Fine motor skills finger gym with marbles

Set up this fun finger gym using marbles and help your children develop their fine motor skills through play.

 

 

Fine motor skills finger gym with marbles

This is a great fine motor skill centre to add into your finger gym rotation. It’s super quick to set up and fun to play with. 

 

 

How to set up the finger gym

For this fine motor skill activity you will need:

:: marbles

:: a shower mat

You can find colourful, shaped shower mats in stores and online. You can also cut up a standard size shower mat to give you several shapes for your children to play with. 

 

 

Set out the shower mats, sucker-side up.

It’s a good idea to place this finger gym out on a large tray, or a dish with raised sides, or a tuff tray: use a surface with slightly raised sides so any loose marbles don’t escape.

Invite your children to try and set a marble on each of the suckers on their mat. Can they fill them all?

 

 

Variations and extensions

Use a variety of colours of marbles and invite a child to use only all red, or all blue…

See how fast you can fill all the suckers with marbles. Time your child with a stop watch. Can they beat their time next try? What’s their personal best time?

Add in tongs or tweezers and use them to pick up and place the marbles.

Can they place all the marbles using their non-dominant hand?

 

 

More fine motor skills finger gym ideas

Try these other fine motor skill finger gym ideas from NurtureStore library of resources:

bubble wrap finger gym

water play finger gym

pipette finger gym

sensory finger gyms

marble and blocks finger gym

 

 

More ways to use marbles

And use your marbles in other ways with these ideas:

painting with marbles

junk model marble run

loose parts dot counting printable