Fine Motor Skills Examples For Toddlers (1-3 Years)!

For toddlers, fine motor skills are very important to develop as they are at an age where they need to develop their synchronization with their muscles.

Why Are Fine Motor Skills Important For Toddlers?

As a child grows, they need to develop certain skills to keep up with their cognitive development. Fine motor skills are one that a toddler has to develop with time.

It helps a child perform certain tasks by themselves. Some of them include grasping an object, eating, writing, and many more.

In addition, the synchronization between a child’s eyes, hands, and brain are developed through fine motor skills.

Fine motor skills develop small muscle movements and enable a child to learn how to carry out things. For example, as they grow up, toddlers try to do things by themselves, which is when the fine motor skills come in help and enable them to do it.

Benefits of Fine Motor Skills

Fine motor skills are now essential that every child should be taught. There are many benefits that a parent can see their child having. For example, a toddler doing things themselves results in fine motor skills.

Therefore, it is important to know the countless benefits that a toddler can enjoy after grasping fine motor skills.

• Enables a toddler to play and grasp objects
• Boosts confidence
• Helps in developing communication skills
• Improves creativity
• Hand-eye coordination gets better
• Control and coordinate their body

These are just some of the common benefits you will start seeing in your child. Fine motor skills help in many other ways as well.

Fine Motor Skills Examples For Toddlers

You may have heard about fine motor skills and have a piece of good knowledge. But still, confused about what they are? Don’t worry; here we are with some of the best examples of fine motor skills to help you get a better understanding.

Fine motor skills are just some things that we do daily. You wouldn’t even know that, but yes, they can be a way to teach your kid fine motor skills. Some of the examples of fine motor skills to teach your child includes:

• Picking up objects and then putting them down
• Putting on laces
• Shaking musical instruments
• Playdough
• Brushing teeth
• Clapping
• Wearing shoes
• Grabbing a pencil
• Buttoning up a shirt

All these are some examples of fine motor skills. If your child starts doing some of these things, they are learning fine motor skills.

Scientific evidence suggests a link between brain development and fine motor skills.

How to Know If A Toddler is Developing Fine Motor Skills?

You may have done everything but still thinking if your child has developed fine motor skills or not. However, some signs would reflect that the child is developing fine motor skills.

All you need to do is observe their behavior properly, and if the signs mentioned below are shown, you have successfully taught your child fine motor skills.

1. Block Tower

You need to put some blocks in your child’s playroom. Leave them around it, and if they start building a block tower, it is one of the signs to let you know.

2. Scribbling

Scribbling is one of the favorite things that toddlers do. Be it on a paper or a wall, a toddler with developed fine motor skills will start scribbling all over the place. What they are drawing wouldn’t make sense, but their grip over the pencil is one of the signs.

3. Eating

Your toddler feeding themselves with a spoon is a great way to understand if they are developing fine motor skills or not. It may take some time for the child to hold and get a good grip over the spoon, but eventually, they will.

It is okay if they drop the food; practice makes a man perfect. Just let them eat by themselves.

4. Pincer Grasp

This is one of the best ways to tell if the child has fine motor skills. A pincer grasp is a grip of a finger and a thumb over a crayon. This is a challenging thing to do. Therefore, if the child is doing it nicely, they are developing fine motor skills.

Activities to Carry Out to Develop Fine Motor Skills

It is a challenging task to carry out. Fine motor skills by the name can be confusing, but all it takes are efforts from your side. You need to spend a good amount of time with your child and carry out the activities mentioned below.

Other than developing fine motor skills, these activities are a fun way to have some fun time with your child. Some of the activities include

• Finger painting
• Puzzles
• Board games that involve a dice, such as a monopoly or Ludo
• Placing a rubber band on a round object
• For Playdough and clay activities, make sure to use a cookie-cutter
• Make your child a part of your kitchen, especially when you are cooking something
• Teach them to use tweezers to pick small objects
• Set the dinner table with your child

All these activities will show that your child is developing fine motor skills. It may take some time but be patient as your efforts will start showing results.

Final Words

This was your complete for examples of fine motor skills and some of the common questions parents have regarding fine motor skills.

Fine motor skills are essential for cognitive development and learning. Make sure to learn more about fine motor skills as it is a major skill that a child should possess at an early age.

This is something every parent should take seriously as a delay in learning fine motor skills can cause other problems. Therefore, it should be a priority for every parent. You can also take the help of a specialist to learn more about the skills and how to make your child teach them.