In the early years fine motor skills involve a refined use of the small muscles controlling the hand, fingers, and thumb. The development of these skills allows one to be able to complete tasks such as writing, drawing, and buttoning in there later years. Which are important to start developing in the early years.

During the infant and toddler years, children develop basic grasping and manipulation skills, which are refined during the preschool years. The preschooler becomes quite adept in self-help, construction, holding grips, and bimanual control tasks requiring the use of both hands.

— Essa, E., Young, R. & Lehne, L., Introduction to early childhood education, 2nd Ed. (1998)

Fine motor skills can be lacking in children if they haven’t been exposed to activities to build on this at home, school or in everyday life. Using a touch computer playing games (depending on the game) can be different to actually refining the muscle control of the muscle.

Children need to do this from a young age. Easy steps in teaching fine motor skills is holding a crayon, feeding oneself, using children’s tweezers to pick up activities helps with the development of building fine motor skills. allowing the child to experiment with using chopsticks if childrens jumbo tweezers aren’t available, playing with their toys, building blocks, construction toys and many other activities.

Activities and products suggested for developing Fine and Gross motor skills

–  Activities on pinterest – beading, sewing, glueing, cutting, develop theme like transport in what your child is interested in

– Fine motor skills manipulative- Linking cubes, GEOSTIX, Peg Boards, Construction activities

– Fine motor skills lacing – Abacus beads, lacing animals, cotton reels, card lacing, alphabet lacing

– Fine motor skills building blocks – Building blocks

There are many more activities please share your experiences. Look forward to providing information and developing on these skills in later posts.