Searching for an engaging, purposeful and low-prep tabletop activity that will provide your students with the opportunity to develop their fine motor skills? Our Build the Zoo Animal’s Fence resource is just what you need!

To prepare this task, simply print and cut the zoo animal cards and provide play dough and pop sticks. Your students will love the challenge of making animal enclosures by rolling the play dough into small balls, placing them around an animal card and adding a pop stick to each ball! Use this zoo animal-themed activity to help your students develop their ability to problem solve as they work out how many balls are required to surround the animal card and build upon their fine motor skills, including hand and finger strength, as they pinch, roll and shape the play dough into similar sized balls and hand-eye coordination as they place a pop stick into each ball.

This hands-on resource includes detailed instructions with a list of required equipment and 18 different adorable animal cards, each in a high and low colour option. We recommend printing on thick card for longevity.

As students complete this activity, we recommend making observations of how they engage with and complete the task, as this will help you to assess their fine motor development. For example, do they use both hands effectively together to roll the play dough, are they able to control their hand movements to make uniform-sized balls, are their movements smooth and controlled, can they complete the task at a reasonable pace and can they accurately place a pop stick in each ball?

This engaging fine motor activity is a part of our Working at the Zoo: Fine Motor Skills Play Tray resource.