Fine Motor + A Giveaway

So many of our little kinders come in to our classroom with weak fingers and hands.  Our school OT says part of it has to do with fewer babies spending time on their tummies and/or crawling. With the invention of exersaucers our kiddos are sitting upright more often.

It’s important to do lots of activities to encourage fine motor growth and hand strength.

Here are some ideas:

  • Making play dough balls with the forefinger and thumb
  • Tongs, tweezers, and clothes pin activities
  • Clipping paperclips on paper
  • Picking up small items like buttons, gems, and pom poms
  • Threading beads on pipe cleaners
  • Placing small stickers on paper

Here are more fantastic ideas for fine motor development:

One of the centers that my kiddos enjoy is this sorting center:

IMG_4489

These little tweezers, aka “Gator Grabbers” are from Learning Resources.  They are sized just perfectly for little hands and have just enough resistance for the kids.

IMG_4490

Here are the “specs” from the Learning Resources website:

  • Helps develop the pincer grasp needed for writing and fine motor skills needed for daily living: e.g. buttoning, zipping a zipper, holding a toothbrush, picking up finger foods etc.
  • Great for children who are hypersensitive to textures: they can participate in tactile play using tweezers to hold and move objects
  • Assists in development of eye-hand coordination (visual-motor integration)
  • Incorporate puppet-like conversations to enhance communication and social interactions (Gator can speak to or try to gobble up the other person, increasing direct contact with another)
  • IMG_4491

    These adorable tweezers look like little alligators and come 12 to a pack (2 each of red, blue, green, yellow, orange, and purple).  You can purchase here {HERE} for $10.99 (what a steal!) or you can win a set!!

    Simple do the following:

    1. Find Learning Resources on Facebook and “like” them

    2. Leave a comment below telling me your favorite fine motor activity! Be sure to leave your e-mail!

    PS- This giveaway will end on Friday, October 5, 2012

    94 comments:

    1. My favorite fine motor activity has to be having students use tweezers to pick up objects.

      sn.nguyen19@gmail.com

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    2. Oh wow, those Gator Grabbers are C-U-T-E!!!

      I’m not sure that I have a “favorite” fine motor activity that I do with my kinders, but one I did last week was “Hungry Bird”. We were studying apples so I made an apple core out of construction paper and covered it with worms (aka pipe cleaners). The students then drew a number word card, read the word, and then used a clothespin (the “hungry bird”) to pick up that number of worms. My students loved it and I did too because it encompassed fine motor, reading, and math!

      nicole@klavermail.com

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    3. I have several kiddos who could benefit from the Gator Grabbers. I love using Lite Brite, playing Operation, and creating tear art ptojects to develop fine motor skills.

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    4. Great resources! thank you
      Staci

      Going Nutty!

      misssquirrels@yahoo.com

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    5. My favorite activity is using chop sticks to pick up little fuzzies like you have pictured. ;) girlforgod27@aol.com

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    6. I use several different sized bolts hot glued to a small board. Kids screw the different sized nuts onto the correct bolt. The motion develops the same muscles needed for gripping a pencil. My kids would Love the gator tweezers!
      Tonia
      Tvento1313@msn.com

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    7. My favorite fine motor activity is placing marbles on top of golf tees.

      Susan
      mztrinh@gmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    8. my K's have Chinese class once a week-they love exploring with chopsticks and pom poms-minute to win it style!!!

      I love all your ideas!
      dana.gardner@jefferson.kyschools.us

      ReplyDelete
    9. This is great! Unfortunately I don't have a Facebook page. :( I will put it on my wishlist for the future. I was wondering if you happen to have an October song? My kids loved your other two for August and September and bugged me about what was the October song. I told them I would ask. Thank you!

