Sunflower Seed Fine Motor Activity

We are gearing up for the end of Summer, and by now sunflowers are nice and tall! Last year we decided to grow our own sunflowers, and by this time in the season they were starting to wilt and die down. Before they died off completely, I decided to create a fine motor activity out of a sunflower plant! 

Now you may be asking, “Why are fine motor activities so important?” I have a very simple answer: a child should have strength in using both their hands and fingers before we can ask them to manipulate a pencil and begin writing. 

There are many ways to build fine motor strength without being too boring, so this Sunflower Seed activity is super fun and can provide the fine motor strengthening your child needs without them even knowing! 

Sunflower Seed Fine Motor Activity

This post contains affiliate links. This help keeps our blog running. Please see our disclosure policy for more info. 

What You Need:

• Sunflower plant
• Kid-friendly tweezers
• Bowl

The rest is easy! Just have your child try to remove all the seeds from the center of the sunflower. They can use their fingers, tweezers, or any other way they can think of. 

Using tweezers to remove the seeds is great because not only is it building fine motor strength, but it also strengthens hand/eye coordination too! 

Your child can even use their thumbs to push the seeds out. My little one discovered that he can break open the middle of the sunflower and some seeds will fall out on their own.

Look at his fingers and how they have to grip the tweezers tightly to hold the seed there! Awesome fine motor development happening here!

This sunflower seed fine motor activity is super simple and serves an amazing purpose for those little developing hands!

At the end of the activity, you’ll have a bowl full of sunflower seeds! This is a great time for your child to explore even more! Count them, use words to describe them, smell them, you could even roast them for eating! 

This Sunflower Seed fine motor activity is great for your home or classroom! You could put the sunflower in a sensory tub and have your students each take turns trying to pluck the seeds out! 

Did you grow any sunflowers this year?

• Bio
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Google+
• Pinterest
• Latest Posts

Erica Leggiero, M.S. Ed.

Erica Leggiero, M.S. Ed. has been working and teaching in the field of early childhood education for over 7 years. Erica is currently the director and teacher at a Preschool Enrichment Program in her area. Erica believes that young children learn best through play and exploration, and she is constantly looking for new and creative ways to incorporate learning through play. She embraces this belief in all of the activities she creates in her preschool classroom, and loves sharing them here on her blog. Erica has also co-authored the book, "Learn With Play" with other kid bloggers in the preschool field.

@@elemenopkids

+Erica Leggiero, M.S. Ed.

Erica Leggiero, M.S. Ed.

Latest posts by Erica Leggiero, M.S. Ed. (see all)

• Preschool at Home-May Lesson Plans - April 26, 2022
• Hottest Prime Day Deals for Preschoolers - June 21, 2021
• Camp Play at Home-Lego Week - June 1, 2021