I love to add a fine motor spin to learning activities. When it comes to teaching kids to write letters, knowing correct formation (and the order of making lines in writing a letter) is so important for handwriting legibility and eventually speed of written work.
This fine motor peg board activity incorporates eye-hand coordination and tripod grasp to manipulate pegs in order to build letter formation skills, and using a dice, which adds a power in-hand manipulation component to the activity…with a bit of fun mixed in. Overall, this was a fun activity that all four of my kiddos loved!
Fine Motor Alphabet Letter Formation Activity with Dice and a Peg Board
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To make the letters in this activity, I pulled out one of may favorite tools from my Occupational Therapy bag: My trusty pegboard and small pegs. The pegs are small enough to encourage a tripod grasp allow for in-hand manipulation, and removing the pegs works on intrinsic strength and arch development of the hand. We used the pegs and the alphabet dice from our Scattergories game (you can get just the dice here.) to work on forming letters with correct lines.
I had my kids take turns at this activity. They rolled the dice and then used the pegs to form the letters. I gave just a few verbal cues to show them how to make the curved lines of certain letters like “G” or “C”. To make this activity easier, you can draw a letter on a piece of paper that is cut to fit the pegboard. Kids can press the letters through the paper and into the holes of the peg board.
Fine Motor Skills When Playing with a Peg Board
Using a peg board works on so many fine motor skills. I’ve shared a ton of info on this before. A basic break down of the fine motor benefits of playing with a peg board:
The bonus for this activity is the fine motor benefit to rolling a dice. Cupping the palm to roll and release the dice encourages fine motor skills necessary for many functional tasks:
This hand strengthening activity with an egg carton is an easy way to use a recycled egg carton to work on fine motor skills, hand strength, pincer grasp, tripod grasp development, intrinsic hand strength, eye-hand coordination, and other fine motor hand strength skills.
Fine Motor Activity with an Egg Carton
Recently, I shared how intrinsic muscle strength benefits handwriting and specifically a functional grasp on the pencil. Today, I’ve got a super easy way to work on endurance with the lumbrical muscles that are used in maintaining a nice pencil grasp.
This will enable a child to write at appropriate speeds and lengths of time without fatiguing and allow a child to color in a picture without stopping because their hands are tired.
The bonus to today’s activity is that the strengthening tool is very easy to re-create and (almost) completely free.
This would be an awesome compliment to our recent 31 Days of Occupational Therapy activities using Free or Almost Free Materials!
Intrinsic Muscles of the Hands Lumbricals Strengthening Exercise
This is a great finger strength exercise…and it only uses an egg carton and straws. The reason it’s such a great strength activity has to do with the lumbrical muscles in the hand.
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For this activity, we used a recycled egg carton, a wooden skewer (Amazon affiliate links), and cut pieces of straws.
Use the top of the egg carton and poke holes using the wooden skewer. Wiggle the skewer until the holes are larger. Cut the straws into one inch sized pieces, and you are ready to go!
Show your kiddo how to poke the straw pieces into the holes. We used both sides of the egg carton, but using the inside of the egg carton sections especially works on the lumbrical muscles in the hand.
Holding the small straw sections requires a tripod grasp and when the child is required to push the straw through the hole in the section of the egg carton, they are positioning their hand in an Intrinsic Plus Position.
Ask your child to hold several straw pieces in their hand at once to address in-hand manipulation. This skill is needed to manipulate the pencil and rotate the pencil during handwriting tasks.
We cut off the lid of our egg carton for this activity. It was a good way to work on bilateral hand coordination which is necessary for holding the paper and pencil with two different hands during a hand writing task.
Once the straws are partially in the holes of the egg carton, your child can press them the rest of the way through the hole, utilizing finger isolation. Then, turn the egg carton over and use a tripod grasp to pull the straws the rest of the way through the holes.
Read about how and why this is great for handwriting here.
Need another activity with an egg carton?
Looking for more ways to recycle an egg carton? Try these:
Score Fine Motor Tools and resources and help kids build the skills they need to thrive!
