Fine Motor Skills

Use Wind-Up Toys Fine Motor Activity

Colleen Beck OTR/L

Colleen Beck, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist and the owner and author of The OT Toolbox website. She manages all of The OT Toolbox social media accounts and runs the popular newsletter. Colleen created The OT Toolbox in 2011 and since then has written thousands of blog posts designed to support therapy providers, educators, parents, counselors, admin, and caregivers in promoting the healthy development of kids. Check out Colleen's blog posts below:

by Colleen Beck OTR/L
March 31, 2017

So, we have a small collection of wind-up toys. They are one of our favorite ways to play and a powerful occupational therapy toy. There is just something about a chattering set of teeth that walk that makes a kid smile. When you add in the fine motor benefits of playing with wind-up toys, it’s a big bonus to those smiles! Grab a few wind-up toys and start building fine motor skills.

Best Wind Up Toys

In-hand manipulation activities are a great way to boost fine motor skills needed for tasks like managing clothing fasteners, using a pencil when writing, manipulating items like coins or beads, and more.

For more ways to build fine motor skills, try this in-hand manipulation puzzle.

Wind-up toys are a great way to build fine motor skills. In order to make the toys go, you need to wind a small knob on the side of the toy. This skill is one type of in-hand manipulation called rotation that is needed for skills like turning a pencil with the tips of your finger. Read more about the types of in-hand manipulation here.

Help kids work on fine motor skills using wind-up toys

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Some of the best wind up toys include:

Chattering teeth toy
Wind up teeth
Wind up animals
Wind up car
Wind up bath toys
Wind up train
Wind up robot
Wind up monkey with cymbals

You can use wind-up toys for a fine motor activity by using several different toys. These are perfect little toys to add to Easter baskets or birthday gifts for kids. Ours are a collection that we have had for a couple of years now, but there are so many available out there.

These little Spring bunnies and chicks are perfect for the fine motor activity we did.

Use wind up toys to work on fine motor skills

WInd up Teeth Activity

We used our wind up teeth and the wind up animal toys to race and to build fine motor skills.

This activity is so easy and a great way to work on in-hand manipulation and bilateral coordination skills. Line up a few strands of yard or shoe laces on a table. Place one wind-up toy in each lane and have a race! It’s a fun way to encourage fine motor strengthening.