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20 Best Toys to Develop Fine Motor Skills

Looking for the best toys to develop fine motor skills – here they are! We are sharing the 20 best find motor toys.

The few years we have our kids as toddlers – they are rapidly growing and learning. Your toddler’s gross motor skills, like running, walking and jumping doesn’t require much work on your part. Our toddlers took off on their own.

Fine Motor Skills for Toddlers

Our youngest Zeke is trying SO hard to jump – it’s hilarious watching him light up when he gets a centimeter of air while jumping. Your toddler’s fine motor skills, such as precise movements with their hands, wrists, fingers are skills that you can help develop.

Your little one’s fine motor skills support several vital physical and mental skills. These are things we are working with the boys on.

Best Fine Motor Toys To Develop Fine Motor Skills

Let’s look at these children’s fine motor toys that will both entertain your child and help develop their fine motor skills. 

Shake and Match Shape Sorter

Fine Motor Skills Toys - Shake and Match Sorter
fine motor toys to develop fine motor skills

First on our list of toys to develop fine motor skills we have the 6 sided Shake N Match Shape Sorter.

The 6 sided Shake’n Match Shape Sorter by Hape is expertly crafted from Baltic Birch plywood and hardwood. Included colored shapes are a circle, square, trapezoid, triangle, star and half circle. The shapes are filled with beads, and can be removed from the sorter through stretching the orange elastic at the top or bottom, or through the cutouts on the sides. Learn colors and shapes, while developing coordination and problem solving skills. It will stay in your family for years.

Durable child safe paint finish and solid wood construction are hallmarks of Hape toys. Hape’s toys stimulate children through every stage of development and help nurture and develop their natural abilities. All Hape products sold in North America meet or exceed all applicable safety standards.

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Check out our complete gift guide for more ideas for kids

Learning Resources Snap-n-Learn Shape Butterflies

shapes

Cute, chunky shapes are easy for little hands to grasp. Match up the shapes and snap on the wings to practice shape recognition (circle, star, heart, square and triangle), colors and fine motor skills. Five 3-piece butterflies (heads, wings, bodies) measure (3 3/4″W x 2 3/4″H) when complete. Includes storage bucket. Ages 2+.

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Buckle Toy “Buster”

Buckle
Like a fine motor skills board for toddlers but its a fine motor toy

Buster the Square offers a variety of bright colors, shapes, numbers, a zipper, and 6 child-friendly buckles that are sure to keep your little ones attention anywhere! Buster is the perfect size for on-the-go because he can easily fit in any diaper bag!

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Early Learning Ready, Set, Cut!

Cutting Set - best fine motor skills toys
fine motor skills toy

Learn to cut while creating 8 different crafts! Just follow the dotted line! Cut circles and spirals, or snip a strip. Includes easy squeeze scissors, 8 illustrated cutting activities, practice sheet and over 300 stickers. Ages 4+.

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The Wikki Stix Book of Wiggles, Squiggles & Curlicues

wikki stix

Beautiful, hands-on interactive board book for ages 3 and up. Each page features an adorable illustration with something missing, to be completed with Wikki Stix. Give Piggy a tail.

Add wavy black smoke to the top of the bright red train. Excellent for learning colors, and fine motor skills. Ideal for special needs, too, with heavy board pages that are easy to turn, plus Wikki Stix provide assistance with pointing and pressing.

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Super Shapes Magnetic Maze

Super Shapes Magnetic Maze

As children guide everyday objects through our fun magnetic maze, they learn to identify six geometric shapes! Kids simply use the attached magnet wand to guide real-world objects–from an envelope to a watermelon slice–to their corresponding shapes…and learn six different shapes while they play. The 13″ x 14″ hardwood game board features three object magnets for each shape, all permanently encased under a clear-view top.

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No-Spill Paint Cups & Brushes Assortment

Paint

Ten 3 1/2″ non-spill pots have inner safety lid, brush rest, and colored caps with matching color brush handles. Cap colors include red, green, black, white, yellow, dark blue, orange, purple, brown, and light blue.

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ALEX® Toys – Early Learning String & Beep

Cars

Alex String and Beep lets kid’s string big chunky wooden pieces together. This includes 12 wooden beads, wooden needle, cotton lace and stopper. Stringing beads improves a child’s fine motor skills and manual dexterity.

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Play-Doh: Toolin’ Around Playset

PlayDoh

Kids can hammer away the hours while making terrific tool creations. Extrude fun shapes with the included multi-tool that includes a wrench, saw, knife and more. Roll and cut lots of different compound creations. Cut fun shapes, roll out designs and load, press play. Set includes two five-ounce cans and five two-ounce cans of Play-Doh, multi-tool knife, scissors, roll ‘n cut dowel, two extruders with plungers, and three double-sided half molds, and trimmer knife.

