Fine motor skills are essential for school [and daily life!] performance. Starting the year off strong with a good fine motor practice routine will helps students develop these skills are year long. Here on the Simply Special Ed blog, we have LOTS of content on this topic! We have tips and products for parents, teachers, therapists, you name it! Below is a list of my previous blogs that might point you in the right direction if “back to school” isn’t quite what you are looking for. Then, I plan to highlight two of my favorite back to school SSE resources that are perfect for back to school practice!
Blogs & Resources for Fine Motor Skills
- How to Implement Fall Fine Motor Centers
- Fall Center resource HERE
- Working on Fine Motor Sills with Visual Crafts
- Try the FREE pizza visual craft if you’re new to visual crafts!
- How to Improve Fine Motor Skills with Visual Recipes
- Get the full bundle of visual recipes [a personal favorite!] HERE
- How to Improve Fine Motor Skills with Cut + Paste Activities
- Learn more about the back to school version of these activities below!
- How to Set Up Fine Motor Centers
- Grab the original set of the centers HERE
- Fine Motor Games for Elementary School Students
- Looking for digital activities? Check out my blog on Free OT Apps!
- How to Use Playdough in the Classroom
- Need something with a little more resistance? Try alphabet theraputty!
- Multi-Sensory Letter Formation Practice
- Check out these practical pencil grasp tips!
- Check out my 4 part blog series on building blocks to success in pre-writing!
September Cut + Paste Fine Motor Resource
The Simply Special Ed Cut + Paste Sheets are one of my go to activities for any time of the year! The September set is a perfect activity for the back to school time since all of the pictures are back to school related! There are numerous versions that come in each set, but I think the black and white version is my favorite. For those of us with limited color printing, these may be a necessity, but I like them for the added benefit of coloring practice! Some OT kiddos may have goals for coloring skills or sustained mature grasp, so this can also be great for progress monitoring!
Easily work on scissor skills to cut out the pieces of these DIY puzzles! I like to use spring loaded scissors [affiliate link] with my kiddos who are “graduating” from loop scissors to traditional scissors. They make a great “stepping stone”. Highlighting the lines [there are sets included with pre-highlighted lines to save you some time!] can be a downgrade for students who have difficulty deciphering which lines on which to stay, or who are still working on cutting accuracy! Consider these others ideas when planning these cut and paste sheets as as back to school fine motor activity:
- Have students color and cut one pictures and pass to a peer to see if they can put it together!
- Have students complete a fine motor activity with the materials in the pictures on the cut + paste sheets and then complete the puzzle activity!
- Having students color on a vertical surface [ex: wall] or laying on their stomachs to build additional strength!
Fine Motor Centers
Another amazing classroom routine to start at the beginning of the year is Fine Motor Centers! Check out Alyssa’s blog for an overview of this product. Even more than I enjoy using these during OT sessions, I love to recommend them to classroom teachers for daily [or weekly!] use. Since each set has 10-12 stations, it can be a great rotation for independent or morning work.
I would recommend introducing the initial stations with the traditional set, but as the year progresses, feel free to “mix things up” with the seasonal centers! The activities will be similar [and familiar to students], but also fresh and can match other familiar seasonal/holiday themes you might be using in your classroom year-round!
Working on fine motor skills in the summer? Check out Alyssa’s blog on summer ideas! Remember- you can get centers mentioned above for EVERY SEASON at a discount here!
