FINE MOTOR Fine Motor Development Fine motor skills involve the small muscles of the hands that enable such functions as grasping and manipulating small objects, coloring and drawing, writing, managing clothing fasteners, etc. In order to successfully complete these activities, children need to develop appropriate hand strength, dexterity, bilateral coordination, and eye-hand coordination. In order to develop these abilities, children should be exposed to a wide variety of activities, where they can practice and refine these skills. Playing with your child is one of the most important things you can do as a parent to facilitate their growth and development in this, and other developmental areas. Children need a strong sensory motor foundation before they can be successful at higher level tasks. Fine motor skills are dependent on adequate sensory feedback, postural support, and shoulder/forearm stability, as prerequisites to fine motor skill and handwriting development. It is important to engage your preschooler in activities to enhance this development. Typically this can be achieved through a variety of play experiences. The following are suggestions to help build sensory motor skills, postural support, and upper body strength: Animal walks build strength and stability, as well as develop bilateral skills and motor planning. Some include: o Bear (arms and legs on ground with limbs extended) o Snake (slither on floor without letting your tummy off the floor) o Donkey (squat and lean forward onto hands as legs kick) o Frog (squat, reach arms forward and pull legs up toward hands) o Crab (sit with feet flat on floor in front of you, arms behind, lift bottom and move forward and backward), etc. o Be creative! Bear Crab Wheelbarrow walking: adult holds child at thighs (or ankles if they are able to maintain a straight back) while they walk on their hands.
Wheelbarrow Ball activities (can use soft balls, squishy balls, playground balls, balzac, beach balls, weighted balls, etc). Throwing, rolling, tapping, catching, bouncing. Have child practice catching balls that are thrown to them at midline (directly in front), as well as slightly to the side of midline. Have children play in various positions other than sitting. They can lie on their stomachs and prop themselves up on their forearms, chest off the ground. They can also play while on their hands and knees, shifting weight from one hand to another. Simon Says activities - Be sure to incorporate symmetrical and asymmetrical postures and movements, as well as those which cross midline (reaching with their right hand to their left side and vice versa) Dancing and marching to music. Follow the leader type games. Use rhythm sticks and other instruments. Playground activities which develop upper body strength such as hanging and swinging from the monkey bars, pulling up on ladders, climbing rock walls, sliding down the fireman pole, etc. Working on a vertical plane assists with shoulder stability and builds strength in the wrist and hand muscles. This can include using a blackboard, easel, paper taped to the wall, shower wall, slant board, etc. Activities can include drawing, painting with a brush, fingers, markers, chalk, sponge painting, bath soap, etc. Use large movements with both arms working in the same as well as opposite directions. Progress from large to smaller movements. Have child freely draw, draw in paths, trace shapes, connect shapes or dots, etc. Begin to incorporate drawing lines from top-down and circles in a counterclockwise direction. Have fun with your child as they explore many textures. Sensory bins can be filled with dry macaroni, cold cooked macaroni, wet or dry rice, dry oatmeal, dry lentils, water, dry beans, packing peanuts, etc.
The following are suggestions to help build hand strength and dexterity: Many cooking activities help to build arm/hand strength and dexterity. These include stirring, scooping, molding, kneading, rolling, peeling, spreading, cutting, etc. Of course, you must safely monitor your child during these activities! Playing with playdough, clay, silly putty, floam, gak, etc. is always fun. Have your child roll into snakes, squeeze, twist, poke individual fingers in, pinch off little pieces, make tiny and large balls, press pegs or straws in, cut with pizza cutter or knife, press cookie cutters in, remove small items that have been buried inside, etc. Playing with a variety of manipulatives and construction type toys is important to develop hand skills. These include Legos, pop beads, Tinkertoys, constructo straws, press-n-lock blocks, nuts and bolts, wind up toys, lacing boards, pegs (all sizes), stringing beads/pasta/cheerios/buttons, Tubers and Zots, Bristle Blocks, building blocks, board games with small pieces to move, coins in slots, etc. Your toy store is filled with wonderful toys to enhance fine motor skills. Create a Strong Hands Box as a source of fun activities your child can play with. Fill a shoe box, plastic box, or other container with items such as play-dough, beads to string, clothespins and clips to squeeze with fingers and place on index cards, accordion-pop tubes, nuts and bolts, lacing cards, tongs to pick up small items with, squeeze balls, etc. Any paper tearing activity. Be sure paper is held between thumb and index fingers and that both hands are close together. One hand moves upward and the other downward in opposing movements, rather than pulling sideways apart. The smaller the tear, the finer the movement. Children can make a mosaic by pasting pieces on paper. Work on squeezing one drop at a time out of the glue bottle. Crumble small pieces of tissue paper within one hand only, working toward fingertips, and glue on paper to make a collage.
