I am often asked to provide exercises or activities that children can carry out in the home setting to improve hand skills, so I thought I would share some of the tasks that I usually recommend. Please keep in mind that these may need to be adapted to meet the skill level of the child. Also, it is important to make the activities enticing and fun. You can incorporate them into games or time the child completing them so that they can try and improve their time on the next attempt!
Painting by the numbers is an awesome art activity that is good for a child's eye hand coordination and fine motor skills! It is also good for recognizing numbers and colors because the child has to match the number on the color key and then paint that color in the correct space.
Anyone can create this DIY activity! All you need is a basic water color set that can by found at your local craft shop or dollar store. You'll also need some construction paper and a sharpie and possibly some puff paint. Label each color with a number, and then create some simple drawings such as a house, person, tree, car, flower, etc. Next you will need to add numbers to the different parts of the drawings. If the child has difficulty staying in the lines when painting, you can outline the drawings with puff paint! Now it's time to paint. This activity is also a fun way to work on following directions and attending to task!
