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Gross motor, fine motor, pencil grip and control


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Hi all,

I have a few children in my Nursery class who are not yet stable in their pencil grip and control. Most of them do not rest their hand or wrist on the table when they are writing. This is an area which I have read up on (both on here and elsewhere!) and have attempted to offer a wide range of activities/resources to help develop the associated muscles including lots of gross motor activities for shoulder and elbows. However, the children in question are very capable in the gross motor department! In fact a couple of them are about the best in the class at climbing & balancing type activities. I'm at a bit of a lose what to do to further improve their grip and control apart from to just let them develop at their own pace, knowing that they will be immediately expected to write in reception. I do correct their pencil grip (most of the time) but also know from personal experience that forcing a child to write with a recognised pencil grip before they are ready can cause further issues.

 

What do you suggest? Just continue as I am? Or is there other activities or resources that could be used to help their development.

 

Thanks,

Green Hippo x

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Might not be much help but if you google handwriting muscle excersises it brings up lots of pages full of muscle development ideas, I do these with individual children as that's what we need at min, but could you do a funky finger type group a few times a week to support the muscle development and provide them parents with a parent session trying out the moves and the benefits of such x there are so many activities that I would never dream of that help handwriting right from crawling to ball walking with one hand xx

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Thanks, Foreveryoung.

We do Finger gym twice a week in small groups for all the class - differentiated so with these children we are working on those gross motor muscles. I will definitely have another google as I'm sure there are loads of other exercises out there that we haven't tried.

Green Hippo x

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I originally looked on pinterest for finger gym activities and found loads of ideas. We have one activity a day for a week and then change it. We have noticed the children's grip on pencils have improved.

Parents are aware why we set up the activities and we have given them ideas of things to do at home.

 

V

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I found the very best method was to give very short stumps of chalk and crayons. There's no other way you can hold them to effectively make marks

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Over the last few years i have tried lots of different things . I try to allow the children to develop at their own rate with lots of support. This term i have tried to 'test' those children whose grip is not yet 'tripodded'! in general my older ones have been fine and have picked up the new method quickly....the younger ones have struggled and i have stopped asking them to do it. Just another form of proof i'm afraid that you cannot make a child older than they are :wacko:

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We stick large rolled out paper underneath the tables so that the children lie under the table and are drawing on the underneath of the table. We put cushions for the children to lie on under the table. The children absolutely love doing this! Having tried this myself it really works your upper arm muscles too! Perfect way to develop their larger arm muscles in prep for writing.

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