Thanks to contributor Casie Millhouse-Singh, Casie is an American gymnastics coach with over 20 years of experience in the sport as both gymnast, coach and judge. Currently, she is coaching for the Singapore American Community Action Council, better known as SACAC, gymnastics program. She is elected as Singapore Gymnastics Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Recreational Pathway Technical Leader and is also a Singapore National judge. You can follow her blog at: COACH CASIE
Parents that are teachers will love you for it!
You may be missing out on developing one of the most crucial skills for a young child if there is no fine motor work in your pre-school & school-aged recreation lesson plans. Not to mention, it’s a great way to keep little ones busy as a waiting station. The pencil grip (involving the thumb, index and middle fingers) can be easily worked into stations or circuits. Here are a few ideas:
Clothes pins
- Use for counting skills performed. For example, after each cartwheel pull a pin and clip to the bucket.
- Practice counting, with a baby abacus made with string under a high beam.
Bubble wrap (who doesn’t love this stuff?!)
- Used as a side or waiting station, let them pop away.
Other fine-motor work ideas:
- Using tongs to pick up small toys and put into buckets
- Plastic eggs filled with numbers on pieces of paper; Grab an egg, open & do the skill that many times.
- Theraband toe crunchers; pull the band with your toes until it’s gone.
- Picking up toys with their toes.
- Don’t forget we can let them pull those stickers off themselves or put that special stamp on at the end of class.
As with most of my pre-school ideas, I’ve found ways to incorporate adaptations into pre-team and team. Clothes pins are a perfect fit for bars cables!
