Fine Leaf Motor
Try these fun ways to use leaves to help children develop and practice fine motor skills.
Leaf Name and Initial Fill In
Go on a walk or hike and gather small leaves. Children need to use fine motor control and a pincer grasp to individually pick up small leaves. This in itself is good for developing strength in the hand and utilizing finger muscles that don't get used enough.
(Tip- Collect some leaves that are still attached to a compound stem {pictured left} it is fun for the children to pull them off one at a time to add to their picture AND it’s also good for helping develop these fine motor skills!)
Have the child write their name or initials using bubble letters or print out the letters from the computer ahead of time. Children enjoy learning their initials and those of their friends & family-this also helps develop letter recognition. Children take the small leaves one at a time and fill the letters. If you put glue down first it makes for a lovely art project. (you can also draw the letters in dirt outdoors!) This takes determination, patience and finger muscle strength and helps further develop all three of these critical skills. Children have a real sense of accomplishment when they finish too.
Leaf Fill In Pictures
Looking for a better way to gain fine motor skills and spatial awareness without having to 'COLOR IN THE LINES’? This is it!
Gather a variety of shapes and sizes of leaves from your yard or hike. Print out some fun outline shapes of things your child is interested in or download our PDFs (options- car, butterfly, cityscape or dinosaur). Fill in the shape with your collected leaves. Children should think about where a shape might fit best and carefully place the leaves to cover the entire shape. These can be laminated to use again and again or cover the shape with glue and create an art project.
Children can also choose to use scissors to cut leaves or a hole puncher to make leaf confetti circles to add to their pictures. Scissors and hole punchers build incredible hand strength and hand-eye coordination!
