I am so excited to introduce Simple Fine Motor! Simple Fine Motor is a new center based resource that works to build independence and accuracy in fine motor skills for the students in your classroom. The skills in the set will work on hand strength, finger strength, tool grasping, fine motor coordination, hand eye coordination, […]
Teaching a young child how to cut with scissors is a very complex task. Cutting develops the tiny muscles in the palm of the hand. These muscles are used when writing, gripping objects and when dressing. Cutting also enhances hand-eye coordination which is needed for catching and throwing a ball, handwriting and when tying shoelaces....Read More »
I am always looking for new ideas to work on fine motor skills, specifically when working with adults. I tend to resort to my "old favorite" list of fine
Start your fine motor skills task box collection with this free set of playdough activity cards! This freebie also includes a label and instructions.
Kids will love this autumn counting activity. Use leaves to develop early math and fine motor skills in an engaging, fun and hands on way!
FREE cutting, coloring and tracing pack for preschool and kindergarten to practice scissor skills and fine motor skills. Includes 6 no-prep worksheets for a set of easy and fun activities.
These handwriting warm ups will get those fingers moving so dexterity and endurance is possible during writing and fine motor tasks.
Have you seen Trolls? My kids absolutely loved it. Now your little Trolls fans can practice their scissor a
Dysgraphia is a common learning difficulty affecting many people across the world. Here you will find 10 famous people with dysgraphia.
What is a simple fine motor skills activity using beads? You'll love this crazy rainbow hair bead activity! You only need four things for it!
Hand strengthening is an important part of fine motor skills. This resource covers everything you need to know about hand strength.
Use these free playdough activities to help build your child's fine motor and bilateral coordination skills!
Today, I’ve got a super fun fine motor activity that not only will be a hit with the kids, it will work on a few very important skills. This fine motor fidget toy is fun for kids to make and works on visual scanning at the same time. Then, when they are done, you’ve got ... Read more
Fun ways to work on handwriting skills : developing the fine motor skills required for good handwriting. Apps and resources to help, along with activities
This post will show you how to make your own Fine Motor Take Home Kits. They are perfect supplemental fine motor tool for your classroom.
These beginner cutting activities are great for helping young kids learn how to snip paper and move scissors across paper.
Velcro rollers make fun, color tools for play with the built-in bonus of being great for fine motor skills!
Set up a super-simple fine motor activity for kids using pine cones and elastic bands! Great for strengthening those little hand muscles for writing.
Hand strengthening is an important part of fine motor skills. This resource covers everything you need to know about hand strength.
This collection of activities that develop fine motor skills is perfect for strengthening muscles in the fingers, hands, and wrists for handwriting success!
These fine motor play ideas are FUN pencil grasp activities that build fine motor skills, perfect for addressing pencil grip in occupational therapy.
Use this multi-sensory Pigs In Mud Alphabet Writing Tray to practice letter formation and develop fine motor skills.
Many of your child’s daily activities require fine motor skills. Your child can do more things for themselves when they have opportunities to practice these skills.
Use this recipe to make taste-safe foam for young kids. It is a perfect sensory base for little ones who put everything in their mouth!
Below, you will find a blog post on a bilateral coordination activity using Pop Toobs. This fine motor bilateral coordination activity can address a variety of fine motor skills in kids including those bilateral coordination skills needed for tasks like handwriting, scissor use, shoe tying, and much more. This article was written by The OT Toolbox ... Read more
How to make theraputty for occupational therapy to improve fine motor skills and hand strength.
Practice scissor skills in preschool and kindergarten with this fun fine motor conster cutting activity and monster craft project.
GROSS MOTOR SKILLS AND CLOTHING FASTENERS Buttons, zippers, snaps and buckles are all clothing fasteners that require finger dexterity and fine motor skills to open and close. Did you know that they also require gross motor skills? In order to be able to open and close traditional clothing fasteners one must have proper stability, postural control, balance and bilateral coordination. The proximal muscles of the shoulder girdle and trunk function as a stabilizer when fastening clothing. Efficient control of the larger muscle groups in the neck, shoulder and trunk is necessary to maintain stability in order to place the fingers and hands in the proper position to button/unbutton, zip/unzip, snap and buckle. When children are using clothing fasteners, they require distal control of the hands and fingers while the body must remain balanced. The head moves to visual track the skill (flexion and perhaps rotation) possibly eliciting an equilibrium reaction in the body to maintain an upright posture. Children must have intact equilibrium reactions and sufficient balance in sitting and standing to fasten the clothing. Bilateral coordination skills are a necessary skill for independence with clothing fasteners. Higher level bilateral coordination skills are needed since the opposite hands and arms are doing slightly different motions with different timing while fastening clothing. Unzipping or unbuttoning requires less bilateral coordination skills than zipping and buttoning. For example with zipping both sides of the body are doing different motions at the same time. In order to zip one must: use one hand to hold the bottom of zipper track, use the other hand to hold the zipper pull, inserts track into zipper pull, pull down the track to lock into place and finally use one hand to pull side of jacket down while other hand pulls zipper tab up to zip. Buttoning also requires a sufficient amount of bilateral coordination skills to complete the task. For example when buttoning on the right side of the shirt you must: hold button with right hand, hold edge of buttonhole with left hand turning underside of buttonhole, right hand pushes button through hole until it hits left thumb and the left hand pulls button through hole while