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

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.

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.