Fine Motor Skills and why we should be incorporating them everyday

Our fine motor skills are the skills we use daily, but don’t think about. They are in use when we get dressed, do the dishes, tie our shoelaces, type an email, draw a picture, even eat food or a simple smile, and that conversation you had with your child? Well there are fine motor skills there as well. So, what exactly are they?

Most people know that they involve the small muscles in your hand, while few people realise it involves the small muscle movements in your face as well – your mouth, tongue and lips, as well as your feet.

Fine motor skills sometimes need a little help to develop. There are plenty of activities available on the internet for parents and teachers to have a look at, but many do not look at the implications of using fine motor skills, and why they need to be developed properly. Let’s have a look at typical development and how these skills develop naturally.

Fine Motor Development Skills by Age
0-6 Months	·      Reflexive grasp – this should be present at birth ·      Uncontrolled or Involuntary Reaching for objects ·       Voluntary grasp ·       Using 2 hands to grasp something (whole hands, also known as the 2 handed palmar grasp) ·       By 5 months, a 1 handed palmar grasp ·         Controlled reach by 5 months
6-12 Months	·         Reaches and grasps objects, puts them into their mouth ·         Able to release objects in a controlled manner ·         Development of the pincer grasp – using the forefinger and thumb to pick up small items ·         Moves items from one hand to the other hand ·         Is dropping and picking up toys
1-2 Years	·         Building a tower of 3 or more blocks ·         Can put pegs into a pegboard ·         Turning the pages in a book ·         Scribbling ·         Paints with whole arm movement ·         Beginning to feed themselves ·         Can hold and drink from cup independently
2-3 Years	·         Beginning to thread using large beads ·         Can now turn single pages in a book ·         Starting to cut with scissors ·         Can hold a crayon, not using the fist grip ·         Beginning to use dominant hand more and more ·         Uses wrist action to paint – no longer whole arm movement ·         Can roll and pull playdough ·         Can now eat without assistance
3-4 Years	·         Now able to build a tower with 9 blocks ·         Can copy a circle and a cross ·         Can make simple items with playdough – rolling into a snake ·         Uses the non-dominant hand to help
4-5 Years	·         Can cut on a line continuously ·         Copies a cross and a square ·         Can write their own name ·         Writes number 1-5 ·         Able to copy letters ·         Established dominant hand ·         Can get dressed and undressed independently
5-6 Years	·         Can cut out simple shapes ·         Can copy a triangle ·         Can also colour in between the lines ·         Is able to hold a pencil with the tripod grip – thumb, forefinger and index finger ·         Can glue paper ·         Able to draw a basic picture
6-7 Years	·         Able to form most letters and numbers ·         Can write on the line ·         Has control over pencil movements ·         Able to build Lego or similar building blocks ·         Can tie own shoelaces

Not only do these motor skills help us eventually with writing and tying our own shoelaces, they also have an impact on our cognitive functioning.

Our motor movements have been found, with the use of neuroimaging techniques, to be linked to the cognition centres of the brain. Fine motor skills have been found to be a strong indicator of later cognitive ability, particularly reading and math skills.

This is why they are important skills to develop, and when we see them lacking we need to help out. To help you out, we have developed a fine motor checklist with activities to help identify if there is a gap in the development process. 

Using Independent Work Binders in the South African Mainstream Classroom

Independent binders are a great way of helping the learners in your class develop independent learning. This, I find particularly true in a special needs environment. Not only is it true, it is also an essential part of a special needs classroom.

But, while I realise just how important this is in my special needs classroom. I began thinking about how they can be used in a mainstream class. 

Create centers in your class

Have an area in your classroom which your learners are able to access throughout the day. In this area, place a learning activity (read:binder) which your learners need to complete at some point throughout the day. In order to do this, laminate the pages of the binder you would like to use, and supply the area with whiteboard markers for your learners to use. This activity may be math, literacy, or life skill related. It may even be an art activity. Not only, are you able to assess their level of independence, but also their level of task initiation, and task completion. 

It may also keep those fast workers occupied for a little while, and give you some time to work with your weaker learners. 

Make flashcards

Use these to create ladybug themed
 flashcards

The binders do not have to be used strictly in the sense that you would like them to be used. You can also use them as different themed flashcards. Take the Spring themed bundle and create alphabet and number flashcards as well as colour flashcards. 

Or create snail themed flashcards.

