**This post about Halloween fine motor activities include affiliate links**
October is about all things Halloween in our classroom and these fine motor activities don’t disappoint! You know I’m all about fine motor activities that incorporate academic skills and I’ve got 10 all new activities you’ll be LOVING for October!
1. Spider Bin
This is always a fun activity that my students love. I grab a bin with holes (the holes are super important), some plastic spiders, and some yarn. Once you have your materials, you’re going to string the yarn through the holes on your bin to create a web. Then I spread my spiders throughout the web. I toss in a few tweezers and other fine motor grabbing utensils and my students practice pulling the spiders out of the web.
Add more skills:
- Sort spiders by size
- Count out specific numbers of spiders
- Sort spiders by color
2. Pumpkin Dot to Dot
This is a really fun activity that I use to build “teamwork” skills in my classroom. Once student creates the dot to dot while the other completes it. I give each student a piece of paper and some pumpkin stickers. The students place the pumpkin stickers on the paper, then they trade papers. Now the students will “solve” each other’s puzzles by drawing lines to connect from sticker to sticker.
3. Ripped Pumpkin
Ripping paper is a great precutting skill that so many of our students need. To complete this activity from my Grab and Go Scissor Skills Kit, I grab some colored paper and print off some pumpkin templates. They get a quick cut on the paper cutter to scale to size and we’re ready to roll. Students rip the paper and glue the pieces to the pumpkin template to create their ripped paper pumpkin.
Since repeated practice is so important for many of my students, I make this an activity we can do over and over by making a color book. Students will create 5-8 different colored pumpkins and we create a book they can read.
4. Pumpkin Number Match
At this time of the year, a lot of my students are working on differentiating and identifying numbers, so this activity is always a hit. I copy off my number templates onto green paper and staple along the black lines. Then I print and laminate the numbered pumpkins and hot glue them to wide popsicle sticks. Students will take the popsicle sticks and place them in the slot that has the same number as the pumpkin. Placing the popsicle stick in the space can be a lot of work for some of my students and it’s a great way for them to practice their fine motor skills as well as gaining some persistence with tasks.
5. Pumpkins on the Gate Craft
Nothing is better for fine motor skills than creating a craft or art project. It combines cutting as well as planning skills that so many of my students need. I copy the pieces from the free download and my students cut the pieces out to assemble a gate and 5 pumpkins on top. I also created the poem as a printable page so you can glue it to the craft and your students can read it aloud.
If your students aren’t able to do that much cutting yet, that’s ok. You can definitely modify this craft project by having students assemble the gate and they can glue orange poms on top of the gate as pumpkins. They could also use a large pom dipped in orange paint to make pumpkins.
6. Dough Pumpkins
My crew really loves using play dough this year. I’m using that to my advantage for fine motor activities and this is a really fun one! I cut some green pipe cleaners and wrapped them around a pencil to create a vine. My students practice rolling orange dough into balls, then they place the vine in the top of the ball and they have a pumpkin.
Want to expand on this skill? I created some number templates you can use along with this activity for students to practice counting skills!
7. Halloween Snip and Count
Snipping is an important step in fine motor development. I run off the snipping templates from my Grab and Go Scissor Skills Boxes and trim the snipping pages into strips. My students use scissors to snip the images and count out enough to match the number on their work page. This is a quick prep activity that you can use multiple times throughout the month.
8. Snipped Yarn Pumpkin
I love getting a chance to snip things besides paper. Construction paper is great for beginners because it’s nice and sturdy, but I quickly move my students into cutting different materials so they can practice moving the object and their scissors to be efficient. This is a great activity to get your students moving to cutting different materials.
I print off the pumpkin template from the free download and grab some orange yarn. Students snip the yarn into tiny segments and glue them to the pumpkin to complete this activity.
9. Pumpkin Patch
Who wouldn’t want to grow their own pumpkin patch? I prepare this activity by grabbing some floral styrofoam from the store and printing out my pumpkin pieces. I chose not to laminate these because I didn’t think they’d last beyond this year, but you could totally laminate yours if you choose! Then, I glued the pumpkin pieces to toothpicks. My students take the toothpick pumpkins and insert them into the styrofoam.
10. Costume Parade
I just can’t resist sharing this ADORABLE project from my Grab and Go Scissor Skills pack. I find that as my students fine motor skills increase, they need practice cutting out complex shapes. This scissor skills box is the perfect activity to work on that skill. To complete this task, students will color the background then cut out the trick or treaters and glue them to the background. My students are all about Halloween and this activity is always a hit in our classroom!
These are 10 easy to implement fine motor activities that we’re going to be rocking all October long. Want to use them in your classroom? I’ve added them to the free resource library, so you can grab them there!
If you’re rocking some of these activities in your classroom, drop me a comment and let me know! I love hearing about your student’s fine motor growth and success!
