All children benefit from activities that keep them engaged and using the skills they picked up during the previous school year. As a parent, knowing what to focus on and finding ways to keep activities light, fun and productive present a hefty challenge. If you have a child with special needs or a child who struggles with things like writing, shoe-tying or manipulating small objects, school breaks are an excellent time to help your child strengthen their fine motor skills.

The internet abounds with special education resources to help you with this task. Fine motor skills are the skills involving fingers and sometimes eye coordination as well. It’s never too early or too late to being fine-tuning these skills. Take your time. There is no deadline and there is no final exam. If you find your child particularly likes one type of activity, build on it or do an internet search to help you find similar activities. Conversely, if your child truly dislikes an activity you suggest after a fair try, drop it with plans to come back at a later date.

1. Start saving recyclables. So much of what you put into your recycling bin each week can be used for activities designed to build up fine motor skills. Do you have an empty cereal box, pasta box, other small box? Poke holes on the widest side of the box – varying the size of the holes – and challenge your child to fit a variety of dried pasta shapes/dried beans/counting manipulatives into the various holes. Don’t knock it until you see your 2-4 year-old try it.

If you’re an Amazon shopper, odds are you have random bits of Styrofoam somewhere in your house. The Styrofoam and a packet of chenille stems (aka pipe cleaners) provide endless possibilities for creativity and working those fingers! Some kids will stick the stems into the Styrofoam while others wrap the stems around the Styrofoam and other kids will happily finger-carve shapes out of the Styrofoam or create figures and shapes with the chenille stems. It’s all good. Get creative with what you have in the house!

2. Embrace the lowly pool noodle. Pool noodles are awesome for so many reasons that have nothing to do with the swimming pool – cut to size, they can contain a tangle of cords and wires under a desk; slice length-wise to create a race track or marble run; or stuff a noodle into boots to help them maintain their shape. To enhance fine motor skills, cut several noodles into various sizes – round shapes, half-rounds, even strips if you like! Pick up a box of golf tees and put your child to work creating buildings, shapes, animals and whatever else they can think of. The tees pop into the noodles but require a bit of work thus developing hand muscles. Throw in a glue stick, some googly eyes and other accessories and you have an afternoon of noodly fun.

3. Take cup stacking to another level! Cup stacking is a popular activity for helping children with their hand-eye coordination and fine motor control. And, cup stacking is fun in its own right. Since it’s summer why not add a twist? Save up empty soda cans ahead of time (unless you want your children all sugared up before you start this activity). Head outside and fill a small tub or wading pool with water. Get a sturdy plastic plate (disposable Styrofoam plates work well here) and have your child see how many cans he can stack (top to bottom, bottom to top) on the floating plate. You try it too – it’s not as easy as you’d think. For older kids, throw in a time element to make things even more fun.

The number of fine motor skill activities is only limited by your imagination (and ability to use Pinterest or a search engine). Using these ideas (and others) are great times to get crazy, make a mess and maybe even start an annual Family Thumb War Tournament.