Fine Motor Skills – More than What Meets the Eye

We have been building on a great series about fine motor skills for kids. And we have shared with you a series of wonderful activities and ideas that not only foster and strengthen fine motor skills, but they actually help develop them, if they have been found to be lacking. In this post, we show you a simple beginner fine motor skills bead transferring activity and important points to focus on to get the most out of it.

Fine Motor Skills for Kids

The idea behind fine motor skills may seems simple: flour, a colander, glass beads and a slotted spoon… all items that can be found in most homes. But this fine motor skills activity is more than what meets the eye. It goes deep into the root purpose of fine motor skills.

See, motor skills can be gross motor skills or fine motor skills. Gross motor skills are activities that require bigger, more deliberate, yet coordinated movements. These movements can be such as jumping on one foot, throwing a ball with one hand, catching a ball and so on.

Fine motor skills require more careful, slower and much more coordinated movements. These can be prewriting activities such as feeding cheerios through a pipe cleaner, rolling play dough with hands, coloring a picture inside the lines, using tweezers and tongs, developing finger pincer grip to control a dropper, a pair of tweezers to transfer beads and cutting.

So, for this activity, gather your materials:

• a tray with raised sides such as a small cookie sheet
• about 2 cups of flour
• a colander with small holes
• about 10-20 glass beads
• a slotted spoon

Set it up as the picture shows. Let your child practice refining fine motor skills by working on his/her eye-hand coordination.

1. Spoon a bead out with the slotted spoon.
2. Shake the spoon to get the flour off the spoon.
3. Place the glass bead in the colander.
4. Repeat.

Simple, right? Thank you for visiting our Fine Motor Skills – More than what meets the eye post!

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Tanya

Tanya is the owner and writer for the The Natural Homeschool and a homeschooling mom to two children, a son and daughter. She focuses on following their particular learning interests and in building a strong Christian foundation in their hearts.
To cater to their high giftedness, she uses eclectic teaching approach, which complement each other and maximize the fun in learning. Tanya has a degree in elementary education, a minor in French and a Master's degree in school administration. Her training in the Montessori Method is in the ages 3-6. She is happily married to her best friend and enjoys sharing her life and experiences in her blog to provie inspiration and bring new ideas.