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Fine Motor

Fine Motor Skills Examples

Strengthening fine motor skills in preschoolers is key to healthy development. While some of these necessary skills are passive, others are more active. So, let’s talk about fine motor skills examples you can activate today in your preschooler’s daily activities!

What are Fine Motor Skills

But, before we begin, you may wonder — what are Fine Motor Skills? The Fine Motor Skills definition is the coordination of small muscles movement involving the synchronization of hands, fingers and eyes. In other words, it’s the act of using multiple senses including eyes, fingers, and hands. They all work together to perform smaller tasks.  

As a young mother, I initially didn’t realize how important it was — until I stumbled upon it accidentally. Thankfully, I learned this critical information early and incorporated additional fun and engaging exercises. This kept my preschooler actively learning and developing small movement skills all at the same time!

List of Fine Motor Skills

There are many everyday activities involving these type of small movements. And, some typical examples include simple grasping at toys, moving objects, and using utensils while eating.  Yet, sometimes we need to be more intentional about giving our preschooler extra practice with fine motor skills.

9 Hands-On Activities to Build Fine Motor Skills:

Here is a classical list of fine motor skills examples to help develop strong small hand and eye coordination:

Fine Motor Skills Bundle

While the list above can seem somewhat daunting, there are wonderful tools online available to ease your day! And, there’s a simple solution that’s affordable, virtually no prep, hands on, and of course, fun! You’ll love this Fine Motor Skills Bundle I’ve put together — it continuously grows with new materials and activities.

Inside this packed full, highly rated bundle is Fine Motor Alphabet Activities, Games, Worksheets and More! And yes, it works perfectly with Letter of the Week Learning Centers.

Keep in mind, with each set added to the packet, it will focus on the letters of the alphabet, alphabet sounds/phonics, beginning letter words, and of course, fine motor skills! Essentially, it’s an all in one package for preschoolers!

Review this fantastic line up of what’s included in the fine motors preschool packet and what’s coming below:

Now, any preschool mom or teacher is now equipped with the right tools to build their children’s fine motor skills. It’s easy to get started with my handy list above or Fine Motor Skills Bundle. It’s true, we have a busy lifestyle, teachers and moms, so take advantage of this incredible lifesaver today!

Preschool Themes for June: Father’s Day, Beach,& More

As busy moms, we’re always looking for easy ways to make our day a little less stressful and enjoy summertime! With these free and practical resources, you can encourage your super active kids the ENTIRE month with wonderful hands on learning tools. Here are the Preschool Themes for June, ready to go for my fellow teachers!

Insects, Bugs, and Creepy Crawlies

Bugs and creepy crawlies are great subjects for our small and sweet scientists in the sizzling summer! Grab these 10 Bug Color and Learn Pages that are SO easy to prepare — just print and go! Your kids will learn facts, practice their writing and coloring skills, and better yet, it’s all free!

You’ll also want to check out these insect crafts, printables and projects to enhance your bug unit studies and thematic lessons. From butterfly life cycles to Scientific Discovery Notebooking Printables, there’s something for everyone!

Father’s Day Ideas DIY

Kids love making their Dad a homemade Father’s Day gifts and we got some great ideas for them! Try these fun and free DIY Father’s Day Ideas including cards and crafts you can make with children for Father’s Day!

These priceless memories include printables for Father’s day cards, handprint crafts, fishing cut and paste activities and so much more.

In addition, you can also grab Father’s Day Gift Ideas with these Free Father’s Day Bible Crafts, Activities, Minibooks, and more! Whether you’re creating these as a family or for homeschool or Sunday School, they will provide lifetime memories and are perfect keepsakes!

At the Beach

When you think of the beach and kids together, what’s the first word that pops up in your head? For me, it’s sand — but sometimes it’s not in a good way. So, let’s think of fun ways we can incorporate sand into a pleasurable activity!

Get your kids excited for the beach trip coming up with these beach type sand crafts including this super silly Sandpaper Starfish craft and some beautiful artwork with a Sand Art craft.

The beach also reminds us the vast ocean that God miraculously has made for us! Children are fascinated to see amazing ocean creatures!  Check out our video tutorials on how your child can make these ocean themed crafts! You’ll find inspiring activities to create a spiky sea urchin, a sea creature fan book and a sparkly sea anemone.

