Button Towers Fine Motor Activity for Kids

It is important for kids to develop fine motor skills before learning to write. Developing fine motor skills early helps young kids learn to hold a pencil correctly, type, use their hands for skilled labor, and lots more! Fine motor activity helps children develop these fine motor skills. If you have any old buttons around, you can try this fun fine motor challenge with your kids! The button stacking challenge is sure to be a hit with your little ones.

And my husband wonders why I save random extra buttons – because there are fun things you can do with them!

Button Towers Fine Motor Activity

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For the fine motor button stacking challenge, all you need are some old buttons and a large play tray. We like to use a play tray rather than the floor for two reasons. Reason one, there is less mess! Reason two, my kids like to stand when doing their activities, so we put the play tray on a table. Buttons won’t roll away because of the tray edges.

If your kids are still likely to put things in their mouths, wait to try this activity until they are older to avoid the choking risk.

Materials:

• Play tray
• Buttons

Directions:

Instruct your preschoolers and toddlers to stack buttons. At first, let them have free play. You can show them how to make stacks by stacking the largest buttons on the bottom and the smallest on top. This will allow the kids to create taller towers.

After the kids play for a while, give them individual challenges. Here are some button tower challenge ideas:

Stacking a tower of one color.

Stacking a tower of alternating colors.

Stacking a tower of 10 buttons.

Stacking a tower of 20 buttons (we couldn’t get our tower to stack this high, but maybe you can!).

Stacking a tower of primary colors.

Stacking a tower of a specified number of buttons.

Stacking an archway.

We hope you and your children enjoy this button tower fine motor activity. There is almost no limit to the things you can try with buttons. Once you see buttons as a building tool, rather than a fastener, there is a whole world of fun open to you!

More kids activities:

• Easy 3D Edible Marshmallow Polar Bear Craft
• Fun and Easy Handprint Sun Paper Plate Preschool Craft
• 7 Fun Activities For Preschoolers On Snow Days