Hand Strengthening Activities for Kids
So, It is likely that most of your kids are starting school and you are anxious about how they will do. Will they be able to follow instruction, colour inside the lines and write legibly. Below, you will find hand strengthening activities for kids, and tools to develop hand strength. The activities to strengthen fine motor skills included in this post are perfect to improving grip strength, pinch strength, or as part of a finger exercises program for handwriting.
Fine Motor Strength is essential for so many reasons! From maintaining a grasp on a pencil to opening and closing scissors, to buttoning buttons, snapping snaps, tying shoes, coloring a picture without stopping, to most everything we do…hand strength matters!
I wanted to cover fine motor strength and the skills kids need for pencil grasp, managing scissors, working clothing fasteners, and using those hands.
So often, we see weak arches, instability, and low tone in the hands that transfers to awkward use of the hands, impractical grasps, and poor endurance in writing or coloring. Sneaking in a few strengthening activities each day makes a world of difference and will make your life easier in the long run!
Try these fine motor hand strengthening activity ideas:
Activities using tongs like transferring pom poms from one container to the other, are great for developing and strengthening the arches of the hands for improved intrinsic strength.
In fact, the intrinsic muscles are the muscles in the hand that define the arches of the hands, bend the knuckles, and oppose with the thumbs. Activities like Lacing Cards are intrinsic muscle strengthening activities that can easily be replicated at home or in the therapy room.
Among these muscles are a group called the lumbricals. The lumbrical muscles have a job to bend (flex) the MCP joints and extend (straighten) the PIP and DIP joints. When the lumbricals are in action, the hand might look like it is holding a plate with the big knuckles bent and the fingers extended.
When kids write or color with a thumb web space area squashed shut, it’s a sign of problems. Then might be compensating for thumb instability, underdeveloped hand arches, and/or poor strength. Each of these problem areas will lead to difficulties with handwriting, dexterity, manipulation of small items like beads, and pencil grasp.
Writing with a closed web space is inefficient and will cause poor and slow handwriting, especially as kids grow and are expected to write at faster speeds. A closed web space while attempting to manage fasteners such as buttons and zippers will lead to fumbling and difficulty. So, what do you do if you’ve got a kiddo who is squashing that web space shut during functional tasks? You could try ,
- Popping Bubble wrap
- Threading beads on pipe cleaners
- Opening and closing clothespins
- Pushing coins in a piggy bank
It’s my hope that these suggestions are a huge help for you! The key is to have fun with it. Happy playing!
