Fine Motor Skills

Many parents don't think about building fine motor skills in their children. These are skills that build your child's small muscles (mostly in the hands) that are needed for writing, using a computer, grasping small objects, and fastening clothing. Boys tend to have more difficulty in this area than girls. 

Here are some ideas for helping your child build fine motor skills at home. You can draw a circle with liquid glue on construction paper. Give your child a small cup filled with fruit loops or cheerios. Have him/her pick one out at a time and press into the glue on the paper to complete the circle. To make it even more challenging have them do this with chopsticks or plastic tongs (you can find these on Oriental Trading along with a great motor skills game called "Feed the Animals"). Playdoh is another good way to build motor skills. Rolling, cutting, and creating different objects with the doh is fun for kids! Lacing beads and cards are helpful. A fun little game for older toddlers is the old wind-up fishing game. I just bought "Shark Fenzy" which is a new form of the game. I've also seen them at Walgreens. For the computer there is a fabulous mouse for practice. I bought it on Amazon and its called "CTMO Computer Mouse".  There are some great websites for building mouse skills as well:

http://www.fungooms.com/     http://www.yukyuk.com/yy_johnnyskank.shtml   https://wbx-files.s3.amazonaws.com/jacksonpollock_by_miltos_manetas.swf     http://www.kidspsych.org/eyes.html     http://kids.aol.com/games/be-a-detective/