Fine motor activities – more than meets the eye
As I explored in my post, ‘Please put the pegboards and tweezers away!’ functional fine motor skills are the skills we use our hands for day-to-day in our life. If you haven’t read that post yet, I would recommend starting there. In it, I explain why it is important to think about progression and variety when you are completing fine motor activities with children.
I will review functional fine motor skills and why it’s important to include them in your fine motor sessions. Then I’ll give you over 40 example activities you can use with children day-to-day. If you’re looking to supersize your fine motor activity sessions, read on!
These activities ideas can also support you to implement the fine motor skill recommendations in the writing framework.
Fine motor activities – more than meets the eye
As I explored in my post, ‘Please put the pegboards and tweezers away!’ functional fine motor skills are the skills we use our hands for day-to-day in our life. If you haven’t read that post yet, I would recommend starting there. In it, I explain why it is important to think about progression and variety when you are completing fine motor activities with children.
I will review functional fine motor skills and why it’s important to include them in your fine motor sessions. Then I’ll give you over 40 example activities you can use with children day-to-day. If you’re looking to supersize your fine motor activity sessions, read on!
What are functional fine motor activities?
As a quick summary, functional fine motor skills are fine motor activities which have a clear purpose and outcome for children. Doing up buttons, using a knife and fork and opening and closing containers are functional skills children need to learn. At school, children need to hold a pencil, draw shapes, numbers and letters and be able to use glue, scissors, and rulers. They might also want to use a game controller, play with Lego or stickle bricks. Older children need to be able to do their hair, floss their teeth and learn to use knives, vegetable peelers and graters.
When should I consider using functional fine motor activities?
The honest answer is all the time! If you are doing fine motor sessions with children, then there needs to be a clear goal and purpose for the activities. They should be leading to improvement with everyday functional skills. This means expanding on the typical fine motor activities you might be using, like pegboards and tweezers.
I often wonder how many hours children are spending in school, moving pompoms with tweezers, threading beads, or putting pegs into containers or into pegboards. Even when they can do these activities competently, they repeat them each week. There is no progression. These children are not working on improving their functional skills, they are repeating activities they can already do. My hope is to see that change.
I am not saying basic fine motor activities don’t have a place; if children can’t complete them, they are a great starting point. However, if the child can do these fine motor activities, they need a new challenge. This challenge should be a functional fine motor activity like the ones I’ve listed below.
Functional fine motor activities for schools
So here are the activity ideas. I’ve grouped them into school skills, arts and craft, social fine motor activities and activities we need as an adult. This list is not exhaustive, and I am sure you will have other ideas. I’m happy for you to share them with me on social media!
Day-to-day classroom fine motor skills
There are so many fine motor activities children need day-to-day to be successful in school. This ranges from managing the tools on their desk, to their clothing and lunch box. This list includes skills every child should be competent with:
Adding craft and construction to your fine motor activities list
Arts and craft and construction activities are much more purposeful than pegboards. Some children really enjoy building with Lego and bricks. Other children love arts and crafts. The ones who find it difficult might avoid it, however they always have a smile on their face when they successfully complete a project. Construction and crafts also help to develop planning and organisation skills. Here’s some example projects:
Fine motor activities that are social
Next on the list of fun fine motor activities to consider are games. So many commercially available games require good fine motor skills. Holding a hand of cards is a fine motor activity, and again it’s way more fun than threading beads. There are a lot of games on the market, but here are some of my favourites:
Fine motor activities we need as adults
Finally, as children get older, we can consider more functional day-to-day skills. Some of these can be practised at breakfast club, or in cooking classes. Others would be helpful skills to practise instead of the usual fine motor activity box. Some examples include:
Here’s a example
Eight year old
If you’re working with an 8 year old student, or group of students, your warm up could be Connect 4. Next, you might practice drawing a margin in their book with a ruler, or ruler skills they might need in maths or DT. Finally, you could practice drawing circles with a compass and cutting them out. These are functional skills that the student will need in class.
Card group
If you have a group you could also work on card game skills. This includes shuffling, dealing, holding cards (including fanning them out) and putting cards back away into the box. There’s many different games that could be used. Old school games like snap and fish are a good starting point. Some children are more motivated by games like Top Trumps. The game doesn’t matter, they all provide opportunities for improving dexterity and manipulation skills.
What will you try first!?
So, next time you’re sent to do a fine motor session, what will you try first? Some cutting or craft or maybe a game of Jenga? If you need a more specific programme to follow, please have a look at my fine motor activity programme. It includes step-by-step progression for developing functional fine motor skills. There is training to develop your understanding and clear goals for every activity.
Just promise me that you will think outside of your fine motor activity box and make the activities and games more functional. Have fun!
P.S. If you need specific ideas to support children’s fine motor skills in school and would also like some more training to improve your own knowledge – come and join GriffinOT’s membership here. The membership includes all of Kim’s fine motor, handwriting and sensory content.
About the author
All articles on the GriffinOT website are written by children’s occupational therapist Kim Griffin. Kim has over 25 years’ experience supporting children with sensory and skill needs, their teachers and families. She is the author of multiple books, presents all training at GriffinOT and hosts the EBPOT podcast. Kim is currently completing her PhD, focussing on supporting children’s self-regulation in schools, at Oxford Brookes University. You can view Kim’s academic publications on her ORCID profile, or Google Scholar page.
Date last reviewed by Kim: 4th September 2026
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