Fine Motor Activity For Toddlers, Preschoolers and Beyond- Mess Free Sensory Play

Creating a Simple Mess Free Fine Motor Activity For Toddlers, Preschoolers and Beyond

Having a mixed age group of kiddos at home is a fairly typical dynamic for most families with multiple children. If your kids are like mine, they love any type of fine motor activity, especially when it is something they all can do! I have found that the simplest activities are often the most engaging for ALL of my kiddos! As a parent of a toddler, preschooler, and kindergartener, this is no easy task!

Fine Motor Practice at Home Doesn’t Have to Be Difficult

If you search “sensory activity” on Pinterest, you will find so many adorable activities. The problem is, many of these activities require LOADS of materials and they only keep kids busy for 45 seconds! I don’t know about you, but if I create a fine motor activity for my kids, I want them to be busy for AWHILE!! Creating an engaging activity can take very few materials and can keep kids busy for at least the length of time it took you to set it up!

Creating a Fine Motor Activity for Young Learners at Home

Follow these quick step by step directions and your children will practicing their fine motor skills in no time!

Materials Needed:

-1 bin/container- We use these

-1 box of Cheerios

-A handful of pipecleaners 

Instructions:

1. Pour Cheerios out into a CLEAN bin
2. Distribute pipecleaners to “big kids”
3. Give toddler a pipecleaner with Cheerios already on it
4. Tell your kids that you are going to make a BIRD FEEDER

Introducing Your New  Activity

Like any activity, the way you present it is important! Make sure you SELL IT! Say something like this, “Guys, I have seen so many birdies in our yard. I was thinking, they might need some food. What do you think? Should we make some bird feeders? Wouldn’t that be so so fun?!” Then, set your kids free. Show them briefly what they need to do then go wash some dishes or do your nails! Your kids are busy AND they have a snack!!

Using the Fine Motor Practice Activity as a Learning Tool

Toddler– As you are sitting with your toddler, string Cheerios onto the pipecleaner. As you are doing this, count them. Hand the pipecleaner to your toddler.  Talk to them about the color of the pipecleaner. Chances are, they will take the Cheerios off one by one and eat them! This is okay. Built in snack!!

Preschooler– Have your child put Cheerios onto the pipecleaner. Periodically ask them to count how many they have on the pipecleaner. Talk to them about how strong they are making their tiny muscles in their hands and encourage them to keep working. This is great fine motor practice as well as practice to attending to a task! 

Kindergartener- As your child is working, talk with them about perseverance. Challenge your child to make 10 or whatever number seems appropriate for them. Discuss with your child how you would be helping birds and suggest learning about birds that you see in your yard. Maybe encourage them to read a book (We use Epic ALOT) or write a sentence or 2 about what they learned!

Our Experience

My youngest, B, who is 22 months old, pulled all of the Cheerios off of his pipecleaner and had a nice little snack! He made a mess but had tons of fun!

R, 3 year old made 2 complete pipecleaners and several others he put on a few Cheerios. He got some good fine motor practice and strengthened the tiny muscles in his hands!

L, my 6 year old was busy for hours! Her grandmother requested some bird feeders so she was inspired to keep working.

The big kids had fun hanging them up and watching the trees for new birds to show up!

Overall, we used about half a gigantic box of Cheerios! Everyone snacked and was happy to have something fun to do!

Takeaways For Fine Motor Practice at Home

Creating a fun an engaging sensory or fine motor activity doesn’t need to be tricky. Often, the simpler, the better. As a working parent, I don’t have time to create activities for my kids at home AND my kids at school. This fine motor activity was perfect for all of my kids! Check out this post if you want to see another SIMPLE ACTIVITY FOR HOME!

I encourage you to find ways for your children to learn at home and have fun together! If you have a fun and simple learning at home idea, submit it here to be featured in a future post!

Thanks for reading!

Stephanie

If you liked this post, my friend Alexa has some great sensory activities for TODDLERS as well! Check them out HERE and HERE!

Also, if you haven’t heard of CrateJoy, check them out! They have so many amazing products that are prepped and ready to go! Just what busy mamas need!