Ways to Help Your Child Improve Fine Motor Skills

Experts believe that toddlers today have weaker fine motor skills than those of previous generations due to the change is placing babies on their backs in the crib instead of their stomachs. The purpose of placing babies on their backs is to prevent sudden infant death syndrome, but one of the by-products of that may be that babies aren’t using their arms to push themselves up as much as if they were on their backs.

With that in mind, it is the responsibility of teachers and parents to help toddlers catch up with their fine motor skills. There are many daily activities that you can do with your kids at home to help develop these skills. The act of getting dressed includes many fine motor skills, as simple as figuring out how to put on a sock, to the more difficult task of buttoning. Encouraging your child to dress himself at age two or three with simpler tasks that will allow him to move on to more difficult ones as his fine motor skills improve.

Encourage your child to use crayons to scribble or draw freely. Play dough or clay is another wonderful tool to develop small muscles while having fun. Hide small toys inside a ball of play dough and encourage your child to find them and pull them out. Use chop sticks or tongs to play a game where the child picks up cotton balls, marbles, or other objects. Jacks and pick-up-sticks are also fun games that promote the use of fine motor skills. Give your child strips of construction paper and have him rip them into small pieces. Ripping is a great precursor to cutting.

If you don’t mind the mess, and I encourage parents to find a place where their kids can get messy, shaving cream is a great medium to play in. Let your child trace shapes into the shaving cream, or practice writing his name. You can also mix water and corn starch (about 3 parts corn starch to 1 part water) to create a cool mixture to play with. Again, you can hide small objects in the goop, trace letters and shapes, or just have fun letting your child run his fingers through it.

A three year old should be able to cut with scissors, but until his fine motor skills are strong enough, that is really tough for many kids. Encourage your child to work puzzles, play with worry ball, and even make taffy out of marshmallows. To do that, have your child grab a marshmallow between the thumb and index finger of both hands and pull it apart. Continue to flip your fingers so that the right hand thumb is on top, then on the bottom, which allows you to keep pulling the marshmallow. Not only will it turn into a delicious treat, but it will work those small muscles in your child’s fingers.

The more practice our kids get in working their small muscles, the easier time they will have cutting and writing. There are many things you can do at home to get them off to a great start.

Let Your Kids Do Messy Activities

Some parents have trouble allowing their youngsters to create a mess in their home. We specifically encourage the use of play dough in the classroom because we recognize that some children aren’t allowed to play with it in their own houses. I understand that it can get into their children’s shoes and end up trekked throughout the house and I know that it is virtually impossible to remove dried play dough from a carpet. Yet, I encourage parents to find some contained place either inside or outside their homes where kids can enjoy messy projects.

Molding clay, splashing paint onto a blank canvas, and even building castles in the sand, are all important activities for toddlers. They provide an outlet for creativity, and give the kids a sense of accomplishment and pride in their creations. These activities also help develop children’s fine motor skills which are essential to further learning. Once students advance into kindergarten, they are expected to be able to cut, write their letters and use their fine motor skills constantly. For most children, these things take practice. It is only through the repetitive use of their fingers that some kids are able to gain the strength they need to be successful in these skills.

“Kids need experience trying to engage in fine motor tasks, succeeding and sometimes failing, to develop those skills,” says Nathan J. Blum, MD, Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. “Kids need a variety of fine motor activities but some of them are more messy than others. It doesn’t have to be with finger paints and clay, but children need fine motor experiences and they need engaging activities.” There are a variety of toys that help develop fine motor skills and don’t leave behind a mess. Working puzzles, manipulating pegs, lacing, and playing with marbles and jacks, all help work their small muscles. Of course, if your child puts things in her mouth, you need to avoid very small items. Many adults enjoy worry or stress balls which are balloon-like balls filled with sand. These, too, are great for children to squeeze to work the muscles in their fingers and hands.

Of course, crayons and pencils are always ideal. For younger children, up to age four or five, the fatter crayons are more appropriate than skinny ones because they are easier for the child to manipulate. And don’t feel that you need to buy a brand new box of crayons every year. In fact, when a child needs to work with a smaller, broken piece, it provides great work for his fine motor skills.

Making the Most of Parent Teacher Conferences

When my kids were in preschool, I couldn’t wait for parent teacher conferences. This was a chance for an objective observer to fill me in on how my children were doing. Were they playing well with their peers? Did they enjoy learning? Were they developing appropriately?

Now that I sit on the other side of the desk, I feel the weight of the importance of these conferences. In most cases, I get to be the bearer of wonderful compliments about a child and the great parenting that has made him so successful. I’m able to point out the child’s strengths and why he is an important part of our class. What parent doesn’t want to hear good news?!

Sometimes, that good news is sprinkled with comments about a student’s weaknesses. These conferences are designed to also point out things that the parent can work on with their child. For example, if he has weak fine motor skills, we make recommendations of activities the child can do at home to strengthen his muscles. If he is struggling with numbers, we suggest games they can play to help him learn.

