Recently I was at a school IEP meeting for a child evaluated at Emerge. I suggested that one of his OT goals might be competency in functional fine motor activities and gave a couple of examples. The school OT was happy to work on such activities, but asked for a list of suggestions. The result is the list below. These are practical, functional skills that allow children to be successful with everyday tasks. It is geared towards elementary aged students, with some items, such as shuffling cards, more appropriate for those children at least in the third grade. Make a copy of the list. Summer is a great time for your child to learn some new skills.
• Wrapping a rubber band twice around a deck of cards.
• Shuffling cards.
• Rolling up art work or poster and placing a rubber band around it.
• Tearing tape off of a tape dispenser.
• Wrapping a small present.
• Repairing a broken game box, neatly taping corners.
• Using a ruler to measure.
• Tearing perforated pages out of a workbook or spiral notebook.
• Dressing a Barbie, Bratz or GI Joe doll.
• Unwrapping a CD.
• Loading coins into a paper coin sleeve.
• Stapling papers together.
• Removing staples using staple remover.
• Using a hole punch in a targeted location.
• Using a paper brad.
• Paper clipping papers together.
• Sharpening pencils with a manual pencil sharpener.
• Opening three ring binder, placing papers, then closing binder.
• Threading a needle.
• Sewing on a button.
• Using a potato peeler to peel a carrot or potato.
• Untying shoes that have been double knotted.
• Neatly (and appropriately) folding paper and putting into envelopes.
Quarter-fold for small envelopes
One-third fold for legal envelopes