Fine Motor Skills for Young and Old

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I just came from a discussion by @mom210 where we were sharing some ideas for fine motor skills for children. Someone else mentioned their elderly mom and many of the same ideas apply. People, kids or adults, do not want "therapy" or "treatment" they want meaningful tasks. I saw ideas about many of those, like sorting coins, or polishing silver. Great ideas. You can also get away with telling kids they are playing a game to get them to do some of the things So here we go: 1. Use tongs. Get plastic tongs. Serve veggies with them . Use them to put ice into glasses.. Small tongs about six to eight inches long. Also you can use them to pick up and manipulate small objects like those fun "eraser" toys. 2. Tiny scoops or ladles are fun to use. Transfer items from one dish to another. I have seen this done with "jewels" either acrylic aquarium stones or the glass decorative marbles. Could even do this with river rock or rounded stones. 3. Stirring up a recipe with mom or dad. It helps to set a bowl on a mat of shelf liner to hold it still, then stir up a storm. Make a batch of bread dough and have several of your kids help knead and form rolls. It is useful and meaningful work. If it is a family activity no one feels like they are being singled out to be "improved." 4. Cheerios or other similar shaped cereals as a snack. Picking them up one at a time is good for pincer skills. 5. A hardware busy board with things like a hasp style lock, or a barrel bolt lock. I may not have the right names, but a trip to a hardware store, or at my house out to the shed could get many opportunities to fiddle with stuff. Fasten down one side of a hinge so it can be flapped back and forth or make a little hinged door to open. Boys like that "manly" stuff, but so do girls. 6. Besides painting on a paper on the wall or on an easel we constructed "table desks" out of card board boxes. That is hard to explain. I probably should make one and take a picture. The idea is to cut one side of a fairly good sized box down so that the bottom is at about a forty five degree angle or slope. We would attach a clothes pin to hold the paper and then the kiddos used that to write or color or paint on. Using easels and slanted writing surfaces builds up the wrist muscles. 7. Open the lids on water bottles and refill them . You can freeze them for ice for coolers. 8. Have your child or older person help move cans around on the kitchen shelf and stack them or sort them. They get some input into their muscles that way. Okay, so I may have bored everyone completely to pieces with this, but I hope it is seen and helps someone. One of the sad things I learned is that often once a child reaches elementary school they are not funded for OT except in whatever way it is a problem for their education. So OT is basically to learn how to hold a pencil and write. I could also add that finger play games and rhymes are a great way to build fine motor skills as well as practicing simple sign language. Large puzzles too, and marble games. Stringing large beads on shoe laces or yarn. Sewing cards are easy to make for home with favorite pictures. I guess I could keep on writing.