Fine motor skills define

Fine Motor Skills: Examples, Milestones, and Problems

Written by WebMD Editorial Contributors

Examples of Fine Motor Skills

You need fine motor skills for self-care activities like:

Dialing the phone
Turning doorknobs, keys, and locks
Putting a plug into a socket
Buttoning and unbuttoning clothes
Opening and closing zippers
Fastening snaps and buckles
Tying shoelaces
Brushing teeth and flossing
Bathing or showering
Using the toilet

‌Fine motor skills are also necessary for cooking and eating, like:

Picking up small foods like raisins
Eating with a fork or spoon
Opening and closing containers such as lunch boxes and zip-top bags
Screwing and unscrewing lids
Using a ladle, tongs, or a large spoon to take a serving of food
Cutting food with a knife
Spreading toppings like jam, mayonnaise, and butter
Sprinkling spices
Setting the table
Pouring drinks and condiments like salad dressing and ketchup
Scrubbing and peeling fruits and vegetables
Stirring, mixing, and whisking

Fine motor skills are especially important for school activities such as:

Turning the pages of a book
Coloring
Drawing and painting
Tracing
Writing
Cutting with scissors
Pasting and gluing
Measuring with a ruler
Typing and using a computer mousepad
Playing musical instruments

Children use fine motor skills during play, including:

Shaking a rattle
Stacking blocks
Stringing beads
Working puzzles
Dressing dolls
Playing with puppets
Sculpting with clay
Putting together train or car tracks
Building with Legos or other construction toys
Playing board games (rolling dice, moving small pieces, spinning spinners)
Playing video games (using a joystick or other controller)

Fine Motor Skills Milestones

Milestones are skills that children develop as they grow. Most of them learn fine motor skills at certain ages.

3 months. Your infant doesn’t have a lot of control over their arms. They can probably bring their hands to their mouth. A newborn’s hands are often tightly clenched. Your baby’s hands start to relax and open up at 3 months. They may try to reach for dangling toys and might be able to swing their arm in the direction of a toy. ‌

6 months. Most babies at this age can clasp their hands together. They can usually reach for things with both arms at the same time. At 6 months, your baby may be able to hold small objects for a short time.

9 months. Children can typically bring objects to their mouths and pass things from one hand to the other at 9 months. Their hands are relaxed and open most of the time. Many babies start using a pincer grasp. This is when they use their thumb and index finger to pick up small items.‌

12 months. Most children can let go of things on purpose and may be able to hand you an item if you ask for it once they are a year old. They can bang two toys together, take items in and out of a container, and point at objects.

18 months. Children at this age can often clap their hands, wave goodbye, and use a crayon to scribble without help. Your child may start drinking from a cup and eating with a spoon.

2 years. Most children will point to pictures in books and turn the pages by are 2. Your toddler may be able to stack three or four blocks into a tower.

When to Talk With Your Child’s Doctor

Children develop at different rates. Some learn to eat with a spoon earlier or later than others, and that’s OK. Talk with your child’s doctor if your child doesn’t seem to be reaching many of the milestones for their age group or if you’re concerned about their development. Your doctor can help you set up an evaluation with a specialist. ‌

You can also call your local early intervention office for a free evaluation if your child is under 3 years old. Call your local public elementary school if your child is 3 or older. Tell them that you’re concerned about your child’s development and would like to have them evaluated for preschool special education services. Acting early can help your child get the support they need.

A List of Fine Motor Skills Examples by Age

In early childhood, children develop and learn to control the small muscles of their bodies, including the hands, fingers, eyes, tongue and toes. This is known as fine motor development.

Fine motor movements look different at various ages. A baby, for example, has to learn to hold a spoon while eating, whereas an older child learns to tie their shoes.

Some general examples of fine motor skills are:

Picking up a toy with a pincer grasp
Turning the pages of a book
Placing pegs into a pegboard
Buttoning a top
Threading beads onto a string
Drawing
Writing

Below is a list of fine motor skills examples by age, from babies all the way up to children in primary/elementary school.

