Fine Motor
Warm up
- Finger aerobics - touching thumb with individual fingers in turn, making fingers dance by placing tips of all fingers on top of a table and flicking them out (like the can-can), wiggling and making crocodile snapping hands.
- Stretching arms high, and to the side wiggling your fingers. Pull tummy muscles in and tip to one side and then the other like a teapot, sing I'm a little teapot short and stout.
Roll shoulders 10 times, then gently tip head forward so chin to chest and back as far as is comfortable.
Games and activities
- Picking up marbles and putting them in a jar using thumb and forefinger only. Progress to small beads or pasta shapes, bits of lego, counters from board games until the objects are crumb size (dried peas, lentils, dry breadcrumbs).
- Use tweezers to move objects from one dish to another. You can use beads, pasta or beans. This action builds muscles in hands and fingers and develops muscle memory.
- Playdoh, make shapes and roll out snakes, worms and small balls. Encourage shape making to construct an animal, building or object.
- Tearing and ripping paper to a specific shape, such as a square, triangle building upto a circle.
- Cutting shapes and drawings out, construct buildings or objects by cutting paper and sticking individual shapes together with glue or sticky tape. Build up to 3d buildings.
- Writing letters and shapes in shaving foam or sand, bathtime is a brilliant time for this activity with shaving foam, squirt on tiles and write names and draw pictures and shapes.
- Practice hopping on one leg and then the other, balance on one leg, jump and skip. Fine motor skills are developed once gross motor skills are mastered. Posture and core tummy strength is key for writing legibly. Using pencil grips can be useful to encourage the tripod hold.