Play games

You can play games, such as snap, or even memory with what is included in the bundle. Again, print and laminate what you need and you have an instant themed game for your class. Remember, if you have different levels of groups in your class, while you are focusing on one group, you may be able to keep the other group occupied with a game. Or, use the game as a fun reinforcement activity of a concept you have been teaching. I always find games seem to help get the concept across.

If you have any more ideas, please feel free to share them in the comments below.

Reading Eggs

I recently stumbled onto a wonderful set of apps developed by the Reading Eggs team. Don't let the name fool you though. They have also designed apps for numeracy. 

Together with their apps, you are also able to create an account on their website, and follow each childs' progress. 

The apps are really great, and the kids in my class have thoroughly enjoyed working on them - in fact they will choose these apps instead of games!! Below is just a few of the apps that I have had the opportunity to work with:

• Eggy Phonics 1: Short vowel words

Eggy phonics allows you to create as many users as you need, which is really fantastic if you only have one tablet in your classroom. It will also show you the progress of each child, therefore allowing you to see where a child is struggling, and also giving you the opportunity to help that child. 

Once you have selected the child's name, you are taken to a screen which will have two options - words or reward game,

The words game, is a graduated level game. You start on level 1, and with the word cat. Once you have completed all 6 activities, you are then given a short reward and are moved onto the next activity. 

Activity one, is a simple match the word spoken to the correct picture, after completing this level correctly you must then spell the word - this gives you both the letter name and the letter sound. After completing these activities twice, you move onto bubble words - you have to pop the bubbles to spell the word. Your final activity is writing the word. You then earn a badge, and depending on how well you have done, you are awarded a certain amount of game time - you may use your game time straight away, or save it until you have a certain amount,

Eggy phonics begins with the -at word family and moves through the different families.

• Tap the Cat

Tap the Cat has various activities, ranging from Speak and Listen to Draw and Paint.

1.     Speak and Listen

The app will show you the word, and you then need to record yourself saying the word - great for those battling with a speech impediment.

2.     Smart Quiz

Here, you need to listen to the question and then select the correct question. This I find really useful when working on auditory perception skills. It begins with questions such as; “I can moo. Who am I?” It covers animal sounds and identification , initial sounds as well as associations and colour identification.

3.     Letters

The child must find the matching letters. This activity will help the child learn both the letter name and the letter sound.

4.     Writing

After writing the word, the child is then able to save their best attempt at writing the word.

5.     Sight Words

Take the bunny home to complete this very cute activity. Get the bunny to jump to the correct word until you have eaten the green carrot.

6.     Vocabulary

Matching the word to the picture – touch the word and then select the correct picture.

7.     Time to Rhyme

This activity begins with a good description of what rhyming words are. You are then given a sentence such as; On the house I see a ______ . To complete the sentence, you will need to choose the correct rhyming word.

8.     Draw and Paint

This is a fun activity, your child can paint 6 different pictures.

Eggy Words 250 HD

This is one of the favourites in my class. This is a variety of sight words, which appear on the screen on eggs. You need to touch the correct word. You can choose different speeds and levels. This is a great activity to help with visual tracking.

Eggy Add to 20

In this app there are various games to choose from; balloons, teddy, snowboard, sheepdog, memory and fishing. You are given a sum, and then need to choose the correct answer. With this app, the activities are all very different and require different skills. Some require you to find the answer, while others require you to work out what numbers will give you the answer.

 All of these apps are available in the South African App store as well, and are R24.99 each.

Turn Your Class Into A Democracy

With the elections coming up we, as teachers, have a golden opportunity to turn our classrooms into a democracy and educate our learners about what is about to happen in our country.

It's real life, it's what mom and dad are talking about and it's important to learn about. So, how do we do this?

Use what you have in your classroom. And keep it simple. Maybe even decide on some new class rules. Or the themes that you want to use during the term.

Let's take the theme option for now. Give your class an option of themes, so, dinosaurs, wild animals, pirates, insects, books, pets, our country, food, shops and transport. That's 10 quite exciting themes, but you only have 4 weeks. Draw up a voting sheet with pictures and words for each theme. Download my example here.

Let your class vote on a Friday, and use the week before to explain each theme briefly (kind of like the way political parties describe themselves). Explain to you class what confidential means, and that it's their vote, and nobody else's.

On the Friday, set up your class as a voting station. Explain the procedure (maybe even include this as a schedule). Let them queue up outside, come in (they could even have ID books that you can make - see mine here). Stamp their books, take their fingerprint, and mark their thumb. Give them their sheet and let them go into a little cubicle to place their X. And then post their ballot.