Developing hand strength, dexterity, dexterity, precision skills, and eye-hand coordination skills that kids need for holding and writing with a pencil, coloring, and manipulating small objects in every day task doesn’t need to be difficult. The Spring Fine Motor Kit includes 100 pages of fine motor activities, worksheets, crafts, and more:
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
This fine motor weather craft is a fun way to work on a few fine motor skills while encouraging creative writing and handwriting, too! We’ve talked about pinch grip strength and clothes pins before and this craft is a fun way to extend those strengthening skills. I love to add a bit of strengthening and proprioceptive input before a handwriting task, so these clothes pins fit the bill before a weather themed handwriting task! Warm up the hands with a few pinch exercises and then work on handwriting skills during a creative writing or journal topic about weather!
Cut the weather shapes from the materials and glue to the clothes pins. For the sun, cut a circle and cut rays. For the cloud, cut a cloud shape from the fleece and raindrops from the blue card stock. For the thunderstorm, cut a cloud shape from the blue card stock and a lightning bolt from the yellow craft foam. For the snowflake, simply glue the foam shape on the clothes pin.
Weather Themed Writing Creative Journal Prompts
We used these weather clothes pin crafts in a creative writing assignment. Have your child choose a clothes pin and clip it to their notebook or top of their paper. They can use the weather type to brainstorm creative journal topics based on the weather. For example, if they choose the sun, they could write about activities they like to do in the sun, their favorite thing about sunny weather, or their favorite memory from a sunny day. I ask my second grader to write like she’s been instructed at school: One topic sentence, three supporting sentences, and a closing statement.
Fine Motor Warm Up before Handwriting
Using the clothes pins as a fine motor warm up is a great way to build strength and “wake up” the muscles needed to write. Let me know if you try this activity at home. I would love to hear about it!
Looking for more weather themed activities? Try these:
My kids love to cook. They come running when I say it’s time to help me cook. When melted chocolate is involved, they come running just a little faster. Who am I kidding? They come running at full speed when chocolate is involved.
We made these easy chocolate dipped mini pretzels one day when I had a niece and nephew over for the day. (I’m totally going for the Best Aunt award, here. Chocolate covered pretzels? I’ve got this!)
Sometimes, it’s nice to have a little treat, but a mom wants to keep the sugar intake on the low side. We made these mini pretzel rods for a bite size chocolate-y treat that would be perfect for parties or special events.
Mini Chocolate Covered Pretzel Bites
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You’ll need just a few ingredients for this recipe: Mini pretzel rods Chocolate melts Sprinkles, dried coconut, chocolate chips, nuts, or what ever you’ve got in the house.
This recipe is easy enough to make with kids without a huge mess. Melt the chocolate melts over the stove top. This is a job for an adult or an older child.
Using a spoon, drag the melted chocolate over the mini pretzel rods. Place them on a sheet of wax paper. For easy, use a lipped tray like a jelly roll pan. This will contain the mess and keep sprinkles and toppings from rolling on the floor.
Pour sprinkles into small rubbermaid containers. This is a great way to incorporate fine motor skills into the cooking process. Kids can pinch or scoop the coverings on the melted chocolate.
HINT: Use larger containers for dumping sprinkles over the pretzel rods. We also used halves of the mini pretzels for an even smaller treat. These pretzel bites were perfect for a small snack!
Stop by and see what the other bloggers in the Kids in the Kitchen blogging team have cooked up:
When I saw the theme for this week’s Learning with Manipulatives series was dominoes, I was excited. My kids love playing with dominoes! They love dominoes of all kinds, from craft stick dominoes to our math sensory bottle that had slowly sinking dominoes. I had a few different learning activities in mind…but then I couldn’t find our dominoes! Not to worry, I threw together these DIY bell dominoes that were perfect for color matching with an auditory processing twist.
