Very poor fine motor skills in 5-year-old DS - any advice?

[SolidGoldBangers]

So we roll up happily to reception Parents Evening to be greeted by the SENCO, which came as a bit of a shock.
DS is very bright, very articulate, loves reading but cannot write at all and apparently is now avoiding any activities that involve fine motor skills.
THe school are quite reassuring about it and have advised us to encourage him etc but he is being registered as having SEN.
I'm sure I have read stuff about this being a minor problem particularly in little boys that he will grow out of, but has anyone else had this to deal with, and what did you do?

Hi
My dd is younger than your ds but has difficulty with her fine motor skills. We've had an occupational therapist for about 6 months now which has been very useful. She gives us lots of exercises to strengthen pincer grip, develop tripod grip and hand-eye co-ordination.
Were you told exactly what your ds's difficulties were? It might be helpful to know what exactly he needs to work on as there are lots of exercises that will help.
I agree that lots of boys of this age find writing quite tedious and are not interested in developing these skills. My 5 yr old ds has no particular issues with his fine motor skills and is now in yr 1 and his writing is pretty poor tbh - he's still too busy running around being batman!

Similar situation to you with DS (6) We had our first OT appointment yesterday who suggested lots of meccano and lego type activities to help improve fine motor skills. DS' writing is beginning to fall behind that of his peers but he just rushes it and can't be bothered trying to be neat Am hoping that things will get better as he gets older.

Yes we were advised Lego, encourage drawing, try threading pasta... we are going to be given an appointment for the occupational therapist to see if it's just a developmental delay or if there's anything else going on.
Feeling a bit of a bad mother for not having picked it up myself but a) I have nothing to compare him with, he's my PFB and only child and b) in other areas he's so bright that it kind of seemed reasonable that he might have more difficulty with other things.

Bump

there is a lot you can do with him without him noticing! Puzzles are good, as he'll need to pick up and manipulate pieces. Lego as already said, but also sticklebricks. I've made my ds play patience/ solitaire with playing cards (not on the computer as he wants!) so he picks up and moves cards. Or any other card games - eg, go fish What about playing noughts and crosses with him?

Good luck!

same problems here ... fine motor skills ... OT gave us a single tip (while DD was just 5) picking bids from the floor .... or any other small pieces. But any other ideas? DD is very good at lego, she does 10 yo pieces but still .... if any of you have more tips, please share it with us.

i meant puzzle .. lego is still a thing she is struggling with

bump! fine motor skills tips, please help

Picking up rice with tweezers was one of the exercises ds' OT recommended.

You can also get plasticine of varying hardnesses, which are to be rolled up into a tiny ball, then roll the ball acorss a table then up a wall using first three fingers only. Start witht he softest plasticine, then graduate to the harder ones.