From birth we need to expose our babies to a nurturing, loving environment full of activities that engage them physically and mentally. A major area of importance is fine motor development. Children need these skills so they are able to one day feed themselves, button their shirt, play independently, and eventually hold a pencil to write. A great way to help your child develop the strength and motor control he needs is by using toys that encourage fine motor development.
Fine motor skills generally refer to one’s ability to control the small movements of the hands and fingers, as well as the small muscles of the face and mouth (tongue) and feet. However, when teachers and therapists use the term, they are normally only referring to the small muscles in the hands and fingers. It is the ability to pick up small items, string beads, color with crayons. And eventually copy designs, draw shapes, cut with scissors, and write letters.
Since the time for development in every child is different, any age guideline on this aspect is primarily suggestive in nature. Some children are faster than others when learning new skills. Exposing your guy to these types of activities can help to ensure he is on the right track with fine motor development.
As your child moves into the toddler years, you can help to support his fine motor skills with more complex, manipulative activities compared to what he was doing as an infant. These activities should focus on motor skill development by improving the muscles in the fingers and hands, strengthening hand grip, and developing wrist movement.
Make it fun and hands on. Children need frequent opportunities and a variety of materials to develop their fine motor control as well as hand eye coordination.
Fine Motor Development Milestones
Here is a list of things to work on for your toddler’s fine motor development:
- Teach the pincer grasp (pointer finger and thumb). This will help your child learn to pick up small items like Cheerios when feeding herself.
- At age 1, encourage activities that require picking an item up and dropping it into a box. Stacking games are also a fun challenge.
- Facilitate creativity. Starting at around 18 months, introduce him to crayons. Keep in mind that they do not just ‘know’ how to use them. Color with them so they can observe proper use. Also, encourage your child to squeeze, stretch, pinch and roll “snakes” or “worms” with play-dough. Recipe from @livingwellmom.com. This is a great way to build up wrist and finger strength.
- Introduce utensils. Have your child start using a fork and spoon at every meal. You may need to work hand over hand with them at first until they get the hang of it.
- By age 2, start recruiting your child’s help in the kitchen. Ask him to help stir the batter when making a cake. Or pull out the cookie cutters and rolling pin and make a batch of sugar cookies.
- As your toddler’s dexterity improves, give them more challenging activities.
Toys that Promote Fine Motor Development
An easy way to prompt fine motor development is with toys. Here are a few of my favorite toys that promote movement and strengthening of little wrists and fingers.
Blocks
Children are hard at work learning important physical skills as they gain muscle control, balance, and coordination while playing with blocks (non interlocking). By this age, they should be working on stacking 4-6 blocks. As they think about balance when they stack the blocks, not only are they controlling their wrists and hands, but they are strengthening hand-eye coordination. Adults can encourage block play by sitting down and playing with him. To extend their block play, add items such as tools, cars, little people or animal figures.
Cars
In the beginning children will not truly understand just what to do with a toy car; they haven’t yet learned how to really play yet, particularly with a representation of a real life object. As they learn to push and roll the cars, they work on their fine motor development, and start to experience cause and effect relationships, such as when a car drops down a ramp or crashes into something. When kids crawl across the floor while pushing a car, they are also utilizing their arm strength and stability, their shoulder strength and stability, trunk control, and developing the muscles in their wrists and hands in preparation for higher level tasks as they get older. This is another one of those toys for boys or girls that they will grow with.
Flap Books
Good books for toddlers are those that will endure many hours of mouthing and page turning. Look for books that are cloth, vinyl or made of thick, durable cardboard (often called “board books“.) Using fingers and wrists to manipulate the pages may be all the little guy wants to do at this age. And that’s ok. Learning to love books by playing with them instead of reading them is just as important. Flap books and touch books are fun ways to get them to use their fine motors to maneuver the pages. For them it is more about the interactive experience. These types of books are great to introduce your little one to the pleasures of reading, and most have educational benefits as well.
Puzzles
Wooden puzzles for your child are fun and work well to improve fine motor skills. Little hands will love putting big puzzles together. They have to rotate and guide the piece to fit it into place.
Knob puzzles are the perfect first puzzles for them because they are much easier to grasp and control compared to chunky puzzles or jigsaw puzzles.
After they master knob puzzles, try chunky wood puzzles. These feature puzzle pieces that need to be fitted into their correct slot on the board and there is a picture for each piece in the slot to help aid your toddler. At first this will be a big challenge but your toddler will enjoy matching up the pieces with the correct picture and over time will develop the coordination to rotate the pieces and fit them correctly into place. Be sure there aren’t too many pieces to overwhelm your child.
Interlocking Blocks
This type of block not only has some of the same advantages that regular blocks have, they also are a great way to strengthen your little ones wrists and fingers. They have to pull the blocks apart and push them together as they stack and play. Then there is always the added fun of knocking them over.
Mr. Potato Head
It is probably pretty obvious that Mr. Potato head is a great toy for teaching body parts. But he is also helpful for working those fine motors. For some young children, it can be quite tricky to get the parts into and out of the plastic potato. They have to work hard, usually with their pincer grasp to push and pull body parts into place. This is another wonderful way to strengthen those small muscles in their hands.
More Ways to Increase Hand Strength and Control
- Playdoh – make playdoh snakes, roll into balls, pinch off small pieces, hide objects in playdoh and try to find it, make pretend food, make prints by using popsicle sticks, or sea shells.
- Water Play – spray bottles, eye droppers, turkey basters, sponges to squeeze, containers with lids.
- Peel & Stick stickers and/or tape to a paper.
- String – beads, noodles, cereal. Use yarn, pipe cleaners, spaghetti sticks held up with playdoh.
- Tweezes or Small Tongs – pick up cereal, cotton balls, pompons, marshmallows.
- Paint – use various types of brushes and different surfaces like paper, foil, wax paper.
This is a small list of some of my favorite toys to use with toddlers. I like the way each of these toys work on fine motor development, speech and communication, and so much more.
You have to check out my new post on a great Color Matching Activity that helps with fine motor skills as well. The kiddos are using their fingers and wrists as they place toys on matching colors. Fun game and a lot of learning going on.
What are some of your favorite toys that you use to encourage fine motors and help your toddler grow? Here is my post on Toys that Promote Gross Motor Development. Read Amazing Thrift Store Finds to see how to find these toys for less. And My Favorite 2nd Hand Stores in St. Louis. – Susie Pea
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