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Melissa and Doug Basic Skills Board – Bear

Zippers

Incredible value and superior craftsmanship make this item a top seller and childhood favorite. Brightly colored, smooth-sanded pieces help build early shape, color and size differentiation skills. Newly redesigned!

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Beads & Pattern Cards Set; 108 Beads-Assorted Colors/Sizes

Lacing Beads

Colorful wooden spheres, cubes, cylinders and laces provide plenty of patterning practice, a prerequisite for early reading and math activities. Set includes 20 Activity Cards, 108 beads in six colors, two 36″ black laces with 1″ plastic tips and Teaching Notes in a bucket.  Suggested grades:Pre-K – –2nd grade

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Story Time Finger Puppets

Finger Puppets

Begin your story and encourage your little one to make up their own ending. Includes: Animal Puppets – 10pcs and Family Puppets- 6 pcs. Family Puppets Size Range: 2.75″ – 4″ Animal Puppets Size: 2.76″ x 1.18″ Bonus: Smiley Face or Mini eraser x 1

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Super Sorting Pie

Thanksgiving Pie Toy

Includes 60 counters: seven fruits (apples, bananas, grapes, oranges, grapefruits, apricots, and plums) in five different colors. Activity Guide provides fun ideas for engaging children in a variety of kindergarten readiness skills: sorting with the Activity Cards, matching, color/attribute identification, patterning, and counting.

Make early addition and subtraction concrete by removing pieces of fruit from a group and asking your child how many are left. Extend the play by encouraging some pretend pie baking, sharing, and selling.

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Sensory Shapes 8 Piece Mega Pack

Sensory

Sensory balls are great fine motor development toys for toddlers and babies. These balls helps refine fine & gross motor skills, promotes tactile exploration, visually stimulating, bright, colorful balls and shapes in varied sizes.

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Hape Color and Shape Sorter

Shape Sorter

This multi-tasking sorter encourages counting, sorting, and color and shape identification. This color and shape sort is a great wooden toy for fine motor skills – perfect for toddlers. There are three easy to hold basic shapes (square, triangle and circle) give young hands a fun workout sorting and organizing. Count the holes, pegs, shapes, are they same? How many ways can you rearrange the pegs?

Promotes dexterity, hand-eye coordination, matching and spatial relationships. 10 pieces. Durable child safe paint finish and solid wood construction are hallmarks of Hape toys.

Hape’s toys stimulate children through every stage of development and help nurture and develop their natural abilities. All Hape products sold in North America meet or exceed all applicable safety standards.

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Got toddlers? Check out these 10 Toddler Toys That You Child Will Actually Use

Body Sport Therapy Putty

Therapy Putty
therapeutic putty amazon find!

BodySport hand therapy putty Amazon find is designed to help strengthen the muscles of the fingers, hand, and forearm, as well as improve dexterity. Used not only to develop and enhance muscles, but also as a rehabilitation tool after injury. BodySport hand therapy putty is the same putty used in Physical Therapy treatment centers world-wide. Available in soft, medium, and firm resistance.

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Lace & Trace Dinosaurs

Dinosaur Learning Toy

Kids love these Lacing & Tracing activities. Colorful, heavy-duty chipboard lies flat for smoother tracing of the fun shapes, animals, trains, planes, snacks, and more. Lacing helps promote good penmanship because it develops the pincer grip. The activities also increase fine-motor control, introduce problem-solving, develop concentration, and encourage quiet play. Laces are 27″ long with easy-to-thread 1″ tips. Pieces vary from 4″ to 7″ in size.

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Melissa & Doug Basic Skills Board

Zippers2

Young children will have a ball developing basic skills for daily living with our beautifully illustrated board. Each of the six durable activities is fully portable; enabling multiple children to play at one time. Hide-and-seek artwork makes it fun to remove pieces and peek underneath too!

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Crayola My First Crayola Triangular Crayons 8ct

crayons

Triangular shaped crayons guide child’s fingers into the tripod position. Ideal for children learning how to write and draw. Washes off with warm water and a sponge. Color(s): Assorted Assortment: Black Blue Brown Green Orange Red Violet Yellow

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Fine Motor Fun, Grades Pre-K – Kindergarten

best fine motor skills toys - Fine Motor Fun!

Fine Motor Fun is a large resource written for early childhood professionals and teachers as well as occupational therapists. Teachers will be delighted with the wealth of instructional suggestions plus reproducible activities and patterns designed to strengthen the fine motor and visual-perception skills of young and special learners.

Included are: scissors skills, lacing cards, stencils, finger plays, stringing activities, dot-to-dot, tracing, finish the picture, mazes, tactile and first pencil experiences, and so much more! 160 pages

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Do you have a kid who fidgets? Read about Fidget Cubes and Fidget Toys.

I hope these fine motor toys for helping fine motor skills for toddlers helps you choose the right toddler fine motor toys to help your tot grow and learn.

Read more about Toddlers at Toddler Talk

What are your favorite toys for developing fine motor skills? Leave a comment!