Pick up and release small objects (such as colorful pom poms, tiny plastic animals, pasta) with a clothespin, strawberry huller, tongs, or tweezers. Encourage child to use first 3 fingers only. Change position of objects to be picked up and where they will be released to work on changing wrist positions and orientations. In-hand manipulation skills can be facilitated by having your child pick up a group of small items such as pennies or buttons, one at a time with a pincer (thumb-index finger) or tripod (thumb-index-middle fingers) grasp. This may be challenging, but have them try to move each item after they grasp it into the palm of their hand and hold it with their last 2 or 3 fingers. They continue holding these while the thumb and index finger pick up the next one. Then have your child move them from their palm into their fingertips to release into a container. All this within one hand only, without assistance from the opposite hand. Using their thumb-index-middle fingers to pop bubble wrap. Unscrewing and screwing a variety of sized lids to containers. Turning wind-up toys. Squirt water out of squeeze trigger type bottles. Squeeze air out of a turkey baster and blow tissues/cotton balls/tissue paper on a table. Squeeze a hand held paper punch to punch holes in paper, index cards, paper plates, etc. Encourage children to hold their eating utensils appropriately, as this often correlates to how they will hold their pencils. Encourage children to be independent with getting dressed, including working on clothing fasteners such as buttons, snaps, and zippers.
The following are suggestions to help build scissor skills: Cutting is a complicated bilateral activity that requires much practice to be successful! There are many different scissors on the market today. It is important to get scissors that cut well. There is nothing more frustrating than learning how to cut with scissors that don t work well. Little hands require little scissors. Fiskars makes a good quality children s scissor, as well as some other brands. Spring scissors (scissors with a small spring to help open up the scissors) can also be found at many dollar stores. Begin by teaching your child how to hold scissors correctly. Their thumb goes in the small loop and index and middle fingers go in the big loop. Another method is to have the index finger rest outside the loop as a guide with the middle and possibly ring fingers in the large loop. Fingers should be curled in toward the palm, and not extended straight. Cue your child to hold both hands in a thumbs up position. Cutting should be away from the body and not horizontal or toward the body. For beginners, construction weight paper usually cuts more easily than lighter weight or flimsy paper. Cutting out of magazines is fun for children once they have mastered basic scissor control. Begin by having your child master the skill of opening and closing the scissors without attempting to cut paper. Cutting out strips of play-dough can also help develop scissor control. Once they are able to open and close the scissors, have them snip around the edges of index cards or small pieces of construction paper. Once they have the hang of it, encourage 2 or more consecutive snips. Then see if they can cut the paper in half. Draw thick straight lines and have them cut on the line. Once they have mastered cutting on lines, they can cut on curves. Move on to cutting shapes such as a circle and square. A right handed child would cut in a counterclockwise direction and a left handed child would cut in
a clockwise direction. Teach them to synchronize turning the paper with one hand while cutting and turning the scissors with the other hand. Cutting out pictures from magazines and gluing on paper to make a collage is always fun! Try this great link for scissor activities: www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/miscellaneous/scissor_skills.htm The following are suggestions to help build pre-writing and early writing skills: When thinking about handwriting, it is important to follow the developmental progression of skills. Helping your child enjoy scribbling, coloring, painting, and drawing will hopefully increase their interest in writing. Allow your child many opportunities to explore scribbling and coloring with crayons, markers, paint, chalk, Magnadoole, dry erase boards, coloring books, easels, etc. Children also enjoy drawing in trays of finger paint, pudding, rice, corn meal, shaving cream, etc. Developing an appropriate crayon/pencil grasp is also important. Children typically can hold their writing tool with a tripod grasp (3 finger crayon is held by the thumb, index, and middle fingers and rests in the web space between the base of the thumb and index fingers) between the ages of 4 and 5. Using small pieces of crayons, golf pencils, small chunky chalk, etc. lends itself to developing a more appropriate grasp. Longer pencils are often more difficult to control and lend themselves to having too many fingers on the shaft.