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    10. I love the gator tweezers!
      I do a fine motor activity that I learned in a Handwriting without Tears workshop - I put a small dot of some delicious smelling lotion on each little ones thumb. Then we dab our thumb one at a time to each of our other fingers. They love this and I try to bring in various scents to keep it exciting...since I own half of the products in Bath and Body Works this works out well. I have had one or two kids who don't like the smell- so they just do the exercise with dry fingers, but most of them love it. It's surprising how difficult this little game can be for some of them! Thank you for posting about fine motor skills - it is so important!

      I'm going to go "like" the Learning Resources page now.

      Christy Donnelly
      Crayons and Whimsy
      crayonsandwhimsy@gmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    11. Such wonderful ideas! We also like to do crafts to encourage lots of use with fine motor skills plus we get a fun creation when we are finished.
      schewkinder@gmail.com

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    12. Great ideas! I use push pin letters to help my kiddos develop fine motor muscles. I would really love to use these tweezers to help my kiddos.
      Thanks for the FABULOUS ideas.
      krissye@hotmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    13. Love the gator tweezers! I liked LR on FB. My favorite (and my students') is using tweezers, pom poms, and ice cube trays to make patterns! How fun! Thank you for the great ideas! :)

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    14. Sorry forgot my email address
      sarachrobot@hotmail.com

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    15. Adorable! My favorite thing to do is work on cutting things-they need lots of practice!

      kellybrown28021@gmail.com

      I follow Learning Resources on facebook!

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    16. I've been eyeing those tweezers! I liked them on facebook. I love cutting and using tweezers- I just need more kid friendly tweezers!!

      Rebecca from landingink.blogspot.com
      landingink@gmail.com

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    17. In my old classroom I used to have an abundance of tweezers. My new room has none, and I would LOVE these---I have a lot of low ones this year, that need lots of practice.

      My favorite activity is one that the boys really love! Screwing and unscrewing nuts and bolts. I also love anything with cutting and my favorite is giving them the coupon section and tell them to cut my coupons out :)

      Angela
      justhave2teach@yahoo.com

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    18. I was looking for tweezers like this, but couldn't find any until this post. Thanks for sharing! I do a lot of paper tearing and cutting, but would love to do some tweezer things! cecussen@yahoo.com

      ReplyDelete
    19. We just finished using tweezers (not as nice as the Gators!) to grab pom poms and cover their name with them. This helped with letter identification and fine motor at the same time!

      colleenbava@sbcglobal.net

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    20. We do crafts and hold a toothbrush to boost their fine motor skills. I also like those tweezers, I think the kids and I would find all types of fun games to play with them.

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    21. Scissors are my fave activity with the kids.
      grace2u {at} rogers {dot} com

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    22. Would love to have a copy of the Pom-pom activity. ;)

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    23. i love doing playdough with my kiddos- and your apple scented idea looks so cool! we are definitely trying it!

      mknaffabc123@gmail.com

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    24. am impressed by the quality of information on this website. There are a lot of good resources here. I am sure I will visit this place again soon.

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    25. We love play-doh as well as lacing cards and stringing beads! I love the tweezers!

      sbelam@hotmail.com

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    26. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    27. I like to use clay instead of playdoh because it is a little firmer & works those little pincher muscles! We usually cover marbles with clay & they have to get the marbles out. It is a great exercise for those little hands!

      ~Jen
      jenskinderkids@yahoo.com
      Jen's Kinder Kids
      Come by my blog to win SCENTOS markers!

      ReplyDelete
    28. My kiddos would love to use the tweezers! We use lacing cards, chop sticks, stringing beads and play-doh mostly. Than you for the wonderful resources your site offers.

      krhone6@gmail.com

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    29. My kiddos would love to use the tweezers! We use lacing cards, chop sticks, stringing beads and play-doh mostly. Than you for the wonderful resources your site offers.

      krhone6@gmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    30. I have a little fine motor tub that has tweezers, beads for stringing, poms, small counting objects. My kids would love these tweezers though!!!
      aaparsons@hotmail.com
      Thank you!
      Andrea

      ReplyDelete
    31. I like to have the kids use a tack and poke holes in paper. The paper has their name, a shape or a letter on it and they have to poke around the edges. I love your site - thank you for all of the great ideas! jtrumler@esu10.org

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    32. Cutest gator ever! Many of students struggle with fine motor skills - I love being able to give them as many ways possible to practice without knowing they are!

