Fine-motor Fever (Part 2)

Apr 17, 2012

This is article #2 of my Fine-motor Fever series.

I love any type of play that improves fine-motor skills… like playing Daddy’s guitar.
To play it, he has to grip the neck and push strings with his left hand while gripping a pick and strumming the strings with his right. There’s plenty of cool knobs and tuning pegs to fiddle with too. He’ll sit for hours on it making (what he thinks is) music.

His camera has a zoom toggle and lots of little buttons on it. He’s constantly working those little fingers to shoot pics, zoom in/out, and push different buttons to see how the pic changes.

I put coins and marbles in his piggy banks. To unlock and remove the cap, he has to pinch, push, turn, and lift with one hand while holding piggy with the other.

Hole-punchers are great for hand muscles. I give him cheap playing-cards because it makes a better “ka-chunk” sound than regular paper when you punch holes in it. And playing-cards have stuff to aim for. Can you punch a hole on the queen’s face? How many diamonds can you punch? Punch 5 holes in the 5-card.

Staplers are great too. He’s not strong enough to staple something with one hand so he squeezes with both hands or sets it on the floor and pushes it.

Write with a fat marker on something slippery, like a plastic cup. He writes with the right hand while turning the cup (but keeping it steady) with the left hand.