This is the perfect fine motor skill finger gym for Halloween. We’re making play dough monsters!
Halloween fine motor skill finger gym
A finger gym is an activity that’s designed to develop fine motor skills through a fun, playful activity.
You can set up a finger gym in your class, or at home, and invite your children to try a new activity every week or even every day.
It’s important to offer a variety of finger gym activities that vary over time. This ensures children get to work on a range of movements, using their hands, fingers, and wrists, and it keeps things interesting, so children are more likely to been engaged and make the most of the activity.
For Halloween, a super fun fine motor skill activity is making play dough monsters.
Materials needed
:: play dough, perhaps in black, orange, and green
:: a variety of loose parts such as match sticks, buttons, craft sticks, sequins, buttons, paper straws, pipe cleaners, googly eyes
You can find my easy homemade play dough recipe here.
Play monsters fine motor skills
Play dough is such a fantastic material to use to develop fine motor skills. Playing with play dough involves so much kneading, squashing, rolling, and manipulating of the dough which develops strong and flexible hands, fingers, and wrists.
Using small loose parts alongside the play dough also develops fine motor skills, as children have to use their fingers to pinch and pick up the items.
How to make play dough monsters
Set out coloured play dough and a selection of your loose parts craft materials with the invitation ‘Can you make a monster?’
You might pair this with a few picture books featuring monsters, to give your children inspiration for their monster design.
Let your children use their imagination to combine the play dough and craft materials to create a monster.
How many heads will their monster have?
How many eyes?
Does their monster have arms or legs?
Adding language to play time
You can offer paper and pencils alongside your finger gym – or set this up as a separate activity.
Invite your children to draw their monster design on paper.
Try one of these writing prompts to develop more language and writing around the monster theme:
:: What is your monster called?
:: Write down five adjectives/ words to describe your monster.
:: What did your monster eat for breakfast?
:: Where does your monster live?
:: Describe what your monster did yesterday.
More monster activities
Use these monster activities for your Halloween unit too:
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