10 Montessori-inspired ways to promote your child’s fine motor skills through art

Art projects offer one of the best ways for young children to develop their hands and learn the pincer grip they will later need to successfully write. But Montessori art work is a little different than what you will find on Pinterest. It’s child-led, meaning that you provide the materials they need and take a step back to let them explore and create.

When using the
Montessori method for refining motor skills, the trick is to find activities that your child will go back to again and again on their own, without having to ask them to practice.

Will the results be recognizable or cute? Not necessarily, but your child will be engaged in the process and with each brush stroke or squiggly line, they will be preparing their hand for writing and other refined hand movements.

Here are 10 Montessori-style art ideas to help promote fine motor skills:

1. Stickers

Peeling stickers off of a sheet is challenging work for a young toddler, but they are highly motivated by the sticker, and so will persevere through the difficulty. For very young toddlers, cut the sheet of stickers so that your child has only 4-5 at a time. This will keep it from being overwhelming. You can also peel off the white backing from the sticker sheet ahead of time to make it easier.

2. Tearing paper

Tearing strips of paper into tiny pieces is something even the youngest toddler can enjoy. In addition to being fun, tearing paper helps strengthen the small hand muscles and develop coordination between the hands.

First, choose beautiful paper and cut it into strips—wrapping paper or some of your child’s paintings are great choices. Next, place a few strips of paper and a little bowl on a tray and show your child how to tear the paper and place the pieces in the bowl. As your child gains hand strength and impulse control, you can introduce scissors for a similar activity.

3. Clay

Clay is a great alternative to Play-Doh because it requires more hand strength to mold. You can switch out the tools you offer to help your child work with their hands in different ways. Working with clay can also be very calming and therapeutic for many children.

4. Crayon rocks

Most children are eager to draw and practice writing before they perfect the three-finger pincer grip needed to correctly hold a pencil. An incorrect pencil grip is very hard to re-teach, so Montessori classrooms prevent children from using pencils until their hand is ready.

Crayon rocks provide the perfect medium for this stage. Their shape encourages children to hold them with a three-finger grip, without any interference from you. You can also just break regular crayons into small pieces, or use those inevitable broken pieces from an older sibling’s reject pile. While young children will often use a whole hand grip with a long crayon, they will need to use their pincer grip for small pieces.

5. Chalk

Chalk requires more pressure than crayons, which helps your child get a sense of the pressure required for writing. Offer chalk on an easel, a small chalkboard at a table, or sidewalk chalk to give them experience with drawing at different angles and on different surfaces.

6. Bead stringing

Bead stringing is an excellent fine motor activity because most children are really drawn to beautiful beads and the challenge level can easily be adjusted by the type of bead you choose. Start with larger beads and pipe cleaners for younger toddlers. Help them twist the pipe cleaner into a bracelet or bookmark.