6 Fun Activities to Help Build Fine Motor Skills in Your Preschooler

If you have heard that the rules around mobile phones and electronic devices in early childhood settings have changed, you are right. If your child attends a childcare centre in NSW, these changes are already in effect.

Here is a plain-English breakdown of what changed, why it happened, and what it means for your family.

Why Did the Laws Change?

The changes were introduced as a child safety measure. In 2025, Australia’s Education Ministers agreed to amend the Education and Care Services National Law to address concerns about the potential for personal devices to be used to capture, store, or transmit images of children in care without authorisation.

The intent is straightforward: children in early learning settings deserve an environment where their privacy and safety are actively protected.

What Changed Nationally

From 27 February 2026, amendments to the national Education and Care Services National Law took effect across Australia. Under these changes, educators and staff who work directly with children are restricted from using personal electronic devices in care settings.

Before this, from 1 September 2025, all early childhood education and care services nationwide were required to have written policies in place addressing the use of digital devices.

What Changed in NSW

NSW moved ahead of the national timeline. The Education and Care Services (Supply, Authorisation and Use of Devices) Order 2025 took effect on 6 November 2025, applying across NSW’s 6,000 or more early learning services, including long day care centres, preschools, and family day care.

Under this order, educators and staff must use service-issued or service-authorised devices rather than their own personal devices when working directly with children.

What Counts as a Personal Device?

The definition is broad. A personal device is any device owned by an individual (not the approved provider) that is capable of capturing, storing, or transmitting an image. This includes:

Mobile phones
Smartwatches
Cameras and tablets
iPads and laptops
Hard drives, USB drives, and memory cards
Wearables such as camera glasses

Who Does the Ban Apply To?

The restrictions apply to anyone working directly with children at a service, including permanent and casual educators, students on placement, volunteers, contractors, and allied health professionals delivering programs on-site.

Parents, carers, and other visitors are not covered by the ban. In NSW, parents and carers remain free to use their personal devices during drop-off, pick-up, centre visits, and events involving their own children. There are also authorised exceptions for essential purposes, including emergencies and health or disability support needs.

What About Screen Time for Children?

These new laws specifically address staff device use, not children’s screen time. Screen time limits for young children are not mandated within childcare regulation at a national level.

The relevant guidance comes from the federal Department of Health and Aged Care’s 24-Hour Movement Guidelines, which recommend no screen time for children under 2 years, and no more than 1 hour per day for children aged 2 to 5 years. These are health guidelines, not regulatory requirements.

What This Means for Your Family

If your child attends a childcare centre in NSW, their service is already required to operate under these rules. Any educator or staff member working directly with your child should not be using a personal device to take photos or videos. Only service-authorised devices should be used for that purpose.

If you have questions about how your centre handles digital devices or image capture, you are well within your rights to ask. Most services will have a written policy in place that covers exactly this.

At Clovel, the safety and wellbeing of every child in our care is at the heart of everything we do. If you would like to know more about how we support your child across our centres, we would love to have that conversation with you.

When you think of important facets of your child’s early education, motor skills may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But fine motor skills—those that involve the delicate muscles of the wrist, hands, and fingers—are critical in helping children learn important skills like gripping pencils properly and handwriting.

We’ve gathered a list of 6 of our favorite fine motor activities that are easy to implement at home and will help your child build strength in their fingers and hands.

Water Drop Coloring

Put the crayons away and let your little learner brighten up the pages of his or her coloring book with colored water. Use food dye to color small cups of water, then give your child an eye dropper or pipette and let them drop colors onto the page (you may need to place your coloring page on a cookie sheet to catch any runoff). The act of squeezing the pipette to draw up and release water is great for building strength in the fingers.

Play Dough

Who doesn’t love the super satisfying feeling of letting play dough squish through your fingers? It just so happens that this malleable substance is oh-so perfect for building fine motor skills. Encourage your child to lay the dough on a table and roll it into a rope. Give them a safety knife or scissors and let them cut the rope into smaller segments. Have them pick up a single segment at a time with oversized tweezers and see who can be the first to drop all their rope pieces into a cup.

You can also bring your imagination into the mix. Pretend the dough is cookie dough and use a rolling pin to flatten it before cutting with cookie cutters. Help your child collect sticks and rocks from your yard and use the dough as the base. Push twigs and rocks into the dough’s surface to create your very own forest. The possibilities are endless!

Pipe Cleaner Snakes (and Noodle Necklaces)

This activity is best suited for older preschoolers as it involves using plastic beads and we certainly want to avoid a choking risk.

Tie a knot in the end of a pipe cleaner (alternatively, you can string a larger bead on for your child to act as a stopper). Have your child string plastic beads onto the pipe cleaner until they have created a “snake”. They can make a repeating pattern or go crazy and make a colorful snake…the choice is theirs!

Another version of the stringing activity is the tried-and-true macaroni necklace many of you may remember from your youth. You can kick this activity up a notch by coloring the pasta before the children start stringing. We love these easy-to-follow-instructions from Make and Takes on how to make a rainbow noodle necklace.

Lacing Cards

No early childhood education room is complete without a set of lacing cards. In this activity, children pass a string or shoelace through holes punched around a cut out shape.

While you can buy a set of lacing cards (we love this fun set!), you can easily make a set at home. The people over at Living Life & Learning have created a ton of wonderful, printable lacing cards you can download for free. Simply print them off, laminate them, and punch holes in the cards.

Clothespins On a Box or on a Line

This activity couldn’t be easier! All you need is a sturdy box and bag of clothespins. Have your child clip the clothespins to the edge of the box, and see how many they can squeeze in. The act of pinching the clothespin is great for fine motor skills and, as a bonus, maneuvering the clips onto the edge of the box builds hand-eye coordination.

You can also set up a child-height clothesline in your home, tying a rope or string between a doorway or from two heavy pieces of furniture (do not use bar stools or anything that could fall over). Let your child practice hanging their socks from the clothesline using clothespins.

Q-Tip Sorting

This fun activity by Mess for Less will keep children occupied for hours! All you need are dyed q-tips (the instructions for how to dye them can be found in the link) and straws in coordinating colors. Cut the straws into segments and have your child match the colored q-tip with a straw segment of the same shade. Your child can then insert the q-tip into the straw to create a matching pair.

These activities are creative, open-ended ways for children to improve their fine motor strength through sensory play, creating art, and engaging in a bit of fun competition. As you can see, working the fine muscles of the hand doesn’t have to be hard—in fact, it can be quite fun!

For any information about our Educational Programs, give us a call at 02 9199 0294 or fill in this contact us form.

Thanks for reading,
Clovel Childcare
1300 863 986

Lyn Connolly

Founder and Company Director

Lyn Connolly is the Founder and Company Director of Clovel Childcare & Early Learning Centres, a family‑owned group of eight centres across Western Sydney established from her first service at Merrylands. Active in early childhood education since 1977, she also serves as President of the Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW, representing providers in state and federal consultations, media, and public hearings.

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