Hand Strengthening Activities for Kids

10 activities to work on hand strengthening from www.YourTherapySource.com

Does your child or student have decreased muscle strength in the hands?  Are you in search of novel and creative hand strengthening activities?  Check out all these ideas below.  Many include FREE printables and use materials that you will have around your house!

Using Clothes Pins and Craft Sticks as a Hand Strengthening Tool

Here are 10 ideas to use clothespins with craft sticks. These are inexpensive activities to create to use in the classroom setting while encouraging the strengthening of the hand muscles. Quite a few of these are perfect for hand strengthening activities for kindergarten fine motor stations.  Use them for academics, sensory diets, emotions, and coordination. Read more here.

Clothesline Numbers

Children can use this FREE printable for hand strengthening exercises.  Just print on cardstock and cut apart the cards.  Clip on the correct number of clothespins based on the number of socks hanging on the line. Small clothespins work the best.  Get the FREE printable here.

Clay Marble Mazes – Hand and Finger Strengthening

 

Marble Clay mazes from https://www.yourtherapysource.com/blog1/2014/04/14/clay-marble-mazes/Clay marble maze is a great activity to encourage hand strengthening, eye-hand coordination, visual tracking skills and more.  Read more details here.

Hole Punch Hand Grip Strengthening Exercises

This is the perfect activity to work on hand strength and graphomotor skills at the same time.  Print this FREEBIE and cut the page into strips.  Children practice tracing, drawing and using a hole punch to match the correct shape.  Download your FREE copy here.

hole punch palooza freebie fromhttps://www.yourtherapysource.com/holepunchpics.html

Hand Strengthening Activities for Kids in the Kitchen

 

Here are 10+ hand strengthening activities for children using games and everyday activities from Your Therapy Source. Free downloads!

Grab a few kitchen tools and mini sponges.  This will entertain the kids as well as work on the muscles of the fingers and hands.  Cut up mini sponges and wet with water.  Children can squeeze the mini spongs in the garlic press, use tongs to pick them and sort into mini muffin tins and “juice” the sponges over a manual juicer.

Hand Strengthening Exercise Game

add this fun FREE printable hand strengthening exercise game to work on building up those muscles.

Today’s children seem to be spending more and more time on screens and less time on playing with real toys. This can result in weaker muscles in the hand and fingers.

Developing hand strength in children is super important for everyday functional skills.  Kids need to have adequate muscle strength to use the monkey bars, hold a writing utensil, use school supplies and get dressed.  Children can work on improving grip strength through play and everyday activities. You can also add this fun FREE printable hand strengthening exercise game to work on building up those muscles.  Get your FREE download here.

The Hand Strengthening Exercise Program

Loom Band Workout

 

loom band ideas from https://www.yourtherapysource.com/freeloombands.htmlDo you have leftover loom bands hanging around the house?  They are excellent for strengthening small hands and fingers.  Read this post to view 5 ideas!

Bubble Wrap Story Time + Strengthening

Bubble Wrap Story Time from https://www.yourtherapysource.com/freebubblepop.html

For Story Time Bubble Wrap have the child create a story verbally using the picture icons in any order. When they use the picture in the story they should pop that bubble. Continuing adding parts to your story and popping the bubble wrap until all pictures have been popped.  Read more here.

Water Squirt Race

water squirt race at https://www.yourtherapysource.com/videosquirt.html

Do you have spray bottles in your classroom or home?  They are perfect to use for a hand strengthening activity.  Want to make it even more fun?  Grab balloons, string, and paper clips.  Head outside to create a fun game!  View here.

Spray Shapes and Patterns

Spray Shapes fromhttps://www.yourtherapysource.com/blog1/2012/05/09/spray-shapes-and-patterns/

Here is an old favorite therapeutic activity – spray shapes and patterns. Cut up some fun foam into different shapes or use any foam shapes. Using a spray bottle, squirt some water on a whiteboard or mirror. The fun foam will stick to the surface.

You could trace the shapes on a dry area of the board. Once the shapes are damp the child can match them up to the outlines.

This activity encourages:

hand strengthening
wrist extension
visual perceptual skills
math concepts.

Hatching Birds

Hatching Birds at https://www.yourtherapysource.com/freehatch.html

Create these cute hatching birds to play 2 games: Find the Bird and Bird Memory.  Get your FREE download here.

The Hand Strengthening Exercise Program

The Hand Strengthening Handbook

The Hand Strengthening Handbook: digital download is a collection of more than 100 fun and playful hand strengthening ideas right at your fingertips in one easy-to-read printable resource.

The Hand Strengthening Handbook is a 48-page pdf format ebook containing:

-Information about why hand strength is important for kids
-A basic description of how the hand muscles work
-A description of what it looks like when kids have weak hand muscles
-Weight-Bearing Activities
-Pushing, Pulling & Lifting Activities
-Squeezing, Squishing & Pinching Activities
-Activities for building hand strength through everyday play

LEARN MORE.

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Here are 10+ hand strengthening activities for children using games and everyday activities from Your Therapy Source. Free downloads!