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    33. We use the stress balls for children to squeeze. It is great for fine motor skills and fun for them too, especially on a rough day!!!
      sspeller@verizon.net

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    34. We use the game Cubaro (a marble maze type of game) to help with fine motor skills!
      robyn555@cox.net

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    35. We thread pipe cleaners through the holes in a pasta strainer. The LOVE this activity! Thank you for the opportunity to win these great tweezers.

      titabooh {at} cox {dot} net

      ReplyDelete
    36. Cutest tweezers ever! My class loves hammering golf tees into styrofoam, using golf tees for pokey pinning, weaving ribbons, etc. We love to make a play dough next and all make play dough eggs to fill it up! We also enjoy popping bubble wrap......god workout for little fingers and lots of fun.

      traskew@verizon.net

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    37. My kinders love to use a Lite Brite to poke the pieces through to make the shapes of letters, numbers, shapes, or our high frequency words! :)

      korth@uwalumni.com

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    38. I've used tweezers before, but I would LOVE these gator grabbers. My favorite activity with tweezers is to put red, green and yellow pom poms and laminated trees in a center. The children put the pompoms in the trees then "pick apples" off the tree and put the pompoms in a basket.

      Jen
      jeneratorj@gmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    39. My favorite fine motor activities are from Lakeshore...feed the monkey a banana ,feed a dog a bone both with tweezers. I would love to win!
      Karen.strawser@sbcglobal.net

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    40. Love the tweezers. I've had my eye on them and would love to win them. My go to fine motor activity has been the string lacing.

      mrs.thompson710@gmail.com

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    41. I love using the pokey pin letters with my students. The tweezers look like a lot of fun.

      tweekley1012@gmail.com

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    42. The tweezers are too cute! Some of my go to activities are playdough, lacing cards and beads & tiny legos

      melissakrivulka@yahoo.com

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    43. I love using playdough and doing tear activities for fine motor skills.

      jamielr1987@aol.com

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    44. We love rolling sparkly play dough into balls and logs to help practice our fine motor skills! :)
      fuzzlady77@hotmail.com

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    45. My kids love to dig marbles out of Theraputty!
      betsywoeste@gmail.com

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    46. We pick up pennies and hold them in our hand like the games "Jacks".
      my2kkgirls@gmail.com

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    47. The tweezers are so adorable! Our class loves to string ABC letters on to pipe cleaners. We also do lacing cards and play dough. I have a Mr. Potato Head they love to put the pieces on the potato.
      zephyrine74@yahoo.com

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    48. I luv to do finger rhymes with my cuties. This is great oral language and helps with finger control.
      basiaabc@aol.com

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    49. Thanks for the opportunity. I love any tweezers, small beads and ice trays.
      Yvonnee
      yvonneeyrg@gmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    50. One of my favorite Fine Motor activities is having the kids use tweezers to sort pom pom's. Currently into different color muffin tins. I would love this worksheet to add to our centers. I teach therapeutic pre-k. Thank you so much for sharing this.
      christi_froggy1226@yahoo.com

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    51. Love the tweezers! We do lots of play-doh activities - the kids love them!

      dbtrout@hotmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    52. I like Learning Resources on Facebook. And one of my favorite fine motor activities is tear art.

      Heather (heathernnance@yahoo.com)

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    53. I like hiding "treasures" in the therapy putty and having the kids dig for them.

      florestfamily @ gmail.com

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    54. Hi these are so cute. I use cloth pins a lot for the kids to pick up things I also let them tear up paperI would thes little cute guys.my e mail is jalyssa2002@aol.com

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    55. I love the Gator Grabbers! My daughter's favorite fine motor activity is peeling the backing off of foam stickers.