Plus, don’t forget to grab these valuable resources for ocean themed unit studies! Take your child to our magnificent under water world with this Ocean Life Book and DVD or get sticky with this vibrant, high quality Ocean Sticker Book.

Vacation Days

Speaking of the beach, let’s talk about the many ways of transportation taking us to our relaxing vacation destination. And, kids love to play and talk about those various ways of transportation — that’s why we made these Preschool Transportation Printables!

Which also reminds me, are you taking a road trip and need to homeschool at the same time? Here are some essential tips to make your travel trip an easy and educational ride! It’s very cool and hip when you are Car schooling like a Ninja!

Fruits and Vegetables – Farmers Market

Don’t you just love to see those signs on the road that proudly display “Farmer’s Market Today”?!!! Buying fresh produce from side stands not only supports local farmers, it supports a healthy immune system!

Why not hone in on these flavorful roadside stands and make it a teachable lesson? Play this easy and engaging fruit and vegetable game to get those fruit juices flowing!

Need some more resources to teach about healthy food and what makes them so special? Try this fun and fruity collection of healthy mazes for your kids or students!  Each activity sheet teaches about the health benefits of a specific fruit.  Students read, write, maze and trace their way right to a delicious and juicy healthy fruit.

That’s a wrap, my friends! Hope you have a wonderful month of June, and don’t forget to enjoy the warm sun, contagious smiles, and a lot of laughter!

Fine Motor Alphabet Activities

Whether you are homeschooling your own preschool child or teaching a room full of preschoolers, you’ll want to be sure to include lots of hands-on fine motor activities. Not only will students have more fun, but they will retain more of the lesson because they are so engaged. That is the idea behind our new Fine Motor Alphabet Transportation Pack; finding fun ways to work on fine motor control.

What are Fine Motor Skills?

Fine Motor activities are intentional in the building of small motor control muscles found inside our hands. Think of things like pencil control, grip strength…etc. These key muscles need development for future tasks such as writing, typing, tying shoes and other small motor movements that require fine precision. The skills required to perform these small muscle tasks are called fine motor skills.

Fine Motor Skills for Preschoolers

Developing fine motor skills seems simple enough however, setting up a fine motor learning center in your classroom is more than just printing out a few handwriting worksheets and calling it good. Many students might not have the grip or control to properly form the letters, which can lead to frustration or bad habits. This is why it’s important to present students with many different fine motor activities that work a variety of muscles, building up the skills they will need in their kindergarten year.

What are some fine motor skills preschoolers should learn?

At a young age, preschoolers need to begin building grip and control as well as hand-eye coordination. You’ll want to preset your student with a variety of different and fun activities, but don’t get too overwhelmed by the process. Setting up a learning center station doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, there are many Fine Motor Activity Packs available in our TPT store to help get you started! These packs cover tracing, pencil grip, handwriting, small motor movements, play-dough/manipulation, pincer grasp, cutting/pasting, prepositional movement, listening skills, sign language, and so much more!

Our fine motor transportation pack not only includes uppercase letters, but it includes lowercase letters as well. And we’ve done our best to choose new vehicles of transportation for each letter so that students are building key vocabulary skills along the way.

Fine Motor Drive and Trace Mats

  • Uppercase Mats:
  • A is for Airplane
  • B is for Bus
  • C is for Cruise Liner
  • D is for Dump Truck
  • E is for Excavator
  • F is for Fire Truck
  • G is for Garbage Truck
  • H is for Helicopter
  • I is for Ice Cream Truck
  • J is for Jeep
  • K is for Kayak
  • L is for Limousine
  • M is for Motor home
  • N is Navy Cruiser
  • O is for Ocean Liner
  • P is for Police Car
  • Q is for Quad
  • R is Rocket
  • S is for Space Shuttle
  • T is for Trolley
  • U is for U.F.O.
  • V is for Vespa
  • W is for Wagon
  • X is for Taxi
  • Y is for Yacht
  • Z is for Zeppelin
  • Lowercase Mats:
  • a is for airplane
  • b is for bicycle
  • c is for car
  • d is for dirt bike
  • e is for express train
  • f is for ferry
  • g is for glider
  • h is for hot air balloon
  • i is for inner tube
  • j is for jet
  • k is for kayak
  • l is for locomotive
  • m is for motorcycle
  • n is for narrow boat
  • o is for osprey
  • p is for pickup truck
  • q is for quad
  • r is for rowboat
  • s is for submarine
  • t is for tractor
  • u is for unicycle
  • v is for van
  • w is for warship
  • x is for taxi
  • y is for yacht
  • z is for zeppelin

