The Fine Motor Thinking Hands Play Kit by The Play Way features an open box filled with thoughtfully arranged kids’ activity items—including colorful modeling clay, art supplies, activity cards, a 3D paper model kit, gemstone excavation kit, illustrated booklet, and decorative stickers—all designed to support hand strength and planning skills.

Fine Motor Thinking Hands Play Kit

Name: Fine Motor Thinking Hands Play Kit
Brand: The Play Way
SKU: FM-ADVANCED-01
Price: 59.0 AUD
Availability: InStock

The Play Way

$59.00

$59.00 ~~$0.00~~

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Your child has the foundations. Now it's time to give their hands something genuinely challenging to work with.

This toolbox pairs with the Fine Motor Advanced Program in the Hub and is built for children aged 4+ who are ready to go beyond the basics. Modelling clay, 3D paper modelling, origami, gemstone excavation and scratch art are the kinds of activities kids actually want to sit down and do, and they just happen to build exactly the hand strength, dexterity, precision and motor planning that matters for writing, drawing and independent self-care. Our therapy team has chosen each project to push fine motor skills further without it ever feeling like a worksheet.

For kids who are ready for a real challenge, in a box that makes it look like pure fun.

Suitable for ages 4+. Part of the Fine Motor Program Series.

The Fine Motor Thinking Hands Play Kit, previously named the Fine Motor Advanced Program, is a children's fine motor skills kit put together by paediatric occupational therapists in Australia, for older children working on hand strength and endurance, motor planning, precision and dexterity, and for parents of a child whose hand tires before a writing task is finished or who has outgrown craft kits aimed at little children.

It includes six tools: an ultra light modelling clay kit with twenty-four colours, tools and accessories, a 3D paper model kit, origami paper and instructions, a gemstone excavation kit with chisels and brush, scratch rainbow notes with a wooden stylus, and a parent guide. The projects cover modelling clay, 3D paper modelling, origami, gemstone excavation and scratch art.

Every kit also comes with supporting video in The Play Way Hub, included, walked through by one of our occupational therapists and covering finger isolation, in-hand manipulation, bilateral hand use, motor planning, problem solving, hand strength and endurance, and how to run each project at home. Most families using this kit have a child somewhere between 6 and 10, the stretch where the hands can already do fine work and the challenge has moved to planning, sequencing and staying with something. That is a guide rather than a rule. Children build these skills at their own pace, so choose by what your child's hands are working on now rather than by how old they are, and expect to go up or down a kit. It is the last of three fine motor play kits, after the Fine Motor Whole Hands Play Kit and the Fine Motor Steady Fingers Play Kit.

Which of the three to choose: Whole Hands is for the child who still holds a crayon in a whole fist. Steady Fingers is for the child who can hold a pencil and draw but is defeated by buttons, zips and anything small and fiddly. Thinking Hands is for the older child who can already do the fine work but cannot yet keep it going through a long task.

From The Play Way, built by an OT who has worked with children for nearly 20 years. Ships Australia wide. Contains small parts and items recommended for ages 3 and up, and adult supervision is needed, including for the gemstone excavation.

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Fine Motor Thinking Hands Play Kit

$59.00

$59.00 ~~$0.00~~

WHAT'S INSIDE

What's in this play kit

A full kit of play-tools, curated to work together.

Ultra light modelling clay

Twenty-four colours, a set of tools, and small accessories to push in: eyes, feet and hats. Rolling a ball is a pinch, rolling a snake takes both hands, poking a hole takes one finger on its own, and pushing two pieces together works against real resistance.

3D paper model kit

Flat printed sheets that end up standing on a shelf. Punching the pieces out, folding along the line and getting a tab into its slot takes both hands doing different jobs at once, and it takes reading the next step before you have finished the one you are on. This is the project where your child has to look ahead.

Origami

Paper and instructions, and a fold that is either accurate or the whole thing comes out crooked. It is the most demanding project in the box and the most satisfying, because a flat square turns into something that stands up on its own and there is no mess to clean up afterwards.

Gemstone excavation

A plaster block with gems buried in it, plus chisels and a brush. Where do I dig first, and which tool will get one out without breaking it. Your child will hit something that does not work and have to find another way, which is problem solving done with their hands rather than on paper. It gets messy, so it is best done outside.

Scratch rainbow notes

Black cards that show colour underneath wherever a wooden stylus is dragged across them. One hand holds the card still while the other draws, which is the same two-hands-together job as holding the page down while you write on it.

Parent Guide

A short guide for you (the adult), covering what each project is working on, where a child usually gets stuck, and how to help without taking over.

Why we built it this way

Built for hands that tire

Nothing in this box is finished in five minutes, and that is the point of it. Holding a careful grip all the way through a long project is how hand strength and stamina get built, and that is what a full page of writing asks for. Most fine motor activities stop well before a hand has had to work that hard.

Hands that carry out a plan

Which fold comes first, which tool will lift the gem without cracking it, what to try when the last attempt failed. Their hands have to carry out a sequence they worked out in advance, then change it when it does not go. That is motor planning, and it is the last part of hand skills to develop.

Something they will say yes to

By this age most hand strengthening looks like schoolwork or like something for little children, and it gets refused. Chipping a gemstone out of plaster does not, so the work actually happens. Getting an older child to do this at all is half the job, and it is why these five activities were chosen.

INCLUDED WITH YOUR PLAY KIT

The videos that come with it

Everything in the kit is ready to use from the day it arrives, so your child can get stuck into the first project without waiting for anything. When you want the learning behind it, there is about half an hour of video covering which hand skill each project is working on and how to support that development in their normal everyday. Our OTs walk you through each of the five projects in the videos, showing ways to make it easier or harder and ideas for what else to do with the materials once the project is finished. We'll send your invitation to access it all when your kit ships.

WHO THIS PLAY KIT IS FOR

If school is asking more of their hands

They can write, but their hand gives out well before the page is finished.
Anything with steps in it loses them halfway through.
I want them to keep going when something is hard, and to ask for help instead of stopping.

If any of that sounds like your family, this is who we built the play kit for.

Who made this

Kait is an OT. She has been working with children and families for nearly 20 years, and she has four kids of her own. She built this play kit because hand skills get treated as finished the moment a child can hold a pencil. The last stretch, keeping precision going through a long task and getting the hands to follow a plan, is where hand endurance and motor planning get built. We built this one to keep older kids engaged in building these skills through something that doesn’t feel too ‘childish’ but also isn’t a worksheet. The five projects were curated by our therapy team so the hand keeps having to change what it is doing. A chisel, a stylus, a folding edge and a clay tool each ask for a different grip, and a different grip loads different muscles through the fingers, hand and forearm. The planning and the precision happen inside a fun project that has an outcome they can be proud of.

5,000+
Australian children have used our play kits
20 years
of Kait working with children and families

Fine Motor Thinking Hands Play Kit