Fine and Gross Motor Development

BBC Dance Mat can support children to learn to touch type - it is fun and interactive website to learn to type which supports children especially if they find hand writing tricky

Boogie Beebies (help with fine/gross motor)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mvsc

Click here for a video to support with scissor skills

Click here for a video to support with holding a pencil

Click here for a video to support with hand and eye co-ordination

The following fun activities are great for fine and gross motor development

1. Play-Dough and Putty

Play-dough and putty are often of a sensory diet. They can also help improve a child’s fine motor skills. Encourage your child to squeeze, stretch, pinch and roll “snakes” or “worms” with the play clay. You can even have your child try to cut the play-dough with scissors. 

2. Painting

Different types of painting can help strengthen your child’s hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity. Finger painting gives kids an opportunity to use their hands—and to get messy. Painting with a brush helps kids learn to hold a brush and gain greater control using it as a tool. (Paint-by-number kits are great for brush painting.) 

3. Playing With Sponges

A new, clean sponge, some water and two bowls are all you need for another activity to build fine motor skills. Fill a bowl with water and leave the other empty. Your child can soak the sponge in the water and then squeeze out the sponge into the other bowl. It’s a simple game that can strengthen hands and forearms. 

4. Rice Races

Divide a handful of uncooked rice into two plastic bowls and have an empty bowl handy. Give your child small plastic tweezers and grab a pair for yourself. Then, have a race to see who can be the first to transfer their rice into the empty bowl using the tweezers. If your child is struggling because the grains of rice are too small, you may want to begin with O-shaped cereal

6. Gardening and Planting

Digging and gardening may seem like activities more suited to building gross motor skills, but there are parts of it that require smaller muscle control, too. For instance, transferring seedlings into a garden requires hand-eye coordination skills to safely carry the smaller plant to the new hole. Your child will also need to be able to grasp a trowel to dig and to use a pincer grasp when picking up seeds to plant.

Dough Disco is great for fine motor skills - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj0shfH3pzhrf3dOrSj_pRw

BBC Dancemat helps typing skills: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zf2f9j6/articles/z3c6tfr

If you would like any further support to develop your child's fine motor or gross motor skills please click on the links below

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