Fall Fine Motor Activities for Kindergarten

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Each new group of kindergarten students has a wide range of fine motor skills and experiences.  Some students are comfortable with scissors and can write their names legibly while other students haven’t held a pencil before. This means that fall is an important time to add some additional fine motor practice to your classroom.  I wanted to share ten engaging Fall Fine Motor Centers and Activities that can bring some seasonal fun to your classroom this year!

Fall fine motor activities

10 Fall Fine Motor Activities for Kindergarten

Adding fine motor practice to your school day doesn’t mean you have to clear an additional block of time in your busy schedule.  In fact, the best part of fine motor activities is that they can easily be combined with literacy and math practice!  Since fine motor activities are very engaging by nature, you’ll find that students are even eager to practice skills like letter identification and counting as they complete these activities.  They will have so much fun, they won’t even know that they are hard at work building hand muscles and improving pincer grasp!

1. Syllable Count and Clip

This fun fall activity combines fine motor practice with phonological awareness.  Students will count the syllables they hear as they name a variety of fall images.  Then they can add a clothespin to the card in the correct spot. You can make the activity self-correcting by adding a sticker to the back of the card that lines up with the correct number. Students can simply flip over the card to see if they placed the clip in the right spot.

Adding a clip to a syllable counting task card

2. Beginning Sounds Find and Cover

You can also use fine motor activities to help your students identify beginning sounds in words, an important skill to practice at the beginning of the school year. Students can use tweezers to place pom poms over the pictures that start with the target sound. You could also give your students pumpkin seeds for covering the pictures instead.  This would add some extra fall fun and provide a different fine motor challenge.

Beginning sound cards with pom poms and tweezers

3. Hole Punching Letters

This hole punching activity will bring some fall fine motor fun to letter identification practice!  This apple-themed fine motor activity uses a hand-held hole puncher, which helps students have fun while they are improving hand strength.  Students will hole punch each apple that matches the letter on the apple basket.  The novelty of using a hole punch will keep your young learners engaged in the letter hunt!

Five letter identification cards with a hole punch

4. Dot the Letters

Learning correct letter formation takes plenty of practice, especially at the beginning of the school year! Fine motor activities are a great way to add some engaging repetition to letter practice. Students can practice holding a writing utensil by using dot markers to complete each letter.  They can also strengthen their pincer grasp by picking up and placing fall-themed mini erasers in each dot instead of filling them in with bingo daubers. 

A completed dot the letters activity

5. Linking Numbers

Fine motor practice can also be combined with math practice!  Students can order numbers by linking these apple-themed number cards. You can also have students add the correct number of links to each card in order to model the number.  Either activity will give students a chance to improve their hand-eye coordination and hand strength.

Linking number cards together with plastic links

6. Geoboard Pumpkin Shapes

Your students will love practicing 2D shapes with this fun geoboard pumpkin patch!  Students will make a shape on the geoboard to match the shape shown on the card. Then students can also circle the correct pumpkin that matches the same shape.

Creating a square on a geoboard with fall themed cards

7. Build Fall Objects with Cubes

You’ll want to grab all of the fall colors out of your snap cube bin for this fun activity!  Students can choose a card with a fall object, then complete the picture with snap cubes.  As their little hands pick up and turn each cube to line them up on the card, they will be improving their hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. 

Creating fall objects with snap cubes

8. Bead Patterns

Lacing beads can help young learners practice a variety of important skills!  Students can practice identifying and creating patterns as they use their fine motor skills to add beads to a lace or pipe cleaner. For this fine motor activity, students will recreate the patterns on each card using beads of different colors. After completing the pattern, students can count the total number of beads that they used and write the number on the card. This is perfect for practicing one-to-one correspondence, an important skill during the first months of kindergarten!

Adding beads to a lace in a pattern

9. Play Dough Apple Counting

Your students will have fun practicing their counting skills as they fill a fall tree with apples!  Students can use their fine motor skills to pinch and roll small pieces of play dough to create “apples” for the tree.  Once students have added the correct number of apples to the tree, they can count them one last time as they squash them!

Adding play dough apples to a tree

10. Cut and Glue Fall Puzzles

If you want to use crafts for fine motor practice throughout the school year, it’s important for your students to become comfortable using scissors! Simple scissor activities like these cut and glue fall puzzles will help your students become more confident with cutting and pasting.  An added bonus is that these fall pictures have numbers for students to put in order. 

A completed fall puzzle and two fall fine motor activities in progress

Students can cut out each strip of the puzzle and then use the numbers to put the puzzle pieces in order.  After gluing to construction paper, students can practice coloring as they decorate their completed puzzles!

Printable Fall Fine Motor Activities

All of the fun activities shown above (and more!) are included in this bundle of fine motor centers and activities for kindergarten. These printable fine motor task cards are perfect for centers, morning work, small group practice, or even fast finishers!  If you’re looking for low prep activities that will keep your students engaged in fine motor practice, you’ll definitely want to take a closer look!  Just click below to check out everything included in this bundle.

Save These Fine Motor Activities for Fall

If you’d like to quickly find these fine motor activities later, be sure to add this pin to your favorite teaching board on Pinterest!

Fall fine motor activities