Fine Motor Journals for Preschool, Pre-K, and Kindergarten

Fine motor journals are a fun way to teach pre-writing skills, handwriting foundations, and strengthen fine motor muscles. There are so many fine motor activities you can do in a journal! It's like a mini-portfolio of all their fine motor activities all organized and in one place making it easy to visually see student growth. Here are some activities to do in fine motor journals: writing types of lines/letters (aka fun handwriting), name activities, letter activities, number activities, stamp activities, torn paper collages, cutting collages, sticker activities, drawing activities, hole punch activities, tape activities, and more!

What's included: (this was updated on 1/21/2022)

• OVER 400 ideas of fine motor journal ideas with photographs of each by theme, letter (A-Z, a-z), and activity type (ex: tape, stamps)
• collage letters and numbers
• cutting printables (shapes, straight lines, various types of lines)
• types of lines cards
• letter cards
• number cards
• fine motor developmental continuums
• parent/family note to send home
• covers (black and white - both full page and half page option)
• teacher direction pages, lesson examples, organization Ideas, extra supports and differentiation ideas, and ideas for early finishers

Skills and Objectives: The focus of fine motor journals is just that, to strengthen, increase, and develop fine motor strength and dexterity.

Fine motor skills students will develop are:

•Overall hand, wrist, and finger strength

•Pencil grasp

•Scissor skills

•Hand dominance

•Motor memory

•Visual perception: the ability to interpret and make sense of what we see

•Bilateral integration: using both hands or sides of the body to do a coordinated task (ex: one hand holds the paper and the other hand draws with a crayon)

•Hand eye coordination: use the eyes to visually guide movement for a task (ex: catching a ball, lace beads)

•Visual motor integration: ability to visually see information, process it, and move your hands appropriately (tracing a circle zig-zag, copying a circle shape)

•Handwriting foundations/pre-writing skills: tracing and copying various types of lines, shapes, letters, and numbers

Students can develop other skills based on the fine motor activity such as number recognition, shape recognition, letter recognition, concepts of print, vocabulary, and more. But remember the FOCUS is on developing fine motor strength and dexterity.

It is critical for students to develop fine motor and pre-writing skills in order to be able to write letters and hold a writing tool.

Letters and numbers are made up of l, -, /, \, (, ), +, X, o types of lines. Students need to be able to make various types of lines BEFORE they can make letters.

Check out more Letter Formation Resources:

• Brick Block Letter Mats
• Play Dough Letter Mats
• Make It Letter Mats (with mini erasers or other small manipulatives)
• Pattern Block Letter Mats
• Connecting Cube Letter Mats
• Road Letter Mats
• Geoboard Letter Mats
• Dot It Letter Mats (with pom poms, cereal, bingo daubers, or candy)
• Hammer It or Paint It Letter Mats (use golf tees or Q-Tips to paint)
• Big Block Letter Mats (for Duplo size brick blocks)

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