Crayon review:
Coloring is a great way to work on so many important skills:
- strengthens a tripod grasp (when crayon is held correctly)
- child works on important motor coordination skills when having to color in the lines
- works on isolating wrist and finger movers when coloring small items instead of using whole arm movements (an important skill for handwriting)
- improves hand endurance/tolerance to paper pencil activities (so your child doesn’t feel fatigued with writing assignments)
Here are some tips I like to use:
Break crayon: by breaking crayons and making them very small it almost forces your child to pinch it correctly (make sure the webspace is open)
Wiki: wrap a wiki stick at the base of a crayon and ask your child to hold by pinching on the wiki when coloring and tuck all other fingers in the palm
Gripper: I like to use grippers on pencil crayons because it’s easy to put on and off but not on crayons as these can easily break (except for Twisties)
My favorite coloring:
CRAYOLA Twisties: I love love love these crayons. They are soft and easy to color with. And the great thing about these crayons is that I can easily use a gripper on them by simply twisting the crayon into the gripper! (You can purchase here)
CRAYOLA Pip squeaks: when teaching to color you want to think SHORT and FAT…markers that are short allow for better control and fat ones provide a larger surface area for correct finger placement. (You can purchase here)
CRAYOLA Large Crayons: again when teaching to color you want to think SHORT and FAT…crayond that are short allow for better control and fat ones provide a larger surface area for correct finger placement. (You can purchase here)