Tammy L. Belcher, MS, OTR/L
ANIMAL WALKS: Lumber like a bear. Scamper like a crab. Or storm like a T-’Rex to build upper extremity stability.
CLAPPING and FINGER SONGS: Miss Mary Mac is a favorite to build bilateral coordination, timing and sequencing skills.
- MAKE IT VERTICAL: This position stabilizes the wrist and supports thumb opposition for developing dexterity. Utilize as many vertical work surfaces as possible during drawing and painting, creating with Lite- Brite, Colorforms, flannel boards, stickers and ink stamps. In the bath, try drawing in shaving cream spread over a tile wall.
- TONG PLAY: Pick up marshmallows with kitchen tongs. Shape the thumb, index and middle fingers like an “O.”
- PLAYDOH: With “your three friends”-- the thumb, index and middle fingers -- roll out tiny balls and make sculpture. Also try rolling out clay and using cookie cutters to make shapes and words.
- LACING ACTIVITIES: Allows an opportunity for the hand to work with the eyes while practicing a mature tripod grasp pattern.
- MOSAICS: Tearing construction paper with one’s “three friends,” can be a great beginning to an art project while building hand stability and using both hands together.
- CUT, CUT, CUT: When scissors are held with the thumb in one loop, the middle finger in the other and the index finger stabilizing the scissors, cutting activities exercise the same muscles in the hand that are needed to manipulate a pencil with a mature tripod grasp pattern.
