Motor Skill Interventions versus Play-Based Lessons for Preschoolers Preschools provide many opportunities for play and motor skill development. Recent research attempted to answer the question regarding the outcomes of motor skill interventions versus play-based lessons for preschoolers. The study participants included 149 Hispanic pre-K children from low socioeconomic status. All of the children were evaluated […]
Manual Dexterity and Cognitive Functioning in Children Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology published research examining the relationship of manual dexterity and cognitive functioning in children after neonatal arterial ischemic stroke regardless of a diagnosis of cerebral palsy. The participants included 60 children with a past history of neonatal arterial ischemic stroke without epilepsy. Fifteen children had a […]
Color, Cut, and Glue Giraffe Project This fun, NO PREP, Color, Cut, and Glue Giraffe Project is FREE to download from Your Therapy Source. Practice scissors skills, fine motor skills, sequencing and more with this one page black and white freebie. DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COLOR, CUT, AND GLUE GIRAFFE PROJECT HERE. This freebie is from […]
Fine Motor Skills and Vocabulary Development Recently, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology published research examining the fine motor skills and vocabulary development in 90 preschool children. Two experiments were carried out assessing the response latencies to 45 lexical items along with fine motor skills, reasoning, and general receptive/expressive vocabulary. The 45 lexical items consisted […]
Fine Motor Skills and Reading Prior to kindergarten, fine motor skills are important for school readiness. Research indicates that fine motor skills play a role in cognition and language development. The Journal of Research in Reading recently investigated the relationship between fine motor skills and reading development in 144 kindergartners in Germany. Each child was […]
Visual Spatial Task This visual spatial task is simple to create and incorporates many developmental skills. Gather up wooden blocks or any shapes you may have. I had some foam letters to use but you could use regular puzzle pieces, letter stencils or cookie cutter letters. Get a large piece of paper or old file […]
Fine Motor Skills Linked to Numerical Skill Development When you walk into any preschool classroom, you will observe children using their fingers to count. Finger counting helps children to represent numbers and later influences the ability to complete arithmetic problems. The ability to count usually develops side by side with fine motor skill development. Many […]
Picture Pokes Freebie to Strengthen Fine Motor Skills Are you familiar with poke pictures? If not, they are pictures comprised of dots for children to poke to strengthen fine motor skills, improve hand mechanics and help with pencil grasp and control when children start writing. They are perfect for fine motor centers in the classroom […]
If you need to sneak in some bimanual and fine motor skills practice with academic material, the Slide Bag Quiz is perfect! I was reading a blog post by Dr. Jean (excellent blog) on individual response techniques and she suggested a slide bag. It seemed like a creative idea so I gave it a try. […]
Don’t you love activities that require little prep and include more than one domain of development? I do for sure so I created this Summer Match Up board that you can download for free below from the Summer Sensory Motor Packet. This activity incorporates fine motor skills, hand strengthening, visual discrimination skills and working memory […]