50 Fine Motor Skills Activities for Older Children

Fine motor skills are crucial for everyone, but focused practice on them usually ends in preschool or kindergarten. Older children often need a little more work, especially to increase the legibility of their handwriting, but just practicing penmanship is boring. How can working on fine motor skills be fun?

Here are some fun activities to improve fine motor skills. Of course everyone has different different likes and dislikes, so to make sure there are at least a few choices to suit everyones interests, I present fifty fine motor skills activities for older children.

Crafts for Fine Motor Skills
Improve eye-hand coordination with crafts

Origami Blue Bird by Jacque Davis

1. Stringing beads

2. Origami

3. Cloth or paper embroidery

4. Crocheting or knitting

5. Fusion beads (tip: use tweezers for even better fine motor skills practice)

6. Paper cutting (the art form, not the preschool activity)

7. Aqua Beads (like fusion beads, but you spray water on the beads to make them stick together instead of an iron)

8. Basket weaving

9. Sewing

10. Pottery

Games for Fine Motor Skills
Add some competition

Jenga Tournament by Tom Rolfe

11. Operation

12. Jenga

13. Make 'n' Break (see my review)

14. Yahtzee

15. Foosball

16. Rush Hour

17. Marbles

18. Darts

19. Play dough charades

20. Video games (hate to admit it, but they do improve eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills.)

Puzzles to Help Fine Motor Skills
Engage the brain too

Playing with Brain String Advanced

21. Mazes

22. Jigsaw puzzles

23. Rubik's Cube and other similar puzzles

24. Crossword Puzzles

25. Brain String Advanced (see my review)

25 More Fine Motor Skills Activities for Older Children
Something for everyone

26. Enjoy coloring (not just for kids)

27. Practice a musical instrument

Use Chopsticks for fine motor skills

28. Use chopsticks

29. Tie flies

30. Go fishing

31. Try writing Japanese or Chinese characters (see my ideas for learning Japanese)

32. Learn how to tie cool knots

33. Practice typing/keyboarding

34. Play with Wikki Stix (see my Wikki Stix review)

35. Learn sign language

36. Sculpt with clay

37. Do paper mache

38. Make plastic models

39. Play with gears

40. Braid hair

41. Build with Lego

42. Decorate cakes

Magnetic Sculpture by Tamra Hays

43. Make magnetic sculptures

44. Play paper football

45. Make designer lattes and cappuccinos

46. Play with a tilting ball maze

47. Do a connect-the-dots puzzle

48. Learn calligraphy

49. Make a mosaic

50. Write with a fountain pen

Question: Do you have a favorite fine motor skills activity for older children? Please share in the comments!

Summer Reading Programs 2011

Summer reading has been proven to help children retain their vocabulary, maintain their decoding skills, and improve their comprehension. Help your children avoid the summer slump by trying a summer reading challenge. There are several national summer reading programs, some of which offer free books, gift cards, prize packages, and even cash. Each program has its own form to fill out, but you might also want to print out a reading log to keep track of your child's reading. Your local library probably has a summer reading program too.

My kids love to read, but a little extra motivation never hurt, so I compiled this big list of summer reading programs for 2011. Check it out!

Summer Reading on the Beach

Wonderful Wordless (or Nearly Wordless) Books

Wordless books (and nearly wordless books) spark conversation, invite close inspection of illustrations, and are less threatening to reluctant emerging readers. Here are some of the most popular wordless books among my students and my own children.

Anno's Counting House

Mitsumasa Anno is a Japanese former math teacher who became an author and illustrator of children's books. He has written several books that lead naturally to understanding of math. Anno's Counting House, out of print, but still easy to find used, illustrates ten children moving from one house to another. One house gradually empties of people and belongings as the other house fills up. Cut-outs in the pages pique children's curiosity as they try to figure out which character will move the the new house next. Children are exposed to the the important concept of the conservation of number, which is crucial to later success when balancing equations in algebra. Interestingly the book can be enjoyed from back to front as well as from front to back I first blogged about Anno way back in 2007.

Good Night, Gorilla

Peggy Rathmann's Good Night, Gorilla is the most requested readaloud at my preschool. Other than "good night," there are only ten words in the entire book. The pictures are simple, yet full of fun surprises for those who look closely. Try to find the flyaway balloon in each photo. How many silhouettes can you see in the neighbor's window? Does the elephant really have a plush Babar? Here are even more fun illustration finds and several Good Night Gorilla activities.


1, 2, 3 To the Zoo

Animals. A train. The zoo. Eric Carle hit on several of kids' favorite things in his first picture book, 1, 2, 3 To the Zoo combines colorful animal pictures with bright clear numbers, and doesn't let words get in the way. Children enjoy finding all of the animals in the fold out page of the zoo at the end of the story. This just may be the book that your child learns to count with. Homeschool Share offers a 1, 2, 3 To the Zoo printable lapbook to go along with the book.

