My Favorite Fine Motor Games

Today I wanted to share some of my favorite games to keep on hand in your classroom. These would be great for indoor recess, but you could also make a case that they’re beneficial to have out during literacy or math centers, or even tutoring! Fine and gross motor skills deeply affect student success, and we often get so much push back from school and district administrators.

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Noodle Knockout
I LOVE this game! There are so many ways to use it! It comes with “order cards” to make each soup, but they’re fairly simple and would be ideal for pre-k. In kinder and first grade, you could have students write their own order cards, or write simple addition facts on note cards. Students could make soup to represent the cards. The tweezers that come with this game are great, and each of the ingredients has a different shape so they have to problem solve how to grab each of them.

Froggy Feeding Fun
This game is adorable! You could also make your own frog but cutting a slit in a tennis ball! The frogs have a little bit of “force” so students have to use their hand muscles to open their mouths. Students roll the dice to figure out the color and quantity of how many bugs to eat. You could also give students 2 dice if you wanted them to to work on addition.

Giggle Wiggle
Giggle Wiggle is a great way to get students using their pincer grasp, and strengthening their finger and hand muscles. They could use their fingers to pick up the marbles, or give them tongs or tweezers.

Oodles of Aliens
This game is a pretty standard game of counting and sorting, but the alien theme makes it super engaging! I also love the dice popper, because it requires students to use their finger and hand muscles to pop it. The included tweezers are great, but you could give students any sort of tweezers or tongs.

Yeti, Set, Go!
Your students will LOVE this game! They have to use the Yetis leg to “kick” the meatball on the mountain. Your students have to use their motor planning skills to figure out how to kick the ball, and how much force to use to get it to land on the mountain.

There are so many benefits to games and board games in the classroom! Not only are these games great for strengthening your students’ fine motor skills, they also build cooperation, conflict resolution, and relationship strengthening into your day!