Cut rectangles from the sheet of corrugated cardboard. Using the wire in the pipe cleaner, poke a hole in one end of the rectangle. Thread the bell onto the pipe cleaner. Bend the pipe cleaner over and poke it through the cardboard again. Gently twist the ends of the pipe cleaner together and snip the long end of the pipe cleaner. Repeat on the other end of the domino.
I used random colored bells to create dominoes that were perfect for color matching. My preschooler loved this game and we played several rounds, just working on color matching.
Auditory Processing Activity with Bell Dominoes
Many children demonstrate auditory processing difficulties. Difficulties with processing the sounds around them, in classrooms, and in conversation can present in many different ways. I came up with simple ways to use these DIY dominoes to address auditory processing problems in fun and game-like ways.
Auditory Processing Listening Activities
Play the bell dominoes game and ask your child to close their eyes when it is not their turn. They need to listen for the sound of the bells and tell with it is their turn by saying when the bells have stopped. Listening for the bells’ sounds addresses auditory attending.
Play from further distances by having the child cross the room after they’ve taken their turn. They need to listen to hear when the bell has stopped before coming back to take their turn. This addresses auditory attending and auditory discrimination.
Play with various background noises.
When playing, take turns tapping out patterns before placing the domino in it’s place in the game.
Grade these games by rolling a dice and assigning a number on the dice with a colored bell.
Want to see more ways to play and learn with dominoes? Try these:
Play is work of the child. Through play, a child learns about the world around him. He learns communication skills, problem solving, builds fine and gross motor development, enhances social interactions, and develops the skills needed for independence in all aspects of growth.
This month in the Functional Skills for Kids series, myself and nine other Occupational and Physical Therapists have teamed up to share everything play. This is an ultimate guide to development, progression of skills, environmental aspects, modification of play, and how play is used as a therapeutic tool.
You can see previous Functional Skills for Kids series here.
Making math concepts fun with hands-on learning is one of my favorite things to do with my kids. This Farm themed math activity is one way I worked on a few math concepts with my Kindergarten kiddo. He’s just started bringing home worksheets about counting items, adding a few more, and counting total number. We made baby chick fingerprint art and used it to work on early addition math skills. This was such a fun hands-on math activity, that my second grader (and preschooler) loved it too!
Be sure to read through our name practice for kindergarten as this activity supports development of many skills needed for handwriting and other fine motor tasks in the kindergarten age.
Farm Themed Math Math Activity
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That big red barn in our math activity was a leftover from our Big Red Barn craft from last year. It made the perfect tool for our math activity today! To make a barn of your own, follow the directions here. (It’s easy, I promise!)
Dip fingers into the yellow paint. Create rows of yellow fingerprints. Let the pain dry and then add details to the baby chicks. Next, cut the rows of chicks into strips.
Now, get ready to practice some farm math!
I showed my kids how to pull the strips of paper through the barn door. I told him things like, “Three baby chicks walked through the barn door. Two more joined them. How many are there in all?”
It was a fun counting activity to figure out beginning math sentences to put together numbers. We made this activity work for my second grader by adding more strips of chicks to the barn so she could add up to 20.
I am a second round Kindergarten mom. My daughter went through Kindergarten and is now rocking second grade and my son is now plowing through his first school experience that involves desks and erasers. (Oh to go back to those preschool rooms that lack desks and erasers!)
As a second time Kindergarten mom, I know a little bit about what is coming next in the curriculum and how to make homework fun. This Spring Flower activity was a fun way to introduce composing and decomposing numbers, and introduce addition with a flower theme.
Spring Flower Kindergarten Addition and Subtraction Math Activity
The foam flowers have a sticky back. Simply peel the sticker back and place it on the top of a green craft stick. Cut the foam craft sheet into small leaves. Glue them onto the craft stick.
Kindergarten Math with Hands-On Addition and Subtraction
To practice and introduce math skills in kindergarten, this hands-on math activity is great for little learners. I showed my son how to count out a group of flowers. We placed them together in a bunch. I told my son, “Here are two flowers. Three more grow. How many are there all together?”