Yet, sometimes there are gray areas in terms of what a teacher can reasonably say. In one conference, I had to tread lightly in encouraging a parent to work harder to potty train her daughter. This child was four years old, yet still wore pull-ups. Her mother admitted that she was still too afraid to let her child go “unprotected,” in underwear. Yet, the child was bright, verbal, and a quick learner in all areas in school, and I was sure that she could be trained quickly and easily given the opportunity. In school we encouraged her to use the bathroom regularly, but without her parents following up at home, it couldn’t work.

During this conference I could feel that her mother didn’t appreciate my suggestion. In truth, when to potty train is a parent’s prerogative, and she didn’t like my suggesting that she wasn’t a good parent in this respect. Did I cross the line? I don’t think so. It is my experience that by four years old, a child should be trained unless there are other underlying issues. I felt it was my responsibility to encourage her training, and I was very willing to help out.




We compromised that she would place the child in underwear, and then put the pull-up over top of the underwear. In this way, if the child did have an accident, the pull-up would keep it from leaking out, but the child could feel the discomfort of being wet. If several days passed and the underwear remained dry, her mother could feel confident in getting rid of the pull-ups altogether.

Unfortunately, there are also conferences where we have to broach the subject of red flags that we see. Possibly the child isn’t processing information appropriately, maybe she needs help with her speech, or we are seeing something that is unusual at this age. These are never easy conversations to have, yet they are vitally important. Given early intervention, many issues can be resolved or dealt with before too much time passes.

When you have your parent teacher conference, come armed with any questions or concerns you might have. If the teacher makes a recommendation that you don’t agree with, take a deep breath and listen to what she has to say. Once you’ve had time to digest the information, you can choose to handle it in your way. But remember that she only has your child’s best interests at heart.

The Importance of Toddlers Using Scissors

Scissor skills are important for children to practice, though some parents do not allow their toddlers to use them at home. Concerns over the child harming himself or cutting something that he shouldn’t be cutting, make parents wary of even introducing their kids to scissors. We encourage the use of scissors in school for a couple of reasons. For one, this is an important, though difficult skill, for children to master. It takes a great deal of practice for most children to even learn how to grasp a scissor correctly. Cutting is also a skill that they will need by the time they get to kindergarten, and it takes quite a bit of practice. It is also an excellent way to help develop fine motor skills.

We have three types of scissors in the classroom. For children with very weak fine motor skills, we have a pair that actually has four finger holes. The child puts his fingers into the bottom two holes while the teacher puts her fingers into the top two holes. I find them a bit awkward, but for the very beginners, it helps children learn the proper grasp and the motion of opening and closing the scissor. After that, the child can use a pair that has a spring so the scissor can open itself. The student needs to use the proper grasp, but he only needs to squeeze the scissor shut and then it will open back up automatically. Once the child is successful with this pair, he is able to move on to a regular child’s scissor.

In all cases, the scissors have rounded edges and can only cut paper. They can’t cut a child’s skin or fabric. We place a dot with a magic marker at the base of the thumb hole. This dot serves as the scissors’ ‘eye’ and must point up to the sky. That helps the child understand the way the scissor needs to be held. We then help him put his thumb into the top, smaller hole, and two or three fingers into the bottom hole. Next, we practice opening and closing, opening and closing the scissors.

Even before introducing scissors, we encourage the children to rip pieces of paper. Ripping can be a difficult task before fine motor skills are strongly developed. Some children have trouble with the ripping motion. Once they are able to rip with their hands, they have an easier time cutting with scissors.

When the children do graduate to scissors, we start by having them fringe paper as opposed to cutting it. The fringing motion is a quick opening and closing of the scissor without having to navigate moving the scissor fully across the paper. Once they can fringe, we give them straight lines to cut. Finally, they are encouraged to actually cut out shapes.

I am always amazed at how persistent children are when learning how to cut. Very few children can cut instantly. It’s a skill that takes practice. Yet, even children who have trouble cutting are willing to persevere until they find success.

Develop Fine Motor Skills in the Kitchen

As the teacher of three year olds, I find that children’s fine motor skills are often extremely weak. One theory is that now we place our babies on their backs instead of their stomachs to help prevent Infant Death Syndrome, and that has prevented infants from strengthening their arms and hands. Whatever the cause, we must find ways to help kids develop their small muscles and the kitchen is a great place to start.

Let your children help you make a salad by tearing the lettuce. The act of ripping is wonderful to help develop fine motor skills. At the same time, they are learning how to make a salad and feel proud to have helped prepare dinner.

On spaghetti night, let your child break the strands of uncooked spaghetti that you will then put into the pot of boiling water. They can help you sprinkle the garlic and parmesan cheese on the garlic bread. If you enjoy baking, let your toddler help. Kneading dough for bread, holding measuring spoons and cups, and even stirring batter, all help strengthen their small muscles.

If you are nervous having your children take part in the actual meal preparation, have a special container of toys in the kitchen that they can play with while you cook. Play dough, puzzles, safety scissors, and balls filled with sand, are all activities that help develop fine motor skills. Even coloring with crayons and pencils is great.

All the while, you can talk about the meal you are preparing or just chatter about your day. It’s a bonding experience that is good for your child, and you, in many ways.