Fine Manipulative Skills Fs2

[Guest]

Hi everyone and a very happy weekend. After some very busy weeks recently, its nice to have some time to myself and check out recent posts and also ask you guys out there on any ideas to develop chn's fine manipulative skills. I have a large amount of chn in my class who really need this developing and would love to hear what everyone else is doing t enciourage and develop, fine motor movement, FOR my reception chn. Any ideas would be greatr.

 

Ive thought about threading and large mark making with chunky pens and chalk, using a paint brush outside with water etc. Any other ideas would be great. I was thinking about a focus activity with these chn daily.

 

xxxxxx

[Marion]

Hi everyone and a very happy weekend. After some very busy weeks recently, its nice to have some time to myself and check out recent posts and also ask you guys out there on any ideas to develop chn's fine manipulative skills. I have a large amount of chn in my class who really need this developing and would love to hear what everyone else is doing t enciourage and develop, fine motor movement, FOR my reception chn. Any ideas would be greatr.

 

Ive thought about threading and large mark making with chunky pens and chalk, using a paint brush outside with water etc. Any other ideas would be great. I was thinking about a focus activity with these chn daily.

 

xxxxxx

 

Things to remember:

 

Upright working surfaces promote fine motor skills. Examples of these are: vertical chalkboards; easels for painting; flannel boards; lite bright; magnet boards (or fridge); windows and mirrors; white boards, etc. Children can also make sticker pictures; do rubber ink-stamping; use reuseable stickers to make pictures; complete puzzles with thick knobs; use magna-doodle and etch-a-sketch as well. The benefits for these include: having the child's wrist positioned to develop good thumb movements; they help develop good fine motor muscles; the child is using the arm and shoulder muscles.

 

Body Stability

The joints of the body need to be stable before the hands can be free to focus on specific skilled fine motor tasks.

Wheelbarrow walking, crab walking, and wall push-ups.

Toys: Orbiter, silly putty, and monkey bars on the playground.

 

Pouring from small pitcher to specific level in clear glass. Increase size of pitcher as strength increases.

Rope turning/jump rope

Slinky--shift back and forth with palm up.

Volleyball-type activities where hands, paddles, or rackets are in palm-up position. (Balloon volleyball)

Floor activities--large mural painting, floor puzzles, coloring when lying on stomach on floor.

 

 

 

Moulding and rolling play dough into balls - using the palms of the hands facing each other and with fingers curled slightly towards the palm.

 

Rolling play dough into tiny balls (peas) using only the finger tips.

 

Using pegs or toothpicks to make designs in play dough.

 

Cutting play dough with a plastic knife or with a pizza wheel by holding the implement in a diagonal volar grasp.

 

Tearing newspaper into strips and then crumpling them into balls. Use to stuff scarecrow or other art creation.

 

Scrunching up 1 sheet of newspaper in one hand. This is a super strength builder.

 

Using a plant sprayer to spray plants, (indoors, outdoors) to spray snow (mix food colouring with water so that the snow can be painted), or melt "monsters". (Draw monster pictures with markers and the colours will run when sprayed.)

 

Picking up objects using large tweezers such as those found in the "Bedbugs" game. This can be adapted by picking up Cheerios, small cubes, small marshmallows, pennies, etc., in counting games.

 

Shaking dice by cupping the hands together, forming an empty air space between the palms.

 

Using small-sized screwdrivers like those found in an erector set.

 

Lacing and sewing activities such as stringing beads, Cheerios, macaroni, etc.

 

Using eye droppers to "pick up" coloured water for colour mixing or to make artistic designs on paper.

 

Rolling small balls out of tissue paper, then gluing the balls onto construction paper to form pictures or designs.

 

Turning over cards, coins, checkers, or buttons, without bringing them to the edge of the table.

 

Making pictures using stickers or self-sticking paper reinforcements.

 

Playing games with the "puppet fingers" -the thumb, index, and middle fingers. At circle time have each child's puppet fingers tell about what happened over the weekend, or use them in songs and finger plays.

 

Place a variety of forms (eg. blocks, felt, paper, string, yarn, cereal, cotton) on outlines

 

Match shapes, colour, or pictures to a page and paste them within the outlines

 

 

Take a line for a walk – see how long the pencil can stay on the paper.

Sorting – small objects such as paper clips, screws, bolts, buttons, etc.

Clipping things together – using pegs, paper clips, etc.

Dressing up activities – involving the use of clothing fasteners such as buttons, zippers and laces.

Post-a-shape – matching shapes to the correct opening.

Tracking and maze activities

Cutting and pasting – patterns, pictures, classification activities, project scrapbooks.

Tracing – lines, shapes and simple pictures.

Copy writing patterns 1 – using coloured sand.

Copy writing patterns 2 – using chalk.

Colouring patterns and pictures – using different media.

Dot-to-dot pictures – using numbers and the alphabet.

Line-links – following the line from one end to the other (e.g. mouse to the cheese).

Modelling – with clay, Plasticine etc.

Painting and printing – using different sized brushes and different types of printing materials.

Jigsaw puzzles – starting with simple peg puzzles with pictures and shapes that need to be slotted into the correct space, then introducing traditional puzzles of varying degrees of difficulty.

Peg boards – these can be used to make simple or more complex patterns.

Building blocks – start with larger wooden ones if possible and then introduce smaller ones.

Constructional apparatus –of varying degrees of difficulty (e.g. Duplo, Lego).

