Fine Motor Apple Activities {FREE Printable Included!}

The last few weeks, we’ve been on our “full” schedule of homeschooling.  It’s been a HUGE blessing to have my mom, a former public school Kindergarten assistant, three days a week to help me out.

While my oldest son spends some time writing in the schoolroom, my middle two children {ages 3 and almost 5} use some of that time to play with their fine motor skills. The past couple of weeks, we’ve spent quite some time with some fine motor apple activities!

Fine Motor Using Tongs

I created this apple tree counting game, similar to the counting games you’ll find in my Reading the Alphabet curriculum. {You can download it HERE.} My mom put on a number and MBug used the tongs to put that many “apples” on the tree.

To adapt the activity for an older child {like NJoy}, give them a simple number problem, such as “2 apples grew on the tree.  Then, 4 more grew.  How many apples are on the apple tree now?” The child can solve each problem and write the answer after using his pom poms to help him figure out the solution.

They also used tongs to cover the apples in the basket, an activity from my free Apple PreK/K Pack. {Note: to make the activity developmentally appropriate for both my kids, MBug’s page has the color words in color and NJoy has to read the color words because they are in black and white.}

We used transparent bingo chips on another day {you can see later in post} before coloring the apples in the basket on the third day of use. {Note that using the skinny crayons, instead of the fat ones, helps to encourage a correct pencil grip.}

Fine Motor with Playdough

You can’t mention fine motor without playdough! 🙂 While I’d love to say I made all my playdough, I can’t. We’re still going through a huge tub we were given at Easter time. I did pull out our red, green, and yellow playdough- festive colors for our three weeks of apple activities! I also pulled out a few apple playdough cutters, too.

We used Carisa’s “Find the Apples” in her Letter A Tot pack as a playdough mat {this particular activity worked best for MBug}. NJoy also used our cutters to spell APPLE.

They used the same apple tree counting game to pinch off small pieces of playdough and stick them in the apple tree, counting the apples.

Picking Up Small Objects

The transparent chip counters also work well to work on some fine motor skills. Before coloring their apple baskets {as mentioned above}, we also used the counters to cover the color words.

To work in some math fun, I folded some larger construction paper, writing numbers 1-10 on it for MBug and addition problems for NJoy. They glued down the apples on their foldable paper; such a simple math activity for preschoolers and still working on some fine motor.

I also adapted our Hi Ho Cherry-O Game, using only the red, green, and yellow pieces for a sorting game.  The “apples” were picked up with those fingers used to grip a pencil and sorted by color.

Fine Motor Apple Tree Painting

One day a week, my oldest is in a homeschool co-op and on those days, I try to do a craft with the youngers. This past week, we used Fantastic Fun and Learning’s idea and painted with pom-poms, another great fine motor activity.

First, their hands were painted and “stamped” on the paper

After the trunk and branches of the apple tree were dry, they used pom-poms to paint the apples on. {MBug got a little paint happy, but I guess that’s part of the fun.}

Felt Board Fun

I have had a felt board for years and never found that “perfect spot”…until now! The idea popped in my head to put it behind the door in our schoolroom and it has now been used like never before!

My mom graciously used some of the scrap felt I had and cut out felt letters and numbers for it and we used the letters to spell apple. {She used old bulletin board letters that I found while cleaning out the attic as her template.} So now, I can change it out with our different themes!

Enjoy
~Becky