You can purchase our ABC Transportation Pack on our TPT store, or ff you are looking to create a variety of Fine Motor Centers for your classroom, you’ll want to check out our Fine Motor Alphabet Bundle:

This set is a brand new collection of Alphabet Fine Motor Printables covering many key small motor skills. These activity pages are fantastic for preschool and kindergarten learning centers as they are low-prep and highly engaging for young preschool students. Fine motor skills development is a key aspect you’ll want to include in your classroom, and these packs make it super simple to implement for even the busiest of teachers.

Looking for more Fine Motor Fun?

Try our Monthly Fine Motor Packs:

These monthly packs cover a variety of key skills while bringing in popular holidays and seasonal themes. The packs are print and go, no-prep activities that will enhance your classroom and use manipulatives you likely already have stocked in your supply closet. Click Here

If you’d like to try a free set of transportation worksheets, check out our Print & Drive Number Mats!

Fine More Preschool Transportation Packs Here

Fine Motor Alphabet Mats

Are you looking for fine motor skills examples you can use to create fun, hands-on learning centers for your preschool student? We’ve created a vast selection of fine motor skills activities for preschoolers. Each pack features key skills you’ll want to work on with your preschool student. These fun-filled activities will have your children working hard learning their abc’s while having fun.

Why Fine Motor Skills are Important for Preschoolers

Fine Motor muscles development is so important for a growing preschooler. They are curious and constantly learning new skills each and every new day. Grabbing the opportunity while they are young learners will help develop strong and healthy small movement habits.

For example, grabbing a pencil the wrong way can lead to writing struggles down the road. Holding their scissors awkwardly can cause frustration and stress when trying to cut materials.

That’s why I’ve focused on developing fine motor activities to include the alphabet as an ‘all in one’ package. Developing these small muscle movements using my products will promote a serious amount of creativity. Plus, it will also encompass essential skills that include writing, cutting, manipulating, and drawing.

Fine Motor Alphabet Activities

I’ve put together a comprehensive bundle of over 15 products for practically every Fine Motor Skills Alphabet Activity you can possibly think of! However, it’s a rapidly growing bundle and I’ve got even more ideas coming down the pike!

You’ll be surprised to find great fine motor alphabet activities, games, worksheets and more! These are perfect for your Letter of the Week Learning Centers. Every set added to this bundle will focus on practice letter formation by writing letters of the alphabet. This includes learning the alphabet sounds/phonics, beginning letter words, and of course, developing their fine motor skills.

FREE Alphabet Blank Letter Mats

These free blank alphabet letter mats make look simple, but they are filled with possibility for your preschool classroom! Blank ABC letters can be filled with a variety of different small motor manipulatives, making them a fantastic secret weapon to pull from of your Super Teacher Toolbox!

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Fine Motor Alphabet Driving Mats

Each page features a letter formation guide, tracing practice, beginning letter transportation vehicle, and a road to practice “driving” the letter in the proper stroke order.

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Alphabet Popsicle Stick Picture Mats

You can build fine motor skills with a set of popsticle sticks! Each Popsicle Stick Picture Mat includes a letter of the alphabet alongside a fun popsicle stick picture.

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Pattern Block Alphabet Mats

Build key logic and fine motor skills while working on letter recognition and letter sounds! These pattern block activity mats will have your students begging to learn!

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Fine Motor Alphabet Q-Tip Painting Pictures

These Q-Tip painting worksheets are just right for building small motor control. All you need is a little paint and a few cotton swabs for tons of hands-on, letter learning fun!

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Alphabet ASL Posters / Charts

Add a splash of color to your classroom with these ASL Letter Charts. Not only will these charts present the upper and lowercase letters, with beginning word pictures, but students build Fine Motor Skills while learning A-Z Sign Language hand signs.

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Alphabet Snap Cube Mats

Build small motor muscles with these Snap Cube Alphabet Mats! Simple, yet fun hands-on learning opportunities for kids.

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Alphabet Playdough Mats

This set of alphabet playdough mats is great for working small motor muscles while having fun! Students work on lowercase letter, uppercase letters, and beginning letter pictures.

