Fine Motor Skills

At Banks Road Primary School, our aim is to provide opportunities for young children to be active and interactive and to develop their co-ordination, control and movement. Since the start of the academic year Reception have been exploring all the ways we can develop our fine and gross motor skills.

Motor skills are motions carried out when the brain, nervous system and muscles work together.

Fine motor skills are small movements that involve fingers, such as picking up small objects and holding a spoon.

Gross motor skills are the large movements such as rolling over or sitting up, actions that require you to use the large muscles in the arms, legs and feet.

It is important that children are exposed to activities which allow them to develop both. 

These experiences encourage the children’s development in showing good control and co-ordination in large and small movements. 

Building on your child’s hand strength with fine motor skill activities will prepare their hands for things such as writing and holding a pencil comfortably and effectively.

Here are some simple, low cost activities you can do at home to develop your child’s fine motor skills:

• Encourage your child to try fastening their own buttons, zipping up their coats and pulling their own socks on. Not only are they learning to become more independent but also developing their finger strength and coordination.
• Threading string through penne pasta. Your child can create their own pasta bracelets and necklaces.
• Mix flour, oil and water together to make playdough for your child to kneed, squeeze, roll and pull apart.
• Your child can help you hang the laundry out to dry! Using a 'pinch'grip to open a clothes peg is quite a skill.
• Peeling their own fruit, such as bananas or satsumas. 
• Building and balancing blocks and other construction materials such as lego.