Tag Archives: fine motor

Developing fine motor skills with fun activities is essential for young learners to gain control of the small muscles in their hands and fingers. These activities support everyday tasks like handwriting, buttoning, cutting, and using tools effectively. Implementing fine motor skills activities can enhance classroom participation, build independence, and strengthen the foundation for academic and life skills.

Enhancing Learning with Fine Motor Tools

Fine Motor & Hand Skill Development, ,

With academic demands increasing in the school setting, students’ free time is decreasing, and teachers try to create activities and stations for children to practice specific academic skills during class time. Occupational therapy practitioners have expertise in enhancing learning with fine motor tools, creating innovative interventions that combine fine motor development activities with academic skill development.

Here is a list of some simple fine motor activity ideas that can be used to support academic learning within the classroom environment. If you get creative you can come up with several  ways to mix and match items to multiply the possibilities. Remember to share with your teachers. 

1. Letter Names
Wiki sticks alphabet card and colorful Wiki stick example
2. Spelling
  • Letter tiles to match words
  • Alphabet Stamps
  • Letter beads on pipe cleaners
  • Stacking Legos, Blocks, Unifix cubes with letters on it to make words
  • Catching and spelling letters
  • Velcro letters
3. Number Recognition
  • Using tongs to count items and match to a number
  • Dice games
  • Using a sand tray to write numbers
  • Puzzles
  • Searching for items in rice bin and match to number cards
4. Addition
  • Making math equations with beads on pipe cleaners
  • Creating a 10 frame out of egg carton
  • Stacking blocks to create patterns
  • Putting counters into slotted containers

BONUS!

Adapting many of these to remote learning is pretty easy.  You can even host a scavenger hunt for the students to search their house to gather materials to create kits

The options for integrating fine motor tools into learning is limitless. I’m hoping I’ve listed a new one here for you to try with your students.

Guest Blogger: Moira P. Bushell OTD, MEd, OTR/L

Therapro's Essential Classroom Kit - each

Exploring Therapro’s Everyday Essentials Kit

Company News & Announcements, Therapist Resources, ,

Therapro’s Everyday Classroom Kit is the newest kit to hit our shelves. This kit was created  with the thought of students returning to classrooms under new pandemic guidelines.  Therapro’s Everyday Classroom Kit includes all the essentials for day to day classroom use and is intended for a single user. In this way every student has the essential items they need for classroom participation while minimizing the sharing of these commonly used classroom essentials!  Included in each kit are:

  • 1 Standard Size Pencil With #4 Jumbo Lead 
  • 1 Swirl Foam Grip 
  • 1 Spike Tactile Pencil Topper 
  • 1 Fiskars Blunt-tip Kids 5″ Scissors
  • 1 Sensory Bookmark 
  • 1 Two Hole Pencil Sharpener
  • 1 Star Spacer 
  • 1 Reading Guide Strip

Set your pencil up right! Included in each kit is a Standard Size Pencil With #4 Jumbo Lead and just the right accessories, a Swirl Foam Grip and a Spike Tactile Pencil Topper! These are just the right pencil accessories for comfort and increased focus during writing tasks.  The swirl foam grip can be used by every student, it is not meant to correct grip instead it is simply for comfort.  The Spike Tactile Pencil Topper is a great accessory for every student; this small fidget is a great way to improve attention and focus! 

Improve handwriting legibility!  Included in each kit is the The Star Spacer; the Star Spacer is a clever handwriting tool made of see-through plastic which acts as a guide to help the child understand spacing, sizing, and alignment of letters and words to promote more legible handwriting. The blue star printed on the spacer is a great reminder for both letter size and space between words.  Here’s a bonus tip, turn it vertically to help line up columns of numbers during math work! 

Increase attention and focus!  Included in each kit is the Reading Guide Strip.  The Reading Guide Strip is a great tool to help all students attend to and focus during reading tasks. The Reading Guide Strips helps students track print through it’s transparent, tinted windows; a great way to improve attention when reading!  

