Hand Strengthening Activities

Hand Strengthening and Fine motor Activities

Playdoh, silly putty or modeling clay:

• Squeeze the play doh ball  with your whole hand, at least 10 x each hand

• Roll the play doh out on table surface to look like a long snake, practice one hand at at a time and then using both hands together

• Practice using your “pinching or working fingers” thumb, index and middle fingers to pinch off pieces of putty snake and make into small balls or tiny snakes.. 

• Now make 2 flat round circles or pizza pies and put small pieces of clay on as toppings. Have fun and be creative with your pie!

• Practice isolating index finger by poking holes through play doh

• Hide small coins, pegs, etc in doh, roll it into a ball and find hidden treasures and then push into a slotted container

Any of these activities are good for overall hand strengthening or to do as a prep before a  handwriting, scissor or coloring tasks. Remember to use play doh press and mold too to work those hands and fingers!

Water Play: during bath time or in a sensory water bin

• Have fun with any type of squirt bath toys during bath routines or water squirt guns in summer

• Turkey basters and squirt bottles are great to play with for whole hand strengthening

• Incorporate your child squeezing/wringing sponges, wash clothes during daily activities like bath time, face washing or helping with dishes.

Fun with paper; construction paper, streamers, old wrapping paper, tissue paper;

• Tear above material into small pieces for art/craft projects or tracing letters, numbers & words

• Making paper balls to play catch or basketball: wad paper into different size balls with both hands and wrap painters tape to make balls.

• Also using small crayons to color in confined small designated shapes and areas is a great way to work on strengthening hand/fingers

Fun with hand held tools: pre- scissor skills and pencil grasp

• Using tweezers, tongs, clothes pins to pick up small objects. Games such as operation, bed bugs etc.

• Crafts incorporating hole punchers

• Any play or projects  with lacing, bead stringing, sewing, and pushing together small resistive beads

•  Playing hand/ finger play action songs that require opening/ closing hand and finger isolation : ie. Open shut them , where’s Thumbkin, 5 little Monkeys, Itsy Bitsy spider etc. and finger puppet play 

• As mentioned, Clothespins are a great easy tool to use to build strength using your thumb/index and middle fingers. A fun activity is to write letters and /or numbers on clothespins and have your child place them on matching index cards. Can also use clothespins as tongs. Get creative. The possibilities are endless!

Use of multi-sensory Play to work on pre-writing skills is so important before having a child learn traditional handwriting with lined paper and pencil:

•  Playdough, clay, pipe cleaners, wiki stikks to form shapes, lines, and large

Letters 

• Use of kinesthetic activities to teach pre-writing skills such as air writing, shaving cream drawing using big motions. Children learn “big” gross motor skills before “small” fine motor skills 

• Drawing and coloring activities on a vertical surface as well as “tummy time” on the floor while watching tv, reading or playing a game builds the shoulder and arm muscles needed to hold a crayon and pencil. 

Have fun and be creative choosing from the above recommended activities each day!! Please provide the necessary supervision for the above activities. But most importantly just enjoy playing with your child and just have a little old fashioned fun!

Best regards,

Andrea Zamaloff MS, OTR/L,  

Azamaloff@lakehurstschool.org