40 of the Best Fine Motor Activity Ideas with Kitchen Items
Find over 40 fine motor activity ideas with kitchen items. Learn how to use everyday household items as fine motor tools for kids.
Fine motor activities will help your kids strengthen their little hands and fingers. This will help them grip and control pencils and crayons as they learn to write and will help them cut with scissors.
You don’t have to spend a lot of money to find tools to use for fine motor activities. In fact, you can find many everyday household items that you can easily use for DIY fine motor activities.
Check out this list of fine motor activity ideas using items from your kitchen. Don’t forget to get the free fine motor printable at the end of the article.
Kitchen Utensils as Fine Motor Tools
Here are some tools that you can find in your kitchen drawers.
Tongs, training chopsticks, strawberry hullers – Kids can use tongs to pick up small items like mini-erasers, pom-poms, cotton balls, and goldfish crackers.
Garlic Press – Use for hand strength activities. Your kids can use a garlic press to squeeze water out of small sponges or cotton balls. A garlic press is also a fun playdough tool.
Rolling Pins can be used to roll playdough.
Spoons, scoopers, and spatulas – Use these to scoop and pour water, sand, rice, or other sensory materials.
Turkey baster
- Use a baster to transfer water from one container to the next.
- Squeeze the baster and use the air to move features or cotton balls across the floor.
Chip Clips – Pick up some extra chip clips the next time you are at the Dollar Store. Kids can attach clips to empty cans, wood paint sticks, or pieces of cardboard.
Corn Cob Holders – Use these to poke holes in letter cards.
Lobster Hammers – Use the hammers to pound golf tees into foam or pumpkins, and use them as a playdough tool.
Baking Items for DIY Fine Motor Activities
Muffin tins – Sort mini-erasers, beads, pom-poms, cereal, or crackers.
Cooling racks – Weave ribbon or yarn through the racks.
Paper Products and storage
Foil – crumple up a sheet of foil and pound it with a lobster mallet to make balls or space rocks or use foil for cutting practice.
Paper plates, coffee filters, or muffin liners – Use for cutting practice or sorting activities.
Ziplock bags – Sort and seal snacks, beads, small toys, etc.
Fine Motor Activity Ideas in the Recycling Bin
Egg cartons – Use for sorting rocks, beads, pom poms, mini-erasers, etc.
Paper towel rolls and boxes can be used for cutting practice or painting projects.
Cleaning Supplies
Sponges are great for squeezing activities to develop hand strength. Challenge kids to transfer water from one container to the next using a sponge. Add a small piece of wet sponge to a garlic press. Press it to remove the water from the sponge.
Spray bottles – Fill a spray bottle up with water so that kids can “clean” things. They love to clean things like pumpkins, toy dishes, rocks, etc. You can also use spray bottles for some amazing art activities.
Pantry and Food Items
Fruit – Let kids peel their own oranges and banans
Cereal – Count the pieces of cereal. Sort them in ice cube trays or muffin tins, or place them on toothpicks or wooden skewers.
You can also substitute cereal pieces for bead placement activities.
Goldfish crackers – Sort them into containers or muffin tins. Count the crackers and seal them into ziplock bags.
Candy– Use candy for sorting or as counters.
Food for cutting practice – Kids can practice cutting skills with lettuce, herbs, slices of cheese, strips of string cheese, etc.
Additional Kitchen Items
Toothpicks or skewers – Place a toothpick or skewer into a piece of fruit or playdough and kids can add beads, marshmallows, cheerios, etc.
Birthday candles – Create pretend cupcakes with playdough. Add birthday candles to prepare for a pretend birthday party.
Food Picks – Kids can use these fun picks to eat pieces of fruit, cubes, cheese, etc. The picks are also fun playdough tools.
See…. when you run out of fine motor activity ideas, just start going through your kitchen drawers.
I hope you found a few ideas for everyday household items in your kitchen to use for fun fine motor activities. I would love to hear some of your ideas.
Free Fine Motor Printable
Are you ready for more fine motor activity ideas? Get this free fine motor printable to work on fine motor skills activities with your kids.
I listed some items below that you can use for the activities mentioned in this article. The links below are affiliate links. Amazon will not charge you an additional fee if you purchase something from a link, but a small portion of your purchase will be used towards the cost of maintaining this website.
