Fine motor activities are essential to help your child develop the skills needed for good handwriting. Parents can help the kids in development of fine motor skills by adopting activities which can engage your child for hours and while having fun.
Fine motor activities encourage the development of eye-hand coordination and help children practice the skills required to handle or manipulate small objects with their fingers. Appropriate materials for fine motor activities for infants and toddlers are those that generally match their developing skill levels and are challenging.Fine Motor Activities to accelerate fine motor skill development:
- Play dough is an amazing activities which kids enjoy the most and it helps in development of eye and hand co-ordination. Molding and rolling play dough into balls - using the palms of the hands facing each other and with fingers curled slightly towards the palm. Rolling play dough into tiny balls (peas) using only the finger tips.
- Using pegs or toothpicks to make designs in play dough.
- Cutting play dough with a plastic knife or with a pizza wheel by holding the implement in a diagonal valor grasp.
- Tearing newspaper into strips and then crumpling them into balls.
- Use to stuff scarecrow or other art creation. Scrunching up 1 sheet of newspaper in one hand. This is a super strength builder.
- Using a plant sprayer to spray plants, (indoors, outdoors) to spray snow (mix food coloring with water so that the snow can be painted), or melt "monsters". (Draw monster pictures with markers and the colors will run when sprayed.)
- Picking up objects using large tweezers such as those found in the "Bedbugs" game. This can be adapted by picking up Cheerios, small cubes, small marshmallows, pennies, etc., in counting games.
- Shaking dice by cupping the hands together, forming an empty air space between the palms.
- Lacing and sewing activities such as stringing beads, Cheerios, macaroni, etc.
- Using eye droppers to "pick up" colored water for color mixing or to make artistic designs on paper.
- Rolling small balls out of tissue paper, then gluing the balls onto construction paper to form pictures or designs.
- Turning over cards, coins, checkers, or buttons, without bringing them to the edge of the table.
- Making pictures using stickers or self-sticking paper reinforcements.
- Playing games with the "puppet fingers" -the thumb, index, and middle fingers. At circle time have each child's puppet fingers tell about what happened over the weekend, or use them in songs and finger plays.
More activities to accelerate fine motor skill development:
Most fine motor activities require children to move their hands and fingers in unfamiliar ways. The best starting place for accelerating your child’s fine motor development is to help him strengthen his pincer grip.
Consider investing in some low-cost beads of different sizes, where the largest is approximately 1 inch in diameter and the smallest bead is approximately 1/4 inch in diameter. Using a rigid cord (a pipe cleaner works well), have your child use his thumb and pointer finger to pick up a large bead and thread it on the cord. As your child gains comfort with this activity, gradually introduce smaller and smaller beads which are more challenging to hold and manipulate.
After your child is able to easily thread the smallest beads on the rigid cord, replace the rigid cord with a floppy shoe lace or string. This floppy lace will provide your child with a “moving target” as he tries to thread the bead with his dominant hand and steady the cord with his non-dominant hand.
For older children who are already comfortable with the proper pincer grip, focus on helping your child gain a strong pencil and scissors grip. As a starting point, print some printable tracing worksheets and direct your child to trace over the lines, curves and shapes. Or, to make homemade worksheets, use a yellow marker to draw the shape and then have your child trace your lines with a blue or red marker to see the shape magically turn a different color. Tracing not only requires a strong pencil grip to hold the pencil or marker, but it also requires strong coordination of the muscles in the hand to stay on the narrow line while tracing.
After your child finishes tracing, have him use scissors to cut out the shape. Begin with simple lines and curves and then move to basic shapes, such as circles or ovals, and then to more difficult shapes such as triangles, squares, and other multi-sided shapes.
Related: www.schoolsparks.com
Useful links:
* Supporting Young Children's Motor Skill Development.Useful links:
* Activities to promote fine motor skills
* Why Proper Development of fine motor Skills is Important?
* Fine Motor Skills for Infants, Toddlers, and Children
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