After investing 15 minutes to create the DIY Robot, we share our favorite fine motor activities with our new environmental friendly pal.

1. Opening and Closing Bottle Caps

Sounds simple, right? In a matter of fact, the benefits of activity as simple as opening and closing bottles for the development of the fine motor skills are vast.

Opening and closing caps and lids helps your toddler to

1. improve eye-hand coordination,
2. develop pincer grip,
3. strengthen dexterity.

How is this possible? This simple activity requires all ten finger to work together, in order to achieve a good result. Your toddler practices over and over again how to hold small items such keys, crayons, pens, or pencils.

Read more about the benefits of opening and closing bottles activity, here.

2. Drawing

Lucky us, Aiden loves to draw. There is not one wall, chair, table, couch, window, mirror, carpet, or other furniture, that has not improved by his art so far. However, besides the “few” lines at home, drawing helps a lot to improve fine motor skills. For example, holding and writing with a pen, pencil, chalk, crayon or any other writing tool, is the best way to train those small hand and wrist muscles.

Additionally, your toddler sees immediately the result of their work and that helps your child to identify ways to create the desired outcome.

Because of the chalkboard sticker cover, the DIY robot offers the option for a makeover, over and over again.

3. Racing with Cars

Always wondered why boys love toy cars so much. Sometimes, I thought it is a myth. Now, that I am a mother of one boy, I know for sure, that’s not a myth, but a fact.

Picking up a toy car with the thumb and the forefinger and playing car race all day long, making those car noises… All in all, boys have good reasons to do that over and over again. In the long run, this helps them improve the pincer grip and eye-hand coordination, so they can drive cars one day…

4. Feeding the Robot with Cars, Straws and Other Small Objects

When the racing with the toy cars is over, another fun activity not only for mommy starts – the feeding. Feel free to give your child any spoon, or any tool that’s safe to use for feeding the robot. If the robot gets hungry, no car, paint, pencil or any other small item is safe from his hunger.

In fact, feeding the robot with hands, spoons, or other tools helps your child strengthen dexterity and improve further the pincer grip. Furthermore, a nice side effect of the feeding is, how clean your living room suddenly gets. 30 small cars all eaten by the hungry robot – mommy is happy.

Note, that the robot eats with his eyes and antenna too. Thus, you need to open the cuts and fill with whatever helps the little hands get more fine motor skill practice.

5. Grasping Magnetic Pompoms

To summarize, everything that’s small enough to be held between two fingers helps with improving the pincer grip and fine motor skills. Apart from this, magnets and pompoms are kind of fascinating for toddlers. That’s why colorful magnetic pompoms are not only a good way to practice fine motor skills but help with concentration.

Without a doubt, every parent appreciates activities that keep their toddlers busy for a while. Good for us, the magnetic pompom activity works pretty well.

Happy Playing!