right hand pulls hole over button. Eye hand coordination skills are essential to use clothing fasteners as well. Children need to be able to utilize visual input to help to control the hands to complete the skills independently. GROSS MOTOR SKILL ACTIVITIES TO HELP CHILDREN TO BE INDEPENDENT WITH CLOTHING FASTENERS Gross motor activities that will improve postural control, muscle strength in the proximal muscles, bilateral coordination and eye hand coordination may help children develop the underlying skills to achieve independence with clothing fasteners. Here are some suggested activities: Hanging and climbing activities – Practice monkey bars, chins ups, pull ups or swing from the tree limbs to increase the muscle strength in the shoulder girdle muscles and hands. Climb the ladders and ropes on the playground to increase the muscle strength in the shoulder girdle muscles, to improve eye hand coordination skills and to improve bilateral coordination skills. Pushing and pulling activities – pull a heavy wagon or push a child on a swing. These pushing and pulling motions help the shoulder learn to coactivate to produce the right amount of force and stability when using clothing fasteners. Push too hard and you will not be able to engage a zipper or fasten a button. Pull too hard and the button will be trapped inside the opening. Weight bearing activities through the arms – animal walks, wheelbarrow walking, crawling, and push ups/planks all help to increase muscle strength and improve coactivation of the shoulder and postural muscles. Yoga Poses – provide muscle strengthening and postural control. Bilateral coordination activities where one hand is stabilizing while the other hand is moving – activities such as using a fishing rod, using a hand mixer, stirring ingredient in a recipe, hammering a golf tee into Styrofoam, etc. Overall symmetrical bilateral coordination activities (both sides of the body are doing the same thing as the same time) such as jumping jacks, jumping rope, dribbling a ball with both hands at the same time, etc. Overall asymmetrical bilateral coordination activities (both sides of the body are doing different things at the same time) such as cross crawls, windmills and hand clapping games. Games or activities that require the forearm to be in a neutral position such as tennis, badminton, zoom ball, throwing/passing a large ball with two hands overhead or opening/closing an expandable ball. Isometric exercises – activities such as Tai Chi and Karate require one to contract and stabilize muscles while the extremities perform various motions. Try this Ninja Clothes Pin activity to practice postural control, isometric exercises and fine motor skills. Balance activities – Perform activities that challenge balance and eye hand coordination skills at the same time. Can you sit on an exercise ball and play catch? Can you stand on a balance beam and play catch? Try catching smaller and smaller balls. 5 MODIFICATIONS TO HELP WITH GROSS MOTOR SKILLS AND CLOTHING FASTENERS If a child is unable to independently fasten or unfasten his/her clothing these modifications may be helpful: Provide a stable base of support while they are fastening the clothing. For example, sit on a bench with feet firmly on the ground or sit on the floor in the corner of the room with back support. Provide verbal cues as necessary. Try to use the wording on each step by step direction for consistency. As the child becomes more independent, reduce the verbal cues until they can be discontinued completely. Avoid certain fasteners – if a child does not have the strength in the shoulders or hands to snap try modifying the clothing with velcro or elastic. Use backward chaining in a child is having trouble with motor planning to complete all the steps to zip, button or snap. Backward chaining means that an adult provides assistance throughout several steps until the child can complete the last steps independently. Practice the skill in an isolated setting when not rushed. Once the child can complete the fastening tasks independently, practice the skills in different environments (i.e. bathroom versus bedroom) or with different types of clothing (i.e. tighter fitting versus looser fitting). Need to measure progress of a child’s ability to button or zip? Check out the Dressing Skills Rubrics packet. This post is part of the Functional Skills for Kids: 12 Month series by Occupational and Physical Therapists. You can read all of the functions on childhood HERE. Read all of my monthly posts in this series HERE. Looking for more information about the development of the functional skills of scissor use in childhood? Stop by to see what the other occupational therapists and physical therapists in the Functional Skills for Kids series have written. When Can Kids Learn to Button and Zip? | Mama OT Clothing Fasteners and Fine Motor Skill Development | Kids Play Space Clothing Fasteners and Gross Motor Skill Development | Your Therapy Source Inc How to Adapt Buttoning and Zipping for Your Child | Miss Jaime OT Learning How To Use Buttons, Snaps, Zippers, and Buckles Through Play | Growing Hands-On Kids Tips to Teach Kids to Zip and Button | The Inspired Treehouse Pinch. Poke. Snap… Helping Kids to Manage Buttons, Zips and More! | Your Kids OT Clothing Fasteners and Sensory Processing| Sugar Aunts The Visual Motor Aspect of Buttons and Zippers | Therapy Fun Zone The post Clothing Fasteners and Gross Motor Skill Development appeared first on Your Therapy Source.
Is this even possible? Yes! Discover the activities that Occupational Therapist use while working on cutting skills in the schools!
Summer Lacing Cards - create your own lacing cards at home to work on your child's fine motor skills and hand coordination - perfect for preschoolers.
Build fine motor skills with scrap ribbons with a simple knot tying and untying activity. Kids love this idea!
Free printable Building Blocks Capital Letter Cards: Letter recognition resource | alphabet formation activity | develop fine motor skills
From developing fine motor skills, letter and number recognition, sight words, sorting, sequencing, reading, and math, these task boxes for autism tasks will help develop important life skills and beyond!
Fine motor skills are so important for toddlers and preschoolers to help develop the strength that’s needed for a lot of basic skills they need to learn such as tying their shoe laces to learning how to write. There are so many objects that you can use around your home for basic fine motor activities,...Read More »
A great way to keep kids busy, just rubber bands and a soup can from the pantry! A great fine motor activity to keep them busy when you need a little time.
