Who doesn’t love a pizza?! This fine motor pizza is going to target the foundations for pencil grip and ultimately pencil control. This is the all-in-one pizza with all the fine motor toppings included! Perfect for fine motor activities for …
For years I have stubbornly refused to give age norms for the development of scissor skills milestones. This is because I firmly believe that following and mastering each developmental sequence is way more important than the age at which they …
There is nothing like the excitement of the season to engage our children in the very activities they generally choose to avoid because they are difficult. These gorgeous skull and crossbones Halloween cutting activities are right up there with the …
For those who are new to the field of handwriting, this can serve as a checklist for the areas that must be considered when preparing our children for this life skill. While not exhaustive, many of the critical areas are …
There is enough out there on pencil grasp development to know when a pencil grasp looks a bit – or more than a bit – dodgy. But the question that comes up repeatedly is when to change pencil grip for …
When considering the motor aspects of handwriting help for kids, looking at points of stability and movement can give us really good clues as to where to direct our intervention for improving handwriting mechanics. Controlled movement always needs a point …
There is no doubt that our children get caught up in the excitement of Christmas! It is also a time when many are on a school break. We can harness that excitement to keep their fine motor on track with …
We have moved on from the rigid view we had of the functional pencil grasp back in the 90s. We now know that pencil grip for handwriting is governed by principles and pencil grasp stages rather than one grasp alone. …
Tactile discrimination is the ability to use the touch information from the fingers and hand to identify an object without seeing it. The brain uses this touch information to know which fingers are holding onto the pencil. In addition to …
I have always enjoyed analysing popular hand strengthening activities for kids to see if they offer the benefits they claim to. Are broken crayons all they are cracked up to be? Do q-tips develop the small muscles of the hands, …
More and more, I hear people asking if pencil grasp should be taught, or will our children automatically learn the correct pencil grip on their own? Is it inherently pre-programmed that we can confidently leave for nature to take care …
When we are helping children with handwriting foundations, sometimes all we want are some easily accessible grab-and-go activities we can implement at a moments notice. While we do love to know the theory behind everything, we also need fun activities to …
Once your child is in preschool, the words “pencil grip” and “pencil grasp” suddenly seem to be important. Does pencil grip matter? Is it important how children hold their pencils, and can this really impact their future schooling? Is there …
I always say they should have called it finger writing not handwriting. Simply because it is the discrete refined finger movements, isolated from the hand movements, which facilitate pencil control for handwriting and are necessary for handwriting speed and quality. …
Over the past number of years it seems that cursive handwriting has, in some circles, fallen out of favour. There seems to be little time during the school day for teaching cursive handwriting and many note that so many children …