As an Occupational Therapist, I work with many kids both in the clinic and school setting that struggle with cutting, pencil grasp, and writing skills. One factor that often comes into play when kids have difficulty in this area is decreased hand strength. Below is a list of fun hand strengthening activities that can be practiced with many supplies you may already have at home or that are inexpensive to purchase.
*this post contains amazon affiliate links for ease with finding recommended items
1.Playdough and Silly Putty
This is a fun hand strengthening activity that can be used in so many ways. I love having my kids squish playdough with their whole hand and use seasonal cookie cutters to make fun designs. I also like to hide beads or smaller items in playdough and have the kids find these items (we call it finding the hidden treasure.) I also like to have the kids roll it out into a long snake and then pinch the length of the snake with thumb and pointer finger or cut up the snake with scissors to practice cutting skills (with close supervision of adult.) You can also use silly putty for the finding the hidden items activity to add more difficulty to this activity as silly putty provides more resistance than playdough.
2.Clothespin Activities
Squeezing clothespins with your thumb on one side, and pointer and middle finger on the other side is a great way to build hand strength and promote separation of the 2 sides of the hand (both important with cutting and writing skills.) If you don’t have any at home, you can easily buy them at craft stores. They often have seasonal or painted ones on the target dollar rack (one of my favorite places to get great items) I will then have kids squeeze and place on the outside of a container or shoe box. You can even incorporate academics by having the kids match by color or match letters/numbers, or even spell words with the clothespins (when letters are placed on clothespins.)
3.Tweezer Games/Activities
There are so many great games that use tweezers, some of my favorites are –Bed Bugs Game, Operation, The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game, and Take 10! Color Bug Catchers Game If you don’t have any kid sized tweezers, my favorite ones to use for smaller hands are Learning Resources Gator Grabber Tweezers (see pic below.)
With these tweezers, there are many house hold items you can practice picking up, some of my favorites are cotton balls and dry pasta. Tweezers are great for practice of use of your distal hand skills (using the tips of your fingers) which are important for cutting skills development.
4.Squirt Bottle
This is another great item that most people have in their house that helps to strengthen the hand and also uses the same hand motion that is used with scissors, so it is a great pre scissor skill activity. You can use a squirt bottle with water to have your kids help with watering plants or even have your kids create a drawing with marker on coffee filters and then use the squirt bottle to spray it with water to create tie dye art.
5.Foam Stickers
Peeling foam stickers take a fair amount of fine motor precision and hand strength to peel. There are so many fun seasonal foam stickers to spruce up art projects and hand made cards. Kids love these! I usually find mine at the dollar store and the target dollar rack.
6. Legos/Duplos/Blocks with Resistance
Use of blocks with resistance are great for hand strengthening in a fun play based way! My daughter loves her LEGO DUPLOs and this is the toy she uses most out of all her toys! You can also use B. Toys – Pop Snap Beads, [amazon text=Brackitz&asin=B017V3WZYC], Brackitz STEM Discovery Building Toysor other blocks/toys that have some resistance to them.
7.Crafts with Elmers Glue
Squeezing liquid glue is a great way to strengthen hands. I like to use Elmer’s Liquid Glitter Glue or regular Elmers glue to trace over lines in craft projects to add some visual motor skills work and then sprinkle glitter on top for some extra pizzazz!
I hope you find these activities helpful and fun for hand strengthening skills practice!
Created by Kim Heyer OTR/L 10/2016
Thank you so much for these helpful tips and ideas, with direct links to products to purchase. I truly appreciate you sharing these ideas for other parents, and providers. I am both a mother of a child with hypotonia, and child psychologist, who utilizes these tools daily. I often share these types of tools with parents I counsel, especially those of whom have children on the spectrum, with ADHD, or with low tone. Thanks again, Dr. Krista Puente Trefz, Melbourne, Florida
Your welcome, so glad to hear you found this info helpful!
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Wonderful post – thank you! I’ll use these ideas in my preschool classroom this year : )
Thank you so much Mary! I’m so glad to hear you found these activity ideas helpful 🙂