Fine Motor Development
One way to develop important fine motor skills and promote muscle strengthening is by investing in some jumbo tweezers and placing them at your learning center for science, exploration and/or discovery. Setting up these exploration-type centers already build upon a child’s innate curiosity and question-driven talk, adding fine motor materials will take this exploration to a new level.
Using the tweezers will allow students to use the coordinated movement of their fingers in a fun way. Picking up things with tweezers will encourage resistance and strengthening of important hand muscles, increase control and development of the thumb, index, and middle fingers, increase stabilization of the ring and little fingers, and encourage the development of the arching of the hand. (In case an administrator ask the objective of your play-based center). We all know that we have MANY students who need to strengthen those hands in productive ways to increase their handwriting skills!
One must-have at any type of discovery center is a sensory table! (The table can be a purchase one, or simply a plastic container). At the beginning of the year, I like to add a bag of two of beans into my table, and then add things that fit the thematic unit that we are studying at the time.
For example, if you are studying insects, add a few plastic insects into the beans. If the theme is Alphabet Fair (one I do at the beginning of the year), I add small magnetic letters or letter mini-erasers), for Fall, I add small plastic manipulative apples, leaves, etc. Target sells many mini erasers which are always a great choice to bury in the beans!
Kids love these animal erasers.
No matter what you put in with your beans, provide a set of tweezers per child (I usually have 4 students per center. I task the students to discover and explore, but they can only remove items from the table using their tweezers!
Another great way to develop fine motor skills is by simple practice with school tools. I LOVE using this product at the beginning of the year as basic fine motor practice.
Also available at Teachers Pay Teachers!
Build your child’s (students') fine motor skills as well as develop confidence by using these fine motor activities. Each category begins with novice activities and then moves forward in complexity; aiding development.