Cool TWEEZERs are Tuesday’s TOY of the Week!
Fine motor skills are important, but we cannot start to practice cutting until a child’s hand is ready. Instead, we use play-based activities to build muscle memory and coordination needed for future functional use in school and life. One of the most fun activities for kids is to use tweezers – not the pointed ones adults use, but fun and colorful ones designed for fun!
There are many types of tweezers available for children. Some of my favorites are those which are colorful and big enough for little hands. Fine motor work is important to those tasks involving dressing (zippers, snaps, buttons, and tying); feeding, handwriting, scissors use, and many more. To work on fine motor, kids can try to pick small items up during crafts and other fun activities using their middle and index fingers and the thumb.
Scoopers are an awesome toy for building skills needed for cutting/scissors use. The motion is the same but the game’s much different! Instead of cutting, the scoopers closed to hold items such as rice, water, legos, and more. Kids can then open the handle and release the items into another container.
Adding tweezers to the task makes it more challenging. Older children enjoy the extra difficulty of using tweezers. Chopsticks are cheap (or sometimes free) and are great to build fine motor skills.
The tweezers above are perfect for children in pre-school and Kindergarten. I like the fact that they are oversized and easy to squeeze. I often use them for older children with low tone or really weak tripod grasp/fine motor skills. Another huge benefit is that after the child squeezes them, they spring back to easily release the item. One of the most difficult things for kids when beginning to use scissors is the ‘release’ or extending the fingers. The tweezers above are great for kids of all ages and skill levels. I love the bright colors and the fact that they come in a bucket for easy storage.
Another fun type of tweezer is often found in dollar stores. It even comes in colors. Kids can ‘pretend’ they are like you in the kitchen when using these silicone tongs.
