Tag: in hand manipulation

Categories
Fine Motor Activities

St-Pats Coin Flip

Therapy Corner:

When working on fine motor skills it is important that your child learn how to use both sides of his hand simultaneously and in a coordinated manner. In a nutshell, you want the first 2-3 fingers of the hand (which includes the thumb aka the radial side of the hand) to do the work/movement while the last 2-3 digits of the hand work as stabilizers (aka. ulnar side of the hand). This is an important pre-cursor to a good pencil grasp. Think about it, the first few digits of the hand hold the pencil and move during handwriting activities while the ulnar side of the hand pushes down into the table to stabilize the paper.

With that said, we work on:

Nesting Skills (i.e. picking up small items with fingers and placing them in the palm of the hand)

Retrieving Skills (i.e transferring small items from the palm of the hand to the tip of the fingers)

You Will Need:

  • 3 different colored coins (I used gold, green and purple)
  • 3 containers

The Activity:

Place the 3 containers in front of your child and line up 12 coins of different colors in one single line.

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Using the thumb and 2 fingers ask your child to flip each coin.

Then ask your child to pick up all gold coins using one hand (nesting)

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and drop them one at a time into one container (retrieving). Then ask him to do the same with green and then purple coins.

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Categories
Fine Motor Activities

Birthday Candle Twist and Turn

You will need:

  • Play-doh
  • Birthday candles
  • Plastic play knife, spatula and plates (optional)
You can purchase all this entire activity right here exclusively at MissMancy’s Shop 

Therapy Corner:

When working on fine motor skills it is important that your child learn how to use both sides of his hand simultaneously and in a coordinated manner. In a nutshell, you want the first 2-3 fingers of the hand (which includes the thumb aka the radial side of the hand) to do the work/movement while the last 2-3 digits of the hand work as stabilizers (aka. ulnar side of the hand).

With that said, we work on:

Nesting Skills (i.e. picking up small items with fingers and placing them in the palm of the hand)

Retrieving Retrieving (i.e transferring small items from the palm of the hand to the tip of the fingers)

Precision Rotation (i.e. rotating an object positioned within the finer tips)

 This activity will work on all these skills as well as self-feeding skills.

The Activity:

Give your child a large piece of play doh and have them roll it into a big ball and flatten it with there hand.
Give your child 2 small candles at a time in one hand and have them wiggle their fingers to bring the candle to the tip of his fingers (retrieving) and stick it into the cake UPSIDEDOWN.
Once all the candles are on the cake, have your child pick up one candle at a time and twist it in the SAME hand to rotate the candle so that he can now stick it into the cake correctly (precise rotation).
You can then sing Happy Birthday and blow out the candles (this is a fun activity when it’s really the child’s birthday). You then ask your child to get the candles out of the cake by picking them up gently one at a time with the SAME hand (nesting).
You can now use a plastic play knife to teach your child to cut pieces of cake and serve all his friends.

Categories
Fine Motor Activities

The Magic Wand

You will need:

The Activity:

I love teaching nesting and retrieving skills to children with this activity. The children also get a chance to work on spelling words. First, lay out bingo chips that have alphabet stickers on them. Give your child a magnetic wand and ask them to pick up the letters to spell a specific word. (If your child is too young to spell, you can ask him to pick up 5 chips and to name the letter of the chip he picks up OR name the specific letters you want him to pick up).

Once the chips are on the magnet, have you child pick one chip at a time with his thumb and index finger and “hide” it in his hand (nesting). Then have your child put one chip at a time into the piggy bank by “wiggling” his fingers to get one chip at a time out of his palm and bring it up to the tip of his thumb and index finger (retrieving). [Don’t let your child use hid body or other hand to retrieve chips from his palm]