RB wrote:Anyone have any ideas for improving fine motor coordination for a 5 y.o. boy? We are scheduled to begin K in August and the writing piece has me a bit concerned. Wondering if I should be having him pick up grains of rice or some such thing :)
A few ideas for play time before you start K:
Have him trace shapes on paper and cut them out. Depending on his abilities – you can start with cutting wavy lines from one side of the paper to the other. Start with squares and triangles and circles before moving to other shapes. Some children need darker, thicker lines along which to cut – so use markers when tracing.
Encourage him to draw zig zag lines and diagonal lines within a closed shaped. (you make a large square box and have them draw a path in the box. You could even have a favorite toy follow the path or just trace the path with finger.)
Trace around his own hand.
Have him imitate drawing a square, circle, etc after you do it.
Work with smaller pieces of chalk on a chalk board.
Use shaving cream on a mirror to point and trace
Cut materials other than paper (cloth or felt)
Work on tripod grasp (holding the marker, pencil, crayon properly.)
Play with age appropriate but small sized things like Legos (you don’t want to use the huge duplo blocks for that)
Lacing shoe strings through holes in construction paper. (or using store bought lacing toys if you have those.)
Stringing beads helps.
button the buttons on shirts! (it can be done while getting clean laundry on the hangers)
Make sure he is working at a table and chair that fits his size.
Work with modeling clay to make shapes. (not just play dough)
you can do dot to dot puzzles, or other things like tracing paths, if he likes those.
(or let them play with a magna doodle. My youngest likes to watch Yo gabba gabba or something like that. There's this segment where it says Hi! I'm Mark and I'd like to draw a dog. Well, my Kindy stage kid likes to grab her magna doodle and draw a dog just like it.) Or any kind of age appropriate art work and finger painting and all of that.
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And remember, in the MFW K program there are lots of opportunities to have tactile writing practice to work on all of these skills. The letter S is the focus on lesson 1. S is one of the hardest letters to write for young children – so it is ok if they don’t master it that first lesson. They have all year to work on it. Sometimes it helps to remember that at the beginning of the year so that we can encourage our children. The skills in K build up over time. They will have lots of opportunities to cut shapes so it will build up over the year.
-crystal