Fun and Easy Eye-hand Coordination Activities for Preschoolers

Have you ever wondered why a child’s ability to stack blocks or draw shapes seems to improve with each passing day? Well, that’s eye-hand coordination development in action.

Let’s examine eye-hand coordination in more detail. We’ll explain what it is, why it’s important, and even help you out with some fun and simple eye-hand coordination activities for preschoolers.

What is Eye-Hand Coordination?

Eye-hand coordination is the coordination between your visual perception and motor skills, enabling you to interact with objects effectively.

Imagine that you’re playing catch with a child on the playground. They throw the ball, and you reach out to catch it without even thinking. That’s your eye-hand coordination kicking into high gear!

Here are some examples of a child’s hand-eye coordination skills in action:

• Jimmy catches a ball
• Alex places a cap on a bottle
• Romeo draws a circle around an image
• Felicia pours a drink for her friend
• Juan uses a knife to cut up vegetables

Why Is Eye-Hand Coordination Important?

Eye-hand coordination is all about how well your eyes and hands team up to tackle tasks like grabbing objects, drawing, or even tying shoelaces.

Eye-hand coordination is the backbone of our ability to conquer everyday tasks and master vital life skills. Whether it’s brushing our teeth, pouring a glass of milk, or even opening a bag of chips, we rely on our brain to process visual information and then use that information to ensure smooth coordination between our eyes and hands.

From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed, we’re using this skill to navigate through our daily routines.

What Happens When Kids Struggle with Eye-Hand Coordination Skills?

When kids do not have strong eye-hand coordination skills, it’s like their hands don’t exactly listen to what their eyes are telling them. This can make playing and learning a bit of a bumpy ride. If kids have vision problems or movement disorders, their hand-eye coordination will be affected.

If you suspect that a child has hand-eye coordination problems, I encourage you to consult with an occupational therapist or physical therapist.

Think about trying to build a tower out of blocks, but every time you stack one block on top of the other, it comes crashing down. That’s what it’s like for preschoolers who struggle with eye-hand coordination.

They might have trouble with tasks like holding a pencil correctly, cutting with scissors, or even putting together simple puzzles. Poor hand-eye coordination may also make daily activities like eating with utensils and getting dressed a struggle. These struggles can cause frustration and a lack of confidence.

Thankfully, there are plenty of eye-hand coordination activities for preschoolers that can help with the development of hand-eye coordination.

What Types of Activities Help Promote Hand-Eye Coordination?

To enhance hand-eye coordination, you can encourage kids to engage in activities that require them to coordinate visual input with hand movements. By practicing these types of fine motor activities regularly, you can help young children strengthen their coordination skills and become more confident in their abilities.

Eye-Hand Coordination Activities for Preschoolers

Thankfully, there are endless options when it comes to fun simple games and eye-hand coordination activities for preschoolers. Here are lots of fun and easy activities that you can try with your kids. One of the best ways to improve this vital skill is to include some activities in your daily routine.

Sensory Table Activities

Young kids love playing in the sensory bin and it’s a good way to work on eye-hand coordination activities. Check out these articles if you need sensory table material ideas or non-food sensory table ideas.

Filling, Pouring, and Transferring: Fill the sensory table with rice, beans, or water beads and provide small cups, spoons, and containers. Encourage children to scoop, pour, and transfer the different items from one container to another.

Scooping and Sorting: Use materials like colorful pom-poms and provide various-sized scoops, tweezers, or tongs. Kids can scoop up the materials and sort them into an ice cube tray or different containers based on color, size, or shape.

Add small objects like mini erasers or buttons to the sensory materials. Kids will get some sensory input as they sift through the materials to find the objects. Then, you can ask kids to add them to plastic bottles or small containers.

Water Wheel: Fill your sensory table with water and add a water wheel. Kids can fill small containers with water and pour their water on the wheel to activate it.

Sticker Activities

As children peel stickers and carefully place them onto surfaces, they’re honing their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination in a fun and engaging way.

If your kids are excited about a particular theme, you can get thematic stickers to make the activity more motivating. But, there are many simple dot sticker activities that are perfect for working on this skill.

You can use dot sticker fine motor task cards for color matching, math, rewards tracking and many additional ways.

Bean Bag Activities

Bean bag activities require kids to use their hands to grasp, toss, and catch bean bags, all while tracking the movement with their eyes. I think bean bags are easier to catch than balls. Plus, if you drop a beanbag, you don’t have to chase it. Here are four bean bag activities to try:

Bean Bag Target Practice: Set up a variety of targets at different distances, such as hula hoops, buckets, or cones. Encourage children to throw bean bags at the targets, aiming for accuracy and precision.

Bean Bag Simon Says: Play a game of “Simon Says” using bean bags. Give instructions such as “Simon says toss your bean bag in the air and catch it,” or “Simon says balance your bean bag on one foot.” Children must follow the instructions while practicing their hand-eye coordination and listening skills

Bean Bag Toss: Kids can toss a bean bag up in the air and catch it. You can make it even more exciting by playing the Bean Bag Bop song for your kids.

Bean Bag Catch: Pair children up and have them stand facing each other a short distance apart. One child gently tosses a bean bag to their partner, who tries to catch it. If kids need more of a challenge, ask them to catch it with one hand.

