Loads of Fun with Fine motor skills!
Promoting the use of fine motor skills is an important part of preparing young children to write, catch and throw a ball, type on a computer, open a door, and the list goes on. As young children develop the muscles in their hands, they develop the strength they need to complete fine motor processes that will play a valuable part in higher level learning.
Young children are still developing the muscles they need in their hands and fingers to hold a pencil correctly. Thus, young children will start off holding a pencil or crayon in a way that looks awkward or incorrect but given time and good opportunities to build fine motor strength and skills, most children will self-correct on their pencil grip when their fine motor control and strength gets to the point that they can manage the pencil with the correct grip.
Throughout the week we had many different activities and centers for the children to strengthen their fine motor skills.
Colored beads
The children were required to match the beads to the correct color. This activity helped them strengthen their "pincer grasp" fingers as they maneuvered them while practicing color recognition.
Tracers are a good way to help children control their fingers. We had the children first follow the shape line with their pointer finger.
This activity was done on laminated sheets, so the children could self correct themselves with wiping it away. (Self -correcting is another important skill for the children to master. Helping them realize its ok to not get it right the first time, and build the confidence to try again, and again independently (without giving up)- and then seeing the success!)
We put out a big cardboard box that had a lot of holes in it. It was an invitation to insert the pipe-cleaners through the holes. It was challenging trying to get it to fit and get pushed through into the box.
At first a lot of them used there whole hand which was a lot harder as the pipe cleaner would fold. This was a great activity to encourage the writing fingers to do all the work.
Finger games.
After learning the names of our fingers through the song 'where is thumbkin' we focused on our pointer finger. With a figure 8 on a paper the children had to follow the 8 with their finger.
Different Ways to encourage pencil control.
One morning for art the children were greeted with objects on their paper instead of a blank sheet.
The challenge was to try to 'weave' with their crayon around the objects. It was interesting to see the different reactions.
The younger children drew circles around the object
The older ones were able to make to the end of the paper.
It required a lot of hand eye coordination and control of their hand.
Levi observing his friends work before trying it out.
Squiggly straws and foam circles.
They had to place a foam circle with a slit in it through the whole curvy straw which took a lot of muscles in their hand to maneuver.
Believe it or not pulling is a great pre-writing skill.
With different size ribbons we tied onto a box they had to pull it through and bring it back in through the inside of the box.
After cleanup time we have charts for them to fill in if they cleaned up.
We changed things up a bit and placed two big 'clean up hands' with pictures of each child in a different finger.
Placing stickers in side the square was another great fine motor building activity!
Beads
Elizabeth focusing on placing little beads on spikes.
Elizabeth opening up her lunchbox zipper ...
Life Skills
We Placed button down shirts for the children to practice buttoning which is very challenging!First Levi A. found the hole and pocked his finger through it,
Trying to keep the hole 'open' and place the button took a lot of concentration and hard work
:) counting how many are buttoned
Taking it home
This week we made for the children a fun motor skill activity that they can take home and practice.
We had a circle time to learn how it can be used.
Max using a clothespin to open and place on the paper.
Levi learning how to sew through the holes.
Evi and Shua were really excited that they had velcro on their shoes like on their paper!
Devorah Leah practicing buttoning!
Taking care of our olive tree!
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