Preschool Fine Motor Activity for Valentine’s Day

What’s an easy preschool fine motor activity for Valentine’s Day? Kids love this cardboard box and golf tee fine motor activity!

Why are fine motor skills activities important?

Fine motor skills activities prepare kids for future success with writing, self care skills, and more!

Here are a few reasons fine motor skills are important:

1. Fine motor skills are needed by kids and adults to do daily tasks like getting dressed, tying shoes, and brushing their teeth. Whenever you eat, you’re using fine motor skills to grasp your food and pick it up with a fork. 
2. Fine motor skills are also needed for some school related tasks, like holding a crayon or pencil, coloring a picture, drawing pictures and writing neatly, Zipping up a backpack, stacking blocks and stringing beads, using scissors, rulers and other tools!
3. Fine motor skills also help kids build confidence and independence!

I share more about fine motor skills and how to help kids build them in my new ebook, Fine Motor Magic!

Help kids build strong fine motor skills with Fine Motor Magic!

A simple guide for busy parents to strengthen their kids’ fine motor skills at home.

What’s the best way to develop fine motor skills?

I believe that the best way for kids to build fine motor skills is through play! Often the kids don’t even realize that they are learning new skills or strengthen their hand and finger muscles.

Box Hammering Activity Instructions

You won’t believe how easy this activity is to set up and introduce!

1. Start by putting your golf tees and mallets in a little bowl or bucket.

2. Next, set up some cardboard boxes. Make sure to secure all the sides closed with sturdy packaging tape.

3. Now you’re ready to add some hearts! Use markers and draw big hearts onto the boxes.

4. Finally put the cardboards boxes out with the mallets and golf tees and encourage kids to explore and hammer around or inside the hearts.

Pro Tip: Have one box with some holes already around the hearts for kids to easily stick the golf tees in and pull them out as they get started.

How can I adapt this for younger kids?

Give younger kids the golf tees and cardboard boxes with several holes already created around the hearts. Encourage kids to push the golf tees in and pull them out.

As they get more experienced with pushing and pulling the golf tees, you can always introduce the mallets and see if they’re interested in trying them.

Adding the mallets gives kids some great hand-eye coordination practice.

Whether they use the mallets, or just their fingers, kids are building their finger muscles and practicing their pincer grasp, which is an important fine motor skill that can help them with self-feeding with fingers or utensils, buttoning and zipping clothing, and even holding a pencil.

What are some other low prep preschool fine motor skills activities for Valentine’s Day?

Here are a few of our favorite simple Valentine’s themed fine motor activities:

Do you have any other favorite low prep preschool fine motor skills activities for Valentine’s Day? Tell us about them in the comments!