Fine Motor Skills Task Boxes: Finding the Materials

When I designed my Fine Motor Skills Task Boxes, I tried to include materials that many teachers have on hand in their classrooms. My goal was that teachers would be able to print the labels and activity cards and assemble the boxes with as little extra expense as possible. Of course, we don’t all have the same math manipulatives and craft supplies in our classrooms and some people buy these fine motor activities to use with their own children at home. So, this post is all about the other, non-printable materials needed to assemble your fine motor boxes. (This post contains affiliate links.)

If you’d like to learn more about the importance of fine motor development, here’s a post for you. For a free sample printable fine motor activity, head to this post.

I’ll start with the boxes themselves. I have yet to find a consistent online source for plastic pencil boxes with a better deal than grabbing them in stores during back-to-school sales. Any plastic pencil boxes that are approximately 8″ x 5″ (21cm x 13cm) in size will work. During back-to-school season, many stores carry these types of boxes for $1.00 or less. If you’re trying to acquire these boxes at a different time of year, try asking around at your school before buying–one teacher’s trash is another’s treasure!

When you are ready to attach your laminated labels to your boxes, I strongly suggest using Velcro. Then you can switch out the activities as needed throughout the year. I use these adhesive squares.

Many of my fine motor sets include cube building. The kids love these activities! If you don’t already have connecting cubes in your classroom, Amazon has many choices. This is the set I have. I have made an effort not to include more than ten cubes of the same color in each of my design cards, so one set (ten cubes per color) should allow students to make any of the models.

Pattern blocks are another recurring activity in my fine motor boxes. There are several brands of pattern blocks and they seem to be standard in color and size. This set by Learning Resources is the one I have.

Also by Learning Resources, these transparent counting chips are one of my favorite manipulatives. Handling them is such a satisfying sensory experience and they really build finger dexterity as students grip and place them.

A few of my fine motor resources have options to use spinners for counting activities. You can have your students use a paperclip and a pencil for these, but I love these transparent spinners from ETA hand2mind. You can tape them to the printable spinners and use them again and again.

Another great fine motor manipulative that I’ve used in several of my boxes are these Learning Resources Link ‘N’ Learn Links.

Many of the other materials that will complete your Fine Motor Skills Task Boxes can be found at dollar stores. I’ve purchased most of the items below at Dollar Tree, but since the inventory changes regularly, I am also linking to Amazon equivalents for some of the materials. Check the dollar store for: hair gel (for sight word bags), pony beads, clothespins, tissue paper squares, play dough, craft pom-poms, child’s tweezers, craft sticks, and shoe laces (for lacing cards).

If you have any questions about where to find any supplies, please leave a comment below or shoot me an email! Thanks for reading!