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Alphabet Pom-Pom Mats

This is a collection of pom pom activity mats you can use to help your students buid fine motor skills. Each mat features a pom-pictures alongside an example for them to follow.

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Fine Motor Dab & Dot ABC Pack

Each activity page features a beginning word picture for students to dab and color. Students use the coloring guide in the upper left hand corner. There is one color for uppercase letters, and one color for lowercase letters.

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Cut & Paste Alphabet Pictures

Build Fine Motor skills with these Cut & Paste Activity Pages. Students color, cut and paste to make beginning letter paper collages. Students sort the pictures based on uppercase or lowercase letters.

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Alphabet Geoboard Mats

Build Fine Motor skills with these ABC Geoboard Mats! Each mat features a different letter of the alphabet with a colorful rubber band picture for students to recreate on their geoboard.

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Fine Motor LEGO (TM) Mats

These Fine Motor Alphabet Brick Building Mats work with LEGO (TM) or any other classic building brick. Students work on key math skills like taly marks, counting & graphing, as well as comparisons.

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Sign Language Alphabet Minibooks

Students work on building small motor muscle control while learning all 26 letter of the ASL alphabet. Featuring three beginning letter words for students to sign for each letter.

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Fine Motor Alphabet Sounds Tracing

Fine Motor Alphabet Activity Pack! Fine Motor Alphabet Phonics! This new hands-on activity pack covers the alphabet A-Z with 26 Fine motor (path maze) tracing mats.

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Fine Motor Alphabet Mazes & Beginning Letters

Students practice beginning letter sounds and handwriting skills as they work their way through the mazes.

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Alphabet Listening Skills Sheets

Build Fine Motor and Listening Skills with these Low-Prep Directional worksheets. Students of all ages can learn to follow directions with these alphabet activity pages.

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Fine Motor Alphabet Cuisenaire Rod Mats

Fine Motor Alphabet Activity Pack! Fine Motor Alphabet Phonics! This new hands-on activity pack covers the alphabet A-Z with 26 Cuisenaire Rod Picture Mats.

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Parents and Teachers, are you wondering what could possibly be in this growing fine motor packet of printables? Here’s a list of wonderful fine motor ABC resources that you can pick and choose from or do each one a day.

  • Drive & Write Mats
  • Dip & Dot Q-Tip Painting
  • Beginning Letter Dab Worksheets
  • Sounds Maze Pack
  • Brick Building Pack
  • Cuisenaire Rod Pictures
  • Phonics Cards
  • Sign Language Minibooks
  • ABC Letter Templates
  • Listening Skills Sheets
  • Letter Cut & Paste
  • Popsicle Stick Pictures
  • Pom Pictures
  • Playdough Mats
  • Dab & Read Sight Words (Fry’s 100)

Don’t miss out on these wonderful alphabet resources you can download immediately along with low prep materials. They are fun to use, their imagination will soar, and you can sit back and relax while creativity takes over! And, don’t forget, these make awesome activities for toddlers too! Click Here for our Fine Motor Alphabet Bundle.

Fine Motor Alphabet Phonics

Learning about letter sounds is an important step in the road to reading. Students who know their letter sounds can then begin to blend two letter sounds together to build word chunks. These fine motor alphabet worksheets help lay the foundation for letter recognition and letter sounds.

Additionally, with these fun fine motor activities, your preschool students will be building fine motor sills they will need for handwriting and developmental tasks in the future.

Alphabet Fine Motor Skills

Each activity page features a beginning word picture for students to dab and color. Students use the coloring guide in the upper left hand corner. There is one color for uppercase letters, and one color for lowercase letters. This will help preschool students build necessary letter identification skills.

The border of these printable worksheets also includes a space for children to dab. Each border had a pattern of colors that students can continue across the top and bottom of the picture frame.

Encourage your students to say the letter sound aloud each time they dab a circle. For vowels, you can start with either the short or long sound (based on the picture) then talk with students about other sounds that vowel can make….providing a few examples.

These fine motor skills worksheets are designed to bring the FUN back into learning. Students work on key alphabet phonics skills and motor development while having fun decorating an adorable picture.

Our Fine Motor Dab & Dot Alphabet pack includes all 26 letters of the alphabet and is now available in our TPT store here. Pair this with our Letter of the Week program for extra practice!

