Set up an outdoor finger gym for your children with this water painting activity and help them develop their fine motor skills while they play.
Fine motor skill water activity for finger gyms
Get a new fine motor skill idea each week!
Join NurtureStore's Fine Motor Skills Service and I'll send you a new idea for your finger gym every week. Using simple materials that are easy and quick to set up, you'll have a new fine motor skill idea each week - no planning, no hassle!
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What are fine motor skills?
Gross motor skills refer to the big movements we make with our bodies, using our arms and legs.
Fine motor skills refer to the movements we make using the small muscles in our hands, wrists, fingers, and toes.
Any activity where children are pinching, twisting, kneading, squeezing, threading, pulling, and holding uses movements that involve fine motor skills.
Children need to develop their fine motor skills so they can fasten buttons and tie shoelaces. Crucially, fine motor skills are also needed to hold a pen and write well, and many difficulties later on with writing can be tracked back to poor fine motor skills.
By supporting our children to develop fine motor skills through play in early childhood, we’re helping build vital skills they’ll need for the rest of their lives.
How to help your child develop fine motor skills
By offering our kids a childhood full of hands-on, active play using things like play dough, paints, and blocks, we’re giving them plenty of opportunity to work through the range of hand and finger movements that are vital for their development.
Daily play times with sensory play, loose parts, and arts and crafts are exactly what children need for healthy development – and NurtureStore is full of simple, fun ways you can offer your children these play opportunities. Sign-up to get my Finger Gym emails using the box below and you’ll always have great ideas for fine motor activities to engage your children
Here’s one you can try this week: water painting
Water painting activity for fine motor skills
Finger gyms don’t have to been time-consuming or difficult to set up. In this activity – one I remember from my own childhood! – children can develop strength and movement in their hands and wrists using the simplest of set-ups: a bucket of water and a paint brush.
You can do this activity on any dry day but a sunny day is perfect, as children get to see their art work disappear as the water quickly dries, and they’re encouraged to keep adding more.
The movement used to paint strokes up and down on a vertical surface, such as a wall or door, works wrist muscles and develops the important flexibility. It also offers a workout for shoulders and elbows.
Another bonus of this activity is there’s no clean up required!
How to set up the painting with water finger gym
Take your fine motor activity outdoors this week by setting up buckets of water outside in your yard or playground.
Set out a variety of paintbrushes including big, house-painting brushes, and smaller, fine ones.
Invite your children to paint with the water on the floor, walls, fences and doors around your outside space.
Water painting play variations
:: Draw chalk frames on the walks to create an art gallery for your children to fill with their water paintings
:: Invite your children to paint their own names on the walls
:: Write letters and numbers on the walls and have your children ‘make them disappear‘ by painting them away with their water brushes. They could make all the upper case letters disappear, all the 3s, all the letters in their name; all the even numbers…
:: To develop a different range of movements and muscle strength, swap paint brushes for spray bottles
:: Peg up a large roll of paper, or a sheet of fabric, and use that as your vertical surface, with coloured paints
:: You can take this same activity indoors using an easel as your vertical painting surface.
Get a new fine motor skill idea each week!
Join NurtureStore's Fine Motor Skills Service and I'll send you a new idea for your finger gym every week. Using simple materials that are easy and quick to set up, you'll have a new fine motor skill idea each week - no planning, no hassle!
Pop your email address in the box below and I'll send you the ideas.
* By subscribing, you consent to our use of your personal data as per our Privacy Policy, which includes agreeing to receiving interest-based email from us.
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