Hand Dexterity - Page 16 of 19

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.

Pop the Wrap

Have the child throw the dice.

The child will then need to pop the corresponding number of bubbles that the dice are showing.

You can also use a timer to time how long it takes the child to pop a certain amount of bubbles.

If the sound of popping interferes with the child’s ability to complete the activity, you may want to try and do this activity outdoors.

Paper Roll Caterpillar

Using the pencil and the ruler, mark the toilet roll every 2 inches and draw around the tube. These will be cutting lines we will use to create the paper roll caterpillar body.

Take the scissors and cut around the marks you have made so that you are left with several short tubes.

Paint the tubes both on the inside and outside, it is more effective if you paint the outside a different color to the inside.

Glue the tubes to each other, end to end, putting one tube aside to use for the head later.

Glue the head tube on the top of the last tube in the chain.

Using the glue, stick the two wiggle eyes on the head.

Draw a mouth just below the wiggle eyes.

Using the felt or the pipe cleaners, cut two short pieces and stick onto the top of the head to make antenna.

Cut two more pieces for each body section the caterpillar has and stick these onto the bottom to create legs.

Decorated Bead Box

Place the beads in an open container.

Ask the child to dip the paint brush in glue or for tactile perception use his fingers. Cover one side of the plastic container with glue.

Using 2 fingers pick up one bead at a time and stick it on the plastic container.

Rotate the plastic container and repeat covering each side with glue and sticking beads on it.

For grading, use the tweezers to pick up the beads and stick on the plastic container.