The small, controlled movements of your child’s forearms, fingers, and hands are determined by their fine motor skills. As children interact with the world around them, these fine motor skills are developed over time.
As a child refines their fine motor skills, they gain the ability to make stable and controlled movements and learn to do more with their hands. Simple activities like tying shoelaces, holding a pencil, playing with nerf darts, making sculptures, and feeding themselves depend on a child’s fine motor skills.
Fine motor skills can be grouped into three categories: manipulating, grasping, and hand-eye coordination. Although your child’s fine motor skills start to develop from birth, they won’t become refined without practice. Activities that require stacking, lacing, and squeezing help develop fine motor skills and are fun for your child, too!
Here are three games and activities your child can do at home to develop their fine motor skills.
1. Nerf Guns and Tweezers
Squeezing the trigger of a Nerf gun and picking up objects with tweezers are excellent activities to develop hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
Target practice with Nerf darts and some plastic cups will develop hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, and fine motor skills.
You can buy plastic tweezers or tongs designed for play or use the ones you already have lying around in your kitchen. Start with the largest size and decrease it as your child masters controlling the delicate movements of picking objects up with tongs or tweezers.
An easy and inexpensive game can be made from a plastic box filled with sand – or, even better, a sandbox – with cheap toys and figurines scattered inside. The game’s objective is to “catch” the toys with tweezers or tongs. Sand scoops and spades are also excellent additions for developing fine motor skills.
2. Playfoam, Clay, and Playdough
Modeling and sculpting with Playfoam, clay, and playdough helps children strengthen the muscles in their hands. Playing with clay, playdough, or Playfoam is also a textural experience, and Playfoam can be used repeatedly.
The movements of squashing, pinching, flattening, and squishing also improve finger and hand strength and hand-eye coordination – essential skills for learning how to grasp and control a pencil or pen. An added bonus is that sculpting is a great way to encourage imaginative play.
You can purchase Playfoam or modeling clay or make your own playdough.
3. Threading
Seemingly simple activities that involve lacing or threading require children to control the small muscles in their fingers and hands to delicately thread string through holes.
To set up a simple threading activity, all you need are some large, brightly colored beads and pieces of string. If you don’t have beads or string on hand, you can also use dry macaroni and pipe cleaners.
Threading and lacing activities will help strengthen your child’s wrist, forearm, and hand muscles, teach them to master the pincer grip, and allow them to discover the dynamics between their dominant and non-dominant hands.
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