Fine Motor Monday

As I have mentioned, my daughter is currently getting occupational therapy. She has Juvenile Arthritis, which has attacked several of her fingers causing swelling and pain, which has resulted in some weaknesses, particularly in her right hand.

So anyway, we are supposed to be doing homework for OT…so I have been keeping my eyes out on the blogs I visit for some FUN fine motor activities, and we did a few of them this weekend!

First, we did this simple, yet FUN activity that The Vegetarian Mom linked up at my Thrifty Thursday Linky Party #2. E really enjoyed sticking the pipe cleaners through the small holes, and she was using her pincer grasp nicely!

Next, I was inspired by some “pins” from Tonya over at Therapy Fun Zone. She is a Pediatric Occupational Therapist and has some great ideas on her site and on her Pinterest boards! Anyway, I saw a couple of her pins involving marshmallows and toothpicks and was inspired to make marshmallow snowmen!

Next we did this awesome clothespin activity that we downloaded free at Your Therapy Source. It was a little difficult for E but once I helped her a little she started to get the hang of it. You simply write the letters of the words from the paper on clothespins and your child must match the letters and place the corresponding clothespin on the letter on the paper. This activity is so fantastic because it not only targets fine motor skills, but also letter recognition and letter matching. To make it double challenging for E’s fine motor, I set up the clothes pins on the edge of a basket so that she had to pinch to take them OFF and then pinch to put them ON the paper. (This one says Happy Holidays and also has a fun maze too).

And finally, we played with Play Dough in many different ways to help work on strengthen E’s muscles in her hands. She cut through the dough with her scissors, rolled it out flat, and used several different cookie cutters to cut out different shapes. Her favorite was the teddy bear today 😉 Also, do you that awesome Play Dough caddy? My parents got that for her for her birthday. It’s amazing!

Overall we had a great time doing our fine motor activities this weekend! 🙂 Always a positive when “homework” is FUN!

Cheers!