Finger Strength - Page 17 of 24

Paper Flower

Provide the child with one pipe cleaner and 5-6 paper baking cups. You can use colorful baking cups or white ones.

Instruct the child to pile up the baking cups. Pierce a small hole in the middle of the stacked paper cups, using the edge of the pipe cleaner.

The child might need your assistance when completing this step.

Insert the pipe cleaner through the hole, and bend the tip, to secure the pipe cleaner from coming out.

Have the child lift and pinch the top paper cup towards the middle.

Then, repeat this step with the rest of the baking cups, until all paper cups are held up altogether.

To secure the baking cups from sliding down, instruct the child to hold the last paper cup at the bottom, right where the pipe cleaner inserts, and twist the pipe cleaner around a couple of times to create a stopper.

Once the flower is ready, the child can loop the remaining pipe cleaner on a pencil or a pen, like a pencil topper, or he can make additional flowers to make a bouquet.

Cherry Grasp

For this activity, you can use small game pieces like the cherry pieces from Hi Ho Cherry O, Monopoly pieces, and other small objects.

The objective of the board game is to be the first to put all of your cherries in the bucket.

Provide each player with tweezers.

Following the rules of the game, instruct each player to pick up the cherries using their tweezers and placing them into their bucket.

Depending upon the tweezers (or small tongs) used, you may instruct the child to reach for the stem rather than the cherry itself.

This game can be played by up to 4 children and social skills can be addressed while playing.

Acorn Stamper

Draw an acorn on the construction paper (see images for example) or you can let the child trace an acorn stencil to promote fine motor control and visual-motor skills.

Let the child cut the acorn shape using scissors.

Using a piece of small sponge instruct the child to pinch it and dip it into the paint then stamp and paint the bottom part of the acorn cut out. You can also use q-tips or cotton balls to paint.

Encourage the child to fill in the entire bottom part of the acorn.

Have the child spread glue on the top part of the acorn.

Provide the child with a few dry leaves. Instruct the child to crumble the leaves inside the palm of his hand and then spread them on the glue. This will promote finger strength and finger translation.

You may also use beans to cover the top area of the acorn.

Rainbow of Skills

For this activity, you will need to use a red, yellow, orange, green, blue, and purple construction paper.

Draw a line in the middle of the paper plate and have the child cut along the line you drew. Using the pen, draw 5 curves, spaced 1-inch from each other.

Draw a vertical line on each of the construction papers, making a 1-inch strip. Ask the child to cut along the lines you drew. Before the child tears the strips, ask him to arrange the strips in the correct order of the colors of the rainbow.

Have the child tear each strip into pieces. Encourage him to use both hands and tear the pieces from top to bottom. If you want to work more on scissors skills or visual-motor skills, you can draw lines on the strips (straight, crocked or curved) and have the child cut along the lines you drew.

Finally, have the child glue the small pieces onto the paper plate, using the curved lines you drew to place the colors in the correct order.

Thumb Opposition with Finger Paint

For this activity, you will work on thumb opposition and provide sensory input by using finger paint.

You should use 5 different colors of finger paint.

Pour the different finger paint colors into the paper plate.

Ask the child to dip each finger in each one of the colors. Provide help as needed.

Draw a pattern on the construction paper. For example draw a pattern like a blue dot, a green dot, a red dot, a blue dot, a green dot, a red dot, etc.

Ask the child to follow your pattern using the paint on his/her fingers.

You can also have the child mix the colors and create new colors by touching his/her thumb with any other finger (i.e. thumb to the pointer, thumb to the middle finger, and so on) to work on and promote thumb opposition.