He was able to count out the total number of flowers. I then asked him how he could take apart (or decompose) a certain number of flowers. If he had 6 flowers in a bunch, he could “pick” three and be left with three.
This super easy math activity is a fun way to build so many math and pre-algebraic skills that are a base for many years to come
Here are some of my favorite ways to play our way through Kindergarten:
Play is a child’s primary occupation. The occupations of a person are the meaningful and purposeful activities and adults have distinctly different occupations than children. A child develops functional skills, learns about their abilities, grows in motor, language, interpersonal skills, and learn the value of their capacities, all through play.
Children are drawn to the pleasure they feel through play activities that provide sensory experiences, ones that allow repetition as they master new skills, and enable them to explore or interact socially. They naturally use play to develop skills and refine deficits.
And toys and games are tools of function when it comes to using play to build independence in all tasks.
Play activities and games offer numerous ways to build and improve fine motor skills for use in functional tasks such as handwriting, counting individual fingers, clothing fasteners, shoe tying, and other occupations.
Today, I’m sharing ways to work on fine motor skills through play.
It is important to note that a child’s fine motor dexterity is dependent on bigger things. In order for a child to use their hands for fine motor tasks, they first must demonstrate strength and control of their core, shoulder, and arm. If any of these areas are not fully developed in stability or control, then the child will show compensatory strategies as they try to use their hands in play or functional tasks like self-care, handwriting, or cutting with scissors.
Use play to develop fine motor skills:
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Improve Isolation of the fingers through Play- Isolating the individual fingers is needed for tasks such as typing, pointing, and tasks that require moving individual fingers in isolation from the rest of the hand. These skills can be difficult for some children and result in poor pencil grasp and handwriting, shoe tying difficulties, and other functional tasks.
Finger Isolation Ideas
Amazon affiliate links are below.
Finger games (Where is Thumbkin, Itsy Bitsy Spider)
Motoric Separation of the Two Sides of the Hands- Separation of the two sides of two sides of the hand is important for tasks like holding a pencil while stabilizing the hand along the table, cutting with scissors, tying shoes, holding multiple items in the palm of the hand, and managing coins.
Refinement of fine motor skills in the hand (the radial side) happens when the power half (the ulnar side) is stabilized. A functional fine motor grasp and manipulation of objects is more accurate when the ring and pinky fingers are flexed (bent) into the palm.
An alternative to a flexed position of the ring and pinky fingers are when theses two digits are fully extended out and stretched out away from the hand (abducted). T
his positioning stabilizes the MCP arch and allows for control of the pointer and middle fingers. Separation of the two sides of the hand allow for more precise use of the thumb. Hand separation starts when a baby bears weight through their arm and ulnar side of the hand while carrying a toy in the radial side. This simple activity developmentally lengthens the muscles of the ulnar side.
Separation of the Hand Play Ideas:
Flip coins
Roll play dough into small balls
Squeeze a spray bottle with the pointer and middle fingers
Pick up small items and “squirrel them away” into the hands: mini marshmallows, cereal, small beads, coins, waterbeads. (This is also called translation toward the palm.)
Release the items (This is also called translation away from the palm.) Place coins into a piggy bank or beads into a cup.
Hold a cotton ball in the palm with the ring and middle fingers while coloring, writing, or cutting with scissors.
Hand Dominance-Hand dominance in children is important for refining the skills needed to perform functional tasks.
While Toddlers begin to show a hand preference, a true hand dominance doesn’t typically develop until 2 to 3 1/2 years. While a toddler can show a hand preference, hand usage is experimented with during different activities throughout the Toddler and Preschool years. There is typically variability in hand preference as toddlers and young preschoolers poke, pick up, throw, color, and play.
Another consideration is that often times, kids of this age are influenced in which hand they choose by position of toy, location of the adult or playmate, method materials are presented, and sitting position of the child.
Lateralization refers to the brain’s ability to control the two sides of the body. Each hemisphere of the brain controls different tasks and functions.
