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 Brush the Zoo Animal’s Teeth resource is just what you need!

Simply print the zoo animal-themed activity mats, pop them in write and wipe sleeves and add ‘dirt’ to each animal’s teeth with a whiteboard marker. Your students will be ready to scrub those teeth clean with a toothbrush and water! Use this activity to help your students build stamina as they repeatedly make controlled scrubbing motions and develop important fine motor skills, including hand strength and hand-eye coordination as they grip the toothbrush, move it between the bowl and the mat and scrub the dirt away. Students can complete this activity flat on table tops or hung up on a wall or easel outside.

This hands-on resource includes detailed instructions with a list of required equipment and six colourful activity mats, each featuring a different zoo animal. We recommend enlarging the activity mats to A3 and popping them into write and wipe sleeves.

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 show a preference for using one hand to grasp the toothbrush, are they able to control their hand movements, are their movements smooth and controlled, can they complete the task at a reasonable pace and can they sustain a small circular scrubbing motion?

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