**This blog post about no prep fine motor activities includes affiliate links.**
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I don’t want to do any prep when it comes to fine motor activities. That’s when I turn to one of my favorite resources (AMAZON!) and scour their products for engaging, low cost activities that I can just pull out of the box and use in my classroom immediately. I’ve done the hard work for you and searched Amazon for some of the best no prep fine motor activities. Check them out!
1. Fine Motor Hedgehog Toy
This fine motor hedgehog toy is a classroom favorite. Students take the pegs and insert them into the holes on the hedgehog’s body. Targeting skills and strengthening skills are practiced with this FUN fine motor toy. I actually keep it in my play area for some sneaky fine motor practice in the classroom!
2. Button Art Kit
We love button art in our classroom. These little buttons are perfect for small hands to manipulate and the hand strength needed to press the buttons into place is a great strengthening activity. This activity makes a regular appearance in our fine motor center.
3. Fine Motor Owl
This fine motor owl was a new purchase for my classroom on Black Friday. The owl comes with six numbered coins (we use them for number sequencing!) that students drop into the top of the owl. As they drop the coins in, the owl’s wings start to expand and they spill out when the owl is full. There are also gears for the students to crank and triggers to pull that are great for precutting skills!
4. Fine Motor Super Sorting Pie
I’ve had this super sorting pie in my classroom for about 5 years now and it’s always a classroom favorite. I love that it comes with differentiated sorting mats that you can switch out in the bottom of the pie and your students move the pieces with tongs to promote proper grasp. I like to keep our pieces that need to be sorted in the top piece of the pie so they stay on our table a little bit longer!
5. Peg Boards
Peg boards are a great way to building fine motor strength. I inherited a set from one of my coworkers and it’s a great activity that pull out during fine motor activities in the classroom.
6. Nuts and Bolts Toy
I LOVE my set of nuts and bolts toys that I scooped up years ago at Target. These are a great activity to practicing manipulating objects. For my students who are matching we’re able to work on matching color and shape pieces. Once these toys are mastered they make a GREAT task box to use in the classroom!
7. Lacing Cards
I have a pretty good collection of lacing cards in my classroom, but these Melissa and Doug lacing cards are definitely my favorite! I like to durability of the lacing pieces. My students are able to hold the item and insert their lace without the piece bending or getting away from them and we all know lacing is a great fine motor activity!
8. Froggy Feeding Fun Game
The froggy feeding fun game is such a versatile game and it’s a GREAT fine motor game, too. Students can roll the dice (I often play your turn, my turn and ditch the dice) and squeeze their frogs to feed them the flies.
9. Veggie Farm Sorting Set
I scooped this Veggie Farm activity up a few years ago when we were preparing for a field trip to the farm. I like incorporating the vocabulary we’re going to be using into our classroom activities, so this was a great addition. It’s very similar to the sorting pie I have since there are so many options for me to set up for my students. They can sort by color, count out objects, and more, I just have to lay out the cards. Then my students handle the small objects and place them in the garden.
10. Counting Cows
I LOVE any activity that can serve double duty in the classroom an these counting cows are one of those activities. Not only are they an (adorable) fine motor activity, but they’re also a great counting activity. These cows pop into two pieces. One piece has the number and the other piece has spots to count. Students count the objects and find the matching cow. These cows also make a GREAT work task activity!
11. Linker Cubes
Linker cubes are a classroom favorite and they may have become a reinforcer, too. There are tons of things you can build with these blocks and there are tons of templates out there that you can use in your classroom, but building towers is a great way to get started. My students have gotten really creative and figured out how to form letters and numbers with these cubes, too.
12. Avalanche Fruit Stand Game
I seriously love this avalanche fruit stand game. Again, this is a game where I sometimes ditch the spinner and play as my turn, your turn. The idea is you pull out fruit with the tweezers (such a great fine motor skill) and try not to have the fruit stand spill onto the table.
13. Bead Lacing
I have a nice, sturdy set of lacing beads in my classroom. I like how the beads are large enough for all of my students to hand, but once my students get skilled at this it’s time to up the ante. That’s when I’ll grab some smaller beads and pipe cleaners for my students to start beading.
14. Lite-Brite
I remember my lite-brite being one of my favorite toys growing up and my students definitely love the one we have in the classroom, too. I picked one up at Target a few years ago and have used with so many students who are working on requesting by attribute. This is such a great activity to practice requesting by color!
15. Magnetic Color Sorting Maze
This magnetic maze was definitely one of my more spendy additions to my fine motor activity collection, but the skills it works on with my students has been worth every penny to me. I love how students need to hold a magnetic pen to guide the balls into place on the maze. I prefer this color sorting maze because there aren’t any tricky and frustrating dead ends you would find in a traditional maze, but there are tons of options out there. You’ll easily be able to find the right one for your classroom.
While I love these no prep fine motor activities, I know building your stash takes time and resources. I always have my eyes on Facebook Marketplace or I’m creating a DonorsChoose project to get materials like these funded for my classroom. If you’re still looking for fine motor activities that won’t cost you a lot of money, I have a bunch of blog posts with fine motor activities I’ve created and developed for my classroom that I love sharing with you all. You can check out what I’ve posted here.
I also want to know all about your favorite no prep fine motor activities! Have a favorite? Drop a link in the comments. I’m always looking to add to my collection.
I have a student who loves music. Do you have any recommendations for toys with muscial sounds?
I’ll have to do some more research on that, but I’d definitely incorporate songs with some of these toys. For example, with the frog fine motor toy, I would use the song “Five Little Speckled Frogs” and adapt it to sing about the bugs instead of the frogs.