Once everyone has completed this, bring them all into the class and explain that the themes with the most votes will be the theme for the term.

Take the votes out of the box, draw a tally table on the board.. And wait to see which themes will win.  

Bust the road trip boredom

Firstly, our apologies for being so quiet! It's the end of term and that means the end of term rush - reports and assessments! But that also means holidays are fast approaching and for many of us that also includes long car trips with kids who will inevitably become bored. So we have put together a list of games to play in the car, activities to do and even some apps to play! You can use these on a plane too!

• Scramble

Choose someone to start and tell them to think of a word (DO NOT say it out). They then need to scramble up the word and say the letters in a random order so if they think of the word chips, they could say the letters P, C, S, I, H. Everyone else then needs to guess the word. The person who gets it right is then next to think of a word. Really great to keep those spelling skills intact

• 20 questions

This is an old favourite! One person thinks of an object (or anything for that matter) and everyone else gets to asks 20 yes or no questions. Remember they have to be a yes or no question and there are only 20 questions!

• I spy

Yup, it's another oldie! Look for an object and say I spy with my little eye something beginning with ... And say the first letter of the object. The person to get it right wins the next turn.

• Mental maths

Look at the number plates of the cars around you and use the numbers to create a sum, or even the letters to make up a word.

• Eat the alphabet

So, this is a variation on the I'm packing for a picnic. Instead you start with "I'm so hungry I could eat an anteater", the next person continues with "I'm so hungry I could eat an anteater and a..." (something that begins with a b). And so you continue through the alphabet. Of course, you could play the original version, with this one the person starts with "I'm packing for a picnic and I pack a sandwich" The next person then says "I'm packing for a picnic and I pack a sandwich and a hotdog" and so you carry on using the last letter of the word. 

• Word Stretch

Every time you hear the question, "Are we there yet?" turn it into a game. Get your child to come up with as many words as possible with the letters in the question. So, you could have ate, weather, year and so many more.

• The house on the hill

This is a really fun creative game! When you see a mysterious house on a hill (or wherever really), come up with a story about the house. Who lives there, what do they do, how many children do they have, do they have animals. This is really great to get the imaginative juices flowing.

• Colour Safari

Choose a colour and then get the kids to find 100 objects of that colour. The first person to get to 100 gets to choose the next colour. 

• Sweet and Sour

Let the kids wave to passing cars, if the car waves back they are sweet, if they don't they are sour!

• Rock, paper, scissors

An all time favourite! I don't think we need elaborations on this one.. Except for a reminder: rock beats scissors, scissors cuts paper, and paper covers rock.

• Team Storytelling

Start off with one person saying "Once upon a time there lived a dragon.." the next person continues the story saying "Once upon a time there lived a dragon who had a mouse for a friend" and so you carry on. You don't have to start with Once upon a time.

• The banana game

Whenever someone spots a yellow car they get a point. This is a variation on the punchbuggy game, but may lead to less fights! You can decide on a number for to achieve to win or give a time limit, and the person who has the most by the time limit is the winner.

• True or False

This will keep those mental juices flowing! Come up with a statement and let the kids answer true or false. You can easily change the level of this game depending on the age of your child. 

• Rhyming

Think up a word and  then you say "I'm thinking of a word that rhymes with dog and starts with l". The first person to then get log gets the next turn.

• Alphabet game

Look for sign boards and find one with a word that begins with an a, then look for one that has a word that begins with a b and so on...

• Broken telephone

Start with one person whispering a story to another person, and then that person whispers to the next. The last person then tells the story out loud! This can often turn out to be quite funny!

• Name that tune

Choose a theme, movies, series games, cartoons etc. And then one person hums the tune, everyone else must try to guess the song.

• Dictionary

Someone thinks up a word, real or made-up, and then everyone else has to guess if it's real or not. You may need a dictionary for this or a tablet which has a dictionary or internet access.

• Backseat activity bag:

This is for when everyone just wants a little quiet time. Make up a bag with a colouring book/pages a clipboard to lean on, some crayons, books, and iPad or tablet (look out for our list on great apps for the car trip), magnetic board games, headphones and an iPod or MP3 player. Juice, water, chips and snacks. 

Mostly, make your journey part of your holiday. We have such a beautiful country and often we just want to get to where we are going. Stop and have a Wimpy breakfast, let the kids run off some energy and give yourself a break! Also remember your seatbelts and get a good nights sleep before a long trip!

Travel safely guys!