Fine Motor Skills

Children need to engage in a variety of activities to promote fine motor skills (and they need to go beyond swiping an ipad!) Often children enter school struggling with penmanship, pencil grip, cutting skills, and overall fine motor weakness. This can adversely affect a child’s desire to write.  Below is a list of playful activities you can do with your child. I wish I could take credit for the list of activities below, but alas, I must once again credit my mom, the occupational therapist. It is with her permission that I am publishing this!

Activities for Fine Motor Hand Control

1.  Fish for objects:

–       Float objects (colored ice cubes, beads) in water; fish with strainer, tongs,

–       salad scissors, slotted spoons etc.

–       Make fishing rod with paper towel roll, string and magnet.

–       Fish for paper fish with paper clips to attract the magnet.

–       Fish can be printed with letters, numbers, or words.

2.  Sort objects with tongs, tweezers (beads, cotton balls, play dough balls, tissue

paper balls).

3.  Use tools with play dough:

–       rolling pins or large dowels

–       cookie cutters

–       pound with wooden hammer

–       cut rolled snake with scissors

–       use popsicle sticks as knives to cut dough

–       tweezers to moved rolled dough (load a dumptruck, make a plate of meatballs etc)

4.  Punch holes with grip-type hole punch.

5.  Paint with various sizes of paint brushes.  Try painting with water on sidewalk.

6.  Stamp design using stamp pad and eraser tip.

7.  Practice tracing with stencils, rulers, containers.

8.  Provide opportunity for using hammer, screwdriver, drills, and other woodworking

tools.

Activities for encouraging the hand skills needed for scissor cutting

1.  Squeeze toys, bottles, sponges, and basters.

2.  Squirt bottles and guns.

3.  Tongs and tweezers, squeeze handled sifters, garlic press, cookie gun.

4.  Cut straws and clay snakes with scissors.

5.  Make confetti, (cut paper randomly in small pieces) paper strips and large pieces.

Summer program to improve hand function

1.  Water Play:  Squeeze sponges, washcloths, spray bottles, squirt bottles or squirt guns.  Great activity for hot summer days, or bathtub play.  Wet sponges make great tools for drawing and painting on cement, or windows.

2.  Tongs or Tweezers:  Pick up beads, beans, blocks, cotton balls, cereal etc. to sort, stack, count etc.  Alternate between objects that take strong pinch and light pinch to pick up.  Make a game of it.

3.  Ball Play:  Make balls out of newspaper, wrapping paper, paper towels etc.   Scrunch the paper into a ball then squeeze it tightly to make a small ball.  These can be used for target practice into a waster basket, or to play catch.

Don’t forget to play with beach balls, balloons, playground balls and tennis balls.  The throwing and catching helps develop the eye tracking needed for reading.

4.  Scissors:  Cut up: straws to make beads for stringing, the pull out advertisements in magazines, coupon etc.  for cutting practice.  Don’t forget that scissors can be used to cut up foods such as lettuce, separate grapes, marshmallows etc.

5.  Precooking:  Wrapping and unwrapping packages, using measuring spoons and cups, whisks, egg beaters, wooden spoons, etc.  to assist in preparing simple items such as pudding muffins, cookies, sandwiches, jello etc.  Allow your child to pour his own milk (from a small pitcher if necessary) and cereal.  Let him begin to make his own breakfast or lunch:  spread peanut butter or cheese on crackers, cut up fruit with a plastic knife, wash and dry his plastic or metal utensils.

6.  Stringing:  Beads, cut up straws, cereal, fruit, raisins, marshmallows, salad macaroni, buttons, etc.  to make a bracelet with the ends stiffened with glue or tape.  Let him make fruit kabobs using summer fruit and thin straws for lunch or dinner.

7.  Jobs:  Sort and fold clothes, wash and dry plastic or metal cookware or utensils, use newspaper balls to wipe or shine mirrors or windows, wash or dry tables, counters and the front of the refrigerator.

Summers are a time for mud pies and sand castles, for play and for fun.  Participate with your child in doing these activities and help your child grow.

Suggestions by

Jean Fisher, M.A., OTR