Toddlers in a Montessori classroom spend a lot of time working on activities that will help them develop fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Here are some activities that you can use at home to help your child develop motor skills. Your child will require all those muscles when they are ready to hold a pencil to write.
Open and Close Containers
Opening and closing containers are the perfect at-home activity! Children can practice opening and closing used spice containers, storage containers, small water bottles, and jars.
The majority of containers have specific lids that when used in this practical life activity, can boost children’s future writing skills. As the child practices zipping, unscrewing, and popping open different containers, they will strengthen their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and manual dexterity. As an extension, the containers can be presented to the child with the lids off. This will invite the child to find the accompanying lids which will strengthen their visual discrimination and concentration.
Here’s how to get started:
✏️ACTIVITY: Open & Close Containers
✏️AGE: 2+
✏️MATERIALS:
Containers
Container Lids
Basket (to hold materials)
✏️GOALS:
Strengthen visual discrimination
Improve fine motor skills
Enhance concentration and focus
✏️PURPOSE: To open and close containers.
Transferring Dried Flowers
Transferring objects from one bowl to another is a classic practical life activity and is often introduced with dry objects. In the past, children have been seen transporting beads, buttons, and birdseed, but what about dried flowers?
Dried flowers are and more accessible alternative to marbles and fuzzballs that are not always lying around the house. Instead, children can go outside to retrieve their own floral materials either from the surrounding bushes or on the floor since the temperatures are rising and the Spring flowers are beginning to wilt.
These natural materials support children’s bond with nature while also promoting fine motor skills, visual discrimination, manual dexterity, concentration, and introduces concepts such as pressure. Dried flowers come in all different shapes and sizes and can provide children with different levels of difficulty depending on how large the wilted flower is its fragility, and its shape. Here’s how to get started:
✏️ACTIVITY: Transferring Dried Flowers with Spoons
✏️AGE: 3+
✏️MATERIALS: Dried flowers A deep spoon2 bowls Working Tray
✏️GOALS: Strengthen pincer grasp Improve concentration Enhance hand-eye coordination
✏️PURPOSE: To transfer dried flowers between bowls.
