Skill: Motor Planning

Motor planning is the ability to assess a motor activity, plan and organize how to carry out that motor activity, and finally implement motor skills to achieve that motor activity.

Motor planning leads to the ability to carry out a motor skill automatically after enough practice.

Clothespins Butterfly

ClothespinsButterfly-front

Body Shape

Take one of your clothespins and paint it with colors. This will be the butterfly body.

Wings

To make the wings, take some colored construction paper and fold it in half.

Draw a pair of wings on the folded side of the paper, and cut around them using the scissors.

Unfold the wings and you will have two sets that are exactly the same.

Draw colorful lines and patterns over the wings.

Assemble Everything Together

Pinch open the clothes peg and glue the wings onto the top prong.

It is best to clip the clothes peg onto something so that it doesn’t get glued shut.

Decorate the body of the butterfly with your buttons and beads, and stick the googly eyes onto the top of the peg.

Fine Motor Beads Kids

Beads Fine Motor Activity

For this activity, you will need 2 pipe cleaners to form the body structure.

Shape the Body

Twist 2 pipe cleaners together in the middle – about 2/3 of the way up.

The twisted part will be the body.

Thread 3 large beads through both pipe cleaners to form a body.

Create Arms and Hands

Take both pipe cleaners and separate them, pulling each stick to either side of the body.

Thread about 5 medium beads onto each arm.

Curl and wrap the end of the pipe cleaner around the last bead to secure it in place.

These will be the hands.

Create Legs

Thread about 8 medium beads onto each leg.

Curl and wrap the end around the last bead to secure it in place.

These will be the feet.

Head Shape

To form the head shape, using the scissors cut one pipe cleaner in half and bend to form a circle shape with the ends twisted and touching.

Insert the ends of the pipe cleaner head into the top bead of the body to secure it in place.

Shoulder Strength Leopard Crawl

Leopard-crawl under table

The leopard crawl is a military type-specific crawl that can increase shoulder strength by using the shoulder muscles to move forward.

Place an empty bucket at one side of the room and give the child a few small size balls (tennis balls, ping pong balls, cotton balls, etc.).

Ask the child to hold one ball in each hand while on his tummy and do a leopard crawl towards the empty bucket. The route to the bucket can go under a table, inside a tunnel, under chairs, or other obstacles for grading.

When the child reaches the bucket, ask the child to put the balls in it and crawl back to the start.

For proper crawl ensure the child is advancing an arm/elbow with the diagonal knee. When an elbow is placed forward, the diagonal knee is also placed forward, and then alternated with the other elbow and knee.

Matching Socks Game

A young child sitting on a living room rug sorting and matching pairs of colorful laundry socks into separate baskets.

Present the child with a clean box/basket/bucket of separated pairs of socks.

Provide the child with additional empty baskets, one for each member of the family.

Show the child one sock and ask him to find the other sock that looks the same (i.e. the matching sock).

Fold the socks together (or have your child fold them to work on additional skills such as motor planning and eye-hand coordination) and ask the child to put the pair of socks in the right basket, based on whose socks are they (mom’s, dad’s, child’s, sister’s, etc.).