Hand and finger strength

Building strong hands and fingers is an important stage of a child’s development. This comes before learning to write.

As your child strengthens the muscles in their hands, they will be able to do more things by themselves.

In Reception class, children will:

  • Use paintbrushes, chalk, crayons, felt pens and pencils to make controlled marks.
  • Use scissors.
  • Use cutlery at mealtimes.
  • Build with construction sets.
  • Start to form letters.

Top Tip

If they’re finding small movements tricky, keep practising big movements like rolling, stretching and throwing a ball.

Ways to practise at home

Construction and building blocks

Any kind of building or construction helps children to develop hand controls skills. 

Try to build a tower with blocks, yoghurt pots, toilet rolls or cereal boxes.

Take a look at this video for inspiration – BBC Tiny Happy People – Building towers against the clock

Spray bottle

Wash and rinse a spray bottle and fill with water. Let them use the spray outside, in the bath, or on windows. It might seem simple but it uses all the right muscles. 

They might need your help at first as they build up their strength. Keep going until they can do it on their own.

Where to start

Before your child can learn to correctly hold a pencil and form letters, it is important for them to develop their hand and finger strength. Threading is a great way for your child to practice their fine motor skills. There are lots of fun threading activities, try these below…

  • Spaghetti and cheerios
    You will need: playdough, uncooked spaghetti and cheerios.
    Stand the spaghetti up in the playdough and encourage your child to thread the cheerios onto the spaghetti. When your child is ready you could add a colander for them to thread the spaghetti through the colander holes before threading the cheerios onto the spaghetti. This will make the spaghetti move as they thread the cheerios onto it, making it that little bit trickier.
  • Pipe cleaners
    You can use pipe cleaners to thread things on. You could use beads, cut up straws or could use a hole punch to make some holes in some leaves to thread onto.
  • Playdoh/salt dough
    Playing with playdoh/salt dough- ask your child to manipulate and move the playdoh/salt dough, e.g. squeeze it, pinch it, roll it, etc. Search Dough Disco for videos on YouTube. When your child is ready ask them to create something with their playdoh/salt dough, e.g. a hedgehog, a dinosaur, etc.

Things to try next

  • As children become more confident with threading activities, you could try threading onto string instead which is a little less rigid. This could be beads, bobbins or penne pasta.
  • In a tray, place pompoms or items of a similar size and weight. Add empty ice cube trays or bowls alongside some children’s tweezers or cooking tongs from the kitchen. Encourage your child to use the tweezers to pick up the pompoms and place them into the ice cube tray/bowl. Using the tweezers will help your child develop strength and control.
  • Helping around the house. Encouraging your child to help around the house with certain jobs will help support their hand and finger strength. Let your child help you with pegging up the washing on the washing line. Learning to open and close the pegs really helps build strength in their fingers. You could also let them help you with the washing up, encouraging them to squeeze out the sponge builds strength in their hands.

If you feel like your child needs more support…

Start with these tips below.

  • Start with using larger building bricks for your child to build with to help them build up their strength and coordination before moving on to small bricks.
  • If your child is finding threading activities tricky, start with a rigid material, such as a pipe cleaner and using something with a large whole e.g. cut up toilet roll tubes.
  • Playdough is a fantastic way to help make hands nice and strong. Start with just letting your child explore the playdough. Squashing it, rolling it or patting it.

Top Tip

The more your child uses their hands in different ways, the stronger they will get.

Books

  • Builder Bugs: A Busy Pop-up Book by David A. Carter (Little Simon, 2012)

  • The Smartest Giant in Town: A Push, Pull and Slide Book by Julia Donaldson and Alex Scheffler (Macmillan Children’s Books, 2022)

This page is part of our Ready Steady School series, helping you and your little one get ready for school.

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