Fine Motor Skills and Pencil Grip.

fine Motor Skills

When it comes to using gross motor skills — things like walking, jumping, and running — your little dynamo probably doesn't need much encouragement. But it's equally important that kids work on their fine motor skills — small, precise thumb, finger, hand, and wrist movements — because they support a host of other vital physical and mental skills. Children who have issues with fine motor skills have a hard time developing strong muscles in their hands and wrists. Fine motor skills are the foundation children need before they learn handwriting, in order to have proper pencil grasp and control of a writing instrument.

Here are ideas for activities that can help them build the muscles needed for fine motor skills.

Fine Motor skills include:

· Pencil skills (scribbling, colouring, drawing, writing),

· Scissors skills (cutting),

· Construction skills (lego, duplo),

· Self care (tyng shoelaces, opening lunch boxes).

Note: Visual perception is not strictly a fine motor skill but directly supports fine motor skill performance.

Fine motor skills are essential for performing everyday skills like cutting, self care tasks (e.g. managing clothing fastenings, opening lunch boxes, cleaning teeth) and pencil skills. Without the ability to complete these every day tasks, a child's self esteem can suffer and their academic performance is compromised. They are also unable to develop appropriate independence in life skills (such as getting dressed and feeding themselves).

Some Fine motor Activities

Stock up on play-dough :Play-dough has been a childhood favorite for decades. Not only is it downright fun, but handling play-dough also develops some important skills. Squeezing and stretching it helps strengthen finger muscles, and touching it is a valuable sensory experience.

Do some finger painting :Using finger paint can strengthen your child’s hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity. All you need is an easel or a thick piece of paper, some finger paints and a space—like the yard or garage—where your child can get messy.

Squeeze out a sponge :Set up two separate bowls, one filled with water and the other empty. Give your child a sponge and have her soak it in one bowl. Then have her squeeze the water out of the sponge into the other bowl. She can transfer water back and forth between bowls, too. This simple game can strengthen hands and forearms. It’s especially fun if you throw in some bubbles or some food dye.

Color with broken crayons :Difficulties with fine motor skills can make it tough to grip a pencil. Coloring with small, broken crayons encourages your child to hold the crayon correctly—between her thumb and forefinger. Small pieces of chalk and the pencils used on mini-golf courses work well, too. No matter what you use, this activity a fun way to challenge your child.

Play string games :Another low-tech activity that can provide hours of fun is string games, like Cat’s Cradle. String games help improve finger strength and hand-eye coordination. All you need is some yarn and a little time to teach your child.

Make macaroni necklaces :Stringing together necklaces is a great way for your child to be creative while working on her hand-eye coordination and developing her ability to manipulate objects. To start, give her thick string and big beads or large pieces of dry pasta. Over time, she can work on more complex designs using smaller pieces.

Clothesline :Children use their fine motor muscles to squeeze the clothespins to clip each piece of clothing to the clothesline. I tied a piece of thick string to the handles of a wooden tray to make the clothesline, and used mini clothespins (although the regular sized clothespins can be used as well). The clothes are Barbie doll clothes purchased at a dollar store. As an alternative, you could cut out shapes of shirts and pants from felt.

Clothespins on a Box :Children squeeze the clothespins and clip them to the sides of the box. To make the activity more interesting, I wrote letters on dot stickers and placed the dot stickers around the sides of the boxes. I wrote letters on the clothespins so the children would match the letters on the clothespins to the letters on the boxes. Other skills could be used, e.g. colors, numbers, beginning sounds. This is similar to activities where children clip clothespins to a paper plate or cardstock circle; however, in my experience, those were flimsy and awkward to use, which is why I like the box better. Any sturdy box could be used (shoe box, postal box). The boxes in this picture were stacking gift boxes that held chocolate covered nuts (a Christmas gift), and they worked out perfectly

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Nuts & Bolts :These larger nuts and bolts can be purchased individually at hardware stores. Children use their fingers, hands, and wrists, coordinating both hands while grasping and twisting the metal nuts onto the bolts.

Lacing Cards :These can be purchased or made with poster board and a hole puncher. Use shoe laces or plastic lacing. Tie one end of the lace to one hole of the card. Children lace the string through each hole. These can be made to match different themes or holidays.

Plate Sewing :Tie lengths of yarn to plastic yarn needles, and knot the end. Children “sew” the yarn on a styrofoam plate by pushing the needle in and out through the plate.

Stringing Beads :Children string pony beads onto pipe cleaners.

Bean Gluing:Children draw a simple picture on a piece of construction paper with a pencil. They trace the pencil lines with glue and glue the beans onto the design. Gripping the beans with their fingers is good fine motor practice.