When a child shows difficulties with laterality, they might switch objects between the two hands in functional tasks. As a child grows, they are challenged to become more efficient with tools in school.
True hand dominance may not be completely integrated in the child until around 8 or 9 years of age. Use play activities to build consistency with the child’s preferred hand dominance. If your child shows a preferred hand, set up the activity to work on scooping with the typically used hand. If your kiddo uses their right hand most of they time in natural situations
Hand Dominance Play Ideas:
Using tools like a hammer or screwdriver
Threading beads
Scrubbing and “cleaning” with a towel on walls and windows
Driving cars on a floor mat
Scooping beans and beads with spoons, shovels, or scoops
Catching and tossing bean bags into a target
Opening and shutting plastic ziplock bags
Open Thumb Web Space- An open thumb webspace is essential for true opposition of the thumb to the precision side of the hand. A round “O” shape allows the thumb to rotate and oppose the pointer finger in pincer grasp activities. When kids write or color with that web space area squashed shut, it’s a sign of problems.
Then might be compensating for thumb instability, underdeveloped hand arches, and/or poor strength. Each of these problem areas will lead to difficulties with handwriting, dexterity, manipulation of small items like beads, and pencil grasp. Writing with a closed web space is inefficient and will cause poor and slow handwriting, especially as kids grow and are expected to write at faster speeds. A closed web space while attempting to manage fasteners such as buttons and zippers will lead to fumbling and difficulty.
Open Thumb Web Space Play Ideas-
Beading (like our idea we shared above!) Other beading ideas include threading plastic beads on a string, placing cereal O’s onto toothpicks, and stringing straws onto yarn.
Barrel of Monkeys game. Encourage your child to pick up the monkeys with an open web space.
A game like Chinese Checkers encourages an open web space when the child grasps the small pegs with a pincer grasp between their thumb and the pad of their index finger.
Tweezers activities are great for an open web space.
If handwriting and poor pencil grasp is an issue, try a pencil grip.
Pop beads.
Roll play dough into small balls using the pads of the thumb and index finger. This is a great activity for developing arches of the hands and opening the thumb web space.
Pop bubble wrap.
Screw and Unscrew nuts and bolts.
Fold and crease origami. Crease the paper between the thumb and pointer finger.
Pinching clothes pins.
Lacing cards are great for opening the thumb web space. Prompt your child to keep their thumb web space open while managing the thread. We’ve got lots of ideas here.
Precision of Grasp- Precision skills allow a person to manipulate and release of small objects. Precision provides efficient grading movements in very small dexterity patterns like threading a string through a needle.
Difficulty with precise motor movements of the hand may cause fumbling with zippers and buttons and trouble with advancing the pencil on small lines of paper. Precision occurs with development of grasp when child to use the pads of the index finger, middle finger, and thumb to manipulate objects with opposition.
Precision release is needed for stacking blocks without toppling them over, placing cards on a pile, opening scissors just a small amount, or placing small beads into a bowl.
Precision is needed for a child to let go of an item in a controlled manner.
If they are not exercising precision in release, you might see them rolling or tossing an object as they let go. They will knock over a stack of blocks, or over open the scissors when cutting lines, making their accuracy very choppy.
Precision in grasp is related to the picking up of items. A graded lateral grasp is needed to cut with scissors and only squeeze the scissors halfway shut for accurate cutting lines in some situations.
Around 3-4 years, a preschool aged child typically develops a greater variety of grasping patterns, including precision. They begin to grade their scissor strokes so that they can cut a line or shape without opening and closing the scissors completely. Grasps in babies typically begin with a raking motion and work towards a pincer grasp. Precision in this skill occurs when the child is able to pick up very small items like beads with accuracy and graded movements.
Precision in rotation is another task that children develop around age 5. Rotation is a portion of in-hand manipulation and seen when turning a coin on the edges and the child rotates it in a circular motion. Precision in rotation also occurs when holding a pencil between the fingers and the child rotates it over and over.