Jacks or marbles – children learn to control fine motor movements with these games.

Computer-aided picture and design activities

Sewing activities

Construction activities – involving the use of plastic nuts, bolts and screws.

Musical instruments – playing as wide a range as available.

Attach a large piece of drawing paper to the wall. Have the child use a large marker and try the following exercises to develop visual motor skills:Make an outline of a one at a time. Have the child trace over your line from left to right, or from top to bottom. Trace each figure at least 10 times . Then have the child draw the figure next to your model several times.

 

Play connect the dots. Again make sure the child's strokes connect dots fromleft to right, and from top to bottom.

 

Trace around stencils - the non-dominant hand should hold the stencil flat and stable against the paper, while the dominant hand pushes the pencil firmly against the edge of the stencil. The stencil must be held firmly.

 

Attach a large piece of felt to the wall, or use a felt board. The child can use felt shapes to make pictures. Magnetic boards can be used the same way.

 

Have the child work on a chalkboard, using chalk instead of a marker. Do the same kinds of tracing and modeling activities as suggested above.

 

Paint at an easel. Some of the modeling activities as suggested above can be done at the easel.

 

Magna Doodle- turn it upside down so that the erasing lever is on the .

 

Experiment making vertical, horizontal, and parallel lines.

 

Self-Care Skills

Buttoning

Lacing

Tying

Fastening Snaps

Zipping

Carrying

Using a screwdriver

Locking and unlocking a door

Winding a clock

Opening and closing jars

Rolling out dough or other simple cooking activities

Washing plastic dishes

Sweeping the floor

Dressing

Scissor Activities

When scissors are held correctly, and when they fit a child's hand well, cutting activities will exercise the very same muscles which are needed to manipulate a pencil in a mature tripod grasp. The correct scissor position is with the thumb and middle finger in the handles of the scissors, the index finger on the outside of the handle to stabilize, with fingers four and five curled into the palm.

Cutting junk mail, particularly the kind of paper used in magazine subscription cards.

 

Making fringe on the edge of a piece of construction paper.

 

Cutting play dough or clay with scissors.

 

Cutting straws or shredded paper.

 

Cutting use a thick black line to guide cutting the following:

Cut off corners of a piece of paper

Cut along curved lines

Cut lines with a variety of angles

Cut figures with curves and angles

 

Clothespegs/pinching. Put letters on clothespegs and spell words by clipping on edge of shoe box. Use a clothespeg to do finger “push-ups” by using the pads of the thumb and index finger to open a clothespeg and count repetitions.

Bead stringing/lacing with tip of finger against thumb

Inch a pencil or chopstick positioned in tripod grasp toward and away from palm. The shaft should rest in open web space.

Squirrel objects into palm (pick up with index finger and thumb, move into palm without using the other hand)

Squirt bottles.

Use tongs/tweezers to pick up blocks/small objects

Pennies into piggy bank or slot cut in plastic lid. Coins can also be put into slots cut in foam.

Finger plays/string games such as Cat's Cradle

Screw/unscrew lids

Squeeze sponges to wash off table, clean windows, shower, etc.

Playdough/silly putty activities

Pop bubble wrap

Use a turkey baster or nasal aspirator to blow cork or ping pong balls back and forth. These can also be used to squirt water to move floating object/toys.

Tear pieces of construction paper into small pieces and paste the different colors of paper on a simple picture from a colouring book, or make your own design.

Moving objects with tweezers—can use the large ones from Bed Bugs game or kitchen tongs.

Dot-dots, colour by number, mazes

 

• Use padlocks and keys – how quickly can the children unlock them?

• Clothes pegs. How many can the children peg around a box in 1 minute? Which child can peg the most if playing against a partner etc

• How many small beads can children pick up in a minute with tweezers?

• Have mixtures such as dried pasta and peas. Can they separate the mixture using only tweezers?

• Scissor activity booklet – ensure children have correct scissor grip at all times.

• ‘Melt monsters’. Draw monsters with felt tip pens and then using eye droppers drip water on them and watch the monsters ‘melt’.

• Playdough (see over for recipe). Encourage the children to pull, squeeze, roll, twist it etc. Sometimes using the palms of their hands, othertimes using their fingertips. They can also prick out designs using toothpicks in the dough.

• How many bubble wrap bubbles can they pop?

• Threading beads onto a string

• How many paper clips can they join together?

• Have a simple outline drawing, children to stick string/wool onto these outlines.

• Play games that encourage strength in the shoulders eg: wheelbarrows, crabs, wall push ups etc

• Use individual hole punch round a piece of card. Children can then thread wool/ribbon through these.

• Play games such as tiddly winks or the frogs where you press their backs.

• Doing up buttons and zips quickly.

 

 

• Upright surfaces promote fine motor skills so do things such as painting on easels, writing on chalk boards/whiteboards etc.

• Pegboards

• Scrunching up sheets of newspaper with 1 hand (to then stuff something with eg: a scarecrow)

• Play board games requiring children to turn over cards/counters BUT they cannot slide them to the edge of the table to do so.

• Tracing round stencils

• Using small hammers, bang golf tees into something like a pumpkin

• Taking lids on and off small Tupperware containers

[Guest]

wow Marion. That's a fabuluous list. Thanks!

[Marion]

I think it's in the resource area (possibly an earlier collection)

[suebear]

just wanted to say Thank you to Marion for sharing. x