I remember my grade three teacher well. Unfortunately, I mostly remember her for the little plastic triangle that she would place on my pencil in an attempt to get me to write with the correct hand position. I was a sweet and docile student, but I bit that little plastic triangle in half. Yes, I bit it in half, and continued to write in an incorrect hand position that I still use to this day. Later, in grade seven, I was a straight A student, with the exception of handwriting. For that, I got a solid F. Little wonder that I now have a love affair with the keyboard and avoid that dreaded pencil!
Ah, the genes come back to bite you, don’t they? My daughter appears to have her dad’s naturally athletic streak and is fabulous at kicking a soccer ball. However, her fine motor skills and her grip on a pencil leave something to be desired. I’m reluctant to push those little plastic triangles – after all, they didn’t taste so good. So I am looking for other options to improve her grip and her fine motor control so that it never becomes an issue in school. Fun options, to be precise.
What have I found?
She loves beading, so we’ve been doing a lot with little wooden beads. Place the string on a plastic craft needle if stringing the beads is too difficult. You can also bead with macaroni.
We love Playmobil and Lego. Playmobil figures are excellent for fine motor control, since they have a great number of tiny pieces. Make sure that you keep these tiny pieces in a little box, or you’ll lose them. While we’re still working with Duplo, I plan to introduce little Legos sometime soon as well.
We have a wonderful child’s tool set with read wood and metal tools. Since she’s recently professed to be interested in hammering, I might bring it out sooner rather than later. Wrenches and screwdrivers are a good way for children to practice fine motor control. Just bring out the safety googles as well!
My current favourite plan is the mini-marshmallow, however. Like many families, we have a collection of partially-petrified miniature marshmallows in our cupboard. They’re not particularly good for eating and we try not to eat many anyway, but they’d sure be good as part of a toothpick and marshmallow sculpture.
Do you have any fun ways to get your preschooler ready to write?