Drawing with a Crayon Is Using Fine Motor Skills

Several people have asked me, “How do you get children involved in fine motor activities?” Fine motor activities are important since they assist with developing skills needed for reading and writing.  We do know that most boys tend to prefer large motor play over fine motor play.  To encourage getting the children involved in fine motor development I suggest to teachers to use a variety of different mediums such as paint, finger paints, markers, chalk, and crayons for children to use.  Also there are “cool” and fun markers and crayons (ones that can create 3D images-Crayola Crayon makes some).  For the children who do not like to see paint on their fingers, Crayola Crayon’s magic paints are great. Some children who tend to avoid fine motor activities avoid them because they have decreased fine motor skills, and/or difficulty using both their hands together to perform activities such as cutting or paper tearing, and/or they may have decreased visual spatial perceptual skills. Visual spatial perceptual skills are not eye acuity, how clearly one sees, but rather how the brain interprets the information that it is visually perceiving. This is a subject for another blog.

So how DO I get children involved in performing fine motor and the perceptual motor activities?

I generally go to the play area they are in and incorporate fine motor activities into their play.  For example, if they are playing in the kitchen and are “cooking”, I hand them jars to add spices/ingredients that they need to open and close.  Here they begin to work on isolating different fingers to open flip lids. They use both hands to unscrew and screw back on lids, rotating the arm and wrist to shake and “add the ingredient”, while the other hand holds the bowl/pot.  Depending upon what I am trying to achieve in the area of fine and perceptual motor, we may write up a grocery list.  We can draw pictures or “write” out or shopping list.  If needing ingredients for a cake, draw a circle for eggs, square for milk, rectangle for butter or we can trace when it’s needed (we can use the Traceables or other tracing shapes). If the child is playing in the car area, I do a similar change of events.  I first ask to join in and drive my car around. I encourage expanding upon their play by building a road and/or a garage.  We may get the paper and crayons to draw a pond and either tear the paper or cut out a pond.  If we are in the farm area we may make ponds or animal feed.

Playing in Kitchen Area

Another way to encourage fine motor activities is to incorporate fine motor activities in relation to the classroom theme. For example if you doing a winter theme and the book you are reading during circle time is about a snowman, your activities may center on snow and a snowman.  In your texture table you may have pretend snow (dried instant potatoes make nice, safe snow, or you may use the Insta-Snow ).  They can use small plastic shovels and pails to shovel the snow or with the Insta-Snow make snowman or snow animals.  At the play-dough table they can roll the dough and build a snowman, and at the art table they can draw or cut out a snowman.  If the child needs assistance, you could use Cuttables and Traceables to assist with developing these skills. You can have premade facial features, scarf and boots they can add.  Incorportating activities such as these not only develops fine motor coordination for using 1 and 2-handed activities, but also perceptual motor, cognitive and language skills.

Child Waving Hands Above His Head

For some children, they are not sure “where” their hands may be.  This will cause difficulty for the child when they use their hands in play and teacher selected activities.  For all children, typical or children with special needs, it is a good idea to get their hands ready to engage in activities! 

The following bullets may give you some simple ideas on how to get hands ready. 

• S-T-R-E-T-C-H. You  can have the class stretch their arms and hands, opening the fingers wide. Then close them and bring arms down.  Have the students repeat this 3-5 more times.  If you prefer, can just have them stretch their hands and close them.
• Have them wiggle their fingers and shake their arms, or again just wiggle their fingers like little worms.
• Have them press their hands together or on the table top. This alters the brain to “ahh…hands”, and by having the arms do the same, this alters the brain to say “ahhh…arms”. Now we are ready to play.

My teachers and I always like to add a little crossing the midline activities (as I mentioned in a previous blog) that allow the brain to say “ahh there are 2 sides of the body, and we belong to the same person and can work/play together as one.”

Happy New Year 2011 from Createable Learning Concepts!

Randy and I wish everyone a Happy New Year. People like you have helped make 2010 a successful year for us, and we hope that 2011 brings you all the best year ever! Happy New Year! And if any of you has a question that you would like to see me write an article on, just let me know! Again, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Child Crossing the Midline

During play and activities a child may need to reach for an item that requires them to cross their midline.  Crossing the midline may involve the arm or leg crossing their body from one side to the other, such as reaching with the right hand for an item on the left side.  This is a diagonal pattern of movement and not a linear pattern.   Individuals who do not cross their midline tend to reach with the hand that is on the same side as the object and then transfer it to the hand that will use it or they may turn at their waist, avoiding crossing their midline.  When observing the latter, it initially appears to look as if the child is crossing, but upon closer observation, you can see that the arm does not draw a diagonal line.For example, when performing paper pencil activities, you may sometimes notice that the child may pick up the pencil with their left hand, but transfer it to the right hand as soon as the hand is at midline.  They then continue with the activity on the right side of the paper.

Crossing the midline is important for smooth coordinated two-handed movements.  The brain is “talking” to both sides of the body and understanding each and coordinating their actions to work together, and not as “individual” entities.  When both sides  of our body “understand” and are “aware” of each other, they can perform a vastly increased number of complex motor movements, especially ones in which one hand is performing one action differently from the other.

Here one hand holds the object still while the other performs a different motor movement

We perform multiple two-handed activities every day.  In some activities one hand is acting as the stabilizer (such as holding the paper still while cutting/writing, or holding a container) while the other hand is performing an action (using the crayon/scissors, or unscrewing a jar lid).  Other times our hands may be performing the same motor movements (using 2 hands to hold a cloth while wiping the table or pushing a broom).  In motor actions where each side is performing a different motor movement pattern,  coordination and orchestrated planning in required for one’s brain to enable an individual to perform such actions.  An example is playing “itsy bitsy spider going up the water spout” where each hand is rotating opposite of each other, or dressing a doll. If each side worked in isolation of each other, or the communication and understanding that there are two sides is interrupted, motor actions appear awkward and uncoordinated, and in some cases very difficult to execute.

