Incorporating activities to help develop handwriting and fine motor skills is critical particularly in the first term of Kindergarten. Students starting school may have unintentionally developed bad habits around the way they hold or pick-up items. They are yet to strengthen their fine motor skills to correctly hold their pencil for an extended period of time when writing, pull the zipper on their bag or pencil case and button their shirts.

There are many commercial activities that you can spend your money on however it is not always necessary. There are activities that you can prepare yourself.

This includes;

• Playing with playdough – cutting it using a knife, rolling it into a snake, using cookie cutters

• Cutting pictures out of magazines

• Painting using a variety of brush sizes

• Cutting and pasting shapes drawn on a piece of paper

• Drawing and colouring in pictures

• Use textas for colouring-in books

• Make pinprick pictures or words

• Dot to dots

• Do bear walks

• Play wheelbarrow races to strengthen wrists

• Picking up sewing pins and putting them back in the container one at a time

• Using tweezers to pick up cotton balls and putting them back in the jar

• Writing or drawing on a whiteboard with whiteboard markers

• Fingerplay songs e.g 2 Little Dickie Birds

 If your class happen to have a budget look out for;

• Jumping frogs

• Mr Potato Head

• Pegboards

• Marbles to flick

• Tracing cards for pictures and letters

• Threading

• Crocodile tweezer with the finger placement markings

• Lacing cards

Developing students fine motor skills and their hand-eye coordination makes a great difference to their independence and functioning in the classroom.

What activities do you use in your classroom to develop fine motor skills in your students? We would love it if you joined the conversation and left a comment below.