Preschool Themes for May: Mothers Day, Flowers, and More

Don’t you just love the month of May?!! The warm weather, beautiful flowers, and fresh leaves bursting from the trees bring us such joy and delight. It’s also a wonderful time to celebrate moms, budding plants, and yes, even creepy crawlies! Our May Preschool Themes are ready for you to get started on all that this season brings! These learning activities will be a great fit for your preschool classroom.

May Fine Motor Skills Activity Pack

We know how busy you are, moms and teachers! That’s why we want to deliver to you this awesome, fun-filled activity pack for May!  It’s simple to use, virtually no prep time, and a ton of engaging, hands-on learning. Theses 60+ thematic educational sheets are perfect for your classroom or homeschool!

Mother’s Day Gift Ideas DIY

Mother’s Day is a time to reflect on how special moms are to us. They are busy, loving ladies who deserve a few keepsakes to display in their kitchen! The good news is, it doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming!

There are so many free and frugal ideas to create the perfect gift for moms including art projects for balloon bouquets, keepsake booklet,cut and paste activity and more!  

If you’d like a nice variety you can quickly print, don’t miss out on these Mother’s Day printables like keepsakes, awards, coloring pages, and more! Or, a Mother’s Day bookmarks printable is an easy coloring activity with four unique designs!

All of these Mother’s Day activities and crafts are a great way for your children to show they care and to give back. With just a little guidance and their imagination, you’ll have a forever gift to cherish in very little time!

Flowers Activities for Preschool

May is the perfect time to incorporate flowers into the classroom. As the saying goes “April showers bring May flowers”! Let’s get together some creative ideas to get our preschoolers involved in more ‘flower power’.

This wonderful variety of free shape printables will get the kids buzzing with delight! They’ll practice visual discrimination skills with these free shape worksheets. Plus, color matching is a wonderful tool to teach kids how to use keys as guides.

In addition, these free flower games give your preschooler more practice on their ABCs (upper and lower case), geometry shapes, science activities, and much more!

Learning about Gardening for Preschoolers

As you prep your lush garden, don’t miss out on the opportunity to teach gardening preschool style! Children can experience the joy of keeping care of plants from seed to bloom. You’ll love these free garden craft ideas that include plant label markers, bird feeders, and decorated pots!

Preschool Bug Crafts

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What child isn’t fascinated with bugs and creepy crawlies? These free bug activity pages contain coloring and fun facts along with some room to deliver their own thoughts! If you are looking for fantastic science units for family sharing, check out these free preschool bug worksheets!

Memorial Day Activities for Preschoolers

Any holiday that comes around each year gives teachers and homeschool moms an opportunity that they don’t want to miss. But, busy days gives us little time to prepare. That’s why we prepared these especially for you — free and simple to assemble!

Try these Memorial Day activities to help your preschool remember why we remember our fallen soldiers and living heroes. for your preschoolers that include coloring pages, Bible verse cards, crafts and resources for your homeschool, co-op or Children’s Ministry. Don’t miss these fun and memorable Memorial Day crafts preschool style!

Need more ideas? For just a few dollars, get these 60 thematic, hands-on activities to build fine motor control skills for Spring! You can use them over and over again, just slip them into a protective sheet! 

Got May learning centers? These printable worksheets and activities are wonderful for extra practice, take-home resources, or for tutoring resources! 

Spring Pin & Poke Activity Pages

Preschool students often are lacking in small motor skills. Although developmentally appropriate, it’s a good time to start building up those fine motor muscles in anticipation of the writing and expectations during the kindergarten year.

Spring Fine Motor Activities for Preschool

60+ Fine Motor Activity Pages for April

We have developed a set of monthly thematic activities you can use with your students to build these fine motor muscles. Our Fine Motor Activity Packs are inexpensive and include a good variety of activities to keep students engaged while learning.

Free Spring Worksheets

Pin and Poke activity pages are another great way to build small motor muscles. We recommend using this wood handled puncher and this large felt punching pad from Montessori Services.

NOTE: These punchers are recommended for ages 5+ so you’ll want to be sure your child is the appropriate age for using this tool. Always train your students with proper usage and supervise your students when using any tool you’ll be using in your classroom. (Can you tell I homeschool three boys?)

Setting up a Pin and Poke station is easy. You simply layer your materials out on the table and secure them with a bit of tape. Using a foam core board from the craft supply aisle also works well as a great buffer to stop your pokes from reaching your table.

