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DEVELOPING SMALL MUSCLE SKILLS

    TWEEZER FUN
    If you have a pair of tweezers, you can make a fun coordination game for your child. Give him a bowl of dry beans, macaroni, or cereal, a pair of tweezers and an empty bowl. Show your child how to pick up one of the items with the tweezers and transfer it to the empty bowl. Developing small muscles is important for young children. It will enable them to better grasp pencils, crayons and scissors when they learn to write and cut.
    SQUEEZING FUN
    To do this activity you will need an old eye dropper. This time set out a small bowl of water, the eye dropper and an empty bowl. Show your child how to transfer the water from the water bowl to the empty bowl with the eye dropper.
   
STRINGING FUN

You can help your child develop eye-hand coordination by encouraging her to do stringing projects. Such as,
  • Stringing large beads onto a shoelace.
  • Stringing cut straw pieces onto a piece of yarn
  • Stringing Cheerios on yarn to make a necklace.
NOTE: When working with yarn, your child will have an easier time if you wrap one end of the yarn with tape for a needle and tie the other end of the yarn around a bead or other object.

CAUTION: Children need to be supervised at all times when using yarn pieces over 12" long.
   

CLOTHES PIN FUN
Learning to open and close snap type clothespins is a great small muscle developer. Rig up a short clothesline for your child, by stringing a line between two chairs. Give your child some clothespins and some small pieces of cloth or baby clothes to hang on the line. This is a fun activity to do indoors or outside. It doesn't really matter what your child hangs up. Maybe he could try hanging up leaves.