Improve Fine Motor Skills Development with Messy Play
You know that one time you asked your kiddo to pour a measuring cup of flour in the baking bowl and they spilled it everywhere? Or, that other time when they were learning how to drink from a lidless cup and the water ended up all over the floor? I certainly have lots of memories like these from my own experiences with little ones! Of course, this is a natural phase of childhood growth, as they’re still working on their fine motor skills development.
Simple tasks that we might not think twice about as adults can be really difficult for children: picking things up, holding objects, zipping a jacket, tying shoes, pouring liquids (cue water and flour on floor!). The good news is that sensory play can really help kids improve fine motor skills and Messy Play Kits products are designed for this.
So, why are fine motor skills important? Here are three ways that Messy Play Kits activities support the importance of fine motor skills.
How to Improve Fine Motor Skills with Messy Play
Grasping Strength & Coordination
Messy Play Kits and Sensory Bins are full of interesting objects and tools sized for your child to grasp, as well as activities that encourage them to use their hands. If you create your own sensory play kits, you can add your unique selection of objects! Grasping helps children to develop hand strength and is an early step along the path toward writing, building, and using tools (or successfully holding glasses and measuring cups!).
Pinching Strength & Accuracy
Offering an array of appealing, small objects for your child to get their hands on will have them exercising their pinching skills without even realizing it! Picking up the little bugs, flowers, animals, and pipe cleaners from a Sensory Bin or Messy Play Kit in a pincer grip helps your kiddo develop finger strength, control, and hand-eye coordination. The more they practice, the better they will get!
Strengthening Pencil Grip
Crafting with clay, using tweezers and tongs, manipulating beads … these simple movements develop crucial muscles that will eventually help your child hold a pencil properly! There’s more to writing than just the three finger pencil grasp, just like there’s more to a good core workout than just doing sit-ups. For example, you need to be able to pinch your thumb and pointer finger together with the fingers making a sort of open “O” shape, rather than having the thumb and pointer finger squished in towards each other. This helps stabilize your pencil and form proper letters.
Using tweezers or stringing beads are excellent ways to practice this. Building with clay or playdough helps strengthen the various small muscles in the hand, which will help develop endurance for writing as well as a firmer grip! These activities will support your child as they develop writing abilities and even greater developmental milestones in the future.
These fun items will help your little improve fine motor skills: Sensory Bins and Dinosaur Dig Messy Play Kit.
Fine motor skills development is a great beginning to a healthy, happy child, as well as to maintaining a clean kitchen! Then, you just have to teach them to do dishes and pick up their rooms during their teenage years (advice for this historical conundrum is officially above my pay grade).
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Here at Messy Play Kits, we take your kiddo’s development and their playtime very seriously. That’s why we’ve had so much fun creating products that also improve fine motor skills of your children while they’re playing. A win-win!
The best way to maximize the fine motor benefits of messy play is to sign up for a monthly subscription and receive a new activity box each month!