With this setup, with a piece of construction paper in between, each time students poke through their picture, they’ll also be poking through the colored construction paper. This will create a fun design they can hang up in the classroom, or even on the window for light to shine through.

Once you are sure your student is safe with the pin puncher and is holding it correctly, have them work their way around the picture punching into each black dot.

Depending on the amount of dots in your picture, your student might want to take a rest, or complete the picture in stages. (This is where the tape comes in handy so that your papers don’t move or shift).

When finished poking all the holes, peel back the top sheet to reveal the picture created on the construction paper.

These pokey pin pictures are great for building fine motor skills, and when you hang the finished product in a window, the light will shine through to reveal your student’s hard work.

Pin & Poke Butterfly Worksheet

This is a free pin and poke, or pin and punch activity page. Students carefully poke each dot to make a butterfly.

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Pin & Poke Butterfly Worksheet B&W

This is a free pin and poke, or pin and punch activity page. Students carefully poke each dot to make a butterfly.

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Pin & Poke Daffodil Worksheet B&W

This is a free pin and poke, or pin and punch activity page. Students carefully poke each dot to make a daffodil.

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Pin & Poke Daffodil Worksheet B&W

This is a free pin and poke, or pin and punch activity page. Students carefully poke each dot to make a daffodil.

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Pin & Poke Flower Worksheet

This is a free pin and poke, or pin and punch activity page. Students carefully poke each dot to make a flower.

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Pin & Poke Flower Worksheet B&W

This is a free pin and poke, or pin and punch activity page. Students carefully poke each dot to make a flower.

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Pin & Poke Tulip Worksheet

This is a free pin and poke, or pin and punch activity page. Students carefully poke each dot to make a tulip.

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Pin & Poke Tulip Worksheet B&W

This is a free pin and poke, or pin and punch activity page. Students carefully poke each dot to make a tulip.

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Pin & Poke Umbrella Worksheet

This is a free pin and poke, or pin and punch activity page. Students carefully poke each dot to make an umbrella.

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Pin & Poke Umbrella Worksheet B&W

This is a free pin and poke, or pin and punch activity page. Students carefully poke each dot to make an umbrella.

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Pin & Poke Fine Motor Worksheets in our TPT store

If you are looking for more fine motor activities, try our Fine Motor Activity Packs! Each set comes with 60+ fine motor building worksheets, games, learning mats and more!

Included Activities:

  • GEOBOARD: Students use rubberbands to create the pictures on a geoboard. Each sheet features a letter of the alphabet alongside a thematic picture.
  • MAZES: Students solve the mazes and follow the prompts. Each page features thematic mazes alongside a tracing activity or prompt.
  • PLAYDOUGH: Students use playdough to complete the prompts.Prompts require students to form and shape the dough to make pictures, solve problems, or complete the scene.
  • TRACING: Students trace the pictures with colored pencils or fine tip markers. Each page features thematic content and prompts students to complete the pictures.
  • SNAP CUBE CREATIONS: Students use counting cubes to make thematic pictures These cubes can be snapped together. If you do not have cubes, students can color the squares in the grid to match the picture.
  • PUZZLE PICTURES: Students use puzzle blocks to create thematic pictures. These sheets feature thematic shapes and provide students with easy and more dificult patterns. A full color example is available for easy reference.
  • LISTENING SKILL SHEETS: Teachers will read the directions aloud and the student listens carefully to finish the task. Tasks involve fine motor elements, coloring, and prepositional positioning of drawings
  • CUISENAIRE™ ROD PICTURES: Students use colorful centimeter rods to build thematic pictures.Students are asked to color the rod key to show how many rods they used of each color.
  • BRICK BUILDERS: Students use classic building blocks to recreate these thematic pictures.Students work on storing, planning, and stacking before creating their final picture.
  • DOT & POKE: Students cut apart the halves. Students solve the dot to dot activities.Then, students use a push pin to poke a picture onto colored construction paper. See full instructions below.
  • CUT & SORT CROWNS: Each crown features a theme alongside a 4-step sequencing pattern. Students cut out the pictures and glue them in the correct order. Students write their name, color the pictures, then staple the sides to make a crown.
  • DAB & DOT: Students use daubers to dab by number in order to reveal the mystery picture. (Hold at a distance to help students see the pictures).
  • CUT & PASTE CRAFTIVITY: These crafty projects are perfect for little hands.Students color, glue, and cut to make fun, thematic pictures.Pair with a simple writing prompt or poem for extra learning!
  • POM PICTURES x 2: Students use pom-poms to complete the picture.For added difficulty have students use plastic tweezers to pick up the poms. Alternatively students can glue poms to make these sheets into a simple craft project.

