suggestions for activities to help with fine motor skills

[rhetorician]

dd is 3.7, very articulate, interested in lots of things, starting to make letters etc. But I have noticed that she still uses a fist grip for pens, pencils etc, and struggles with things like scissors. What kinds of things can I do with her to help her (she is getting frustrated herself)?

Threading is good. Straws and a colander. Chunky tweezers to move things between bowls (crafty pom-poms are a good start point - in no time she'll be separating dried beans and rice). Get her to do the buttons on her clothes. Basically things that involve her pincer grip strengthening.

Bit young for Lego, but how about duplo?

Jigsaws?

Playdough, gloop, cooking with pastry, finger painting and other messy activities are good for fine motor development.

Also cutting and sticking with lots of glitter and shiny bits to make it fun and chalking and water painting on outside walls because there are big muscles which need to help too.

she likes duplo can manage that fine, ditto jigsaws; loves anything messy. I wonder if it's not so much fine motor as me putting pressure on (inadvertently) which is making her self-conscious, because she can do the things you've all suggested mostly. I think the tweezers thing is a good idea - she might enjoy that.

Thanks very much

Most fiddly craft sets say 8+.
I always wonder why until I became a Brown owl.

The difference between what the girls starting at 7 and the older ones could do especially with sewing was huge.

I'd chat to her nursery teacher and see exactly what is normal for a child her age before worrying to much.

If this is about her getting frustrated you are doing the right things by trying to find activities to support her development.

I you're the one who's getting frustrated in reality then chill. She's doing fine for her age and pressure will stop her enjoying using pens and scissors.

What's important at the moment is that you support her and explore things she's interested in alongside her.

Find activities she enjoys and help her to develop her own interests because they are what will drive her learning.

If you want to encourage letter formation then get her to do it in the biggest format possible, e.g. using a stick with a ribbon attached to form them in the air.

With scissors give her things to enjoy cutting up, not things to cut out or round because it's so easy to fail to stay on the lines.

six of one, half a dozen of the other, goldmandra I suspect; her letter formation isn't too bad - she hasn't done many yet, but they are quite easily recognizable. She'll get there I'm sure - it's just hard to keep her focussed on a task - she gets discouraged very very easily if she can't do it right away. Cue wails of 'i can't do it, it's too hard' etc.

...which in fact may be the real underlying issue

At the first sign of "I can't do it" I would find a way to make the task ridiculously easy and not suggest she does it again for months. Don't give her hings to do which are challenging. Give her activities which are just hard enough to be interesting but still very achievable.

She's very young to be focussing on a task for more than a couple of minutes unless she is really interested and wants to engage in it. She has lots of time to learn letter formation and it will be much easier when she's choosing to do it so I'd put it on hold and find something she really wants to do.

oh don't worry - I'm not making her do letters! far from it. She does it herself sometimes though. But you are right about giving her easy things that she can do - will try to do that.

Sorry I didn't mean to imply that you were forcing her, just suggesting it

I think sometimes they need us to steer them away from things they are trying to do but setting themselves up to fail.

no it's fine - she is not a child that you can force! she'll do it all in her own good time: it's sometimes hard to see it from their point of view - e.g. how difficult it is to learn how to use a pair of scissors when it actually requires a lot a different skills all together. Like driving, I guess.

Scissors are really hard and I've never had much success helping children to learn with those ones the adult can hold too or any other gadget ones for that matter.

These days I just give them bits of paper, ribbon and card to cut up into random tiny little bits for no purpose other than it's fun. It makes a dreadful mess though

I think we just need to do more stuff like this with her - she really likes it, and needs to see us doing it too. DP better than me, as I get irritated by mess and lack of obvious progress/result although I do try to fight these impulses. Disclaimer: she really is a very messy child who loves the feel of things, wants to put her hands in everything etc etc, it's not that I am particularly uptight (on the contrary, in fact). Goldmandra thank you - your comments have been very very helpful

I know just where you're coming from.

Being a childminder has taught me to enjoy mess

Enjoy your DD. She sounds lovely.

thanks; she is fab

My friend is a pre school teacher and she said that one of the things they do (in the summer) is to put a table outside at child height and cover it with shaving foam, add some drops of food colouring and let them draw pictures with their fingers, or just swoosh around in it. She might like this if she likes messy things.

My DS is younger but one thing he loves doing is just playing with small stickers, and gluing sequins and shiny things onto a piece of paper (and then normally taking them off again). He's not making a picture, it's more about the actual things themselves.

It is messy but I just hoover up most of the bits, or get DS to help put them all into a tub, again good for the pincer grip.

Oooh yes! Shaving foam is lovely and a less messy way to offer it is tied very securely into a plastic food bag. It can be squished around to much the colouring in without making a mess.