It has been quite a busy week! Relaxing is certainly not going to be part of this teacher’s summer break plans, that’s for sure. That’s not meant as a complaint, though. I’m not relaxing because I’m chasing, playing with, and enjoying my baby (toddler, really) and getting some much needed work done around the house. I also just started my master’s degree program this week. Big things happening in the Robey household!
Back to the reason you’re all here: fine-motor skills!
Welcome to week 1 of my fine-motor series, #finemotorfriday. I’ve chosen to break down the activities I’m creating and sharing into 4 (or more, we’ll see how far this ends up going!) categories:
Buttons and Bands <– YOU ARE HERE
Art and Creativity
Squeeze and Pinch
Careful and Precise Moves
What are fine-motor skills and why are you so hung up on them? I’m so glad you asked! In basic and very broad terms, fine-motor skills are the small and precise movements that require the use of the hand muscles. Things like tying shoes and picking up a lucky penny from the sidewalk require fine-motor skills. I am interested in building a collection of morning tubs that focus on practicing these fine-motor skills because many of my first graders desperately need to improve their handwriting. Although continued work in fine-motor skills is not alone going to solve the issue of poor handwriting, it certainly won’t make things worse!
This week’s activities all revolve around buttons and bands (as in rubber bands or hair bands). Among other specific fine-motor skills, manipulating buttons is one of many ways to help kiddos practice hand division, or working with only the first few fingers and not the last two. Think about holding and moving a pencil, for example: your thumb, pointer, and middle fingers are involved but your ring and pinky fingers are not (or shouldn’t be). Working with rubber bands helps to build controlled strength in the hand and finger muscles.
More specifics about the what, why, and how of fine-motor skills can be found here! (Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Kid Sense in any way, nor am I receiving any type of compensation for directing you to their website. I simply found it to be a helpful and comprehensive look at fine-motor development.)
Now that I have all that explaining out of the way, let’s get on with the good stuff!
Please note that all materials used were either purchased from the dollar store or are items found around my home or classroom. I spent a total of $10 to create ALL of these activities.
Button Activities:
Button Bracelet or Button Snake: This activity is simple in that it only requires a purchase of buttons and pipe cleaners. Students working on this activity weave the pipe cleaner up through one button, and down through the next before adding another button. Make it a bracelet by wrapping the finished product around your wrist. Make it a snake by shaping an end of the pipe cleaner into a triangular snake head. Challenge students to create patterns with the buttons. (Inspired by this post found on Pinterest)
Button Chain: This activity requires a bit of preparation. Cut felt into strips (mine are about 1-2 inches wide). Sew a button to one end and cut a slit for a button hole in the other. Students form a loop with one piece. Next, they put a second felt piece through the middle of the first loop. Connect the ends to form a second, connected loop. Continue creating a felt chain! (Inspired by this post found on Pinterest) There are a few ways to amp this activity up and make it more challenging:
Add numbers and symbols to the felt with puffy paint or permanent marker and challenge students to create math fact chains.
Add letters to the felt and challenge students to build words.
Add words and punctuation marks to the felt and challenge students to build sentences.
Button Pick-Up: This is another very simple activity. Have students lay buttons flat around the table or floor space. Give them a timer and challenge them to use their thumb and pointer finger to pick up as many buttons as they can before the timer runs out! Sliding them to the edge of the table doesn’t count! Lay the buttons out flat again and try to pick up more than the first time. Not only does this activity build fine-motor skills, but it also works on counting and comparing numbers by challenging them to pick up more than they previously had.
Button Words: This activity also takes a bit of preparation. Cut a strip of felt and attach 3 buttons to it. Create felt squares with letters and button holes. Students create words by attaching the letter squares to the button strip! Create strips with 4 holes once students are ready for “magic e” words.
Search “button fine-motor skills” on Pinterest for many more activity options!
(Rubber) Band Activities:
Geoboards: Most classrooms already have geoboards available in their math manipulative kits, so many educators are most likely thinking “well, duh” to this idea, but for those of you that aren’t teachers or for those teachers that don’t have geoboards, these are so easy to DIY! Create a grid with nails in a piece of wood or use push-pins in a corkboard to create one. Students wrap rubber bands around the pegs to create designs and shapes. Students love creating their own designs and patterns on geoboards, but this activity can be amped up by challenging students to create numbers, letters, shapes, or patterns.
Bands and Cans (or tubes): Students simply stretch the rubber bands around a can or a TP/PT tube. To amp this up and make it a bit more exciting, challenge students to see how many rubber bands they can fit, or give them a timer and see how many they can add before time runs out. Another option for amping this up academically is to write words or sentences on the tubes and challenge students to use the rubber bands to show the space between words in the sentence, to divide the word into letters, or (super challenge) to divide a word into syllables. (Inspired by this post found on Pinterest)
Pick Up and Pass Challenge: Have students put their rubber band around their fingers and thumb like they would before stretching it around a can. NOT to cut off circulation in each finger. See the picture for clarification. Students then have to pick up an object from the center of the table (larger objects that require students to stretch the band in order to grab like blocks, cans, etc.) and try to pass it around the group without dropping it or losing their rubber band. Once it’s back to the first student, they put the object back in the center and the next student gets to choose an object to pass. Make this more challenging by having multiple students pick up and pass an object so that more than one thing is being passed around the table at once. Can the object(s) make it all the way around?!?! A test in cooperation and teamwork as well! (Inspired by this blog post)
Bands N’Stuff: Simply gives kiddos rubber bands and a bunch of things for them to wrap up and connect as they please! Easy Peasy!
Search “rubber band fine-motor skills” on Pinterest for many more options and ideas for activities!
And that’s all for this week’s edition of Fine-Motor Friday! Comment below with the activity you’re most excited to incorporate into your classroom or home, and please feel free to also comment with additional ideas utilizing buttons and bands!
Please share this post with any parent or teacher that may find it useful! Also, don’t forget to subscribe (to your left on a computer or below on your phone) so that you don’t miss next week’s Fine-Motor Friday focusing on activities involving creativity!
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