This is following on from last weeks post on gross motor skills.
Fine motor skills develop the muscles in fingers, thumbs and hands which enable children to hold a pen or pencil to write and draw, as well as mastering skills like doing up buttons, zips and tying shoe laces and holding cutlery to cut up and eat food.
Babies learn the pincer movement (grasping with the thumb and index finger) when picking up finger foods or grabbing toys.
Activities which help children to develop fine motor skills are: drawing, sewing, arts and crafts, doing jigsaw puzzles, playing with construction toys such as Lego and building bricks, cutting with scissors
( practitioners should supply left handed scissors when required) and playing musical instruments such as a violin or guitar
As a child minder I helped children to develop fine motor skills by providing them with a variety of arts and crafts activities and making pom-pom balls which the older children loved doing.
Giving them play dough to knead , roll and cut out shapes from.
I once set up a mock hair dressing salon for the children, one child sat on a chair pretending to be a customer while another ‘styled’ her hair using a brush, comb and hair slides and clips ( if you do this make sure that there are no scissors around; I have heard of a child cutting off another child’s ponytail when playing hair dresser!)
Putting hair clips into hair was a great opportunity for the children to get the dexterity of their fingers moving.
Another time I let the children wash the doll’s clothes in warm water in the garden and gave them a clothes horse and pegs to hang them out to dry, they also liked to pass the clothes pegs to me when I was hanging out my washing.
Putting clothes on dolls and teddies is another idea for developing fine motor skills.
I would be interested to hear of other ideas.
As always questions, comments and topic suggestions are welcome, plus please share on social media if you think others would like to read this.
Until next time.
Karen
x
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Love this post especially the hairdressers idea,guess boys and girls would like this idea. I used to make little cakes then let the little ones decorate them with melted chocolate and chocolate buttons. A bit messy but always fun licking chocolate off thier fingers. Extra bonus was eating the cake after.
Yes I remember lots of crafts and playdoh when mine were younger, and I was also impressed with how they would make scenes with all the tiny bits of Playmobil #KCACOLS
These are all great! I taught 1st grade for a few years. We used stuff like this. My boys love Playdoh!! 🙂 Thanks for sharing! #KCACOLS
Great ideas! I love giving my daughter (aged 10months) cheerios because they are small and test her pincer grip! Thanks for linking up to #KCACOLS. Hope to see you next time. x
Really good ideas here! Play doh is definitely a fun way to help fine motor skills. #thesatsesh xx
Some lovely ideas here Karen. I must say in Holland the nursery schools are very good at developing motor skills and children with any kind of problem or issue are identified very early. Thank you for sharing on #PointShoot 📸
I used to love watching the kids use Legos, their little fingers trying so hard to build with small items. always fascinating to see their minds figure out how to work the fingers. #GlobalBlogging
I’m coming through with the #DreamTeam!
Some lovely ideas. I adore watching my little girl with all the playdough and blocks. Can’t wait to do Pom-Poms! #KCACOLS
We do lots of things to try and help those skills at home and at nursery. Some great tips
Thanks for linking to #ablogginggoodtime
Some great ideas, really like the idea of a hair salon. We do a lot of play doh, cutting and sticking to work on our fine motor skills.
Katrina x
#AnythingGoes
Those are great examples thanks for sharing, Katrina
Great ideas for developing those essential skills.
Thank you,Raisie