How to Set Achievable Goals for your Preschooler

By the time your curious preschooler reaches the age of 3 or 4, their learning development has grown exponentially! They will hit many milestones, but sometimes it’s not clear what and how many milestones you should expect. Knowing what pre-reading skills to focus on will help you identify how to set achievable goals for your preschooler.

What Your Preschooler Needs to Know:

During the preschool stage, you’ll notice a strong desire for independence, along with a ton of exploration. It’s important to determine typical cognitive goals to ensure they are ready for the next BIG step — Kindergarten!

Preschool Readiness: Color Recognition

One of your preschool goals should be to teach the basic palette of colors. By four, children should be able to identify basic hues like red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black, and brown. Your child should also be able to name, match and identify these colors. For example, can your preschooler match a brown chair to a similar brown construction paper?

Preschool Readiness: Math Skills

Early childhood education is a perfect time to introduce simple math concepts. It helps build a foundation for their next challenge with each passing new year. Preschoolers can develop a keep sense of math for identifying numbers and communicating a variety of sizes and shapes.

Another goal is to introduce math activities that include names of shapes and manipulate shapes as well as numbers and counting.

Preschool Readiness: Letter Recognition

Recognizing letters is an important key to pre-reading during the preschool phase. Alphabetic recognition prepares preschoolers to begin decoding words associated with their everyday language development. There are many letter recognition activities through hands-on learning.

Some pre-reading skills for preschoolers would include naming each letter, matching the letter name on paper, and identifying upper and lower case letters.

Preschool Readiness: Oral and Phonics

Wondering how to prepare your preschooler for reading? There are a few skills your child should master before beginning to read, besides letter recognition. Knowing what signs to look for will help identify the best time for teaching how to read.

Oral communication is also key to begin reading. Simply reading to your child for 15 to 20 minutes a day and asking questions for comprehension awareness prepares your child for narration. Reading aloud to your child daily makes a huge impact on their communication with others.

Practicing phonics awareness is also an essential step to reading. Taking simple words like ‘cat’ and changing the letter to ‘hat’ gives your child rhyming skills. Nursery rhymes and memorizing poems are wonderful tools for increasing their word playing.  

Preschool Readiness: Fine Motor Skills

Giving your child opportunities to practice writing the alphabet is a great way to strength fine motor skills. Yet, there are also other tools in your tool belt to build these critical muscle movements.

While many daily activities like dressing, eating, and playing require these small but special skills, there are other intentional ways to prep your child.
Always have these tools available: colored pencils for writing, safe scissors for cutting, glue for pasting, games using computer mouse, or playing a musical instrument. All of these activities contribute to fine motor skills including muscle strength and coordination.

We hope this preschool checklist will give all preschool moms and teachers a simple guide on what to expect for your preschooler. Don’t be surprised how fast they learn in some areas, while others are more difficult.

Remember, all children learn at their own pace. It’s our job as parents to make sure that the learning process is fun and exciting for them throughout their preschool journey!

Preschool Mom has a TON of free and frugal resources to help you stay on track with your preschool objectives. Don’t miss out on these preschool readiness resources!

St. Patrick's Day Activities for Preschoolers

If you are planning a preschool lesson for St. Patrick’s day we have some fantastic free and low-cost resources to share with you! We’ve got a ton of St. Patrick’s Day Preschool Printables featuring everything from St. Patrick’s Day coloring pages, crafts, worksheets, games, activities, fine motor skill sets, learning center mats, science experiments and more! You can bundle these fun activities together to create your own preschool lesson plan!

St. Patrick’s Day Preschool Printables

Rainbow Coloring Pages

These coloring pages feature color words for the rainbow. Children practice handwriting and word recognition with these coloring activity pages.

St. Patrick’s Day Maze Activity Pages

A cute set of St. Patrick’s Day mazes and coloring pages for kids. Each page features easy to solve mazes for young children as well as some cute thematic character to color in.

