The holiday season is here, bringing an excellent opportunity for children to engage in fun, festive activities that promote development and skill-building. Crafting isn’t just a way to create seasonal decor—it’s also an effective way to help children with special needs improve their fine motor skills. Here are some holiday craft ideas that you and your child can enjoy together, focusing on fostering creativity and building essential skills.
7 Festive Crafts to Boost Fine Motor Skills
Here are some festive, kid-friendly exercises that pediatric physical and occupational therapists love to use during the holiday season:
Holiday Card Decorating
Skill Focus: Hand-eye coordination, pincer grasp, and precision.
Decorating holiday cards is a timeless activity that encourages creativity and improves fine motor skills. Provide your child with stickers, stamps, glitter glue, and markers. Small tools like stickers and stamps require grasping and placing, strengthening fine motor control. Please encourage your child to write short messages or their name inside the cards to practice handwriting and grip strength.
DIY Salt Dough Ornaments
Skill Focus: Hand strength, sensory input, and finger dexterity.
Making salt dough ornaments is a tactile experience for kids needing extra sensory input. Mix flour, salt, and water to create a dough. Please have your child roll, knead, and shape the dough using their hands and cookie cutters. Once the ornaments are baked and hardened, painting and decorating them adds a layer of fine motor skill practice.
Pom-Pom Holiday Wreath
Skill Focus: Bilateral coordination, cutting skills, and pincer grasp.
Help your child create a colorful wreath using a paper plate, glue, and pom-poms. First, have them cut out the center of the paper plate to make the base of the wreath. Then, they can pick up pom-poms using their fingers or tweezers and glue them onto the plate. This activity strengthens coordination and precision while allowing room for creative expression.
Beaded Candy Canes
Skill Focus: Hand-eye coordination, sequencing, and grasp.
Threading beads onto pipe cleaners to create candy cane ornaments is a simple yet effective craft for building fine motor skills. Your child can alternate colors to practice pattern recognition and sequencing. The process of gripping and threading beads develops hand strength and coordination.
Snowflake Cutting and Decorating
Skill Focus: Scissor skills, bilateral coordination, and creativity.
Folding and cutting paper snowflakes is a fantastic activity for improving scissor skills and bilateral coordination. Start by helping your child fold a piece of paper into sections. Guide them as they cut shapes into the folded edges. Once the snowflake is unfolded, decorating with glitter or stickers enhances creativity and encourages additional fine motor practice.
Holiday Garland Stringing
Skill Focus: Bilateral coordination, pincer grasp, and sequencing.
Using materials like yarn, string, and large beads, have your child create a festive garland. They can thread items like paper cutouts, popcorn, or foam shapes onto the string. This activity requires both hands to work together and helps strengthen their grip and hand-eye coordination.
Finger Painting Festive Scenes
Skill Focus: Sensory exploration, hand strength, and creativity.
For a messier but highly engaging activity, have your child use their fingers to paint holiday-themed scenes like snowmen, Christmas trees, or ornaments. This activity provides sensory input and encourages your child to use different hand movements and finger pressure to create their masterpiece.
Tips for Success
- Adapt Tools: Use adaptive scissors, large beads, or textured grips as needed to make activities accessible.
- Encourage Independence: Allow your child to complete tasks independently, offering guidance only when necessary.
- Celebrate Effort: Praise their hard work and creativity, focusing on the process rather than the outcome.
Holiday crafting is a joyful way to spend quality time together while building essential developmental skills. Incorporating these fine motor activities into your festive routine can help your child strengthen their abilities in a supportive and fun environment. Happy crafting and happy holidays!
Need help boosting your child’s fine motor skills?
Try these crafts or consult a therapist for personalized support!
