Hey all, A few may know but many may not but, I have been a Teacher for over 13 years. For the Majority of those years I have taught preschool. Along with being a preschool Teacher I tutor young children. In doing both, I have noticed some things that I felt I needed to share. Now let me start by saying I am no expert, in fact some of my beliefs may differ greatly from other experts, with that being said I will start with my first tip, a tip you may hear over, and over and over.
Strong fine motor skills:
A lot of people either don’t know about this or do not work on this. This goes for parents as well as educators. First thing first.
What are fine motor skills?
Fine Motor skills are small movements — such as picking up small objects and holding a spoon — that use the small muscles of the fingers, toes, wrists, lips, and tongue. When I talk about fine motor skills on a preschool level I am talking about the small muscles in fingers and the movement of the wrists. Many children have very poor fine motor skills because they are not given the opportunity to use their hands as often as necessary. Strong fine motor skills help with coloring, writing, pulling on and off clothing and shoes, tying laces, buttoning and un buttoning.
How to help strengthen fine motor skills?
A lot of parents don’t want to hear this but messy play is great for strengthening fine motor skill. Play dough is great for building these skills, finger painting is also something that will help with this. Simple activities such as punching holes into a piece or cardboard and allowing the child to string through those holes, squeezing eye droppers full of water or paint on to paper, using tweezers ( plastic, child friendly tweezers) to pick up items, and even allowing them to put rubber bands around a can ( can food) are great for fine motor skills. There are of course many more but these are some of my top Fine motor activities.