Young children need to strengthen their fine motor skills in order to prepare for future writing skills. There are so many ways in which to add fine motor skills practice into alphabet activities! Here a some examples for each letter:
A
Pick seeds out of apples with tweezers and cut with plastic knife
Use small apple counters or apple mini erasers to count with
Play with small ant toys in the sand
Make an alligator out of a clothespin and make it “chomp”
Make and fly a paper airplane
Paint with apples
Collect acorns outside and use to count with
B
Make a bird out of a clothespin and cut up pipe cleaners for “worms”
Help an adult bake banana bread (mix, whisk, pour)
Paint with broccoli
Put beads on pipe cleaners to make bracelets
Make a butterfly with clothespin and coffee filter
Blow bubbles
Throw and catch balloons
Make a brown bear puppet out of a lunch bag
Make balls out of playdough
Button up clothes
Build with blocks
C
Glue pom poms together to make a caterpillar
Help an adult bake chocolate chip cookies or cupcakes
Paint with corn (roll it on the paper)
Use candies and cereal to count with
Paint with “cloud paint” (glue & white paint)
Cut out circles
Color with crayons
Use a toilet paper or papertowel roll and paint to make circles
Make different colors by using droppers to mix colors
Cut and glue pictures to make a collage
Use toy cars to “drive” on shapes, letters, or numbers
Pull apart cotton balls and glue it on paper to make clouds
Use a hole punch to punch small circles to make confetti
Use a ear of corn to paint with (roll on paper)
D
Dig in the dirt
Make a dinosaur out of a paper plate and put clothespins on as “spikes”
Paint a donut (cut out small pieces of paper for sprinkles)
Put dot stickers on the letter D
Use dot markers
Use play ducks in waterplay
Play a drum
Roll dice and count the dots
E
Do experiments with vinegar, baking soda, use a dropper
Hide objects in Easter Eggs (open and close)
Make shakers out of easter eggs and rice or beans
Do an egg on a spoon relay race
Earth crafts: make an earth out of torn green and blue paper, drop green and blue water on coffee filter with droppers, make a suncatcher with green and blue tissue paper
F
Make a “fire” by crumbling up red, orange, and yellow paper
Fingerpaint
Use jumping frogs toy (push to make jump)
Paint with feathers
Use foam stickers
Plant a flower
Use tissue paper, cupcake liners, and pipe cleaners to make flowers
Paint a picture of your family
Use Fruit Loops to count, sort, graph
G
Put rubber bands on geoboards, make letters, numbers, shapes
Use gummy bears to count, sort, and graph with
Squeeze green or gold glitter glue onto the letter G
Push golf tees into foam, balance golf balls on top
Use dot markers or dot stickers to put “gum balls” on a picture of a gum ball machine
Dig in sand for “gold” (painted rocks)
Make grape patterns on skewers
Cut up grass
Stick pretend flowers in a colander or foam block to make a garden
Make a guitar out of rubber bands on a paper plate or tissue box, play the guitar
H
Use heart stickers (count, put on the letter H)
Use heart beads to make bracelets and necklaces
Make a paper helicopter spinner with brad or paper clip
Make a heart out of painted handprints
Make a house out of popsicle sticks
Use a pretend hammer to hammer golf tees into foam or cardboard
Make a hedgehog out of a paper plate, cut slits at top to make the spikes
I
Make ice cream playdough (canned frosting & powdered sugar)
Put ice cream “sprinkles” on with tweezers
Make an igloo out of small sugar squares
Make ice cubes melt by using droppers with warm water
Make an inchworm out of beads and pipe cleaners
Use small insect toys to count with
Scoop cotton balls with an ice cream scooper
Make ice cream
J
Use jelly beans to count with
Open and close jars
Use jewels to count, sort, and graph with
Use cookie cutters with jello
Make a sensory bin with jello and different scoops, spoons, containers
Play jump rope
Put on jacket and zip up
Put items in jars and practicing opening and closing them
K
Use keys to unlock locks
Make kabobs out of skewers (fruit, veggies, marshmallows)
Cut up kiwi with a plastic knife
Fly a kite
Make a king’s crown, glue jewels on
Make and play a kazoo (wax paper rubber banded on a toilet paper roll)
L
Make lemonade (squeeze, stir)
Make ladybugs with fingerprint painted spots
Build with Legos
Leaf rubbings
Pick leaves off trees
Make letters out of playdoh (roll into “snakes”)
M
Count with tiny marshmallows
Make marshmallow playdough
Help an adult bake muffins
Build with magnet tiles
Use a magnifying glass to investigate
Use letter magnets on a baking sheet
Hang cutout mittens up on a clothespins
Make “moon sand” (flour & baby oil)
Play maracas
Go “mountain climbing” climb on rock wall or jungle gym
N
Make a noodle necklace
Use a net to catch pretend or real bugs
Secret name painting (use white crayon, paint over with watercolor paint to reveal)
“Write” name with q-tip dipped in paint
Make numbers out of playdoh (roll into “snakes”)
Name Collage- glue small objects on letters of your name
O
Use scoops and containers with dried oats
Cut out an orange oval
Make an octopus with strung beads, circle cereal, or pasta on strings for the tentacles.
