This area focuses on the development of the small muscles or the wrists, hands, and fingers and the ability to use them in a smooth, controlled manner. Many activities a child engages in on a daily basis at home and school depend on fine motor control. It is important to help develop stability throughout shoulders, arms, wrists, hands, fingers.
Activities: push ups, crab walking, pouring from one container to the next, wind up toys or key toys, wringing out washcloths or towels, crawling through tunnel, using stamps, flattening/rolling/pinching playdoh, turning lids on jars, finding small objects in rice/beans, stacking blocks, pegboard games, squeeze toys in bath, placing small objects in containers (coins in piggy bank), squirt water from turkey baster or eye dropper, picking up objects with tongs/tweezers, spray bottles, cut out pictures in magazines, use clothespins, tear paper into small pieces, hole punching, crumple paper in one hand, peel off and place stickers, tracing pictures, stringing beads, painting, and wikki stix.
Games: Bed bugs, operation, cards, Magnadoodle, Don’t Spill the Beans, Connect Four, Legos, Mr. Potato Head, Lite Brite, Perfection, Cooties.