Let your fingers do the dancing!

We can prepare children's hands for learning to write long before they have to pick up writing tools. When children start writing and drawing, their fingers and hands have to work as hard as a marathon runner's legs. No one tries to run a marathon without doing some training first. Finger Gym can provide that training.

Our focus this term is to provide activities that will improve the children’s fine motor skills. One way of doing this is by engaging in finger gym activities. These are a great way to improve their hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity. Finger gym activities are essential for a variety of tasks including writing, eating, dressing and playing.

In FS2 we have provided threading beads, pegs, squeezing balls, paper for tearing and cutting and engaged in clapping games and songs. However, our favourite finger gym activities at circle time are play dough dancing and scribbling along to songs that have different beats. The children have been fully engaged, listening to and following simple instructions, making big and small precise movements, as well as strengthening the muscles in the fingers and hands by scribbling using different writing material.

Our fingers have truly been dancing!