Blocks like Wooden Color Cubes are perfect for simple block building and stacking while working on precision of grasp and release.
Slide Puzzles for precision of the thumb’s movements.
Neat Pincer Grasp- Neat Pincer Grasp is a precision grasp using the very tips of the thumb and the pointer finger to pick up and hold very small items. Sometimes, the fingernails are used in the grasp of items.
Neat pincer grasp is used to pick up and hold a pin, a needle in sewing activities, or super small beads like Perler Beads. This can be a tricky grasp for kids with difficulties in fine motor skills or core weakness.
Neat Pincer Grasp Play Ideas-
Threading string into a needle for embroidary art.
Beading with string
Quickels or
Sort small items
Art or play with tape
Pinch Strength and Control- There are a few different grip postions of the hand and fingers that are used in play with children. Difficulties in using and maintaining any certain grasp may interfere with tasks that require using the hands. Types of grasp patterns include:
Lateral Pinch Grip (aka Key Pinch Grip)- The thumb opposes the lateral side of the pointer finger. This grasp is used when holding and and using a key. A sub group of this type of pinch is the Lateral Prehension Grip– The thumb is flexed (bent) and it’s pad opposes the lateral side of the tip of the pointer finger. This grip is used to hold an index card or paper, sometimes.
Three jaw Chuck Pinch Grip– The thumb is flexed (bent) and opposes the pads of the pointer finger and middle finger. Holding a small cap like a toothpaste lid uses this grip. This is the grip used in holding a pencil.
Tip to Tip Grip– The tip of the thumb touches the tip of the pointer finger. The thumb and pointer finger form an circle (or open thumb web space). This grasp is also called a pincer grasp. It is used to pick up small items like cereal or beads. If very small items are picked up (like a needle), a Neat Pincer Grasp is being used.
Lateral Grip– Pinching an item between the pointer and middle fingers use this grip. You would use this grip in holding a cigarette. While this is not a functional grasp for kids (obviously), you might see kiddos fiddle with a pencil by holding it between two fingers.
Pinch Strengthening and Control of Grasp Patterns Play Ideas-
Line the edges of an index card with clothes pins. Try using the different pinches described above.
Make clothes pins into superheros and pinch them onto strips of paper.
Create a tree using the clothes pins as the trunks, like in these Cherry Blossom trees.
Gross Hand Strength and Grasp- Gross grasp is used when squeezing all of the fingers shut around an object, like when holding the handle of a suitcase. Gross grasp is important in tasks like handwriting and scissor use.
To do these activities, you need to squeeze your whole hand shut and maintain endurance to complete the activity. Development of hand arch and thumb web space is important for these functional skills and gross grasp plays a part.
Gross Hand Grasp and Strength Play Ideas-
Squeeze spray bottles
Squeeze sponges
Cut resistive materials with scissors.
Use a hole punch
Tug of war
Hand grippers
Flexion of the Thumb IP Joint- Many times a poor pencil grasp or difficulty with precision in opposition is a result of lacking flexion of the thumb Interphalageal joint.
A flexed tip of the thumb is required to grasp and manipulate items such as a pencil, zipper pull, shoe laces, and buttons. If there are muscle weaknesses in the forearm or hand, a hyperextended thumb IP joint will present as a form of providing stability by the thumb.
Instead of using the opposition muscle of the thumb to grasp the pencil, the child is using the adductor muscle. Rather than manipulating items with the tips of their thumb and index finger, the child is using musculature of their wrist and forearm.
In order to improve this grasp, a child needs to strengthen the opposition muscle, Opponens Pollicis, along with Flexor Pollicis Longus to bend the tip of the thumb or the Interphalnageal Joint (IP Joint) of the thumb. Strengthening the intrinsic muscles along with addressing an open web space will improve IP flexion.
Thumb IP Joint Flexion Play Ideas-
Games that require the thumb to bend
Where is Thumbkin hand games
Thumbprint Artwork
Thump Opposition- Thumb oppositon occurs when the thumb is rotated at the carpometacarpal joint. Opposition of the thumb to the fingertips is essential for tasks such as holding a hairbrush, managing buttons, and even grasping a door knob.
