50 Pre-Schooler Fine Motor Skills Activies

Here's a list of pre-schooler activities that involve the children learning how to use fine motor skills:

1. Writing
2. Drawing
3. Painting
4. Coloring
5. Chalks
6. Lego Play
7. Playing with Cards
8. Handling Scissors
9. Stringing Beads onto Pipecleaners
10. Play Dough
11. Puzzle Boards
12. Jigsaw Puzzles
13. Shape Sorting Toys
14. Finger Foods
15. Tissue Paper Mosaics
16. Food Preparation
17. Hanging Items on a Clothesline
18. Playing with Clothespins and the edges of boxes
19. Using a Spoon to pick up beads
20. Sewing and Lacing Cards
21. Gluing Beans onto Colored Paper
22. Sand Art
23. Pouring something from one container to another
24. Mixing Colors
25. Finger Puppets
26. Playing with Musical Instruments
27. Peg Boards
28. Zippers
29. Buttons
30. Velcro Strips
31. Tying Shoelaces
32. Snaps
33. Turning Pages
34. Playing with Pom poms and a muffin pan
35. Pipe Cleaners and Colanders
36. Screwing Nuts and Bolts
37. Playing with Stickers
38. Hole Puncher Crafts
39. Playing with Syringes and Turkey Basters
40. Playing with Kitchen Tongs
41. Stacking Blocks
42. Mr. Potato Head
43. Dropping Coins into a Piggy Bank
44. Making a Pine Cone Bird Feeder
45. Playing with Squirt Guns
46. Playing Tea Party
47. Squeezing Water out of Sponges
48. Sand and/or Water Tables
49. Turning Door Knobs
50. Folding Paper

Preparing Children for their First Day of School

This is mostly a transcript of my notes with my thoughts thrown in based on a class that I'm currently taking.

How to Prepare Your Child for Their First Day of School

Be positive, confident and enthusiastic about school.  Children are intuitive and pick up on what mom is feeling very easily, so its doubly important to remain upbeat about this important transition in their lives.  A number of activities can help both you and your child feel happier about this change.

• Buy uniform and school supplies together
• Talk about what they can anticipate out of their school day
• Walk by the school that they'll be attending frequently and talk it up
• Point out children your child already knows who goes to that school
• Read books together about the first day at school

If you have any fears, do a few things to help alleviate those fears.

• Meet the staff and ask about how the child's daily routine is going to be so that you can share this information with your child
• Ask about how long drop offs are and take that time to engage your child in activities going on at the school or nursery.  Some schools will have as much as a half hour for parents to visit with their children before they actually start their classes

Even before the first day of school, you can get a sense for how your child will take to being separated from mom at home.

• Go to a 'taster' day... a time when children can be dropped off at the school for about an hour to see how they adjust on their own
• Join community classes such as these that also utilize a 'creche' (hourly on-site child care) so that your child can experience being left with a play group while mom is in the next room