The Absolute Best Fine Motor Activities For Toddlers (With 50+ Activity Ideas!)
Want to learn how to start working on fine motor skills with your toddler? Keep reading to find out how you can help your child improve their fine motor skills through simple and fun activities at home – whether your little one is 18 months or 3 years old!
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Why are fine motor skills important for toddlers?
We use fine motor skills all day, every day. Opening a jar of peanut butter? Fine motor skill. Using a butter knife to spread that pb? Yup, also a fine motor skill. Zipping up your coat, twisting a doorknob, or writing a note? Ding, ding, ding – all of these things require fine motor skills!
Fine motor skills are such an important part of our daily tasks that we don’t even notice that we’re using them most of the time. Now, think of all the things your toddler does every day that requires fine motor skills.
Children use fine motor skills every day when they:
- Brush their teeth
- Feed themselves
- Play with toys
- Color or paint
- Get dressed
- Wash their hands
- And more!
TLDR: Fine motor skills are kind of a big deal
To keep it simple, fine motor skills are an important part of your child’s daily life. Helping your toddler master the most important fine motor skills for their stage of development will also help them:
- Develop self-help skills & independence
- Gain competence & confidence in their abilities
- Strengthen & improve other skill areas by giving them a solid physical foundation for fine motor-based activities (like art or pre-writing, just to name two!)
What fine motor skills should a toddler have?
Between 18 months – 2 years, your child should learn how to:
- Use blocks to build a small tower (3-6 blocks high)
- Hold a crayon & scribble
- Turn pages of a book
- Begin to cut paper with scissors (small snips)
- Put large pegs in a pegboard & remove them
- Use a fork & spoon to eat (self-feeding)
- Pull up a large zipper
Between 2 – 3 years, your child should learn how to:
- Use blocks to build a large tower (up to 9 blocks)
- Draw straight lines & circles
- String large beads
- Screw lids on and off of containers
- Build with interlocking blocks (like Mega Bloks or Bristle Blocks)
- Begin to dress themselves with help
How can I help my child with fine motor skills?
Toddlers learn fine motor skills the same way they learn everything else – through meaningful play and everyday experiences!
You can help your toddler develop fine motor skills by:
- Providing your toddler with engaging and age-appropriate fine motor toys & manipulatives
- Giving your toddler plenty of time to practice self-help skills every day (washing their hands independently, feeding themselves, beginning to dress themselves…)
- Encouraging your child to engage in simple and fun fine motor activities regularly
Looking for the best fine motor activities to do at home with your toddler?
Scroll down to check out my favorite fine motor activities for toddlers!
To put together the best list possible, I included my personal faves from my teaching days, as well as some awesome activities I found on Pinterest (where else?) If you want to see more ideas like these, you can also follow me on Pinterest to see more cool toddler activities & other useful resources for parents!
Now, keep reading to check out the activity ideas!
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50+ Awesome Fine Motor Activities For Toddlers
Playdough Activities
- Squish, squeeze, & manipulate playdough (store-bought or make your own)
- Practice rolling long “snakes” and round balls with playdough
- Play with playdough & tools (like rolling pins, cookie cutters, and stamping cubes)
- Practice cutting with playdough & safety scissors
- Try some fun themed invitation to play activities with playdough
- Make playdough monsters with googly eyes, pipe cleaners, & whatever else you have at home
- “Bake” playdough cupcakes using durable cupcake liners & birthday candles (hint: popsicle sticks or pipe cleaners make great “candles” too!)
- Practice mark-making with playdough and something to “write” with – a pencil, toothpick, feather…
- Explore color mixing with red, blue, and yellow playdough
Art Activities
- Color with crayons, colored pencils, markers, or chalk
- Use a coloring book or free coloring pages
- Paint with watercolors (pro tip: use a spray bottle to pre-wet the paint tray for your toddler if they can’t be trusted with a cup of water!)
- “Paint” with water
- Hang some poster board up on the wall and make a “mural”
- Give your toddler their very own little notebook and a pencil & let them “journal” away!
- Use dot stickers and a writing utensil to practice “connecting the dots”
- Explore dry vs. wet chalk on black paper
- Trace chalk lines – you can do this one outdoors or inside with a chalkboard
- Play with stickers
- Finger paint – you can even make your own diy edible finger paints at home!
- Make dot art with these awesome washable paint markers
- Draw with dry erase markers on a whiteboard
- Create a painting on a large canvas
- Set up a table with a huge piece of butcher paper & crayons for scribbling
- Practice cutting with safety scissors (I like to use junk mail & grocery store ads for scissor practice)
- “Write” a letter or postcard – don’t forget to decorate with stickers, stamps, or hand-drawn pictures!
Sensory Activities
- Play with sand & sand toys
- Scoop & pour water
- Play with sensory cloud dough
- Trace lines (or shapes, letters, or numbers) with salt in sensory tray – you can also make fun scented salts like this diy peppermint sensory salt or this glittery lavender salt
- Paint with tea bags
- Practice pre-writing marks (lines, circles, etc.) using an easy diy sensory squishy bag
- Explore sensory water beads & fine motor tools
Toys & Manipulatives
- Practice putting pegs on a pegboard – (this cute hedgehog fine motor toy is a great choice too!)
- Build with interlocking blocks like Mega Blocks or bristle blocks
- Work on stringing large beads
- Practice threading with a Montessori-inspired wooden lacing toy (like this simple apple lacing toy or this cute cheese one!)
- Play with an interactive lock & latches board like this cult fave busy board by Melissa & Doug
- Build with Squigz – a creative and fun suction cup building toy
- Make quiet time and car rides more fun with an interactive quiet book that will help your child work on different fine motor skills
- Explore and manipulate interesting everyday objects with a fun busy board (or make your own at home)
Practical Life & Self Help Skills
- Get cooking – scooping, pouring, and stirring are all awesome opportunities for toddlers to work on fine motor skills in the kitchen
- Work on serving self during meals using serving spoons and kid-friendly tongs
- Use child-sized pitchers to practice pouring water or milk independently
- Practice buckling buckles and zipping zippers (this cute whale buckle toy is an awesome tool for older toddlers!)
- Spend time intentionally practicing getting dressed – zipping up coats, putting on socks, velcroing shoes…
- Practice brushing teeth with an easy-to-grip training toothbrush like this super-cute cactus one!
Homemade & DIY Activities
- Try this diy push & pull activity for younger toddlers
- Make a fun cap twist-off board
- Practice threading with pipe cleaners and straw pieces
- Play this fine motor animal tape rescue game!
- Cut slots into the lid of an empty container and push colorful popsicle sticks through the slots
- Wrap play food in foil
- Make a sticky note tower!
- Hammer & smash cereal (hint: this activity is perfect for super-active toddlers who won’t usually sit still for fine motor activities)
- Try this simple & creative “worm” pick up activity – you just need yarn and a lint roller!
- Make an easy diy number weaving board
The Best Fine Motor Toys For Toddlers
Looking for the best fine motor toys for your toddler? Check out a few of my favorites below!
Have fun working on those fine motor skills!
Did I miss one of your favorite fine motor activity ideas? Drop a comment below with your child’s fave activity so I can add it to the list!
Thanks for reading!
♥ Meg
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