Inside: Our favorite collection of preschool fine motor activities! Each one involves some sort of squeezing that strengthens the hands and fingers, getting them ready for writing. A free fine motor checklist is included for you to download today!
Parents and teachers are concerned if their preschoolers cannot write.
Their preschoolers might get frustrated when given writing tools. Hold on! Their little hands and fingers need to be strengthened. Good news! I have a collection of squeezing activities that can do just that.
We start working on strengthening fine motor skills in with our toddlers. You know those puzzles with the knobs? And play dough? Yep, that’s a start! But even as they transition from a toddler to a preschooler, their hands and fingers continue to need strengthening.
We work on fine motor activities every day, in playful ways. Our children have no idea the reason behind it, of course. They just know it’s fun!
Bonus! Scroll down to find a free printable list of easy fine motor activities you can do with your preschoolers this week!
Ready to introduce some squeezing activities into your children’s day?
17 of the Best Preschool Fine Motor Activities that Involve Squeezing
- Preschoolers (toddlers, too) love to transfer water with turkey basters.
- Squeeze playdough using a citrus squeezer.
- As fingers get stronger, squeeze water using pipettes.
- Drop watercolors onto paper towels.
- Squeeze and release paint on top of pine cones.
- Drip watercolors down a vertical surface.
- Press Do-a-Dots with palms of hands on a dry erase board.
- Set up a tongs and pom poms activity. (B-Inspired Mama)
- Squeeze glitter glue to make calming bottles. (Mess for Less)
- Use paint with sponges. (No Time for Flash Cards)
- Transfer foam blocks in bowls of water. (Mummy Musings and Mayhem)
- Squeeze lemons and make lemonade. (Two-daloo)
- Drop watercolors on coffee filters.
- Grab some clothespins to make these dinosaurs. (Teaching Mama)
- Squeeze play dough. (Fun at Home With Kids)
- Using icing gel pens to decorate cookies. (Craftulate)
- Invite your child to wash windows. (Montessori Life as We Know It)
Download this free list of easy fine motor activities you can do with your preschoolers this week:
More fine motor resources:
25 Easy Toddler Fine Motor Activities
55+ Ways to Strengthen Fine Motor Skills at Home
How to Strengthen Fine Motor Skills with Toddlers and Preschoolers
100 Fine Motor Ideas for Parents, Teachers, and Therapists
100 Fine Motor Ideas presents fun, engaging ideas to involve the fine motor muscles in your child’s hands, fingers, and wrists. Ten talented moms come together to share the most successful, creative, and inspiring invitations to play that they set up for their own kids to get those little hands working!
Your child’s hands develop and change so much in the first years of life. From chubby newborn fists that can barely open to infants reaching for your face as they coo to toddlers self feeding and stacking blocks, soon you will have a preschooler learning to cut, write, and turn the pages of a book!
100 Fine Motor Ideas Includes:
DIY Toys,
Busy Bag Ideas for Playing On The Go,
Sensory Exploration Invitations,
Practical Life Ideas,
Early Learning Activities to Introduce Colors, Letters, & Math,
Art & Crafts to Inspire Creativity,
Seasonal Ideas to Celebrate the Holidays.
Click here for more information on this digital download.
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What is in the clear bottle for your top picture of this page (squeezing activities)?
Hi Kelly – it’s a plastic squeeze bottle that you can get from the kitchen department of most stores. Very handy!
hello sheryl, my daughter (age 4 years) goes to a school where the students of her age are actually writing. my problem is even though my daughter is very intelligent (got intelligence certificate from school also) cant even draw a straight line. i never paid attention to her fine motor skill so tell me the basics so that i can put her on proper writing stuff
Hi Navera – I suggest you go up to the navigation bar on my website (below header) and click on “activities” and then “fine motor” (or you can put it into the search box). You will find lots of activities that strengthen the hands and fingers so that they are strong enough to handle writing tools. Thanks for reading!
Hi
These are great, thanks! The only ting is the link for tongs and pom poms is given twice, the second time in place of the foam block activity please can you give me the correct link, thanks!
Thank you so much Eleanor, for catching this! I just changed the link, but I will also give it to you here: http://www.mummymusingsandmayhem.com/2012/11/toddler-tongs-and-water-play.html
I missed this first time around, thanks so much for sharing my foam blocks post Sheryl…lots of lovely visits this week so link is definitely working thank you 🙂 Such a great idea for a round up, pinned and shared!
I have been letting my preschool class squeeze “goop” (glue, water, and borax) to strengthen their hands because some of them are having problems holding a pencil, and my boss berated me for letting them play with it for 20-30 minutes per group per day. I explained why I let them do it and she said they should be using it to practice letters….what good is practicing letters to learn to write when they can’t hold a pencil?
Oh, Marybeth, I feel your pain. Could you show her my post? Perhaps that might help? It’s sad that so many early childhood educators do not understand the value of this. Especially directors. YOU are doing the right thing.