It lists some of the typical fine motor movements you can expect kids to do at certain ages.

Use it as a guideline only, as children develop at their own pace and may reach some milestones earlier or later.

Children develop their fine motor skills naturally through play but you can also plan fine motor activities that give them lots of opportunities to strengthen the small muscles of the body.

It’s also beneficial to give children access to a few, select fine motor toys to improve their fine motor skills – such as Lego, puzzles and lacing cards.

Here are the examples for infants, toddlers, preschoolers and children of school-going age.

This post contains affiliate links for educational products that I personally recommend. If you purchase through one of them, I earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Read the terms and conditions for more details.

The examples listed below are taken from the books “Language and School Readiness”, written by Martie Pieterse, and “From Birth to Five Years: Children’s Developmental Progress”, by Mary Sheridan.

Fine motor skills examples for infants

These examples are for infants up to about 18 months:

Playing with fingers
Clasping and unclasping hands
Grasping and holding toys
Putting objects in their mouth
Clapping hands
Following objects with eyes
Holding a bottle
Passing objects to someone
Feeding with a spoon
Pulling a toy with a rope
Picking up objects with a pincer grasp (thumb and a finger)

Fine motor skills examples for toddlers

Here are some typical movements from around 18 months to 3 years:

Pointing at pictures
Picking up objects with a pincer grasp/ thumb and index finger
Placing rings onto a stacking toy
Holding crayons and scribbling or making lines and circular shapes
Holding a paintbrush and making dots, strokes/lines and circles
Using a palmar grasp (whole hand) and developing a tripod grasp (holding crayons with thumb and fingers)
Building a small tower of blocks
Placing pegs into a pegboard
Transferring small objects into a tray
Attempting to dress or undress
Manipulating playdough
Snipping paper with scissors
Placing large pegs into a pegboard
Building puzzles of 2 to 8 pieces

Fine motor skills examples for preschoolers

Children of ages 3 to 6 years develop these skills:

Painting with paintbrushes of different sizes
Holding crayons, pens and pencils with a tripod grasp, near the point
Drawing pictures and pretend writing
Drawing people with details, houses, animals and basic shapes
Writing their name
Dressing and undressing
Brushing teeth, washing hands, combing hair and doing other self-care tasks
Opening and closing a tap to wash hands
Eating independently
Tying shoelaces, fastening buttons and zips
Controlling scissors and paper while cutting
Gluing and pasting materials
Doing finger rhymes
Tearing paper
Threading and lacing beads and string
Building towers with blocks and manipulating construction toys
Turning the pages of a book gently
Hammering nails into a wooden board
Using a preferred hand for most activities
Building 12, 24 or 48-piece puzzles
Creating constructions with waste materials
Making playdough creations
Preparing food – slicing, spreading, chopping, etc.

Fine motor skills examples for children in Elementary/Primary school

Cutting neatly along straight and curvy lines
Using a mature pencil grip
Drawing pictures with fine details
Writing letters and words along a line, in the correct size
Threading fine beads onto a string
Making intricate constructions
Knitting
Moulding playdough or clay into detailed objects
Making paper-folding creations
Preparing food

For more detail, here is a full list of fine motor milestones between the ages of 0 and 6, as well as some info on why fine motor skills are important.

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"The importance of the development of fine motor skills in children" - Kindergarten "Smile" No. 1, Stavropol

03/12/2018

Fine motor skills is the ability of a person to perform fine and precise movements with hands, fingers and toes as a result of the coordinated actions of three systems: nervous, muscular and bone. The development of fine motor skills in children is of great importance.

The area of fine motor skills of the hands covers a huge number of very different movements. Fine motor skills help us perform both primitive gestures (for example, picking up objects in our hand) and fairly small and complex movements (for example, writing). The handwriting of a person depends on the degree of development of fine motor skills.