To round out this kit we included  three “must have” classroom essentials;  Fiskars Blunt-tip Kids 5″ Scissors, The Sensory Bookmark, and a Transparent Two Hole Pencil Sharpener!  Scissors, bookmarks, and pencil sharpeners are frequently used multiple times through the course of a typical school day; by providing each student one of their own you can decrease cross contamination!  The Sensory Bookmark doubles as a fidget; users can run their fingertips across four different textured sections!  

Improving Student Hand Function: Activity Analysis Strategies

Events & Conferences, Fine Motor & Hand Skill Development, , ,
Marcia Bridgeman, MHA, OTR/L, presented at the seminar entitled, Analyzing Activities for Improving Student Hand Function!,

The March Saturday seminar at Therapro was presented by Marcia Bridgeman, MHA, OTR/L, fine motor expert and author of the revised Fine Motor Olympics (2016). In her seminar entitled, Analyzing Activities for Improving Student Hand Function!, she methodically reviewed hand development from birth to elementary school age, and then discussed how the development translated into functional hand use.

Marcia has extensive experience in school-based practice and currently provides both consultation and direct service through her private practice in several Massachusetts school systems. She specializes in providing services to students from preschool through age 22.

Fine Motor Olympics has been revised to include a new Manual and 64 beautiful color photo cards of children’s hands performing fine motor tasks with instructions for the activity on the reverse side of the cards. A Guide to Hand Function, Quick Screening Form, Fine Motor Observation Checklist, Record Form, and In-Service Training Program are included in the Manual.

Within her comprehensive review of motor development and hand function from newborn to age 6, Marcia discussed functional fine motor skills expected at the corresponding developmental stages. For example, around the age of 8 months, development of the arches of the hand begins, essential for providing stability, mobility, and opposition of the hand. She matched simple therapeutic activities to this developmental level, including cupping the hand to shake dice, rolling up paper, fastening a zip lock bag, and cutting with a knife, to name a few!

Seminar attendees enjoyed breaking into groups at 8 stations where they tried out and analyzed original fine motor activities that Marcia created using inexpensive materials such as paper towel rolls, yarn, drinking straws, etc. The activities included activities like creating a spider web in a plastic basket and moving the spider in the web, using a variety of tongs to hunt tiny dinosaurs, balancing marbles on golf tees, and threading straws into paper towel rolls punched with holes. The groups engaged in activity analysis and shared their comments with the rest of the attendees. In addition to the new activities Marcia introduced today, she highlighted a number of fine motor Therapro products she loved, including, Boinks, Get a Grip Pegboard, Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Set, and What’Zit Animals. She discussed conventional uses for the materials and also adapted the materials creatively and adeptly to help develop muscles of the hand. Some activities incorporated use of intrinsic muscles in translation activities, for example: moving a small single object fingers to the palm (1.5 – 2 years) and from palm to fingers (2.0 – 2.4 years).

Marcia sparked attendees to share their own creative fine motor activity ideas with the group. Everyone walked away with a toolbox filled to the brim with fresh, low-cost, and fun activities to try out next week.

We can’t think of a more enjoyable way to spend a sunny, brisk New England Spring morning than analyzing fine motor activities and sharing thoughts on how to help develop better hand function in the classroom setting! Marcia’s skill at analyzing functional hand use is unsurpassed. She offered many innovative, easy-to-make fine motor activities that support fine motor skill development.

Here’s a sample of the many positive observations that attendees shared about this seminar:

“Excellent easily implemented activities. Energetic presentation. Great product. Kudos all around.” – Beth B., Occupational Therapist

“As a Pre-K teacher, I learned a lot and will be able to look for certain signs in my 4-5 year olds and activities to help.” – Jackie K., Teacher

“Loved hearing about the development of the arches. Great refresher to help me
better analyze the activities I choose for my students.” – Jennifer N., Occupational Therapist

“It’s directly relatable in my practice!” – Jennifer C , Occupational Therapist

“Marcia was a warm, open, creative, and generous presenter who succinctly
outlined foundations of hand function. We all left with user-friendly,
inexpensive ideas we can implement immediately. Wonderful!” – Bernadette W., Occupational Therapist

Thank you, Marcia!

Filomena Connor, MS, OTR/L
March 24, 2018