Thump opposition coincides with an open web space in functional tasks.
Palmer Arches- In the palm of the hand, there are arches that shape the hand’s grasp on objects of all shapes and sizes.
There are two transverse arches that cross the hand at the carpals and at the metacarpals. There is a longitudinal arch for each finger.
These arches allow for skilled movements of the hands and first develop during crawling. Arch development is essential for manipulating small objects such as a writing utensil.
In-Hand Manipulation- This skill is essential for managing small items within the hand for accomplishment of tasks. There are three parts to In-hand manipulation…translation, shift, and rotation.
We shared two fun activities to work on these skills here. In-hand manipulation typically begins to develop around 18 months, with the greatest skill development occurring between 2 and 2 1/2 years old.
There are subcategories of in-hand manipulation.
Finger-to-Palm Translation is the movement of an object from the fingers to the palm i.e. picking up a coin and moving it to the palm.
Palm-to-Finger Translation: Movement of an object from the palm to the finger tips. (i.e. moving a coin from the palm to the fingertips to insert into a vending machine.)
Shift: Slight adjustment of an object on or by the finger pads. (i.e. adjusting a pencil up and down in your hand.)
Simple Rotation: Turning or rolling an object 90 degrees or less with the fingers moving as a unit. (i.e. unscrewing a toothpaste lid).
Complex Rotation: Turning an object more than 90 degrees using isolated finger and thumb movements. (i.e. Turning a paper clip)
Each of the above skills can occur with items “squirreled away in the palm using the pinky finger and ring finger. This is called “with stabilization”. If other items are not pocketed away in the palm while in-hand manipulation occurs, it is called “without stabilization”. Stabilization typically occurs around 2 years of age.
Roll play dough into small balls using only the fingertips.
Tear newspaper into strips, crumble it, and stuff an art project.
Use tweezers to pick up small items. This works on the intrinsic muscles of the hands.
Lacing cards
Coin or button matching, sorting, and stacking. We loved playing with coins for fine motor fun.
Pegboards
Dropping small items into bottles with a small opening like we did here.
Pick up beads from the floor and drop into ice cube trays.
Press buttons into a slit cut in the lid of a plastic tub.
Pick-up sticks.
Games with small chips.
Beading.
Twisting lids on/off water bottles.
Bilateral Coordination- Bilateral coordination is the functional use of the two hands together in a coordinated manner. It’s coordinating both hands together and is closely related to hand dominance.
When a child has an established hand dominance, there needs to be a fluid use of the two hands together. In development of the child, children use both hands together then progress to using one hand at a time and finally using both hands together.
Refined bilateral coordination skills allow a child to use both hands in separate tasks fluidly.
Wrist and Hand Development- A prerequisite to controlled movements of the hand and fingers are strength and stabilization of the wrist. Control in the wrist allows for manipulation of small items and grasps with the fingers A functional position for the wrist in most activities requiring fine motor skills is slight extension and neutral positioning.
This is an optimal position for handwriting or tasks such as manipulating buttons. Other activities like using a toothbrush or managing a utensil during feeding require slight ulnar deviation. Stabilization of the wrist is essential no matter what the task.
In order to allow precision of fine motor tasks, the wrist should be stabilized in extension with precision tasks performed on a vertical surface, putting the wrist into optimal positioning and facilitating thumb abduction for distal work to the fingers.
Wrist and Hand Development Play Ideas-
Painting on a chalkboard or easel
Vertically positioning a Magna Doodle, Etch a Sketch, or pegboard
There are so many fine motor skills that can be addressed through play. Fine motor development is not limited to the ideas, games, toys, and activities listed in this resource. There are many more toys and games that can work on these fine motor skill areas.
This post is part of the Functional Skills for Kids series by 10 Occupational Therapists and Physical Therapists. You can see previous months posts here.
