Painting with Q-tips can be a fun and easy to clean up way to work on fine motor skills. We like to use small paints with a twist off lid to encourage bilateral coordination and hand strengthening. These Crayola washable paints are a great choice! Besides being washable they are also just the right height for dipping the q-tip into!
In addition, paints are also great for additional skills such as: color identification and opening/closing containers. Plus, because they can get messy is allows your child to do sensory exploration and then hand washing skills once their artwork is complete!
Q-tips give you another option for working on grasp. Your child can work on their pincer grasp to pick up the Q-tips and stamp dots on a picture or letter. They can also paint with them like a paintbrush. Painting with Q-tips encourages your child to use a tripod grasp (thumb, index, and middle finger) because of their small size, which is helpful for grasp development for writing.
Q-tip art is an easy cleanup process, you can simply throw them away after the activity and display your child’s work of art.
This site has some great printables for q-tip painting.
