Fine Motor Club
It has been a pleasure to host the Fine Motor Club in the Junior Primary this term. A group of keen Year 1 to Year 3’s have been putting effort into strengthening the muscles in their fingers, hands, wrists and shoulders. We always warm up by doing hand and finger “gym”; exercises, strengthening and conditioning. This helps to “wake up” the muscles the children will be needing for our session. These are also useful, fun actions that they can implement in their daily routine, and they can practise doing these before completing tasks like homework or handwriting lessons.
During the course of our first lessons, we have used common items, which they can easily find at home or in their class, to complete 3D shape construction, building and weaving. These processes allow for creativity, whilst subconsciously still strengthening their fine motor skills. Simple items such as playdough, prestick, pasta, matches, pipe cleaners, blocks and toothpicks can all be used in a variety of ways to stimulate your child’s development.
Examples of some fun activities include:
- Making 3D shapes, such as a pyramid or a cube, using toothpicks and Prestick or matches and playdough
- Wrapping pipe cleaners around straws, forks, chopsticks, etc. to create curls
- Threading macaroni/looped cereal onto spaghetti or pipe cleaners
- Place sequins/buttons/small items onto the sticky side of Cellotape (try to make a repeating pattern)
- Balance playing cards/dominoes and build stacks or A-frames
- Pick-up sticks (make your own by painting or colouring in Skewer sticks)
- Make your own playdough/salt dough and build letters and numbers to make spelling and maths practise more interactive
- Instead of using your fingers to pick something up, use a pair or tweezers, a peg or kitchen tongs
- Shadow puppets
- Window tracing
- “Ceiling” art – paste or tape a page under a table/chair (correct length for your child’s arm length), lay down on the floor and draw or write on the page (wonderful for shoulder muscle development!)
- Using a ruler to draw lines or measure
- Using a dropper, teaspoon or syringe to do art/mix colours/explore with consistencies of materials (such as oil and water).
Make these activities into timed races and compete as a family – your loadshedding entertainment is now sorted!
Kim Hahn
Year 1 Teacher