Hug!

Besides his name, hug was the first word my toddler read, thanks to Hug, the nearly wordless book by Jez Alborough. The story story follows a baby monkey who sees several animal mothers and babies hugging one another and realizes that he has lost his own mom. A kind elephant takes him around the jungle until he finds his mother. All the animals rejoice with him. the word hug appears several times, but the only other words to appear are mommy and Bobo (the baby monkey's name).

Question: Do you have a favorite wordless or nearly wordless book?

Roman Celebration

Last night was our unit celebration about Republican and Imperial Rome. What I love about unit studies is that all of our kids can work on the same topic through all the disciplines: History, literature, science, cooking, art, and Bible. You'll see it all here. Most of the craft ideas are from Classical Kids: An Activity Guide to Life in Ancient Greece and Rome and Ancient Rome!: Exploring the Culture, People & Ideas of This Powerful Empire.

The kids wore togas, recycled from our Greece unit celebration.

Toga Party!

Our ten-year-old son painted this mural of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon. Click to see it bigger.

Crossing the Rubicon

This shield depicts a dragon burning a tree.

Roman Shield Craft

Roman army units used standards in the same way current units use flags. Our eight-year-old daughter designed the one on this table. I don't know if the heart on top would strike much fear in enemy hearts, but I sure like it.

Roman Standard Craft

This paper mache Roman helmet is a fairly accurate replica of a real Roman helmet.

Paper Mache Roman Helmet

We ate omelets sweetened with honey, the only sweetener they had in ancient Rome.

Honey Omelet

A little physics lesson doing target practice with this simple catapult.

Simple Catapult

Rich Romans wore gold earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and anklets. Our eight-year-old d.d. made this jewelry. She lost her beaded earrings and made these straw ones at the last minute.

Roman Jewelry Craft

The boys put on a gladiator show with swords, nets, and whips, and spears.

Gladiator Show

Dad read Mark Antony's "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. We talked about why God chose Imperial Rome as the time and place to send Jesus (Pax Romana, common language). It was a fun night to celebrate, share, and solidify what we've learned the past several weeks.

   

Your comments are welcome!

Cloudwatching

What does this cloud look like to you?

On a breezy spring day, read Eric Carle's Little Cloud or Charles G. Shaw's It Looked Like Spilt Milk. Then go outside, watch the clouds, and ask your students to describe, draw, or write what they see.

To extend the fun, check out these cloud craft ideas at Fun Bliss.

Photo: Michael Roper

Fun Spelling Activities

Spelling practice can be fun. When I became a teacher, I swore off repetitious spelling drills and looked for ways to make spelling time a fun time. Shaving cream, Wikki Stix, magic markers, magnetic letters, and even Q-Tips can enhance your students' word work. Check out the following hands-on, creative, and fun ways to practice spelling.

Shaving Cream
Tactile Spelling Practice

Shaving cream is wonderful for tactile spelling practice. Just spray it onto a desk, smear it around, and start writing. Shaving cream words are easily erased which provides three benefits. Mistakes are gone at the swipe of a hand; students can practice a word several times without seeing their previous effort; and they can work through several words in a short amount of time. Children love the cool, smooth feeling, and teachers love how clean the desks are after spelling practice with shaving cream. Here are some more fun things to do with shaving cream.

Word Pictures
Visual Spelling

For visual learners, word pictures are great spelling practice. This photo shows one of my first graders doing spelling practice. She is writing some words randomly, but notice the placement of "up" in the upper part of the page, the word "blue" written in blue, and "time" with clocks all around it.

Concentric Spelling
Fun Spelling Drill

Why write a spelling word five times in a list when you can write it five times in colorful concentric bubble letters? Make sure your students put extra space between the letters in their words so they have room to write each letter bigger and bigger. I don't have the data to prove it, but my hunch is that spelling words written like this leave a longer-lasting impression than writing the same word over and over in list form.

Magnetic Letters
Quick Spelling Practice

Magnetic letters work well when you want your students to practice several words in a row, and especially well when working with word families. Keep the cluster of letters that you are working on, and switch the other letters in and out.

Q-Tip Spelling
Build Spelling Words

Good, old cotton swabs work well for tactile spelling practice. It's tricky to form curved letters, but as you can see by the letter e in little, it can be done. The space between the two ts is there to indicate the division between syllables.


Wikki Stix Spelling
Focus on One Word

I've written elsewhere about wikki stix as learning tools, so I won't repeat myself here. They are durable, flexible, inexpensive, and versatile manipulatives for spelling and, well, for just about anything else. This student formed her letters from wikki stix, spelled the syllables of yes-ter-day, and then pushed the syllables together to form the word. Check out wikki stix on amazon.

Looking for fun ways to teach kids dictionary skills?