      ReplyDelete
    56. Love these, I have something similar but closer to a tong. I let the kids use them in a variety of tasks....right now they are out with silk small leaves they move from one pile to another. We also do a lot of art with cutting skill practice, snipping and fringing paper, play dough activities, peeling off small stickers (the little reward size), and peeling off the backing to foam shapes.

      ReplyDelete
    57. Wow! I LOVE the Gator Grabbers! I have lots of "favorite" fine motor activities: playdough/clay, pushpins (trace pictures, their names, etc.), lacing cards, using clothespins to pin objects together (same/different, number and a card with matching number of objects). Thanks for hosting this great giveaway and telling us about the Gator Grabbers! :o)

      œKaryn
      A is for Apple B is for Blog
      Kideducator@comcast.net

      ReplyDelete
    58. My favorite activity to date is students matching and screwing on various sized nuts to the matching bolt. I would love to add Gator Grabbers to the list :)

      Katrina
      kcal88@gmail.com

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    59. We do lacing activities. We use zipper and buttons to help with fine motor.
      Would love the tweezers!
      kwahl102@yahoo.com

      ReplyDelete
    60. I love doing art activities that involve ripping paper into little pieces- like Deanna's rainbow names, or leaves falling off of trees for the Fall.
      Shifra
      auburny@gmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    61. Thank you for hosting such a fun giveaway!! I 'liked' Learning Resource's fb page. I could spend a fortune on their website! I am a new kdg teacher, so these tweezers would be a great addition to my resource arsenal!! So far, I've found that my sweet kiddos love lacing beads onto pipe cleaners and doing pokey pin activities. My email is

      amyswan20 at gmail dot com

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    62. I like to use pony beads. I make necklaces (using plastic lacing) and count pony beads on to pipe cleaners. I have also done those melty beads. Fun and fine motor.

      Terri Izatt
      tizatt@ecsdnv.net
      KinderKapers

      ReplyDelete
    63. My favorite fine motor activity is Playdoh or therapy putty. The things you can do are endless.
      tletourneau@wcs.k12.in.us

      ReplyDelete
    64. I like to use playdoh, moon sand, or any of those type of things.

      arcrow@sbcglobal.net

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    65. I love to have students use clothespins to clip to a paint stick. They match capital and lowercase letters. I love all of your ideas! Thanks for sharing.
      Meganneuharth@gmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    66. Hi
      Thank you for all your ideas. I teach grade one but have a few students who would greatly benefit from the fine motor activities. My favourite ul dbe the gator tweezer activities; what a fun way to have the students learn without them even knowing they are!
      thank you,
      psjmorgan@hotmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    67. My students love using tweezers to pick up small things like cottonballs or beans and placing them into a small bin. I didn't even know they made these fun tweezers. I use the ones that people use to pluck their eyebrows with:) These would be awesome.
      wpalsgrove@yahoo.com

      ReplyDelete
    68. I have liked Learning resources on Facebook for a long time because they are so great...I like pokey pins for fine motor skills
      Bridget M.
      bmorrow1973@gmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    69. Thanks for a great post regarding fine motor skills. My favorite & student favorite is called "Feed the Frog". Students use tweezers to pick up plastic flies and drop them into the mouth of a ceramic frog (it's really a container for holding dish scrubbers). Other favorites: sewing cards, pokey pins around sightwords or seasonal pictures, picking up pom poms that are enclosed in a small mouth jar using a pickle picker, playdough and clay, even pushing pegs into a "litebright". So many to mention:) Love those gator tweezers!

      dmarinar@jeffco.k12.co.us

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    70. Well, I knew using tweezers was a good fine motor activity for kids...but I didn't know there was kid-friendly tweezers out there! One of the fine motor activities my kids enjoy is matching a capital letter to a lowercase letter with clothespins. I found a free printable here: http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2010/06/z-review-clothespin-match-up.html
      My email is jessprice@cox.net

      Thanks!

