As your baby starts to grow and develop, it’s important to provide them with opportunities to fine-tune their fine motor skills. This is essential for future tasks such as writing, drawing and even using the toilet! There are many fun and educational activities you can do with your baby to help improve their fine motor skills. In this blog post, we will share 20 of our favorites. Happy playing!
Some of our favorite fine motor activities for 6-12 months old babies include:
- Flipping pages in a book. This is a great activity for babies who are just starting to develop their fine motor skills. It helps- Playing with nesting cups or blocks. This is a great way to help your baby develop their hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
- Playing with a silicone feeding set. This is a great way to help your baby learn how to pick up small pieces of food and self-feed.
- Stringing beads. This activity helps improve hand-eye coordination as well as fine motor skills.
- Playing with clay. This is a great way to help your baby learn how to mold and shape objects.
- Drawing with crayons or markers. This activity helps improve hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
- Cutting with child safety scissors. This activity helps improve hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
- Playing with cars or other small toys. This is a great way to encourage your baby to use their fingers to grip and move small objects.
- Painting with water. This is a fun and mess-free way for your baby to explore different colours and textures.
- Drawing with crayons or markers. This activity helps improve hand eye co-ordination.
- Playing with dough. This is a great way to encourage your baby to use their hands to squish, roll and pinch the dough. It’s also a lot of fun!
- Building towers out of blocks. This activity helps improve fine motor skills as well as problem solving skills.
- Sorting objects by shape or color. This is a great way to help your baby learn about different shapes and colors.
- Putting together small puzzles. This activity helps improve fine motor skills as well as problem solving skills.
- Clapping games. This is a fun way to help your baby develop their fine motor skill as the baby learns to bring two hands together.
- Peek-a-boo. This is a fun game that helps baby develop their hand eye coordination.
- Patting games. This is a great way to help your baby develop their fine motor skills.
- Drumming. This is a great way to help your baby develop their fine motor skills as well as their sense of rhythm.
- Ring stacking games. This is a great way to help your baby develop their fine motor skills.
- Self feeding small objects using fingers is a great activity to master pincer grasp.
- Transferring objects from one hand to another
- Using their thumb and index finger to pick up small objects (pincer grasp)
- Screwing and unscrewing lids of small kitchen containers
- Placing small objects inside a container and taking them out (i.e. using tongs)
- Dumping and filling containers with small objects
- Rolling a ball back and forth between two hands
- Throwing and catching a bean bag
BabySteps provides a variety of fine motor activities for 6-12-month-olds to help with the development of hand eye coordination, dexterity, and independence.
These are some of the best fine motor activities for 6-12 months old. Let us know in the comment below what are your baby’s favorite activities?