As an teacher or occupational therapist, your days are often packed with back-to-back activities, lessons, paperwork and meetings. Finding ways to engage your students while giving yourself a little breathing room can be challenging, but I’ve discovered that setting up stations for morning work or quick activities is a game-changer. ✅
Many of the teachers I work with love using stations to give students a productive way to start the day. It’s also been an incredibly helpful strategy for me during therapy sessions. These short, easy activities allow me a few precious minutes to organize my day, prepare materials, or catch up on session notes—while my students work on essential fine motor skills.
Why Fine Motor Skills Matter
Fine motor skills are vital for everyday tasks like writing, cutting, and buttoning clothes. These skills are crucial for student independence and academic success. However, developing these skills doesn’t have to mean hours of tedious work. With the right fine motor activities, students can build these essential skills while staying engaged, having fun, and even helping you get a bit of extra time during your day.
My Go-To Fine Motor Activities for Quick Prep
If you’re looking for simple, effective activities to incorporate into your routine, here are some of my favorites:
- Sorting Themed Stickers onto Paper: This activity is not only fun but also helps students develop pincer grasp, hand-eye coordination, and attention to detail.
- Arranging Mini Erasers into Muffin Tins: Mini erasers come in all kinds of shapes, making them perfect for sorting, counting, or arranging in muffin tins. This activity strengthens the muscles in the fingers and improves hand strength.
- Playdough Activities: Manipulating playdough is a fantastic way for students to strengthen their hand and finger muscles while exploring their creativity.
- Mazes and Puzzles: Solving mazes and assembling puzzles are excellent for enhancing fine motor skills, problem-solving, and spatial awareness.
- Drawing Exercises: Whether it’s tracing lines, shapes, or creating freehand drawings, these exercises help with pencil control, grip, and hand stability. ✏️
- Ripped paper activities: Whether it was a large paper graffiti page we turned into baseballs or a craft covered in ripped paper the act of tearing paper is a great fine motor task.
Why These Activities Work for Busy Days
These activities are not only easy to set up but also take little to no prep time, making them perfect for busy days when you need to get students working independently. You can use them during morning work, as transition activities, or even as a quick break in the middle of a longer lesson. The best part? While your students are engaged in these fine motor tasks, you have the freedom to manage other parts of your day without feeling overwhelmed.
Spring Fine Motor Centers
20 Centers with 175 different activities:
✅ 12 Cut-and-paste puzzles
✅ 8 Step by step-drawing activities
✅ 16 Hole punch cards
✅ 12 Mini finish-the-drawing activities
✅ 8 Mini fold-and-cut tasks
✅ 8 Mini trace, push pin art, or coloring pages
✅ 6 Mini coloring and cutting practice pages
✅ 4 Mini dot-to-dot (1-10)
✅ 12 Shadow-matching clip cards
✅ 6 Pony bead mystery pictures
✅ 12 Q-tip or glue dot practice and coloring pages
✅ 12 Dot marker or pom pom pictures
✅ 6 Counting cube or pony bead pictures
✅ 10 Playdoh picture designs
✅ 12 Tracing line strips
✅ 12 Snipping strips
✅ 4 Tissue paper, ripped paper, or coloring pages
✅ 5 Color-by-number coloring pages
✅ 5 Simple trace-and-color or push pin art scenes
✅ 1 , 16 card Memory game
Ready to Get Started?
Incorporating quick fine motor activities into your daily routine is an easy and effective way to help your students build essential skills while giving yourself the time you need to focus on other important tasks. Whether you’re a teacher or an occupational therapist, these activities are a great way to support your students’ development and keep them engaged throughout the day.
Give these activities a try today and see how they can make your busy days a little easier and your students’ skills a lot stronger! 💪
Essential Materials for Your Fine Motor Toolbox
•Fun crayons smaller sizes for promoting fingertip grasp
•Colored glue (sometimes you can find it at the dollar store)
•Mini dot markers (LOVE-no spatter and they promote a functional grasp)
•Spring-open scissors (a bit pricey but my favorite)
•Small Tweezers (great for beads to work on proprioception)
•Strawberry huller (LOVE for pom poms)
•Pony beads (make sure your set has black, gray and brown for this resource)
•Playdoh (need a multi color pack for this resources)
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About the Author
I am a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant (COTA) and have been working in a public school system for more than 25 years. My resources can be found on TPT, BOOM Learning, Made by Teachers, Classful, and Your Therapy Source. I appreciate your interest wherever you wish to shop.
My mission is to help you find creative ideas to incorporate fine motor, visual perception, gross motor, and social-emotional learning into your lessons.
I hope you consider signing up for my Free Resource Library with your Email. I send out emails about once a week and share resources, tips, and planning ideas for your classroom or occupational therapy needs. Hopefully, these help your students work on building their skills in a fun and engaging way.
Thank you for your interest in my resources and ideas. I hope you will consider following my journey on TPT or wherever you wish to shop.