Make an octopus and put dot stickers on tentacles
Squish a toilet paper or paper toilet roll and dip it in paint to make ovals
Make an orange collage- glue different items that are orange on the collage
Use paper strips to loop together to make Olympic rings
Make a bracelet with Olympic color beads
P
Play with playdough (use tools, rollers, scissors)
Use tweezers to sort pom poms by color
Use popsicle sticks to make letters and numbers
Make pancakes and flip them with a spatula
Plant a seed
Put together a puzzle
Make pretzels out of dough or playdough
Make a pizza (roll out dough, spoon on sauce, put on cheese)
Make a pinwheel with paper, stick, and brad
Use a paper punch to cut out tiny circles or shapes
Make a pom pom popper out of a paper cup and balloon
Wrap a “present”
Pop bubble wrap
Use a pickle picker to pick small objects up
Q
Paint with Q-tips
Make quarter rubbings (put paper on top and rub with silver crayon)
Glue different pieces of fabric together on paper to make a “quilt”
Make a queen’s crown, glue jewels on
Make a quilt with different pieces of paper (weave yarn into holes to attach)
R
Put rubber bands on round object
Cut out a red rectangle
Use scoops and cups at the rice table
Paint a rainbow
Make a rainbow with dot stickers on butcher paper
Make it “rain” by squeezing spray bottles outside
Use rocks to count with
Dig for rocks
Paint rocks
S
“Write” letters in sprinkles, sand, salt, or shaving cream
Make “snakes” out of playdough
Cut up straws
Use skittles to count, sort, and graph with
Put smiley face stickers on the letter S
Use tools with kinetic sand
Make shapes out of playdoh
Cut out a square
Make spiderwebs out of yarn
Use small toy spiders to count with
Use star beads to make bracelets and necklaces
Use scoopers, spoons, etc. with pretend snow
T
Put together a train track
Make tire tracks (trucks with paint)
Use play tools
Play Tug of War
Make a tree by tearing and gluing brown and green paper
Put feathers in colander to make a turkey
Play tennis
Roll paper up to make a pretend telescope
Use a cut tennis ball to make a face (make him “eat” different small objects)
U
Use tiny umbrellas to make letters and numbers
Make an urchin by putting toothpicks into a ball of playdough
Underwater- use sea animal stickers and put them on blue paper
Make an umbrella out of a paper plate
V
Use velcro to attach and unattach
Make a volcano (put baking soda in a cup and use a squirt bottle to squeeze the vinegar in)
Paint with different vegetables
Pretend to be a vet, use different doctor instruments with stuffed animals
Cut and decorate a vest out of a paper bag
Decorate a plastic vase
Bake vanilla cupcakes
Decorate a valentine with heart stickers
Play with different vehicle toys
W
Bake waffles and dip them in whipped cream
Use scoops, shovels, and containers with waterbeads
Pick out watermelon seeds with tweezers
Dig for worms outside
Use scoops, cups, container in water
Stir with a whisk
Paint with watercolor paint
Attatch a picture of a whale to a popsicle stick to make a white whale puppet
Make a weaving out of yarn
Make a whistle out of straws
X
Play a xylophone
Use play tools to “fix” something
Make an X-ray (trace hand with white crayon on black paper, glue q-tips on)
Make an X-ray fish out of a paper plate
Make letter X pretzels or cookies
Roll playdoh and make letter X
Y
Play with a yo-yo
Roll a yellow yarn ball
Paint with yam halves (carve shapes in it to make stamps)
Make letters and numbers with yarn
Do yoga poses that require hand use
Bake something yummy
Z
Zip up zippers
Make zoo animal puppets
Paint zebra stripes
Cut zig zags in paper
Fold paper to make into a zig zag
Play with zoo animal finger puppets
Happy Teaching!
