly. It is the time when learning is fun and enjoyable. Providing plenty of interactive learning opportunities is the key to academic accomplishments. It is a precious time in our children’s lives, and as parents and educators, we need to use this time wisely. As an occupational therapist, I provide my little ones with a rich assortment of fine-motor activities to ensure their little hands and fingers have a solid foundation for demanding kindergarten tasks to come.  

What are the best fine-motor preschool activities? There is a large amount of awesome fine-motor activities and plenty of inspiring ideas on the web, but which ones will give our little ones the most benefit? I evaluated each activity and the advantages it carries. These simple yet super valuable activities can be practiced in the preschool classroom and at home multiple times and anytime.

Play-dough

• Knead, roll, twist, squeeze, poke, and pinch
• Hide small treasures and dig it up with finger (buttons, coins, beads)
• Make shapes; circles, crosses, squares, rectangles, and triangles
• Create make-believe, for example, food items, pizza with little cheese strings and little pepperonis, donuts, cupcakes, roll a perfectly round apple, and many more themes such as creating different animals and seasonal fun such as leaves, snowmen, and flowers.
• Make letters, write letters with pencil or press with an index finger
• Make numbers, write numbers, and practice one-to-one correspondence by rolling small balls to match the number
• Explore play-dough mats to add on to the fun (i.e., letters, numbers, shapes,
• Use a variety of tools to engage with play-dough, such as; safe knife, roller, spoon-fill, and scoop, use play-dough molds/cutter stencils, texture tools, scissors, stamp, squeezing tools, extruder tools and pencils
• Snip/cut play-dough
• Create imaginative creatures with new media such as pipe cleaners, spaghetti noodles, glitter, gems, beads, and more.
• Make your play-dough, be creative with color and scent to provide an enhanced sensory experience

Manipulating Small Objects

• Placing pennies in an opening of a plastic container
• Glue and string buttons, practice unbuttoning and buttoning
• String small beads 
• Sort, count, graph beans (jelly beans, dry beans; kidney, pinto, red, etc.)
• Create masterpieces with pumpkin and sunflower seeds
• Roll, race, paint with marbles and craft mazes and tunnels

Paper Works

• Rip paper into small pieces, try different types of paper (tissue, newspaper, construction, old cards, etc.)
• Crumple paper, large newspaper crumples and little finger crinkles 
• Crease and fold paper 
• Rip, pick-up small paper pieces, glue and create
• Rip, crinkle, pick-up, paste and create

Tongs and Tweezers

• There are different types we can use for multiple activities, such as; 
  • Big salad tongs 
  • Smaller ice cube tongs
  • Strawberry hullers
  • Kid-friendly plastic, wood or stainless steel tongs
  • Kid-friendly tweezers and scoopers 
• Squeeze, pick up and sort a variety of objects (i.e., pom-poms, blocks, small toys)

Building with Blocks 

• Construct creative block structures related to the child’s interests  
• Imitate and copy a variety of block designs
• Build patterns
• Use a range of different blocks;     
  • Variety of textures; wood, plastic, rubber, foam
  • Resistive blocks; unifix cubes, duplos, and legos
  • Mixture of sizes
  • Magnet tiles and other connecting blocks 

If you would like to learn more about 10 Reasons Block Play Skills are Essential for Children, please read my blog post.

Puzzles

• Solving puzzles is a brain-boosting goal-oriented task 
• Puzzles have various degrees of complexity based on the number of pieces, size of the puzzle pieces, and design. Start your child with simple puzzles that are easy to complete and then gradually work the way up to more complex puzzles.  
• Start with an easier puzzle and progress to more motivating and challenging puzzle

If you would like to learn more about 5 Fundamental Reasons why Puzzle Play is Crucial for Toddlers and Preschoolers, please read my blog post.

Animal Walks

• Encourage strong upper body, arms, forearms, wrists, and hands by practicing fun animal walks
  • Bear walk
  • Crab walk
  • Dog/Cat crawling
  • Snake slither-commando crawl
  • Wheelbarrow walk
  • Donkey kick

Color, Paint, Draw, Trace, Copy and Write 

• Encourage coloring pictures within lines, use crayons for coloring
• Practice drawing and painting representational pictures such family, make cards for family and friends 
• Trace and copy shapes, pictures, letters, and numbers
• Start copying and writing letters of the first name, focus on uppercase letters first before moving on to lower case letters. 

If you are interested in learning more about Is My Child Ready to Write Letters? Please read my blog post.

Cut with Scissors

• Practice picking up and placing scissors in hand with a thumb-up position, independently 
• Initially snip non-paper items such as; straws, play-dough, slime, spaghetti, strings, etc.
• Start cutting across construction paper strips 2-3 inches wide then cut across the paper
• Practice cutting on straight lines, then cutting out geometric shapes, variety of different shaped lines
• Paste and glue activities 

All these activities are versatile fine-motor activities. They help children with hand strength, muscle control, finger dexterity, in-hand manipulation, grasp, hand-eye coordination, touch processing, tool use, coordinating two hands together, visual-perceptual skills, focus, and visual attention. Preschoolers love engaging in fine-motor tasks, and opportunities to soak up all the benefits are endless.  

If you enjoyed this blog post, please share it with a friend!