100th Day of School Fine Motor Activities

It’s nearly the middle of January already and around here, that means that it’s almost the 100th day of school! Every year, as a parent and teacher, it’s hard to believe that 100 days have already gone by. It’s such an exciting day for our students and I like to make the entire day all about everything “100”!
I’m really passionate about fine motor work and providing children with meaningful fine motor activities every day. I’m so excited to share about my 100th Day of School fine motor pack today!

There are a variety of activities that use ten different fine motor skills, including cutting, grasping small objects, and tweezing.

Most of the required or suggested materials are found in most classrooms, but I’ll include Amazon links to them just in case!

Cutting Activities: There are three different cutting activities included. The first has snipping strips of ten pieces each. You can just have students cover the 100 with as many pieces as they want or you can have them cut and glue 100. There are two options for the strips; one requires less prep, and one requires more prep.

The second cutting activity has 100th day-themed puzzles for students to cut out. You can either give students the entire page or you can cut around the puzzles for your students and have them cut out the pieces. I suggest having them color, cut, mix and put the puzzle back together, then glue it onto a piece of construction paper.

The third cutting activity is the fold-and-cut pictures. These are simple picture shapes. You will fold each half-page in half and students will cut the folded picture carefully.

2. Dotting: I call this a “dotting” activity and you can really use it in a lot of ways. You can have students use cotton swabs dipped in paint or on an ink pad to cover all 100 dots. You can also have them cover the dots using these small, colorful dot stickers.

3. Cover-Up Activity: You can use buttons, beads, mini erasers, or other small objects for this activity. Picking up those tiny objects helps strengthen the tripod grasp.

Linking: I LOVE this activity! There’s a counting-by-fives version and a counting-by-tens version. Students will use plastic links to connect the cards in order until they reach 100.

Hole-punching: Depending on what’s best for your students, you can use the dots-only version or the counting-by-fives version. Just print (I use colorful paper), cut out around the cards, and have students use a single-hole punch (I like this reduced effort one) to punch on the dots or on the numbers in order, starting with five.

Tweezing: This 100th day dress-up activity is one of my all-time favorites! Whether or not your students dress up to be 100 years old, this is sure to get from giggles from them. With the picture mats, you’ll include white and gray pom-pom balls and jumbo plastic tweezers. Here are the gray pom-pom balls I found but they’re a little expensive and there aren’t many gray ones. I know Michael’s usually has gray ones but my local store was out when I went, so I had to buy on Amazon. Just FYI!

Letter Writing: Practicing and refining correct letter formation is an activity I can use throughout the entire school year. I like to switch out sand trays for vase gems or mini erasers from time to time. I use an empty Melissa and Doug wooden box for my sand tray. I have this collection of sand and I like how bright the colors are!

Bead stringing: These are pretty simple to put together. Just match a pipe cleaner to each laminated colorful balloon card. Cut the pipe cleaner in half and tape it well to the back of the card. I like to twist the pipe cleaner to make the stringing a little more challenging. Students will use plastic pony beads on the pipe cleaners.

Sticker Activity: This activity has the students place small stickers along the outline of the number 100. These are the stickers I recommend. There are 100 stickers per sheet so they work great for the 100th day!

Pinning: Using a jumbo push pin, students will carefully poke the small dots on each picture.

Click on the picture below to get the activities from my store!

Have a great week, and happy 100th day of school! If you are able to use this pack in your classroom, I’d love to see a picture or two! Tag me on Facebook (Resources by Mrs. Roltgen) or Instagram (@kroltgen).