Fine Motor Skills

Slime Hand Strength Exercises

Colleen Beck OTR/L

Colleen Beck, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist and the owner and author of The OT Toolbox website. She manages all of The OT Toolbox social media accounts and runs the popular newsletter. Read about Colleen's experience and career as an occupational therapist, including how The OT Toolbox began on our About The OT Toolbox page: https://www.theottoolbox.com/about-us/ Colleen created The OT Toolbox in 2011 and since then has written thousands of blog posts designed to support therapy providers, educators, parents, counselors, admin, and caregivers in promoting the healthy development of kids. Check out Colleen's blog posts below:

by Colleen Beck OTR/L
January 2, 2018

If your house is like mine, you have homemade slime filling containers and plastic baggies everywhere! The slime craze is very much still oozing over here! With all of the slime sitting around, I thought it might be fun to put it to work and use it to work those hand muscles. Here are creative ways to use slime to boost hand strength just by playing with slime. We’ve previously shared other ways to use slime in fine motor activities, so these hand strength exercises can be used in conjunction for your slime-loving kids!

Slime Workout

A slime workout might not be the type of hand strengthening that you are used to using to build fine motor skills…but using a few specific slime exercises can support pinch and grip strength, as well as dexterity.

Kids can boost the developmental skills needed for tasks like pencil grasp and clothing fasteners by playing with and manipulating slime. Grab a batch of slime and use it to strengthen the fine motor skills. Here are Slime Hand Strength Exercises that the kids will love!

You will also love using slime to develop skills needed for functional tasks in these fun ways: Work on cursive letter formation using slime or use it in a slime writing tray.

These Slime Hand Exercises video uses homemade slime to work on hand strength and dexterity of the hands to develop fine motor skills like pencil grasp in kids. Kids love slime and they won't realize they are exercising the hands when they play with slime with these hand strength exercises! Perfect for occupational therapy.

Slime Hand Strength Exercises

You’ll want to check out this video to see how to use slime to develop and strengthen fine motor hand strength. You can use the slime exercises to target finger strength and grip strength.

Here are the exercises you’ll see in the video (Also available on YouTube):

First, it’s worth mentioning that stirring, scooping, and kneading are great hand and arm strengthening exercises! Encourage kids to make that slime. Despite the mess, it’s a powerful tool for strengthening fine motor strength.

Once the slime is made, kids can boost those fine motor skills! Try these slime hand strength exercises:

1.) Pull the slime with both hands, using the pads of the thumb in opposition to the pads of the extended fingers. This is an exercise that strengthens the lumbricals and intrinsic muscles of the hands. Developing this skill is great for the arches of the hands, which are needed for endurance and skills like using and maintaining a functional pencil grasp.

2.) Pull off a large chunk of the slime and squeeze it in the palm of the hand. This develops and strengthens the gross grasp of the hand.

3.) Using the thumb, pointer, and middle fingers, pull off small pieces of slime. Use one hand to roll the slime into small balls. Working the slime with just the one hand strengthens the tripod grasp and dexterity of the thumb in opposition. This is a fantastic exercise for addressing pencil grasp needs.

4.) Next, use those small rolled balls of slime to press with the pointer finger. This exercise strengthens skills like finger isolation and separation of the two sides of the hand.

5.) Roll the slime into a “snake” and pinch both sides of the roll to strengthen pinch grasp.

6.) Pat and spread the slime into a pancake and spread it out on the table using the fingertips.

7.) Finally, use one hand to stretch the slime out like a pizza. This strengthens the extensors of the hand, needed for graded grasp and precision.

More ideas:
Press buttons or coins into the slime. Ask kids to find the hidden objects.

You can watch the video below. Use it to help kids follow along and do the exercises while they play!

Our Finger Aerobics exercise YouTube video is used in schools and in therapy as a warm-up exercise guide. Check it out here:

This slime hand strength exercise video should be a big help, too!

Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.

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