Crafty Activities to Improve Your Kids’ Motor Skills

Believe it or not, we weren’t born with perfect motor skills. That was yet another thing we’ve all had to learn! When we’re babies, toddlers and even young children, our ability to move and perform physical actions such as picking things up is nowhere near as good as it will be. If you want to help your child develop their motor skills, we’ve put together some great craft ideas that’ll help the process – although we suggest learning how to remove glue from clothes before you get going!

Bake Gingerbread Men (and women!)

Baking gingerbread men and women is a great way to improve motor skills because of the different steps it involves.

First is the baking, which involves things such as stirring, carrying and pouring. Then is cutting out the shapes, which can be tricky for little ones and may need a helping hand to push the cookie cutter down, but it’s all part of improving! Finally, the decorating, which is the most fun part for a lot of children (and parents too, of course). This could involve icing shapes or pressing on sprinkles – whatever you want to do, really!

Get Drawing

Drawing is a great and simple crafty activity to do with your kids. You only need a few items and it’s not overly messy – what a relief!

Depending on the level of your child’s motor skills, you may need to help or teach them to hold the pencil, which is a crucial aspect of this process. Start off by letting them draw free-hand and then, as they improve, introduce lines which they can colour inside of. This’ll help them not only withholding but also with controlling their movements.

You can also use glue to stick drawings down to other paper, just be prepared to learn how to remove glue from clothes because this can be messy!

Paper Chains

Making paper chains is both super fun and a great way to bring a bit of a quirky look to your home or child’s room. Your kids will love to make and decorate with them!

In terms of motor skills, there are a ton of great skills your little one will be learning. From drawing around stencils which helps with control to cutting with scissors (with a watchful eye on them at all times, of course) which is a whole new motor skill, it’s a great craft to get them improving. Hanging them up can also help with holding and moving. The benefits are endless!

It’s important that you make time to do these sorts of activities with your child, not only because they’re great fun but also because they’re going to help them dramatically with their movement and motor skills. It won’t be long before you start seeing big improvements!

Images sources:

https://www.pexels.com/photo/sweet-cookies-christmas-baking-12190/

https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-woman-working-256468/

https://unsplash.com/photos/us5m1-uOLfc