If your child tends to hold their crayon with too many fingers, you can place a small pom pom, piece of cotton, or crumbled tissue, for them to hold in their palm with their last 2 fingers, leaving the first 3 to hold their crayon. Writing up on a vertical plane (blackboard, easel) also assists in placing the hand in a more mature position. Children should stabilize their paper with their opposite hand. There are some basic shapes that children should be able to draw before they begin letters. These are, in developmental sequence, a vertical line (2 yrs); horizontal line (3 yrs); circle (3 yrs); cross (3-4 yrs); square (4 yrs); X (4-5rs); and triangle (4-5 yrs.). Children can imitate you drawing them, trace lines and shapes that you have drawn, connect the corner target dots, and copy lines and shapes already drawn to help develop their skill. Once your child has mastered the above mentioned pre-requisite shapes, you can assist them in starting to recognize and write letters. Bethel Public Schools has adopted the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum for kindergarten through second grades. You can view some information about this program and view the parent page for activities via their web site www.hwtears.com Since it is very hard to unlearn motor patterns/habits, it is very important that you teach your child to print using this method. According to Jan Olsen, founder of Handwriting Without Tears, capital or upper case letters are generally easier to learn than lower case letters. In school, your child will begin the program by learning the names of the basic shapes used to print upper case letters (Big Line, Little Line, Big Curve, Little Curve) by manipulating wooden pieces that represent these shapes, and then by drawing them. Although it may not follow the teaching progression, having your child learn how to write their name might hold some interest for them. All upper case letters begin at the top, either in the left corner or in the center. Using a small slate or drawing a box on a piece of paper will provide the boundaries to write the letters. Use the diagrams included to assist with appropriate letter formation.
When teaching letters, be sure you watch your child as they form the letters, to be sure they are forming them correctly- again- habits once learned are hard to break! If your child is ready, once they have mastered upper case letters, you can introduce lower case letters. The following chart from Handwriting Without Tears, Jan Olsen, 2008, will assist you in teaching your child proper letter.
Gross motor skills are movements which use the large muscles in the body. Some of the pre-kindergarten gross motor skills include: jumping, hopping on one foot, climbing, skipping, throwing, catching and kicking balls. Children learn new gross motor skills through play and repeatedly practicing them until the skill is mastered. Allow preschoolers time every day for gross motor play, including outside time, which is full of pretend play and physical activity. The gross motor skills your preschooler is building now will impact performance in all motor skills. Good gross motor skills are a basic component to many activities throughout the school day. Your child s body develops large movements, such as control of the arms and leg and then proceeds to the smaller isolated movements that include the hands and fingers. These small fine motor skills are essential for successful participation in the kindergarten classroom. Gross motor skills contribute to prepare your child to have good sitting posture during table top learning and handwriting activities. Children learn concepts such as balance, laterality (awareness of right/left sides of the body), spatial orientation (child s awareness of his body in space and relation to other people and objects) and coordination of major muscles. By having children participate in fun gross motor activities, their skills will be honed and positive gross motor skills can be achieved. Kindergarten children will be participating in the physical education program at school. Along with working to develop your child s gross motor skills, fitness and playing games in a large group are part of the physical education curriculum. There are several skills you can introduce to your child to help prepare them for their physical education class. These include: Moving through space around others controlling their body safely. Activities: Simon Says, Red Light Green Light, Music games- stop/go Freeze, simple relay races moving slow-medium or fast, and tag or relay games with directionality forward-backward-sideways-under-over, obstacle courses, safely climbing playground equipment Gross motor skills such as running with control, tagging another person safely, jumping, balancing on one foot, hopping, galloping, skipping, sliding, leaping, marching, crab walk and animal walks Ball Skills including: throwing, catching, bounce/catch and kicking a playground ball, throwing a small ball overhand. Activities: Play with a variety of materials such as bean bags, yarn balls, playground balls, juggling scarves, bowling tossing underhand, shooting a light weight basket ball at a low hoop, throw overhand or underhand into a box/through a suspended hoop Introduce beginner fitness activities with periods of vigorous continuous movement Activities: Playing tag, keep moving or dancing for the entire length of a song, chasing bubbles, riding a bike, pulling a wagon, taking a hike, walk or swim with an adult