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Crafts for fine-motor delayed little one?
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I would greatly appreciate any craft ideas for my little (young 4) guy. He is fascinated with the idea of making and drawing things, but is somewhat delayed on his fine motor skills. So since I am not the most visually-creative person myself, I have a hard time coming up with ideas. To give you an idea of where he is–he has just barely started drawing shapes and rough representations of things. He struggles with scissors, but will use glue and finger paints with great mess and aplomb. 🙂 He loves markers and crayons, and is just starting to master a small (child-sized) paintbrush.
He does have the enthusiasm, but all activities have to be highly guided…and most things that I can find recommended for his age level end up being far above him, skill-wise. Any suggestions?? I am loving watching his satisfaction at “drawing” things, since that is such a new skill for him; he will sit for literally hours working with his markers, and I would like for him to be able to experience even more of that satisfaction…AND to improve his fine motor skills.
My son’s fine motor skills were also delayed. I usually only provide materials and then let my son decide what to do with them. A wise teacher recommended letting my son play with clay in order to build fine motor skills, which worked exceptionally well. I will say that the clay was difficult for my son to work with at first, so we switched to Play Doh and then worked up to clay. I am not sure where your son is with fine motor skills so he may work well with clay without having to work up to it. I made sure to provide “tools” like rollers, cut-outs (plastic cookie cutters), plastic knives, etc. We got our supplies at a crafts store. I would suggest only plastic tools at first. Also, my son has greatly enjoyed making collages. Sometimes I would give a “topic” and other times he would decide what sort of theme for his collage.
For building fine motor skills, I did not find anything that worked better than working with clay.
Hope this helps!
Stephanie
Don’t forget about separating beads and pom poms by color into ice cube trays or gluing them to paper and then eventually moving up to stringing the beads.
Clamping clothes pins onto things is good to strengthen those hand muscles too.
Moon sand and Moon dough are fun too
huyones has some great ideas with the sorting and clothes pins.
my DD loves to make bead necklaces, bracelets, etc. we save them in our gift bin and she gives them to the ladies and girls in our family on special occasions such as today, Mother’s Day!
if your son is ready to pick up larger beads, you can have him string them on pipe cleaners. and if he is like my boys, he will enjoy pushing them off the pipe cleaners to be enjoyed another day as much as putting them on!
empty spice containers (the ones with holes in the top) make great tools as well for putting pipe cleaners into the holes. you can take those little stickers you would use to repair notebook paper, color them and then ask him to match the pipe cleaners to the hole and push it in.
this blog has tons of ideas: 1plus1plus1.blogspot.com
My oldest dd had motor skill delays as well. One of the things that was suggested and would give your little guy the ability to use his paint brush. Fill a container w/ some water and allow him to paint pictures – big pictures and little ones – on the driveway, sidewalk, or other such area. Our old home had the old aluminum siding on it, and my ds and dd would paint the siding on the back patio as well as the driveway. I would join in and we’d make big pictures together and smaller ones individually. The nice part is that you are not using up paper for this, and it helps with both the small and large motor skills… and of course it is fun.
Something else that you can incorporate is a child sized squirt bottle filled with water which also works different muscle groups and is also good for working motor skills. Use the squirt bottle to at first make stripes going from l to r, r to l, up n down, and reversed. Then move to making “paintings” with the squirt bottle.
Blessings to you and your little guy,
~jacqleene
I have to thank all of you VERY much for your suggestions!!! I gleaned something from each post, and am amazed at the variety of suggestions and things I hadn’t thought of. We went to Walmart and bought some pipe cleaners today, and I had the pleasure of watching him string his chunky beads BY HIMSELF for the first time ever! (He has had a hard time in the past with not being able to orient the bead and handle the floppy string simultaneously.)
We got out our modeling clay, which I had put away after one try because of finger strength issues, and I gave him a dull butter knife, and he thorougly enjoyed sawing away at it and then pinching off little balls and ropes. I need to find him some more tools as suggested.
We also bought a big bag of primary colored beads today for sorting, and will be trying the moon sand and moon dough…those I am not familiar with.
We looked for squirt bottles but couldn’t find any, and we don’t have a craft store locally (currently living in a tiny town), so I may have to order them. I love that idea, as squeezing is something he could use some work on (somewhat weak muscles in the hands.)
I know this post may seem overly enthusiastic, but I am just so very grateful to have things to try that I know he will enjoy and that are on his level. I had exhausted my supply of ideas and could tell he was bored in that department. So thank you again.
For squirting in the bathtub or outside, you can fill an empty spice bottle with water. I use the kind from Kr*oger that are regular size, store brand, and they work great. At first DS and DD couldn’t squeeze them hard enough but they kept trying. They LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to make “rain” in the bathtub with the spice bottles. These are the ones with the tops inside that have multiple holes. You will need the regular to small-size for him to be able to squeeze it.
Scissors and cutting are of course another great exercise for finger strength.
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