Children with these issues tend to become, and rightfully so, frustrated, and avoid such activities.  They may vocalize they can’t do the activity and push it away, or just not participate.

There many ways in which you can help facilitate crossing the midline.  You may play a modified version of hot potato in which you pass the “potato” using both hands, but instead of turning at your waist you cross your arm in front of your body, or you may only pass with your right hand to the person on your left, again not turning at your waist.

A Technique to Learn Crossing the Midline

You can also sit across from one another and sing songs (such as the camp fire or “patty cake” type songs) where each person reaches across, clapping hands with the same hand as the other person (your right hand to their right hand, then left hand to left hand).  I also like to use some of the activities from Brain Gym.  Brain Gym was developed by educator and reading specialist Paul E. Dennison and his wife, Gail E. Dennison.  The theory behind the activities is to assist with developing better coordination between the individual’s eyes, ears, hands and whole body.  They designed 26 different activities and you can find more information in your library, bookstore or using the internet.

You may also gently “block” the opposite hand, therefore preventing transferring of the object to the other hand.  You can also guide a child using hand over hand assist through crossing their midline.  Sometimes I find using quick, large movements works well.  If I am playing with a child in a painting activity or using dot markers, I will have the child use both hands to hold the thick-handled paint brush or dot marker with my hands on top of theirs.  I will use large movements, lifting the arms up, over and down crossing over their midline while making their splash/dot art.  This can also be done while making hand print pictures or gluing on pieces of paper to make a collage.

Another activity may be setting up a train/car track using a horizontal figure eight path.  With the child sitting facing the center of the track, have them use one hand (or both hands) to move the train/car around the track. Not only do these activities help the arms cross the midline, but they also help develop better eye scanning and scanning outside their shoulder range.

Letting the child choose the dominant hand

One should not force a child to use any particular hand; allow the child to use either hand, and let the child make the selection that is most natural for him/her. There are some children, albeit very few, that are truly ambidextrous by the time they reach kindergarten. Teachers do like to see one hand as a dominant hand, but hand dominance can be influenced by the person who is working with the child. If the person is left-handed, they may encourage the child to use their left hand more often. The same is true of a right-handed person; they may encourage the child to use their right hand more often. This is natural because it’s just easier for the teacher/parent to teach using the hand that is most natural for them. The best practice is to put objects the child will be using at the child’s mid-line. This way the child will reach for the object with the hand that feels most comfortable for them. The reason this is important is because there are some children (which I will discuss in my next blog) who do not cross their mid-line. These children will use the hand that is on the same side as the object they are going to manipulate and transfer it to the other hand. Or they may go ahead and try using it with the hand that has picked it up.

Activity Guides

Cuttables Activity Guide

Activity guides contain 40 to 44 different theme-related activities to create using Cuttables and Traceables.

One of our new products was designed to assist with developing the skill of how to build a picture. It is a fun dice game for 1 or 2. Each individual has a playing board and pieces to build a picture. The children take turns rolling the dice to create a picture. The activity works on matching their piece to the one on the dice, locating where the piece should go (such as the sun near the top or bottom of the board), spacing (not placing everything on top of each other) and social skills (cooperating and taking turns). Once the picture is done, the child could tell a story about the picture. The teacher/therapist/parent may work on orientation words such as “let’s put the doggie in front of the dog house”, or next to, between, on top and so forth. You may also decide after playing the game a few times to take away the playing pieces except for the dice and replace the playing board with a piece of paper and crayons. The child can now roll the dice and draw the item rolled, creating their own picture.

One of the games centers around a rainy-day theme, and two of the playing pieces are a boy and a raincoat. The raincoat fits on the figure of the boy, and you can decide if the rules of this game are to sequence the steps. For example, the child may need to roll the figure of the boy first before he/she can place the raincoat.

You can click on the picture below and go to our website at www.CreateableLearningConcepts.com and read about this product or any of our other products.
Create-A-Picture

Create-a-Picture Interactive Game

A dice game for 2–players consisting of 4 different pictures to create.

Cuttable Learning Tools Inspired by Real Life

One of the inspirations for creating the Cuttables products at Createable Learning Concepts was a child named Alex. Alex was five years old and had been blind since birth. But Alex was blessed in that he was cognitively normal, with a normal level of energy, inquisitiveness and desire to learn to do thing by himself. But cutting out shapes with scissors as his classmates were doing was not a task that he could achieve, not without assistance. Cuttables were designed to accommodate special needs children with fine motor skills, but also with children like Alex in mind.

What are Cuttables?

A Cuttable has two identically-shaped surfaces (circles, squares, triangles and rectangle) that are held together magnetically. The design allows a piece of paper to be inserted between the two pieces, trapping the paper between the plastic templates, allowing the child to use the edge of the shape as a guide as they cut around the outside of the shape. This method provides a visual and sensory feedback to the child working on their fine motor skills and learning to cut shapes.

In Alex’s case, he doesn’t have the visual feedback, but the sensory feedback allows him to cut out shapes by himself, just like his classmates. The independence that he realized by using the Cuttables increased his self-confidence more than you can imagine, and the positive impact that this early success will have on his future is sure to be enormous. As his classmates exclaimed after he cut out his first circle all by himself, “Hey, Alex! You did it! You really did it!”, Alex realized that he really did do it, all by himself. And with that feeling instilled in his mind at such an early age, Alex will find many doors will open to him in life – because he knows he CAN do it!