Find The Jingle Bells

This easy fine motor sensory activity is super simple to set up and has a lovely Christmassy feel.

Christmas fine motor skill idea. Help the elves find their lost jingle bells! Image shows small coloured bells in a tray of shaving cream with glitter sprinkled on the top

Christmas themed fine motor skill activity

You'll need

Shaving foam

Little bells

Tweezers - these chunky tweezers from Learning Resources are our favourites

Tray

Instructions

Fill the tray with shaving foam.

Add the jingle bells.

Use the tweezers to remove the jingle bells!

Extension Tasks

Use the tweezers to remove the bells without touching them.

Sort the bells by size or colour.

Count the number of bells or lay them out in an array.

Draw a graph showing how many of each colour bell there are.

More fine motor skills ideas

Check out my other science themed fine motor skill activity ideas.

School Time Snippets has a brilliant candy cane paperclip idea.

These gingerbread lacing cards from the Nurture Store are lovely too.

Why should children practice fine motor skills?

Did you know there are over 30 muscles in the hand and forearm? These muscles control elbow, wrist and finger movements, while the much smaller muscles in the palm of the hand control smaller movements of the thumb and fingers.

If hand and forearm muscles develop slowly or aren’t strong enough, children can find it very difficult to grip and manipulate small objects, making learning to write a more challenging task.