The development of fine motor skills in children directly determines the quality of life. A huge number of everyday activities are connected precisely with fine motor skills: we have to fasten buttons and lace up shoes, thread a needle. In addition, researchers have established a link between the development of fine motor skills of hands and the development of speech, so that the development of fine motor skills in children helps them speak faster and better.

Scientists have proven a close connection between the development of fine motor skills and the development of speech in a child. It turns out that the speech center of the brain is located very close to the motor center, which is responsible for the movements of the fingers. If you stimulate the motor center responsible for the movements of the fingers, then the speech center is also activated! Therefore, the development of fine motor skills is necessary for the rapid and correct formation of speech skills.

Unfortunately, in the last decade, the number of children with speech and writing disorders has increased significantly throughout the world. Thirty years ago, the percentage of such children was much less! What is the reason for this phenomenon? Yes, it’s just that in the old days there were no shoes and clothes with Velcro. But there were lace-up shoes, clothes with buttons, hooks and ties. Children daily tied shoelaces, fastened buttons and hooks, thus training their fingers! After all, such movements require skill and the development of fine motor skills. And now children are freed from the complex process of lacing up shoes and carefully fastening buttons. It turns out that before the fine motor skills of children developed due to such everyday actions, but now it suffers. Accordingly, speech skills also suffer, problems with writing appear, because motor skills and speech are closely related.

It has already become a classic statement that the development of the hand helps the development of the speech of a preschool child and develops thinking. And all educators and speech therapists know the words of M.M. Koltsov “There is every reason to consider the hand as an organ of speech - the same as the articulatory apparatus. From this point of view, the projection of the hand is another speech area of the brain. This provision entered pedagogy in the 70s of the 20th century and was substantiated both by the results of the experiment with children and by the anatomy of the brain.

But there have always been families in which they do a lot of developing fine motor skills with children, buy special toys and aids (laces, sorters, beads), but the result is not happy, and for some reason there is no shift in the development of speech and thinking.

And there are other families where they didn’t seem to be specifically involved in the development of fine motor skills, and they don’t, the child just sculpts, draws, plays, helps his mother around the house, and everything is in order with fine motor skills, and the baby is clearly very smart and with well-developed thinking and speech.

So special games are not a panacea? Or are we doing them wrong? Is there something we don't know? Yes this is true!

After all, finger games and exercises are just a tool. And you still need to know how to use it! After all, we also learn to use other tools - we learn to play the violin, sew on a sewing machine or crochet. If we try to play the Paganini violin without training and without special knowledge, we will not get the desired result from this.

The very fact of performing exercises for the development of fine motor skills is not important, it is important what exercises we do with the child and how.

The main principle of conducting exercises and games for the development of fine motor skills is this - if the baby succeeds in this movement quickly and easily, then we quickly do it, skip it and move on. But what if the exercise fails? Then we stop at it and work out this movement until the movements become easy, simple, fast, beautiful, clear. And we move on to the development of new movements.

It is necessary to do such complexes of exercises and games that are difficult for the child regularly until they are fully mastered, that is, every day (for 4-5 minutes).

Children should be allowed to play with different objects, let them close and open the lids of jars and boxes, all kinds of cubes, pyramids, special inserts and laces. There are also special exercises for the development of fine motor skills in children. There are many books describing these exercises, if a child has a general underdevelopment of speech, and he attends a special group in kindergarten, then teachers will deal with these games with children. Along with the development of fine motor skills of hands and speech in children with ONR, teachers will prepare such children for writing, develop fingers, and they will not have problems later at school.

