Fine Motor Activities...poo

Fine Motor Skills

This week’s focus is on Fine Motor skills. You will be using your arms, hands and fingers for most everyday activities without even thinking about it so they are already getting plenty of exercise ! Activity suggestions this week should help to further develop finger and hand strength, increase sensory feedback to them and help to refine their movements so they can move with more precision and co-ordination. If you regularly practise your fine motor skills, everyday tasks such as picking up objects, doing/undoing fastenings when dressing, writing/colouring/mark-making should all become easier for you. Doing a couple of these activities for 10 – 15 minutes every day can make a huge difference to how you use your hands and hopefully should be fun too !

Here are just a few suggestions to get you started …..

1. Try to do a larger physical activity first, that ideally involves your shoulders, so that you have improved gross motor stability, strength and sensory feedback before you begin doing the fine motor activity. Examples may include weight-bearing through hands such as wheelbarrows or crab-walks, chair push-ups/pull-ups or just stretching fully with 2 hands interlocked together above your head, forwards and to the sides (crossing midline). Check out last week’s web page for more gross motor ideas and activities to do as a ‘starter’.

2. Next do a short ‘warm-up’ for hands and fingers for a few minutes. This might involve pushing hands firmly together (‘prayer’ position), massaging hands from palms to fingertips, ‘pretend’ playing a keyboard/piano or blowing a musical instrument like a recorder or theraputty/playdough exercises (see sheet).

3. Do the fine motor activity of your choice and ask an adult to help you to do it as precisely as you can, for example try to use a pincer grip (index finger opposed to thumb) for picking up small objects, rather than all of your fingers and thumb. If you can’t do it, don’t worry, ask for some help and just have fun with whoever is doing it with you ! If you can, maybe try having a friendly competition with the person who is with you and try doing the tasks at speed while still using as precise movements as you can.

4. At the very end, stand up and have a full ‘shake out’ using all of your different body parts by singing along and moving to action songs such as ‘Shake Your Sillies Out ! … just so you can relax and unwind all those muscles you have been using.

There are some wonderful websites out there with loads of great videos of fine motor exercises, activities and strategies to help you get your hands and fingers moving. The website links below are just a few of them !

• https://www.griffinot.com/developing-childrens-fine-motor-skills/fine-motor-activities-with-kim-griffinot/ - fine motor activities with Kim Griffin, daily at 11am

• https://theinspiredtreehouse.com/?s=fine+motor – loads of inspiring fine motor activities !

• https://www.growinghandsonkids.com/activities-fine-motor-skills-development - with free printables of fine motor activities

• http://kids1st.net/index.php/d-is-for-dough-disco/ - fun hand & finger exercises using playdough/putty

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtsoBRcV-qE – ‘shake your sillies out’ songs

Keep making sure that both you and your family are remembering about the sensory strategies you can all use to help you stay well-regulated. Each week we will include a folder called ‘Sensory Plus’ of things we are adding to the ideas we have already given you about self-regulation. These should help you to keep yourselves feeling alert, calm and organised and hopefully feeling ‘just right’ in these unusual times ! Stay safe and well.

The OT team (Cheryl, Dimitra & Naomi)