During our Under the Sea week, I put together this simple, but super cute, fine motor skill octopus for my daughter and it has been a huge hit!

This does require some prep work, but the work is pretty easy and straightforward. 

The Benefits

This is a great fine motor skill activity! 

The small beads and buttons will help your child work their pinching muscles. Working on fine motor skills is a great way to prepare your preschooler to use pencils and scissors in the future.

You could also potentially use this as a sorting activity! 

If you use different colored legs you can tell your child the octopus only wants red beads on their red legs and blue beads on their blue legs. 

Supplies

• Popsicle stick 
• Glue stick 
• 4 pipe cleaners 
• Circle piece of paper 
• Marker 
• Beads or buttons 

How to do it

You will want to start by drawing a face on your octopus. 

Once your face is drawn, glue the circle to the popsicle stick. 

The last step is to poke the pipe cleaners through the bottom of your circle. These will be the octopus legs! If you use the pointy end of the pipe cleaners they should poke right through. 

That’s it! From here, you can hand it off to your preschooler! 

Fine Motor Skill Practice

This next part will be where you need the beads and buttons. 

After showing your child the super cute octopus you just made, have them put fun bracelets and rings (the beads) on the octopus! 

My daughter loved decorating the octopus. She also loved acting out scenes and telling stories with the octopus! 

If you make at least two octopuses you will have a great opportunity for some pretend play! 

What do you think? Did you add anything cool to your octopus?