In older children, fine motor skills of hands are well developed by drawing, applique, embroidery, untying knots on a string. Let your child have a whole set for home creativity: pencils, paints, brushes, colored paper, scissors, glue, plasticine. With older children, you can already do real crafts, glue and sew something. You can lay out different patterns with counting sticks, you can write graphic dictations (in a notebook in a box, you dictate to your child how many segments to put aside (count by cells) in one direction or another, up, down). Such dictations allow not only to develop fine motor skills of the hands well, but also spatial imagination, the child remembers the concepts up and down, left and right.

Keep your child's games short - just a few minutes a day is enough, but they must be completed. All material for games after class must be removed and not given to the child, otherwise he will quickly lose interest in them. Daily exercises should begin with a massage of the fingers and hands: stroking and rubbing the fingers, pinching.

The main thing is to be patient, because the exercises must be done daily, starting from the very early age of the baby. But then the child will not have problems either in the garden or at school. Children who have better fine hand movements have more developed brains. Along with the development of fine motor skills of the hands, memory, attention, and intelligence develop. Therefore, it is important to perform fine motor skills exercises on a regular basis, so you will help your baby develop and learn faster.

And of course, you and your baby need to do exercises for the development of fine motor skills with pleasure, in a good mood. Along with the development of fine motor skills of the hands, do not forget about the overall development of your baby. The author of various methods for the development of children, Cecile Lupan, recommends developing an ear for music, artistic taste of the baby, teaching him to read and count from a very early age. And let it seem to you that the baby still does not understand anything, that the results are not visible. But very quickly your baby will grow up and surprise you with his developed speech, and his knowledge, and intelligence. To do this, you need quite a bit - to believe in the abilities of your baby, and to develop fine motor skills of the child's hands, to engage with him in reading, arithmetic and everything that is interesting to him and you.

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The connection of fine motor skills with play activities and its influence on the development of the personality of a preschooler

The problem of a child's development at the stage of preschool education and his preparation for schooling is one of the urgent problems of parents and teachers. In pedagogical theory and practice, various methods, techniques and techniques have been proposed to solve these problems. One of the practical methods for solving this problem is the development of fine motor skills in children and improvement of coordination of movements.

Scientists, educators and psychologists are unanimous in their opinion that hand movements play an important role at all stages of a child's development. In the period from 3 to 9 years, the development of the intellectual and creative capabilities of a person is most productive. As a rule, a child with a high level of development of fine motor skills in this age period is able to reason logically, his memory, thinking, attention, and coherent speech are adequately developed for his age. The level of development of fine motor skills is one of the indicators of a child's intellectual readiness for schooling.

In the course of the development of mankind, it historically turned out that both gesticulation (manual activity in general) and speech that began to develop were important for primitive man, therefore both of these functions found their place in the development of the cerebral cortex [1,2,4]. It has been proven that the movements of the fingers are closely related to the speech function of the individual. The emerging verbal speech was accompanied by constant gestures for a long time, which is still preserved in a residual form. Until now, in the process of communication, a person who does not find the right word for explanation or communication uses pointing, calling, repulsing, threatening, defensive and other types of gestures.

Appealing to the anatomical and physiological characteristics of the human body, scientists note that about a third of the total actual motor projection area is occupied by the projection of the hands, located very close to the speech motor zone. According to M. Koltsova, nerve impulses from moving hands (especially from fingers) going to the cerebral cortex “disturb” the neighboring speech zones of the cortex, stimulating them to vigorous activity [1]. Exercises to train the motor skills of the fingers accelerate the process of functional maturation of the brain. The influence affects both immediately after the exercise and is prolonged, contributing to a steady increase in the efficiency of the central nervous system. The data were confirmed by employees of the Institute of Physiology of Children and Adolescents of the St. Petersburg Academy of Psychological Sciences (M. M. Koltsova, E. I. Isenina) [5].