Unifix Cubes or Interlock Cubes :Children push the cubes with their hands to hook them together. Unifix cubes connect on one end and can make a long “train”. Interlock Cubes connect on different sides and can make different things, for example the dogs the children were making in the photo.

Paper Clips:The children in my class are always wanting to use paper clips because they see me use them, so I set up this activity in the fine motor center. I cut squares of colored construction paper and placed them on the tray along with colored paper clips. Children stack the papers (all of the same color) and clip them with the matching colored paper clip. This was challenging for some children to manipulate the paper clip, but they loved doing it, and it gave them an opportunity to use paper clips with permission.

Dot to Dot :I made some dots with marker on the white /colored paper now Children draw lines with the markers to connect the dots on the paper.

Pinching Sand:Sand art is a great fine motor activity because children can pinch the sand with their fingers to apply it to their art work. Provide a simple outline (or have the children draw one), a small bowl of white glue, a small bowl of colored sand, and a “glue brush”. I buy the cheap paintbrushes with stiff bristles. These brushes are not a good enough quality for painting, but they make great glue brushes. Children paint the glue on their paper with the brush, pinch some sand with their fingers, and sprinkle it over the glue. Place a pan, tray, or paper plate on the table for children to shake off the excess sand.

Insect Wrapping :Children wrap the plastic insects with pieces of white yarn (“spider webs”). When they are finished wrapping all of the insects, they unwrap them and place the yarn back in the bowl. 

Pouring:Children pour something from one bottle to another. I started out having them pour popcorn seeds. They can later try pouring sand, and then water.

Knobbed Puzzles :Children exercise the fingers used for a pencil grasp when picking up puzzle pieces that have knobs or pegs.

Development of a pencil grip

Using a dynamic tripod grip helps children to write efficiently, effortlessly and for a greater endurance. Writing will become an automatic task, so that children can spend more time concentrating on what they want to write, rather than how to go about writing it. Developing the correct skills required for using a pencil efficiently will also help to develop other fine motor skills, including typing skills.

Fun drawing and writing activities

◗ Provide a range of pencils, textas, crayons and chalks. Use different coloured and sized paper and cardboard.

◗ Vary where your child does his activities for example, work at a table, easel, blackboard, whiteboard or draw on concrete with chalks.

◗ Make birthday cards or special occasion cards.

◗ Use colouring and activity books such as dot to dot or mazes.

◗ Copy and draw shapes and letters.

◗ Draw or write on a Magnadoodle or Megasketcher.

◗ Draw around hands and feet.

◗ Stencils or tracing.

◗ Duo drawing – draw some dots or squiggles and your child joins them to make a picture, or draw the outline of a person and he draws the eyes and mouth.

◗ Play 0 and X’s.

◗ Write a shopping list.

◗ Make a list of your favourite cricket teams or favourite movies.

◗ Write friends’ names and addresses in a book.

◗ Keep a diary.



Activities that develop and strengthen thumb and finger muscles.

Encourage your child to do these activities with her preferred hand and use her thumb and index finger (and middle finger if required).

◗ Play finger games such as incy wincy spider.

◗ Do up buttons on pyjamas and clothes.

◗ Use tweezers to pick up small beads or toys and put them into a container.

◗ Remove coins from a purse one at a time.

◗ Roll, squeeze, push and poke playdough, clay or therapy putty. Make a birds nest by pinching the playdough between the thumb and fingers, then make eggs for the nest by rolling the playdough into balls. Encourage your child to hold small playdough balls between her thumb and index finger and squash the playdough until her fingers meet. (Pretend the playdough is a bug or egg.) Repeat with the thumb and middle finger, and then with the thumb, index and middle fingers all together.

◗ Encourage your child to hold an object (a coin or marble) against the palm of her hand with her ring and little fingers whilst doing some of the above activities.

◗ Tear up coloured paper for pasting or collage activities. ◗ Threading activities such as beads or lacing cards.

◗ Building with duplo and lego.

◗ Squeeze clothes pegs to remove them from the rim of a peg basket (or ice-cream container) or squeeze pegs positioned on a clothes horse to remove dolls clothes or dress ups.

◗ Use stickers or sticky tape to stick things down.

◗ Play board games such as trouble, snakes and ladders or pick up sticks.

◗ Water plants with a spray bottle.

◗ Squirt a water pistol at a target.

Activities that strengthen the wrist

◗ Encourage your child to draw or write, as much as possible, on a vertical surface as this can help your child to achieve a good wrist position. For example, use an easel, blackboard, or tape some paper to a wall.

◗ Encourage your child to do other activities vertically. For example, placing stickers on a window or a piece of paper taped to the wall, playing Connect 4 or threading activities.

