Activities to Enhance Fine Motor Skills: 12-18 Months

Assemble simple puzzles. The best are shapes with handles that fit into recesses on a board.

Provide a small table and chairs, if possible, for your child to use for playing, drawing, and eating. Have play dishes for him to pretend with.

Sing and do the hand motions to "Itsy Bitsy Spider," "Wheels on the Bus," and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes."

Play clapping and hand games such as peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake.

Give your toddler blocks to stack and knock down. The one-inch wooden blocks you remember from childhood are too small for him at this age and fall over too easily. Look for blocks or boxes that measure four to six inches on each side because they are easier to stack.

Collect 12- to 18-inch (30.5 to 45.7 cm) cardboard boxes for practicing dump and fill. Shoes boxes also work well for this. Children love to pour objects out of a box and then put them back in.

Raising Your Child: The Complete Illustrated Guide is an information-packed guide that leads parents through the ever changing maze of new behaviors, developments, and challenges present in a child's first six years. It is filled with essential information, expert advice, practical solutions, and key choices to ensure a child's healthy development for their first six years -- and set them up for success in later developmental stages. In addition to understanding their child's stage of development, readers are given parenting techniques and activities they can use with their child to maximize physical, emotional, intellectual, and behavioral development at every age and stage.

Get more ideas from Raising Your Child: The Complete Illustrated Guide to help with your toddler's development.