St. Patrick’s Day Crafts for Preschoolers

Rainbow Tracing Worksheet

This is a set of weather-related tracing worksheets you can use for a weather unit. The rainbow worksheet would be great to pair with your St. Patrick’s Day Preschool lessons.

St. Patrick’s Day Cut & Paste Craft

Students work on their fine motor skills by cutting and pasting the hearts to assemble into a four-leaf clover. Turn this into a fun fingerprinting craft by printing on cardstock and having students paint the leaves with green fingerpaint.

Four Leaf Clover Pattern Block Mat

This is a free printable four-leaf clover mat you can use to build spatial reasoning skills. Students use pattern blocks to plan and complete their build. Laminate for durability. Check out our Pattern Block Bundle for more!.

Shamrock Scissor Skills

This fun shamrock scissor skills worksheet is part of our March Fine Motor Activity Pack! We’ve paired this activity with 60 pages of fun, interactive fine motor activity pages for St. Patricks Day and Spring themes for March.

Preschool Math With Lucky Charms

This activity pack includes a variety of math printables, games, and activities. Math activities include counting, sorting, framing, adding, graphing, and pattern making. Click Here

St. Patrick’s Day Geoboard Pictures

This Geoboard Activity Pack includes a variety of thematic activities and worksheets for St. Patrick’s Day and other holidays, seasons and more! With simple, differentiated learning opportunities, our Geoboard Activity pack will soon become one of your favorite spring resources.

Colorful Coins: St. Patrick’s Day Shapes

Students work on shape identification with this free worksheet filled with 12 different shapes; triangle, circle, heart, square, star, trapezoid, octagon, oval, hexagon, rhombus, diamond, and rectangle.

St. Patricks Day Preschool Games

St. Patrick’s Day Number Bond Game

This is a simple yet fun game for children learning their number bonds. Children work on number bonds to make 5 and number bonds to make 10. Use with the coins provided or laminate and use a dry erase marker.

St. Patrick’s Day Pattern Cards

This is a set of eight different pattern cards with different sequences (AABB, ABC, ABAB etc..) Children use gold coins (print on yellow paper) to make the patterns.

Color Science for Kids

Fine Motor Activities for St. Patrick’s Day

March Fine Motor Activity Pack

60 thematic, hands-on activities to build fine motor control skills in March! These thematic activity pages are perfect for your March learning centers. Great for early finishers, take-home resources, or as a tutoring binder you can bring on the go!

St. Patrick’s Day Activities for Preschoolers

What could be luckier than this sparking green St. Patricks Day Homemade Playdough Recipe. Easy to make, just a handful of kitchen ingredients and a pinch of glitter from the craft box and you have a wonderful seasonal activity for the kids to enjoy for St. Patrick’s Day.

St. Patrick’s Day Mazes

Looking for some challenging St. Patrick’s Day activities for your preschoolers? Try these free St. Patrick’s Day Mazes and activity pages to build logic and reasoning skills. Each maze features a fun follow up activity, such as writing the colors of the rainbow, or counting the coins.

St. Patrick’s Day Bible Printables

We’ve got a ton of free Bible printables for St. Patrick’s Day on our sister site. You’ll find crafts, games, worksheets, bookmarks Bible verse cards, take-home sheets and more. These St. Patrick’s Day Bible Crafts help your students learn key Bible truths about the trinity and heavenly treasures.

St. Patrick’s Day Math Activity Pack

Preschool Math with Lucky Charms (TM)

This math activity pack is filled with hands-on learning opportunities for preschool students. Simply pick up a box of Lucky Charms (TM) and print this set for instant math learning centers, games, worksheets and more!

St. Patrick’s Day Science Experiments

Experiments for St. Patrick’s Day

Smart Start Science is a new and engaging series of Low-Prep, Hands-On experiments and activities designed for K-2 students. This specific pack, “Experiments for St. Patrick’s Day” includes five complete experiments and follow up activities that are sure to add a little color to your classroom.

St. Patrick’s Day Books for Preschoolers

St. Patrick’s Day is March 17th and it’s a great time to get a little festive in your preschool classroom.  Using this theme as inspiration, you can add in some “lucky” fun with shamrocks, horseshoes, and maybe even a sneaky leprechaun.  Be sure to read children the true meaning of St. Patrick’s Day, as it’s important for children to know why we celebrate holidays.