Consider the relationship between the function of fine motor skills and the function of speech, starting from the birth of a child. The first to develop in an infant are subtle movements of the fingers (grasping reflex or Robinson reflex), which accordingly activates the neighboring speech area. In the period from 6 months to a year, articulation of syllables (babble) appears. The appearance of babbling, according to N.I. Zhinkin, indicates that the child, under the influence of repeated reflex movements of the hand and fingers, has formed a psychophysiological mechanism of syllable formation [2]. Studies confirming this result were subsequently obtained by a number of scientists - psychologists and physiologists. It is important to note that all subsequent improvement of speech reactions is directly dependent on the degree of training of finger movements.

From the above, we can conclude the following: improved movements of the fingers contribute to a faster and more complete formation of speech in a child, while undeveloped fine motor skills, on the contrary, inhibit such development, although the level of general motor skills may be normal or even higher than normal. That is why the relevance of studying the ways and methods of developing fine motor skills is indisputable. However, the vast majority of studies are devoted to the formation and improvement of the child's general motor skills, while the development of fine motor skills of the hand has not attracted due attention of practicing teachers to this day.

Helping a child develop fine motor skills is essential from infancy. At this time, it develops in a child in a natural way, he first makes the first grasping movements, later the skills of shifting from hand to hand appear, the so-called "tweezer grip", then the child learns to manipulate various objects, thereby mastering the objective world. Future success in learning is largely related to how and in what way the baby's hand and fingers will develop. One of the well-known and proven ways to develop fine motor skills is modeling.

The generally accepted concept of "sculpting" is the process of creating a sculptural work associated with working on soft plastic material (clay, plasticine, wax, dough) by shaping it with the help of hands and auxiliary tools. The modeling technique is rich and varied, but at the same time it is accessible even to small children. Its advantage over other types of fine arts is that both hands are the main tool in modeling, therefore, the level of skill depends on owning one's own hands, and not a brush, pencil or scissors. The modeling technique can be assessed as the most accessible for independent assimilation. Trying to convey the shape of the object as accurately as possible, the child actively works with his fingers, moreover, with all ten. Fingers with their fine motor skills learn with the help of tactile sensations, coordination with the eyes and the inclusion of two hemispheres at once (left - rational, analyzing and right - intuitive, emotional).

Practice shows that in the conditions of preschool educational institutions, modeling classes are organized much less frequently than drawing or applique. However, it is sculpting as an activity, to a greater extent than drawing or appliqué, that leads children to the ability to navigate, model the world and their idea of it in space, master a number of mathematical concepts (fence posts, length, thickness of an object, dimensions of an object). Children directly compare parts of objects with each other, determine their dimensions (length, thickness), which in the drawing and application is carried out only visually.

Modeling is the most tangible kind of art. The child not only sees what he created, but also touches, picks up and changes as necessary. Therefore, in modeling classes, mental activity, creativity, artistic taste develop especially actively. Since any object has volume, it is perceived by the child from all sides, which is not feasible in the already mentioned drawing and appliqué classes. Based on this perception of the object, an image is more actively formed in the mind of the child. A child who starts sculpting at an early age is significantly ahead of his peers in mastering various skills. And the point here is not that he began to practice modeling earlier, but that modeling awakened his intellectual and creative inclinations early. E.P. Pimenova emphasizes that “the more children are engaged in modeling, the more confident and coordinated their finger movements become” [3].

Like any cognitive activity, modeling plays an important role in the comprehensive development of children. It can be represented, on the one hand, as a result of the mental development of a preschooler, and on the other hand, as a way to ensure this development and lead to the enrichment and restructuring of mental properties and abilities. For a child, this is one of the available ways to express their impressions of the world around them, to feel a connection with reality. The images created by children in modeling cause them an emotionally positive attitude not only to the modeled figure, but also to the depicted objects and phenomena.

A survey of primary school teachers showed that most of them are not satisfied with the level of development of fine motor skills in children's hands. Weakness, awkwardness, underdevelopment of the hand, the impossibility of performing fine differentiated movements do not allow the student to develop good handwriting and withstand prolonged hand strain in the process of writing. What seems unimportant or insignificant in the preschool period can later turn into a serious problem, namely, the problem of a negative attitude towards learning activities and the emergence of an anxiety state of the child at school.

