nukeswife Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 My youngest son is going to be 4 the end of July and I bought the About Three workbooks from CLE for him since he begs to do school with his big brother and sister. He doesn't want to just play with manipulatives but he doesn't have the hand strength to write a dark enough line when holding the pencil or crayon with a tripod grip. I'm looking for some fun things I can do with him to help build up that strength. Usually I'm ok with thinking things up, but lately I'm just drawing a blank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mombygrace Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Play dough, lacing beads, sorting beads (especially smaller beads), cutting and pasting letters or alphabets in order, doing Kumon mazes and tracing are ideas I can come up with now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovedtodeath Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Light brite! Tug of war with pincer grasp and straws, playing with small manipulatives like legos or Locktagons Lacing Shapes Peg-A-Plane Beads And Baubles (my kids love these) Also Tubers and Zots Clay, playdo, Mr. potato head Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TxMama Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 All the above ideas + Finger Plays such as for Wee Sing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandy in TN Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 A hole punch! My oldest had low muscle tone in his hands. At OT they suggested that he use a hole punch.:001_smile: Mandy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mombygrace Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 lauri has beads, pegs, lacing cards etc that my dc love. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nukeswife Posted March 25, 2009 Author Share Posted March 25, 2009 OOOOH a hole punch. I could see that being a lot of fun for him. Thanks for all the ideas ladies. I'll be working this weekend on making up a box of things we can use to help with this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
specialmama Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 My son had extremely poor muscle tone in his hands, and was diagnosed with something called "fetal fingertip pads", so we had an OT work with him for an hour, once a week, spanning over a year. One of the things that she did I would highly recommend, is to get those egg-shaped animal markers; you could get them at WalMart and they're so easy to grasp. My son was able to mark the paper with them, thereby being successful and it encouraged him to continue. Eventually we moved to thick markers, then regular markers. After a while, he could mark paper with regular crayons and pencils. It is important to make this highly motivating, for example, coloring pictures of his fave characters. Some strengthening excercises my son did: squeezing balloons filled with Moonsand or playdough, banging drums or cause-and-effect toys, figet toys that you have squeeze and something happens (like those netted balls that when squeezed the inner bag of slime pops out) and lots of coloring, tracing, and cutting. Guessing games helped too: place several small objects in a paper bag or pillowcase and have him put his hand in to manipulate the objects and guess what they are. This increased his tactile awareness and I believe it produced more control with his fine motor movements. Of course, many of the other ideas posted above were used: puzzles, lacing, beads, stacking, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FO4UR Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Hide buttons and treasures in a mound of play-doh. That really works those fingers, and is fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gratefulmother Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Painting and spreading his own peanut butter or cream cheese on crackers or bagels. My kids like to use the little decorative spreaders that we have in the kitchen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovedtodeath Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Making pictures with buttons, sequins, beads and baubles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 I've been advised that having a child this age and up work on finely detailed coloring books (such ads Dover) using reasonably good colored pencils (not crayons) was good exercise for building the fine-motor skills and hand strength needed for writing. ETA: We are using this approach now. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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