Strengthening Hands, Wrists, and Fingers
Play dough is always fun for young children to play with, and it is an excellent tool to help build and develop hand strength as well as manual dexterity. The following simple activities will be enjoyed by the children and they will help them to further develop their fine motor skills.
1. Pretend you are baking cookies. Flatten the dough with a rolling pin and use cookie cutters to create shapes. Plastic lids, plastic cups, and plastic silverware may be used for cutting and making shapes with play dough.
2. Roll the play dough in long thin snake shapes. Cut the play dough snakes with scissors.
3. Use a variety of kitchen tools. Play dough can be squeezed through a potato ricer, garlic press, or pushed through a funnel. Plastic forks, spoons, and knives can be used to cut play dough and to create impressions in the play dough.
4. Place two small balls of play dough, each a different color, in a small plastic bag. Push and squeeze the play dough until it is one color. For example, squeezing a yellow ball of play dough with a blue ball of play dough will create green play dough.
5. Children love making their own play dough. Here are some great recipes to make your own play dough at home.
Fluffy Snow Play Dough
You will need: 1 cup Ivory Snow Flakes detergent, 3 cups warm water, mixing bowl, and an electric mixer
What you do: First add the food coloring to the water. Then add the soap flakes and beat with an electric mixer until the soap is fluffy and can be manipulated. If you want to pretend that this is snow, leave out the food coloring and simply make snow white play dough.
No-Cook Super Sand Play Dough
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You will need: 4 cups of clean play sand, 3 cups flour, 1 cup water, and 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
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What you do: Combine the flour, sand, water, and oil in a mixing bowl. Knead with your hands until the mixture forms a ball. If the mixture is too dry, gradually add water until it reaches a nice dough consistency. If the mixture is too watery, gradually add more flour.
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Glitter Play Dough
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You will need: 1 cup flour, 1 cup water, 1 cup salt, 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, 2 teaspoons cream of tartar, food coloring, a saucepan, a spoon or utensil for stirring, glitter.
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What you do: Mix all the ingredients together in a saucepan over a medium-low heat. Keep stirring until the dough forms a ball. Remove the dough from the pan and cool. Add glitter to the dough and knead until smooth. This is one play dough recipe that should NOT be refrigerated. Stored in an air-tight container, this play dough will last for several weeks at room temperature.
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Special Tip: Add vanilla extract to any homemade play dough recipe and it will help prevent mold, preserve the dough, and smell great!
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Pouring and Scooping Activities
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Children's explorations with pouring and scooping activities will help build a variety of skills. By sifting sand or pouring water, children improve their manual dexterity as well as their eye-hand coordination. They also enhance their cognitive skills as they discover many properties of the various materials or by observing such principles as cause and effect.
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Big Bucket Fun
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If you do not have a water table, fill big buckets or tubs with water. Give the children soap chips, measuring spoons and cups, plastic bottles, butter tubs, and sponges to play with in the water. When children play with water, give them toys like eggbeaters, watering cans, and squeeze bottles.
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Cotton Ball Scoop
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Filling a large bowl full of cotton balls can provide children with a wonderful pretend snow experience. Give the children spoons and have them scoop out cotton balls, one at a time. How many can they scoop in 10 seconds? 30 seconds?
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Squeezing and Tweezing Activities
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Tweezing Sand Pictures
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You will need: construction paper, black markers, glue, and a variety of large seeds (pumpkin seeds/large squash seeds). Wash and dry the seeds.
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What you do: Ask the children to draw a scribble design with a black marker on a piece of construction paper. Fill each section with glue (squeeze) and have the children use a tweezer to place the seeds on the glue.
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Paper Plate Magic
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You will need: Water-based color markers, heavy paper plates, and a spray bottle with water
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What you do: Give each child a paper plate and let them color all over it with water-based markers. When the children have finished their drawings, have them take turns using the spray bottle, and give their drawings a spray. The colors will blend together and the plates will look beautiful.
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Fun with Tweezers
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You will need: A tweezer, a muffin tin, and a bowl filled with interesting small items, such as colored paper clips, buttons, small pom-poms, acorns, erasers, rubber bands, gold fish crackers, bean seeds, craft jewels, or whatever else you find handy.
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What you do: Give the child the bowl of objects, the muffin tin, and the tweezers. Have the child pick up the items using the tweezers and then sort the objects by placing them into the individual muffin tin sections. This activity will increase their finger strength and manual dexterity.
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Paper Hole Punch
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Using a paper hole punch is an excellent way to build strength in the hand, wrist, and finger muscles. Let the children have fun using a hold punch to punch out holes on different types of paper.
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Clothespin Activities
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Pinching clothespins onto a bucket or clothesline are excellent activities for strengthening fingers and hands. These activities will also increase coordination skills. Pinching a clothespin together to create open and close movements is done by moving and coordinating the thumb and pointer finger.