OT FUN at Home
So if you’re like me and don’t have fancy kid tongs at your house (like with most of my OT materials, I did not think to grab them before I left the office to hunker down at home-cue eye roll), or are nervous about ordering things from Amazon right now, fear not! You most likely have wonderful tools that can elicit some pretty fantastic fine motor skills! Here’s a bit about how we might use what we have pictured!
Chop sticks! If you have these lying around then you have a pretty fantastic fine motor activity. You can use the chop sticks to pick up small pieces to a game, cotton balls, pom poms, or balls of play dough-BONUS-you can make “food” out of play dough with which you can use the chop sticks. Chop sticks will elicit those fine motor manipulation skills and some pretty nice finger isolation as well. This will help your child when it comes to manipulating a pencil and writing. Improving hand strength leads to less fatigue when writing so add the play dough in whenever you can!
Cooking tongs! These are great for building hand strength. Much like with the chop sticks you can add them to any game with small pieces. If you have a sensory bin (sensory bins full of cotton balls, pom poms, sticks/rocks/leaves, dried pasta would work best just because they’re bigger and easier to grab) you can add these, plus everything else pictured, to manipulate the small items:).
Forks and spoons! If you’re working on using a fork and/or spoon at mealtimes, why not bring it out to practice with during play? You can add forks and spoons to any sensory bin or you can use play dough and make pretend food that they get to pretend to eat! Trying to learn to use utensils during play takes a lot of the stress away from trying to learn at mealtime. I’m a big believer that children will do well if they can so if they’re not using the utensil at mealtime, it’s probably because it’s hard for them. Take all that pressure off and teach during play! As your child becomes more comfortable with them I bet you will naturally see them start to use the fork and/or spoon.
Spoons! If you’re looking to work on upper body stability and control, you can always put cotton balls on the spoon and have relay races, much like you might with an egg. If you don’t have cones for relay markers at your house you can flip mixing bowls upside down and use them instead!
Stay say and healthy and enjoy!
***If you’re looking to purchase some tongs during this extended hiatus from outside life, my favorites are Jumbo Tweezers and Handy Scoopers, both can be found on Amazon!