      ReplyDelete
    71. Using tweezers to transfer objects from one container to another is a great way to develop fine motor. Kids in my classroom are transferring acrylic colored leaves from one bowl to another. I got the leaves at the Target dollar section. Another great activity is using pin punches to punch out shapes traced out on construction paper.

      msdora162@yahoo.com

      ReplyDelete
    72. I love play dough and so do my kids. Great fine motor. As well as spinny tops and tweezers. But I don't have these pinchers. Would love them!!! jennyjeanpeterson@gmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    73. I love doing all things clothespins!! They are so cheap and easy to create stuff with! Thanks for the post and the awesome giveaway! Hope I win!

      Mandi Moore
      MOORE Fun In Kindergarten

      mandi.moore@hotmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    74. i like using clothespins and match them to paint sticks. for example, put the popcorn words on a paint stick-they have to find the clothespins with the letters on them to build the popcorn words
      ltowater@k12tn.net

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    75. I like using eye droppers and colored water. The students "collect" water in the dropper and then drop it onto a "concaved holed" painting tray or on the small suction cups of a soap holder. Not only does it provide fine motor training, but if the child is counting the drops includes the math aspect. This idea was from my teacher's aide. She is such a blessing to have in my room!

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    76. This is my first year in kindergarten, so I am loving this plethora of ideas! I use clothespin activities a lot in my room, but now I have lots of other great Ideas--hopefully ones I can use with my new Gator Tweezers if I win them!

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    77. Oops--forgot my email stigerm@district87.org :-)

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    78. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    79. I try to have a fine motor activity at each center area. We have Playdoh letters, pokey pins, bead stringing, hole punchers, clothes pins, and anything else they enjoy. I would love to have a set of these tweezers!

      lindaandrews@bellsouth.net

      ReplyDelete
    80. I use playdoh, lots of playdoh, clothespin for various activities, scribble art, and just started using the pokey pin activities. My kids would love these grabbers! lori lonicho815@gmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    81. Two of my favorite activities are: Using droppers and colored water to transfer from one container to another, and: putting pony beads (or the colored water) in the little "suction cups" on the bottom of bar soap holders. My K kids will do these activties every day!

      ReplyDelete
    82. Ooops! Friday! My email is kgnteachmb@hotmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    83. I love to use beading activities, pins and tweezers!

      kkish1110@gmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    84. I liked Learning Resources on Facebook. My favorite fine motor activity involves clothespins and paint sticks. Program the clothes pins with letters. Write sight words on the paint sticks. Students match the clothespins to the words by pinching the clothes pins to the paint stick. Thanks for the chance!
      brownja12345@gmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    85. My favorite fine motor activities include clothes pins! I am only in my second year of teaching and they only cost a dollar so they are easy on the budget:-)

      Lisa.cain.sped.teacher@gmail.com

      ReplyDelete
    86. I like to use clothespins to clip to large playing cards...it helps with one to one correspondence as well!

      Gimichee@ yahoo.com

      ReplyDelete
    87. My kiddos have been using clothespins to sort their pom-poms this year! They love it almost as much as the play dough!

      ReplyDelete
    88. Oh, forgot my email too! kfields8@verizon.net

      ReplyDelete
    89. I obviously missed the give-away, but wanted to say thanks for all the wonderful fine motor skills ideas. I really need to beef up that part of my instruction in my classroom.

      ReplyDelete
    90. I love all your ideas. I was wondering if you have a copy of the sorting page that is show here. Is it for sale on TPT? Thank! Denise

      ReplyDelete
    91. Thanks for a great post regarding fine motor skills. My favorite & student favorite is called "Feed the Frog". Students use tweezers to pick up plastic flies and drop them into the mouth of a ceramic frog (it's really a container for holding dish scrubbers). Other favorites: sewing cards, pokey pins around sightwords or seasonal pictures, picking up pom poms that are enclosed in a small mouth jar using a pickle picker, playdough and clay, even pushing pegs into a "litebright". So many to mention:) Love those gator tweezers!

      ReplyDelete
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