◗ Rolling and kneading playdough.

◗ Wrist lifts – place your child’s arm on the table and hold his forearm. Encourage him to make a fist and bend his wrist back as far as possible for 5 seconds. Repeat 5 to 10 times.

Classroom Strategies: Fine Motor Skills

• Squeeze ball/ stress ball

• Collect a box of objects. With eyes closed, have the child pick up an object and see if s/he can guess what it is. Collect objects that feel different to each other (i.e. hard, soft, bumpy, prickly, rough, smooth).

• Have the children “bury” their hands in a bucket filled with sand, rice, or very small beads for sensory input. Practice writing letters, numerals, and words in the sand.

• Student can use clothespins to hang up their artwork on clotheslines hung in the classroom

• Playdough-roll into small balls or use scissors to cut playdough

• Tweezers to pick up small items or cotton balls

• Play games with that involve the handling of cards, tongs, and small game pieces

• Games that help develop fine motor skills: Bed Bugs, Operation, Lite Brite, Topple, Pick-Up-Sticks, Pick-Up-Sticks, Jenga, marbles, Connect Four, yo-yo’s, Perfection, Don’t Break the Ice, Legos, Ants in the Pants, Hungry-Hungry Hippos

• Use a spray bottle to water classroom plants or to spray chalkboard to clean it

• Use eye droppers to pick up colored water and make designs on paper

• String beads

• Use hole punchers

• Open/ close zip lock bags

• Bake cookies and mix dough with your hands

• Tear newspaper into strips or crumple newspaper

• Clothespin activities

• Play card games, shuffle cards or play activities that use dice rolled in cupped hands

• Place 10-20 pennies on a table. Practice turning pennies over with the fingers of one hand. To make this more difficult, place pennies in two rows and the turn pennies over with both hands simultaneously. • Pick up 5-10 pennies one at a time and move them in to the palm of the hand. Once all the pennies are in the palm, use the thumb to help move the pennies one at a time back to the fingertips. Try this with the right and left hand! This can be done with various other small items to make it more challenging.

• Practice picking up small items with the fingers (beads, small pegs, pennies etc.) and place them in a container

• Learn to braid hair, rope, or string. Perform games with string such as “Cat’s in the Cradle”

• Learn and practice origami (many craft stores sell books to help learn). Practice folding paper to make an airplane, a table football, or “fortune teller” game.

• Practice tracing around a stencil

• Model “house” made out of toothpicks

• Legos, Kinex, building blocks, linker cubes, Erector Sets

• Tanagrams with blocks

• Puzzles

• Play tic-tac-toe with letters of the alphabet that you are practicing

• Complete activities on a vertical surface. An easel is not necessary; try taping a coloring sheet or activity page on the wall, refrigerator, or any other hard surface.

• Touch thumb to fingers of each hand individually, then simultaneously. Make this more challenging by closing your eyes Place a rubber band around knuckles-open and close hand/ fingers. o Make an “L” shape with the thumb and then move it in toward other fingers and then back out

• Egg carton with small manipulatives such as Pepperidge Farm Goldfish. The child is asked to use his "crabs" (thumb and index finger) to get the fish, one at a time. For the children who don't need the snack as a motivational means, small pegs, buttons, etc. can also be used.

• Create an entire fish bowl scene using Goldfish and adding Cheerios as the bubbles they blow in the water. Have them color in the fish bowl for added fine motor activities.

• Vinyl sticker activities placed on vertical surface

• Spin small tops, twirl markers, etc.

Writing Tools :There are a variety of writing tools and pencil grips that can be used as a child grows and develops. Crayons and pencils come in many sizes and shapes. Although primary (“chunky”) pencils are frequently used with younger children, they are not always appropriate for students with a poor grasp. They can be difficult to manage for a child who already has a poor grasp due to muscle weakness and poor stability. If the child is demonstrating difficulty with managing a primary pencil, have him or her use pencil stubs (approximately 1-2” long) to write. Children do not necessarily need to write with large pencils. They should use pencils in proportion to their hand size, muscle strength, and stability level. It is important to try to modify a student’s pencil grasp as early as possible. Adaptive pencil grips may be helpful in teaching students to modify their grasp. A pencil grip positions the fingers correctly and helps the fingers stay in the position as a child writes. Pencil grips come in several styles: pencil grips that slide on the barrel and position the fingers naturally in place (i.e. Stetro Grip, Triangular Grip, Soft Grip); a Pencil Pal is a ring that fingers slip through before taking their proper place; and a Handi-Writer is a pencil grip that fits around the child’s wrist and holds the pencil at just the right angle. These pencil grips may help discourage ineffective grasping patterns and reduce or eliminate fatigue when writing.