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Fine Motor Skills
Fine Motor Skills

Fine Motor Skills

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4 Review(s)
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Fine motor skills activities, puzzles and guides for developing fine motor skills. 

Features:

  • Six sections - Shoulder and wrist activities; Wrist and hand activities; Hand and finger activities; Scissor activities; Drawing and writing activities; and Printing practice
  • activities, puzzles and guides for developing fine motor skills
  • starter activities and games to begin pupils thinking about motor control
  • teacher information on motor planning, body awareness, bilateral integration, tactile awareness and early childhood development
  • checklists for pupil appraisal.

Supports Aistear's theme of 'well-being' and it's learning goals, including:

  • discover, explore and refine fine motor skills
  • gain increasing control and co-ordination of body movements. 

    Fine Motor Skills is one of a two-part publication series in the area of development of motor skills in the primary or Early years setting. The other publication is on the subject of Gross motor skills which I will also be reviewing this year. Fine motor skills is a thorough and fun way for teachers to ensure they are targeting all of the area of fine motor skills. The introduction touches on early years development and explains exactly what fine motor skills are. Fine motor skills refers to a pupil’s ability to use his/her hands to operate tools accurately. These include scissors, pencils, crayons and manipulatives. It is not about strength but coordination of the muscles involved. Pencil skills can be pushed too, this book states, and can lead to poor habits which cause major problems later on for the child in question. The book is divided into various sections: shoulder and wrist activities, wrist and hand activities, hand and finger activities, scissors activities, drawing and writing and printing practice with a lovely appendix listing recipes for playdough. The main reason why this book is useful to an educator of 4-6 year olds is that it outlines carefully the staged approach to helping a child/children in developing their fine motor skills. It gives a wide range of active approaches to more paper-based photocopiable templates( in the form of cutting, gluing exercises etc). The teacher can select some or all of the exercises appropriate for their class based on the fine motor skills checklist, another handy document at the start of the book for those concerned about child struggling with fine motor skills. There is also some teacher information on motor planning, body awareness, bilateral integration, tactile awareness and early childhood development. This serves as an important reminder. This book is the manual of all skills fine and motor! There are excellent opportunities here for the Infant teacher, early years practitioner and support teacher to use in the mainstream or support setting. Parents could also carry out these activities at home. This book is an invaluable and comprehensive book on one of the most important skills for an infant child. I can recommend. I will be using this in my language, visual arts and child-led play( fine motor skills area) upon return to the classroom in the new school year.

    Anseo.net

    I used this book while subbing with infants, it was very useful for the Aistear stations. It is also brilliant for the early finishers, particularly the cutting tasks. It is a substantial offering, with 234 pages, and lots of templates. It is divided into sections as follows: 1. Starter Activities 2. Shoulder and Wrist Activities 3. Wrist and Hand Activities 4. Hand and Finger Activites 5. Scissor Activities 6. Drawing and Writing Activities 7. Printing Practice There are also checklists which are invaluable for assessment. One of my favorite parts of this book are the recipes at the back. There are several different play dough recipes. There are also letter and number books at the back which would be excellent for phonics too or just for photocopying as extra work if you are subbing.

    Múinteoir Valerie

    It is an extremely comprehensive resource, full of detail, advice, resources and lessons. It begins by introducing teachers to fine motor skills, and how to get started. It contains lovely detailed checklists ( I love checklists!) on fine motor skills, and then moves on to starter activities, such as letter writing, mystery bag, button grab, banana dig, and texture hunt. These are lovely little games which I would love to use should I have infants next year! It then divides activities by type, such as art activities, marble activities, pretending games, squeezing activities, flipping activities, shaking activities, scooping and pouring activities, spreading activities and so on. They are too detailed to explain here so I’ll post a photo! The activities listed also integrate perfectly with areas of the curriculum and can form a standalone lesson in many subjects. One of the exploration activities, by way of example, focuses on floating and sinking. It gives a template with a number of activities and the children must circle those which float. A natural progression would be to turn it into a science lesson by conducting an experiment to see if we were correct. I really like the puzzles section, which focuses on strengthening the wrist/hand. One puzzle gives a picture of a spider which is segmented into three pieces. The teacher cuts out and laminates the pieces and the children must try to put the picture back together. This book contains lots and lots of lovely little poems which focus on finger plays. This can be part of your English lesson. My favourite aspect of this resource is the way every activity falls into a subject area- so you can use the activities to form your actual lesson, be it in English, maths, art or science. The counting activities are splendid, from Bean Count, to Straw Count, to Button Sort and so on; they are really original and fun. There are loads of sample lacing activities and templates too. The cutting activities are superb and again, several practice templates are provided. The art activities are great for nice and simple art lessons for infants which promote fine motor skills, so it’s ticking all the right boxes! Really nice touches are the ‘Number /Letter Books’ at the back. These are templates which can be cut out and folded over for each child. Each booklet has a lovely cover for the children to decorate, and inside are the alphabet book pages, with a letter for the children to trace, and lots of room for them to practice their own. The back of the book has loads of recipes for making all different types of play dough and paints. All in all this resource really packs a punch and has enough to last you the full academic year and longer.

    Múinteoir Valerie

    Overall this is another fantastic resource from Prim Ed. Although it is aimed at infant teachers, the activities are suitable for all in junior schools and can be adapted to suit children in senior classes. I have also been using the activities to support children in the resource setting. There are many photocopiable resources which can be laminated and used again and again. The ideas and materials suggested are cheap and lots of reusable items that you would have it at home! (The only thing I would prefer is a spiral bound book – which would make photocopying easier)

    irishprimaryteacher.ie

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