Favorite Fine Motor Tools & Toys for Preschool & Kindergarten
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My favorite fine motor tools and toys for preschool and kindergarten might come in handy as you prepare students to write.
Fine motor skills take practice, but it can be FUN. Students may not get the time they need to perfect this skill, so let’s make sure they have the opportunity to improve with the help of some toys, tools, and games through PLAY. Make fine motor work FUN and EXCITING for your little learners!
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Favorite Fine Motor Tools & Toys for Preschool & Kindergarten
You can use these scoopers in a variety of ways around the classroom. Ask students to pick up marbles, sand, and more. These are great to help develop scissor skills, too, because it’s the same motion!
You could also use these water beads with the scoopers above in sensory bins. They are slippery which makes scooping them up a bit of a challenge and SO MUCH FUN!
Get that pincer grasp perfected with the help of these gator tweezers. Challenge students to pick up feathers or even small beads. Use them in dramatic play, with math games, in the sensory table, and with literacy games. Put them all over your classroom. These are AMAZING! If you can only get one thing off this list….pick this one!
These are great to have on hand in case kids struggle with holding and using scissors. The scissors bounce back open when the child is cutting! Gather your scrap paper, throw it in a bin, and let students practice by cutting away.
Kids love playing and squeezing with these droppers. They make exercising fine motor skills so much fun. 
Put them in the sensory bin, use for art projects, or with science experiments. Keep reading for more of my favorite fine motor tools.
Melissa & Doug Deluxe Wood Lacing Sneaker
This model sneaker is a fantastic way to learn how to tie shoes! They can even practice lacing shoelaces.
Practice the ABC’s along with fine motor skills by lacing up letters. Lacing cards also help students develop hand eye coordination too! You can also get themed lacing sets! My favorites are Pets, Farm Animals, and Construction.
Figuring out how to hook and unhook latches is a great way to practice fine motor skills. This set comes with two boards. 
Feed the frogs flies by squeezing their tummies to open their mouths! Students will get some counting and color practice in as well as practicing fine motor skills. Keep reading for more of my favorite fine motor tools.
Mini Muffin Match UpThis game involves using tweezers to separate different items into the muffin tins by amounts, colors, and shapes.
Practice cutting food with these model wood fruits. The pieces are secured with velcro. When kids cut the fruit the play knife breaks the grasp on the velcro.
Deluxe Wooden Stringing BeadsThis bead set comes with a variety of beads and rope to allow students to practice stringing beads. There are beads with ABC’s as well as shapes. These are great for kindergarten and up!
Now if you teach preschool these beads are perfect. I always start with pipe cleaners at the beginning of the year and move to lacing strings as their fine motor muscles are stronger.
Use tweezers to stack the fruit, but be careful! If the stack falls, you have to start over. These fruit counters are also fun to use with play dough and for math games!
This fast-paced relay race game is so much fun. Kids can never stack the pancakes up fast enough.
The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game
The squirrel takes the shape of tweezers in this game. Players use them to pick up and place the squirrel’s acorns in the right spot to win the game.
This quick-paced game is great to pull out when you have a few minutes to fill. Players roll the dice and try to pick up bugs with tweezers. Math and fine motor work…WIN!
Stack, sort, and built with these peg boards that come with colorful pieces and easy to handle pieces. I love putting these in the library or discovery center too!
By using my favorite fine motor tools and toys throughout the classroom, we can prepare kids to start writing (and improving!) their pencil grasp, and even their ability to use scissors.
Want to see how I use these tools in my classroom every day? Check out this video!
How do you help your students practice fine motor skills? Share your ideas with me in the comments.
Love these fine motor tools? Pin it now!
Want more to check out more of my favorite things for little learners? Check out my Favorite Things Blog Series with over 15 different favorite things lists (and growing)! If there are any favorite things for a theme you need, just let us know so we can create it for you.
hey, i’m jackie!
I’m Jackie, your go-to girl for early childhood inspiration and research-based curriculum.
