Hand division refers to children using just 3 fingers, their thumb, index and middle fingers to hold onto something and move it around. The last 2 fingers, the ring and pinkie, are curled up into the hand. These free activities will encourage your kids to get tons of practice!
Holding a pencil…
…can be crazy tricky at first. And if we try and force children to hold writing implements when they’re not ready for it they can develop ineffective grips that will hamper them later. This post, 10 Tips and Tricks for a Great Pencil Grip, has links to pictures and videos that can really help.
Building up those little finger muscles is something we can intentionally work on, and there are many, many posts online about fine motor skills. But hand division is not just about general motor skills, but about using those three fingers together, to manipulate objects comfortably as they need to do when holding a pencil.
Hand division
One of the best ways to do this is to play with tiny objects that are too small to hold with all 5 fingers.
So these printables are really just an excuse to give children small objects such as tiny pom poms, buttons, butter beans, small shells, play dough or whatever else you can find. Having specific places to put the objects means they have to pick up each one and carefully put it in the correct spot which takes quite a bit of control.
Counting to 10
Since we’re playing with objects it never hurts to count! Each picture has 10 circles so once the objects are placed (or before) kids can do some basic counting. Also, you could ask children to use 5 yellow pom poms and 5 red ones, for example, so they’re thinking about numbers while they’re playing.
How to prepare
Simply print off any of the five free hand division sheets and laminate them if you wish. Click on the following highlighted link to download your HAND DIVISION MATS. As soon as you click the link it will automatically save to your downloads folder (or other device equivalent).
How to play
Give your child some little objects that you consider safe… that is, not things they’re likely to put in their mouths and choke on. Pop a hand division mat in front of them and ask them to fill in the white circles with their objects. Since it’s a motor skill activity it doesn’t matter if kids choose to add extra objects to these pictures, it’s all extra practice.
What to emphasize
Have your kids practice using all three fingers to grasp objects and move them around, and curl the last two fingers up into the ball of the hand to keep them out of the way as you would when using a pencil.
For a really great overview of pre-writing skills that can be developed, including an infographic summary of practical skills kids can be working on visit THIS POST!
The infographic is below!
What types of hand division activities do your kids love most? Please leave a comment!
[…] Picking up small objects […]