Art

The following fine motor activity suggestions are recommended by educators at Strongsville Early Learning Preschool.

Fine Motor Skill Suggestions:

Activities to Complete with Your Child Targeting Grasping and Releasing Objects:

Encourage your child to use a pincer grasp (thumb to index finger) or 3-finger grasp(index and middle fingers to thumb to pick up these manipulatives)

Complete a pegboard

Cut an opening into a lid of a butter container and have child push coins through

Wash an old Parmesan Cheese container and have child pick up and place small beads or fabric balls through the holes of the container

Play Commercial games including: Connect 4, Don’t Spill the Beans, Don’t Break the Ice, Jenga, Lite Brite, or Hi Ho Cheerio, Operation, Yahtzee

Wind up toys

Spinning tops

Play pick up sticks

Small peg inset puzzles

Use tweezers or tongs to pick up small items and place/sort into a container

Popping bubbles in packaging materials

Screw/Unscrew small nuts and bolts

Pinching clothespins or various style of clips.

Activities to Complete with Your Child Targeting Using Hands Together:

Have your child pull apart/push together resistive manipulatives such as pop tubes, large or small pop beads, Lego’s, rolling out play doh using a rolling pin, Rubik’s cube, Mega blocks,

Encourage child to use one hand to stabilize an object while the other hand performs the activity including:

Stringing various sized beads, pasta, cheerios, or fruit loops on a lace.

Lacing cards

Opening different style containers (e.g. pull top, screw top, zip lock bags, etc.) to obtain toys or food inside

Playing catch with a large playground ball or balloon

Pouring water/sand into a container

Screwing/unscrewing nuts/bolts

Nesting blocks or containers

Commercial games such as Cootie, Twister, Mr. Potato Head etc.

Melissa and Doug cutting fruit/vegetables/pizza activity

Hiding/finding small objects in play doh or therapy putty

Pinching open clothespins to attach to an index card, container, or paint stick. You can label clothespin with letters, colors, shapes, numbers, etc. and have the child match to the same marking on the surface.

Complete whole body activities such as wheelbarrow walks, crab crawling, bear walking, or yoga poses (plank, downward dog, etc.)

Playground activities including climbing, monkey bars, swinging, etc.

Tearing or crumpling paper, tissue paper or cotton balls to glue on a paper to make a craft

Pre-Scissor/Scissor Skill Activities:

Use small tongs or tweezers to pick up items (e.g. fabric balls, cotton balls, blocks, or other small manipulatives) and release/sort into a container

Use spray bottle to water plants or to wash/erase chalkboard

Give your child the opportunity to cut including cutting playdoh, cutting straws, paint strips, construction paper or index cards. If your child is ready – draw a line and have them stop at a designated area (e.g. their name, sticker, etc.) or draw simple shapes and work on stabilizing and turning the paper while cutting around the shape. There are many printable cutting activities online that can also be printed to have your child practice coloring and cutting.

Make sure that when your child is cutting they are using a “thumbs up” position meaning that his/her thumb is on top of the paper when stabilizing and that the thumb is facing upward with the hand holding the scissors.

Fine Motor Activities That Specifically Target Pre-Writing and Handwriting Skills

Use multisensory methods and materials to have your child practice forming pre-writing strokes and letters of the alphabet.

Shapes to practice include drawing vertical and horizontal lines, circle, cross, right and left diagonal lines, square, X and triangle as these include all of the strokes needed in order to form all of the letters of the alphabet.

If your child is writing letters, have them practice tracing/ copying/ independently write letters in their name daily to sign in to activities (e.g. iPad time) or keep a writing journal over the break writing a few sentences about what they are doing each day.

Multi sensory ways to have your child practice writing shapes and letters include using:

• • Shaving cream on a table surface

  • Pudding on a table surface

  • Sand/clay trays

  • Finger paint

  • Using bathtub crayons/markers

  • Sidewalk chalk

  • Making shapes or letters using manipulatives and tracing with fingers (e.g. pipe cleaners, string, Wikki Stix, etc.)

  • Rainbow Writing using markers, crayons or chalk. Start by having the child draw a shape or letter using one color and then have him/her trace over that shape/letter using a rainbow of colors. This provides the child with multiple opportunities for practicing the formation.

iPad apps to use to practice pre-writing skills:

• Touch and Write Shapes

• Doodle buddy

• Doodle Pad

• Brush Route

iPad Apps to practice handwriting skills:

• Zaner Bloser Handwriting

• Letter School

• Wet Dry Try (Handwriting without Tears curriculum)

• Doodle Buddy

• Touch and Write

• Write On

• iWrite Words

• Letter Route

Websites that provide Lots of Fine Motor Activity Suggestions:

• Therapy Fun Zone

• The Inspired Treehouse

• Mama OT

• The OT Toolbox