Ball Activities

Similar to bean bag activities, balls require kids to use their hands to grasp, toss, and catch while their eyes must track the movements. Here are some simple games that your kids can play with a ball.

Start with a larger ball, and then if your kids are ready to step it up to the next level of difficulty, you can graduate to a smaller ball like a tennis ball.

Ball Rolling: Have 2 kids sit on the floor facing each other with their legs out and open. They can then roll a ball back and forth to each other.

Ball Bounce: Encourage kids to drop a medium or large ball onto the ground and then catch it with both hands. Once kids get the hang of catching a bouncing ball, you can pair them up to see if they can catch it when a friend gently bounces it to them.

Balloon Activities

Balloon activities are a fun way for kids to improve their eye-hand coordination skills. Because a balloon moves slowly through the air, it gives kids more reaction time and allows them to track the movement of the balloon more easily.

Here are some fun and playful eye-hand coordination games using balloons:

Balloon Toss: Challenge kids to toss a balloon up in the air and carefully catch it with both hands.

Balloon Volleyball: Set up a makeshift net or simply use a rope or ribbon as a boundary, and have kids work together to keep a balloon aloft by batting it back and forth over the net. This game helps improve hand-eye coordination and teamwork.

Balloon Tennis: Tape a paper plate to a craft stick to make a simple raquet. Kids can use the racquet to keep the balloon in the air.

Balloon Keep-Up: Challenge kids to keep a balloon in the air using only their hands or various body parts like elbows, knees, or feet. Encourage them to focus on tracking the balloon’s movement and making controlled movements to keep it airborne.

Hole Punch Activities

Hole punch printables help kids work on eye-hand coordination by requiring them to align the hole puncher accurately with the target area. Then, as they exert pressure to punch holes they can also build hand strength.

Do you need some advice on hole punches? Check out his article about the best hole punchers for kids.

Bead Activities

Bead activities, such as stringing beads on ribbon or pipe cleaners or placing beads onto designated spots, are excellent for refining their pincer grasp and fostering eye-hand coordination.

Threading Beads on String: You can make beaded necklaces with your kids. This activity requires kids to carefully manipulate the beads as they thread them.

Placing Beads with Finger: These pincer grasp task cards have circles where kids can accurately place beads onto the predetermined spots. Dot sticker printables work well for this task too.

Threading Beads on Pipe Cleaners: Stringing beads onto a pipe cleaner rather than a string is a bit easier for younger kids. I love how many ways you can use pipe cleaners and beads. Your kids can use this as a counting or patterning activity. They can make bracelets, shapes, or even fun stars or a beaded snowflake.

Puzzles Activities

Puzzles serve as effective tools for promoting eye-hand coordination in children as they practice grasping, manipulating, and fitting puzzle pieces into their designated spaces. From easy puzzles with knobs to more complex puzzles, your kids can work on manual dexterity in a fun way. Check out this article to find the best puzzles for preschoolers.

Cut & Paste Activities

Cut and paste activities give kids the opportunity to practice cutting on a line, applying glue to the back of a piece of paper, and accurately placing them to create artwork or complete tasks. From simple Cutting and pasting activities to thematic printable fine motor crafts, you can find a wide variety of cut-and-paste activities for your kids.

Paper Tearing Activities

If your kids aren’t quite ready for cutting activities, a paper-tearing activity is a great way to help them build hand strength and bilateral coordination. Then, their hands and eyes can work together as they paste the little pieces of paper onto a simple image.

Dot Marker Activities

Applying dots with a bingo dauber to an image is a great workout for hands and eyes.

Q-tip Activities

Wanna work on pincer grasp at the same time? Use printables with smaller dots and use a Q-tip dipped in paint to apply the dot.

Stamping Activities

I also love using a pencil eraser as a dot stamper with these task cards.

Get out your letter stamps and all those other stamps hiding in your supply closet because you can also use them for fun eye-hand coordination activities. It is best to have some kind of target on the paper where kids have to add a stamp.

Playdough Mats

Playdough and playdough mats offer endless opportunities for kids to refine their hand-eye coordination as they mold the dough to fit the shapes and images depicted on the mats.

Building towers

Building a tower requires careful coordination between hands and eyes so that the tower does not fall. Check out this article to think outside the block box and find a variety of materials that kids can use for building a tower: How to Build a Tower: 25 Simple Engineering Ideas

Golf Tee Activities

Borrow some golf tees from a friend because they are great fine motor tools.

Pounding Golf Tees: Give your kids a large piece of foam or a pool noodle along with a toy hammer and let them go to town pounding golf tees into the foam. Their hands and eyes must work together to hit the end of the tee successfully. Can they do it?

You can easily make this into a fall-themed activity by providing a large pumpkin and letting the children pound the golf tees into the pumpkin’s flesh.

Marble Balance: After pushing a golf tee into a piece of foam, give your kids a marble so that they can place it on the golf tee. Can they get it to stay there?

Well, I hope this gives you lots of inspiration for working on hand-eye coordination. Do you have some activities that are effective with your kids? I would love to hear about them.

Purchase Eye-Hand Coordination Printables Today

Are you ready to get started on some fun eye-hand coordination activities with your kids? Check out these printables in the store:

Purchase on TPT

Do you prefer to shop at Teachers Pay Teachers? You can also purchase the fine motor activities in my TPT Store.