Thursday, April 14, 2016

Building Fine Motor Skills!




I work with many of my young students around building their eye-hand coordination and strengthening the muscles and dexterity in their fingers.  Even with some of my older students who are having writing challenges I find it important to keep the frustration level low by keeping the fine motor skill building as fun as possible!

Great activities:

  • Cutting
  • Drawing
  • Tracing
  • Sorting beads and buttons
  • Using play tweezers to pick up objects
  • Connect the dots activities
  • Buttoning and zipping up objects on clothing 
  • Paint with fingers or Q-Tips

My favorite tools/resources:

  • Yarn (sticky or regular)
  • Macaroni
  • Play Doh
  • Beads and Buttons
  • Wikki Sticks
  • Pipe Cleaners
  • Finger paint

For older students:

  • Tennis Balls (to roll in hand, on table, or along leg)
  • Modeling Clay
  • Practice "tripod fingers" and rolling clay into small balls
  • Chopsticks
  • Silly Putty 
  • Squeeze Balls
  • Legos
  • Origami
  • Games like Jenga or Operation
  • Musical Instruments
  • Hair Braiding
  • It's also important to take rest/wiggle breaks with the fingers and to even roll the pencil with the palm of their hands before picking it up to start writing again


Lastly, here is a great article on some additional fun at-home ways to Build Fine Motor Skills!

Happy Fine Motor Practice!


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