Fine Motor Early Grasp
Activities for Developing Fine Motor Early Grasp
for Mod-Severe Readiness Levels
The development of a child’s grasp is influenced by their growing interest in objects and desire to hold them. The pincer grasp is an essential grasp to develop as it is the basis for many functional tasks that includes able to manage clothing fasteners and beginning use of tools such as a crayon or pencil.
Some of the activities you may want to try in developing early fine motor grasp skills include:
Use an Old Glove
Cut the thumb and index finger off of an old glove, or cut off the thumb end and make a hole where the index finger would go through if using a mitten. Have your child use their thumb and index finger to try and:
o pick up items such as small blocks or large beads
o unwrap candies
o pop the little bubbles in bubble wrap
o pick up small pieces of fruit such as raisins or cut up chunks of other kinds of fruit
o pick up craft pom-poms, strips of ribbon or lace
Finger Food
Fill a shallow bowl with a mix of dried pasta, raisins, dried beans, berries, and so on.
o Ask your child to sort them into a variety of jars and cups using only their thumb and index finger.
o Give your child a variety of small food items, or cut up foods into finger sized snacking size. Use cut up grapes, raisins, apple, carrot, cheese chunks, strawberries, blueberries, small bite sized chunks of ham, turkey, etc.
o If they do not want to eat these items, ask them to help make you a dish!
o Always supervise for choking hazards!
Scribbling
o Use chunky crayons or chalk on big pieces of paper or a blackboard
o Get your child to scribble on paper with short chunky crayons, or washable markers
o Pick up the chunky or broken pieces of crayons and chalk and move from one container to another using just their thumb and pointer finger
o Using chalk, scribble on a blackboard
o With dry erase markers, scribble on white-boards
o Outside you can have them draw on the sidewalk or driveway with short pieces of chalk
Play Dough
It’s always fun to hide small toys, buttons, large beads, bottle caps, marbles, and so on, in the play dough and have your child find them and pull them out.
o Have them use their thumb and index finger to squeeze and find the solid items within the playdough.
o Supervise and be aware of choking hazards!
o See blog on TheraPlay4Kids.com for playdough recipe and activities.
o Make small balls with the play dough and flick them to win a goal.