The problem of insufficiently active use of modeling in the conditions of a preschool institution has two main sources:

1. Unattractiveness of this type of activity for a child. The reasons are the teacher’s incorrect presentation of the modeling material and technique, the inability to interest the child in this activity,

2. The teacher’s lack of interest in innovative developmental technologies and methods in this area.

A study of modern practice of working with children showed that in municipal preschool educational institutions insufficient attention is paid to the development of fine motor skills in children. modeling is often passive in nature, which is most likely due to the lack of certain competencies among preschool workers.

We are of the opinion that it is not difficult to awaken children's interest in learning new activities, they are happy to learn new things. It is much more difficult to motivate a teacher, since most of them, due to stereotypical behavior, strive to perform the activity that is most familiar and is accompanied by a certain level of success. Mastering the new, on the one hand, causes additional stress, on the other hand, an innovation divorced from everyday practice and without pedagogical (technological) support, most often does not “take root”. Significant effectiveness in motivating teachers can be achieved by using as a basis for mastering a new activity one that they have already mastered, tested and brings emotionally positive results. Such a "base activity" can be the organization of children's play activities.

Modeling classes, when the shapeless mass in children's hands turns into figures of animals, favorite fairy-tale heroes or characters of popular cartoons, stimulate children to play with it. The game, being the leading activity of the child, contributes to the formation of his mental processes. In addition, such an organization of classes deepens children's interest in modeling, expands the ability to communicate with adults and peers, develops observation, visual and motor memory, attention, thinking, optical-spatial perception (coordination), and imagination.

Unable to pinpoint the occurrence of a role-playing game in a story. Obviously, it arises in the course of the historical development of society as a result of a change in the place of the child in the system of social relations. Play is social in origin, by nature. It is associated with certain social conditions of the child's life in society and could arise among different peoples at different stages, depending on the living conditions and the time of transition to the next stage of development. The inclusion of children in the areas of labor activity necessary for the family or clan required special training; for this, tools corresponding to the physical development of the child were made, and situations of communication and relationships typical for a particular type of activity were reproduced in game activity [5].

In Russian pedagogy, such well-known scientists as D. B. Elkonin, D. V. Menzheritskaya, A. P. Usova, L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Leontiev, P Ya. Galperin, V. V. Davydov, A. V. Zaporozhets, etc.

As D. B. Elkonin writes, “... on the basis of mutually contradictory tendencies of the child to independence and to live together with an adult, a new type of activity arises - a role-playing game in which the child takes on the role of an adult and, reproducing his life, activities and attitudes towards other people, thereby lives a common life with him. Through the content of the game, the child joins the life of adults" [5].

At the same time, the ability to play role-playing games presupposes a fairly high level of speech development. It is known that children with poor language skills cannot play plot-role-playing games: they do not know how to plan a plot, cannot take on a role, their games are primitive in nature (mostly manipulations with objects) and fall apart under the influence of any external impacts. The game may turn out to be more valuable with age for the formation of amateur forms of behavior, where the child is required to be able to establish relationships with peers and elders, realizing their game plans.

L. S. Vygotsky wrote about play as the main condition for the development of a child, under which he can show abilities that reveal the level of his immediate development. The role-playing game at preschool age, being the leading activity, determines the development of all essential aspects of the child's personality, preparing his transition to a new age stage of development [6].

