If you’re looking for fine motor fun that your little one is certain to fall in love with, you can’t go past these adorable puppies! This Puppy Love Fine Motor Activity Pack will keep small hands and growing minds busy and working hard…and your child will be having too much fun to even realise it!
Perfect for little hands, all you need are some Cheerios or other small manipulative and your preschooler will be able to get to work on strengthening the muscles of their fingers and hand.
What are fine motor skills?
Fine motor skills are physical skills requiring the co-ordination of small muscle movements. They include finger and hand dexterity and strength, and hand and arm precision and steadiness, and they are closely linked with the development of hand-eye co-ordination.
These skills take time and repeated opportunity to develop and refine, requiring increasing levels of self-control and concentration.
The activities within this pack specifically assist to develop pincher and pincer grip and hand-eye co-ordination.
Pincher grip
Pincher involves pressing the thumb and index finger together. Examples of pincher movements include picking up and placing down smaller objects such as small blocks, picking up beads to thread, using index finger and thumb to pick up food.Pincer grip
Pincer involves the thumb, middle finger and index finger coordinating to control objects. This supports a tripod grip for drawing and writing. Examples of use of pincer grip may include using tongs to transfer food or other small items, squeezing pegs, picking up small items with thumb, middle and index finger.
Why are fine motor skills important?
Activities that strengthen and train the muscles in the hands, fingers and arms are important for young children as these are the same muscles children need to have control over in order to successfully hold a pencil to draw and write.
RELATED: Learn the alphabet while strengthening hands and fingers with this fun fine motor alphabet activity.
To complete the five activities in this pack you’ll need something small and round for your child to manipulate into position on each page. Consider the age of your child and whether they still mouth objects before choosing a manipulative to use, and please supervise your child closely as they complete the activities in this pack. Some suggested manipulatives;
- Cheerios
- pom poms
- m&m’s
- raisins
- buttons
- water beads
- decorative pebbles
- coins
Basically anything tiny that is going to work their fingers and hand muscles is great!
You can also further extend the development of pincer grip by inviting preschoolers to use a set of mini kitchen tongs to transfer your chosen manipulatives into position on the activity page.
How to Print Your Fine Motor Activity Pack
Click here to download: Puppy Fine Motor Activity Pack. Save the PDF to your computer. Open the PDF and print the pages you require (see suggested options above). When printing, select “Fit to printable area” (or similar) to ensure the page fits with your printer type and local paper size. Laminate printed pages for durability.
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Please note: All Childhood 101 printables are for personal use only, you may not use any part of this content for commercial purposes-that includes selling the document, giving it away to promote your business or website, or printing the file to sell. You may not share, loan or redistribute these documents. Teachers may use multiple copies for students in their own classroom.
Christie Burnett is an early childhood teacher, presenter, writer and the editor of Childhood 101. More importantly, she is a Mum who believes wholeheartedly in the value of children learning through play, the importance of quality early education, and the togetherness of family.
