Fine motor skill development made fun!!! Noughts and crosses and Pick up sticks!!!

We are now back at school and after a bumpy first 2 weeks I finally managed to have a meeting with Master 5’s teacher and his teaching assistant today. I just wanted to touch base and see how he had been going as I know they are just beginning to assess each child and see where they are.

I was sad, but not surprised to learn that Master 5 has really been struggling. His fine motor skills are as I have mentioned previously only in the 1% range. His low muscle tone and joint hyper mobility are making it very difficult for him.

The only solution is to kick up our therapy and strengthening exercises and take it one day at a time. So being that he has become a little bit board with the resources we have been using over the holidays I made a little trip to my local shopping mall today to see what I could find to mix things up a little.

I was lucky enough to find a few things that I think we can use and introduce into his daily therapy sessions here at home. First item I picked up was a wooden noughts and crosses game.

This cute fun little game was a great buy. The repetitive action of placing the noughts and crosses on the board strengthen the muscles in the fingers. This is imperative for Master 5 at this stage. It is also a quick game, which means that he is less likely to loose focus and become board.

Although we have played this game befor on paper, I had to re explain the rules to Master 5 and try to get him to understand the idea. He had this notion that as soon as all your pieces were on the board you were the winner. I have a feeling I may have to explain this game a few more times as Master 5 has some trouble retaining information, another challenge we are looking into.

The next little bargain I grabbed was a wooden game of pick up sticks. Again this is a fantastic fine motor skill development tool. Using little fingers to remove the sticks one at a time is again excellent for building and strengthening muscle tone in both he fingers and the arms.

It is also a game of patience and control. Having to move slowly so as not to knock down the other sticks made this game a lot more difficult, which I like because I know it it having the desired affect but Master 5 found it very challenging.

To be honest, I found it really challenging as well. This game is not easy. I think we both only managed to remove one stick each successfully before the sticks all collapsed in a pile, I found this terribly annoying, Master 5 found it hilarious. In fact I think he spent more time picking up the sticks and re setting the game than we actually did playing it. I didn’t mind in the end because even picking the little sticks up of the table took him an enormous amount of concentration and effort.

He really enjoyed both games and I’m sure he will not mind playing them on a daily basis. The more games and activities I can find that can be played in short bursts the better. As one becomes to difficult or challenging we can swap to the next game. This should lead to more time working on his fine motor skills but less meltdowns and frustration at having to do he same things again and again.

I picked up a few other items on today’s little shopping trip but I will keep them for next time. Until then, if you have any games or activities you would like to share please do so in the comments.

Thanks for reading.

@mumofmany.