Fine Motor Activity with an Egg Carton
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.
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.
Need another activity with an egg carton?
MORE handwriting exercises you will love:
Pencil Grasp Trick Thumb IP Flexion
Spring Fine Motor Kit
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:
- Lacing cards
- Sensory bin cards
- Hole punch activities
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- Play dough mats
- Write the Room cards
- Modified paper
- Sticker activities
- MUCH MORE
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Grab your copy of the Spring Fine Motor Kit and build coordination, strength, and endurance in fun and creative activities. Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.
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.