Similarly, one can consider the development of fine motor skills of the hand as a preparatory stage for the development of speech, and the development of speech as a preparatory stage for gaming activity. The purposeful development of fine motor skills of the child's hands contributes to the activation of one of the mechanisms of the cognitive process - the function of speech. The result of developmental exercises has a long-term impact, which means that it motivates the child to satisfy his needs through this function, since a more productive activity - a game to satisfy the needs that have arisen is not yet available to him. From this it follows that the foundation of speech activity will be laid through the training of fine motor skills of the fingers, which will provide preparation for meeting the needs at one of the following stages - the stage of the role-playing game. The latter, in turn, will contribute to the expansion of speech cognition, the consolidation of the learned material, the development of coherent meaningful speech, and the increased interest in the activity being carried out, namely modeling. In other words, developed fine motor skills directly affect success in the game and the subsequent mental and physical development of the child, and the game reinforces the success of fine motor skills, freeing speech from situational connection, being a transitional link between the complete dependence of speech on things and objective actions to freedom of speech from real perceived situations. It is in this "liberation of the word" that the significance of playing with peers for the speech development of children lies, according to D. B. Elkonin.

Do not forget that the game is of great educational importance, it is closely connected with learning activities, with observations of everyday life. Even Aristotle pointed out in his writings the importance of the game as a means of preparing children for future serious activity, work. Also, the game can serve as an occasion for communicating new knowledge to children, and an interesting game can increase the mental activity of the child and he will be able to solve more complex problems than in class. However, the game does not imply the absence of other forms and methods of education and upbringing (observation, reading, conversations, etc.). The game is one of them.

To date, researchers (R. A. Ivankova, N. Ya. Mikhailenko, N. A. Korotkova) have noted that in kindergarten there is a “crowding out” of the game by training sessions, studio and circle work. Children no longer play, but perform certain educational tasks, which leads to overwork, a decrease in interest in the activities carried out and the learning process as a whole [7].

We consider it expedient to carry out the comprehensive development of the child's personality in the game, where he is free from the mandatory requirements of adults and strict rules of activity, but at the same time he is not free from the social world, which, in turn, determines the content of his game. In addition, the freedom of the child is determined by the breadth and depth of knowledge and ideas about the world around him, the mastery of the methods of activity that are embodied by him in the game - all this allows the plot-role-playing game to “free itself” from the purely didactic function of “working through” knowledge. In the game, the child is in the process of becoming his personality, which is why the pedagogical value of the game depends largely on what and how children play, what is the content of role-playing games.

A modern child is surrounded by a large flow of information (television, computer, communication with adults outside the home). The real experience of children is limited, on the one hand, to everyday life, and on the other hand, to the plots of action movies and virtual characters. In today's children, even at the older preschool age, everyday plots clearly dominate, and professional and socio-political ones are replaced by television ones, 30% of preschoolers prefer to play plots borrowed from television films. This may indicate that children are better acquainted with the life and relationships of movie characters than the adults around them. And although the content of games remains the behavior of people and their relationships, the weak representation of professional and social roles and the isolation of games from the lives of close adults may indicate that the social life of adults ceases to be the content of children's games. The place of close adults is beginning to be occupied by virtual characters. There is a gap between the lives of modern children and adults.

Thus, modeling is an extremely useful type of children's creativity: in addition to developing artistic taste and spatial imagination, it affects the improvement of fine motor skills, while in combination with activities such as playing with small objects (puzzles, mosaics, designers, beads ), finger games, massage of the hands and fingers, etc. , the brain is activated and the intellect is developed. Moreover, the combination of modeling with a role-playing game will significantly enrich pedagogical theory and practice, give the role-playing game purposefulness, life orientation, and increase its effectiveness. The problem of developing appropriate methods and technologies retains its scientific significance and relevance, and is complemented by the problem of developing professional competence in future educators.

All of the above prompts the question of forming a more serious and responsible attitude to the development of fine motor skills in a child, as a factor in activating the function of speech, preparing preschoolers for role-playing games, for active cognitive and developmental activities. This problem should be actualized in the general pedagogical and parental community at the level of state educational policy, and reflected in the development of methodological methods for organizing a role-playing game using self-made requisite stucco materials, tools and objects, and advanced training programs for preschool educational institutions in this area.