DIY Fine Motor Skills game

Lakeshore Learning has these really fun fine motor skills games. Every time we go into the store my kids have to go play with the sample versions, which is an excellent selling point. I was really struggling with paying $20 for a game I didn’t think they’d play with much, so I came up with my own fine motor skills game for our homeschool preschool, which I’m sharing with you now as a Homeschool How-To.

(there are affiliate links in here)

Supplies for your fine motor skills game

a milk jug,  construction paper, fun foam, paint.

Added bonuses: pipe cleaners, pom poms, googly eyes

Putting together your fine motor skills game

Side point, I’m theming this to make a pig, but as I learned when looking at the fine motor skills games at Lakeshore, you can easily re-theme this game by painting it for the unit you are doing.

1. Clean out your milk carton, it’s no fun if your game starts to smell.

2. Paint your milk carton the color of your intended animal, since mine was a pig, the whole thing is pink.

3. Next cut out a mouth. I figured out for this, it works better to cut it out so it can lay on its side. I used a combination of kitchen shears and a steak knife to do this.

4. Make some eyes, I made them out of scrap paper, but you could also use googly eyes or fun foam. This was what I had on hand in our recycle bin. Glue them on. Look at this, and think, this is so creepy, I’m glad the kids don’t care about that right now.

5. At this point realize you don’t have anything pink and run upstairs for the closest color, light tan fun foam. Cut triangular shapes for ears and an oval shape for the nose. Color the inside of the ears pink, and two big black circles on the nose. Cut holes in the top of the carton and stuff the ears in. My holes were slightly smaller than the ears, that’s partially because I made huge ears relative to the size of my pig. But, it made the ears look cuter, and I think they stay on better.

6. Now gather pom poms, seeds, beans, or whatever other small objects you want your child to master moving. Provide them with tongs, spoons, or other transferring objects and let them have at it.

Now, while I was making this fabulous game, my boys were busy making their own amazing sculptures.

Oh, and torturing their toys.

How to use this fine motor skills game

While I’m not a Montessori homeschooler, one aspect of Montessori I like is their emphasis on using and learning practical skills. That’s where this fine motor skills game is so useful.

First, it’s teaching kids how to scoop up items with a spoon, or how to grab something with tongs.

Looking for some fun fine motor skills tools? I like this tongs and scoops set or this kitchen tools set (double bonus you can use it for cooking with kids, and they have their own REAL kitchen tools).

Next, it lets them have some fun with silly items and possibly get messy. While I used pom poms and seeds for this (from my seed sorting set), it could be really fun to do with messy items like pudding, or anything else you want to try.

If you’re worried about the mess, let them try it in the bathtub, or in the baby pool. Or just get super messy and then have fun playing with water to clean up afterward.

More great homeschool or preschool how to’s

• How to make a seed sort fine motor skills station
• Teach your child how to take notes
• Teach your child how to take tests
• How to set up preschool learning stations
• Teach your child how to give a presentation