Fine Motor Skills

Have her help you cook. She can tear lettuce, mix things with her hands--cookie dough, meatloaf, bread mixes, peel an orange or tangerines. You can also get her a sticker book--pulling the stickers off a page works those muscles too.

Another thing you could do is give her medicine droppers to play with in the bathtub. The act of squeezing the dropper to fill and empty it will strengthen those muscles.

You could get different sized empty jars and bottles and have her take the lids on and off. You could mix them up and let her guess which one goes to the right bottle. I worked in a montessori school and the kids LOVED this kind of work.
I also found these websites....

http://www.shrewsbury-ma.gov/schools/beal/readiness/finem...

http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/fine-motor-ski...

http://www.freekidcrafts.com/Fine-Motor-Skill.html

At your daughter's age, I would assume she's into jewelry. So, my suggestion would be to get a bead kit that she could string her own beads and make a necklace or bracelet. Also, you could try teaching her how to braid and she could then make friendship bracelets for her friends. When I was young, I couldn't get enough of those!

You can purchase training chop sticks (I got a set of 6 online) and the kids LOVE to eat with them and play, picking up little things like M&Ms. The ones I got have small animals at the top and each of my children has a favorite. This helped my daughter's motor skills a lot!

Here is a link for some good ideas.

http://members.tripod.com/~imaware/fmotor.html

You can do a lot with those sheets of foam and cutting different shapes. Whatever she is into you can make with the fun foam. Walmart may have it. I know hobby lobby does and it is cheap for a bunch of it. Lots of colors. You could incorporate holiday themes into it or making things for friends or things for her room.

Scissors are a great thing!
My son has the same issues with fine motor, so I gave him scissors and he started cutting straws. They are fun to cut, and fly around (so I would just start out on the floor, then I gave him some string and had him make necklaces out of them. So he's working on fine motor the whole time!. Also getting pipe cleaners or string and a big bucket of beads(small ones) that she would string up! My doctor recommended coloring books with big pics, and incouraging them to stay in the lines.

You could get her some pony beads and elastic string(can get at Walmart)and have her make some necklaces. I like elastic better than the plastic string. It does not stay tied as well. Also she could do those little perler beads that you put on plastic paterns and then you make different designs by ironing them. My older kids even love them. Good Luck!! T.

Try Perler beads...you can get them at Hobby Lobby and WalMart (in the craft section). They're small beads with different "plates" that have pegs on them - they place the beads to create designs and patterns. Then, you can iron the pieces to keep them, or dump them and create new ones. Best of all? You have "artwork" that can be kept. Place a magnet on the back, and you have gifts to give family created by your daughter.

My son loves to do these, he's 3 1/2 years old, and I have seen his fine motor and pincer skills improve immensely. And, it's actually quite time consuming, so it keeps him busy for a LONG time!

Why don't you play games....Operation, Perfection, Hi Ho Cherry Oh! Probably just about any board game could help! I know my 6 year old ALWAYS wants to play games!

My son's preschool has them stringing beads or noodles on necklaces...the smaller the better.

Does she like to cut? My boys love safety scissors, and using butter knives at meal time.

I love to sew so of course I have pin cushions here there and everywhere. My granddaughter loves to move the pins from one pin cushion to another. Look in the kids craft deparment at Michels, Hobby Lobby etc. - one that comes to mind is beading - they have beads with letters on them so she chould make a bracelet with her name on it. Good luck!!!

Try getting her the operation game, there ar emany different ones out there now. We have shrek

My daughter has cerebral palsy and we are always working on fine motor skills. She gets bored alot, too. Here are some of her favorites: Moon sand- not as messy sand. Put little things in it like small rocks and look for the "treasures". She has a small magnetic Belle form beauty and the beast that has small things like purses that she can dress up. Her favorite is making jewelry. I get the hemp-like string and pony beads from Hobby Lobby and then when she's done, she has new bracelets and such and she can make them for her friends.

Let her try peeling potatoes, it worked for my son, though it can get messy :)

Hi J.,

One thing that my sons parents as teachers educator taught us was to have them string wooden beads on a leather string. You can find them at Hobby Lobby. You can also use that for teaching colors and math. If your school district has the parents as teachers program you could contact them for other ideas. You can contact the Park Hill School District because I know they have it. I believe there phone # is ###-###-#### or you can try ###-###-####. Scissor cutting is also a good thing to do. Draw shapes on a piece of construction paper and have her cut them out. good luck J. C

a play piano and lacing cards are great.

Make pictures by gluing things like cheerios, pasta and small dry peas and beans to construction paper. she can use tweezers or her fingers to place the items. Make's it more fun and she can make them for gifts during the holidays. Doesn't feel like a chore or school then. Have fun. L. H

J.,

I would get the game Operation. It uses tweezers and is lots of fun for kids that age. There is also a product called sculpy which is like playdo, but it is used to make beads, sculptures, etc.. It hardens when baked in the oven. Hobby stores have all kinds of crafting kits that use sculpy. Any game like Jenga or Kerplunk would also help with fine motor skills. Drawing is another way to learn fine motor control. The Kansas City Art Instatute has classes for kids starting at age 6. Hope this helps.

J.

Hi J.,

A great way to help her is making mozaics, you can use the ones that you purchase and make stpping stones or other crafts or you can go with the cheap and easy version, cut little squares of different colours of paper and let her glue them to make a picture, like coloring with little papers, kids love to do this and it does improve their motor skills a lot if they can manage to do it, ifyou find that she feels frustrated, you can try with larger papers until she can manage the small ones. You can do endless things with this!
Good luck!
Mariana Abadie
www.MyKidsFirst.com