This month, I decided to bring a little fall to our fine motor drawers! Each month when I introduce the new activities to my students, I am purposeful in telling them what skills they will work on developing and how those skills will help them in the future. I also remind them of other things in our classroom that they may find themselves struggling with and share with them that using these fine motor activities will help those tough tasks become a little easier with time.
In the first drawer, I added some math work in by using a set of Geometric Rainbow Pattern Blocks. My students are on a Pattern Block kick right now and love to see what shapes they can make, so this was a perfect activity to keep their engagement high! Using one of the 10 mats I provided, my students use their pinching grasp to lift and carefully place each Geometric Rainbow Pattern Block where it belongs.
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In the next drawer I added some quick color sorting; something some of my non-native speakers still need some help with. Students use Acrylic Glitter Pom-Poms and sort them into these brightly colored cups. Students develop their pinching grasp which will help them become excellent pencil and crayon grippers in the future!
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I remembered these button trees from when I was in Kindergarten and decided it was time to share them with my students! Using some brown Giant Chenille Stems, I twisted 3 to 4 together to form the tree and branches. My students can slide "leaves" on the trees and because the Giant Chenille Stems are pretty fuzzy, there is enough resistance when sliding the buttons on to make this activity a bit challenging.
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Slime is a BIG hit in my classroom this year! Anything I put in slime automatically becomes magical! I couldn't resist putting these Plastic Pumpkin Beads into some pumpkin slime (similar here)! Using some larger sized tweezers, my students have tons of fun rescuing these pumpkins from their slimy home! I placed about 20 pumpkins in each of our slime containers (we have 2) along with 4 pairs of tweezers. My students quickly develop their pinching skills as they pick out each Plastic Pumpkin Bead. We have a "tweezers only" rule in our room so that our slime stays fresh and clean.
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Later in November we have a lunchtime feast where all of our Kindergarten students dress up as Pilgrims or Native Americans as they enjoy a special meal together. As part of that lunch, we create fall themed headdresses and necklaces to wear. To help us prepare for this occasion, my students will cut fall colored drinking straws into smaller pieces to use as beads. We will later add these beads onto string and use them on our headdresses. We used the Smooth Cut Preschool Scissors to help us. Many of the other activities this month will help prepare my students for the open and closing skills needed to operate the scissors.
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What better way to practice using pushing and pinching skills than with our favorite Make a Dot Markers? My students used the fall colored Make a Dot Markers to finish off lots of the Fall Dot Marker Activity Sheets. They love that they get to "paint" and create art and don't realize that they are developing fine motor skills as they do it!
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We couldn't have our fine motor activities and not include some more pumpkins! We used green and orange Modeling Dough to create our cute little pumpkins! I printed off a landscape background I found online and let my students have fun creating pumpkins of all shapes and sizes! They learned how to use their palms to help them roll the Modeling Dough into a ball and then used their fingertips to make a dough "snake" for the stem.
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The last activity this month is a favorite! Using some smaller kitchen tongs (similar here), my students pick up one Plastic Pumpkin Bead at a time and drop it into a glass jar. I brought in various sized jars and jars that had different sized openings at the top to make this task easier or harder depending upon my students' needs. Each child picks up one Plastic Pumpkin Bead and drops it carefully into the jar. They practice pinching the tongs, lifting and carrying it to the jar while holding on to the pumpkin. My students love to see how many pumpkins they can drop in the jar and enjoy hearing the noise each one makes as it hits the bottom of the jar!
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