Fine Motor Matters

First grade fine motor skills can always use a tune up now and again. We like to keep things in the class circulation that are disguised as fun, but double as fine motor practice. Here's a few of our favorite tricks of the fine motor trade that have become popular with the little fingers in our classroom. 

Lacing activities hit the Dollar Tree every once in awhile. They can be found on Aisle Impulse Buy...Next to the containers, stickers, and seasonal decor we don't necessarily need. :D But, these ended up being a great find! The kids love the colors and have fun tying on what they've coined the "Giant Shoe". 

Given a box of beads and some pipe cleaners, these kids would rule the world. We pulled these out in December and the kids loved making wreathes, candy canes, bracelets, necklaces, headbands...You name it, they were bedazzled. 

This could easily be done any time of year, with any color pipe cleaners and beads. The kids loved it and we loved how they were using their fine motor madness.

Once we get over the initial shocking (and teacher depressing) question, "What is that?!", we relive our 80's Glory Days by schooling our little ones on the amazing Lite Brite. It's great practice for patterns, pictures, build a letter, build a number, spell a high frequency word...But, above all else, it works those little fingers!

We've got a few of these bendy bands for the kids to manipulate. We don't actually know the name of them, but bendy bands sounded good to us...Did you buy it? ;)

Legos in the classroom may look like uneducational play to some, but we beg to differ. We offer these up during choice time sometimes and they are great for working their little fingers. 

A few more Dollar Tree finds, but these we meant to buy. Pom Poms, tweezers and ice trays. Done! The kids pinch the poms into the tray and if they had it their way, they'd do it all day. 

{Yes, we realize that totally rhymes...As we've said before, it's a curse.}

Printing development continues through first grade. Sometimes our first graders need a little extra support with printing and this trick has worked wonders for us for many years...

We truly want them to learn how to print their letters, not just repeatedly make the same mistakes, so at times we model for them by grabbing a highlighter and helping them out. They dictate the words, including spelling, and we print it with a highlighter on their paper. This can be done for journals, workbooks, worksheets, and even homework. We've shared this tip with a few parents over the years and they've implemented it at home too! Then, they print on top of the highlighter words with a pencil for printing practice. 

Though we don't do this for a long period of time, we have seen repeated success and allowed a sense of pride and accomplishment in an area that our students need support and confidence in. As they grow more comfortable with the highlighter, we wean them off by only highlighting some of their words, each time decreasing the amount. Or, we have them write the sentence twice...Once with the highlighter and pencil on top and one underneath on their own. 

Every little bit helps when it comes to fine motor skills. What activities do you love for practicing fine motor?