ABC's, 123's, and Fine Motor...WHAT???

Well, the countdown is on! In just 17 short days I will meet my students for the 2011/2012 school year...and I am getting really excited!

With the start of this new school year I want to really focus on writing in my kindergarten classroom. I feel that we have lost some of the "other" subjects in an effort to cater to reading and math. Although I feel reading and math are very important, I also believe that some children will not come alive in their learning until we introduce them to writing...social studies...science...and all of the other lost "subjects". For today I am focusing on writing...but perhaps not writing in the way your are thinking. Many of the students in my classroom will come to me not having had much along the lines of fine motor work. How are they going to learn to write, if they can't maneuver their fingers to work in the write way. SO, for the first few weeks, fine motor activities it will be! Here are some of the ideas that I have found so far...what are your ideas?

Push Pin Punch Outs
I know...I know...many of you are probably thinking I am crazy to turn a bunch of new kindergartners loose with push pins, but no worries, they will be supervised:)! This is a great activity which will promote students using the "Pincher Grasp" which is what they will use when they are taught to hold a pencil correctly. The activity is simple. The student uses a push pin to punch out shapes from paper. All you need is some kind of "punching mat" (cardboard, carpet scrap, cork board, etc.), push pins, and shapes on paper. I will be starting the year by giving my students shapes to punch out, but as they get more advanced I will give them basic shapes to trace onto paper and then they will use the push pin to punch them out. And to appease those who do not want writing instruction done during reading time, you could use block letters as the shapes, which means they are not only developing some fine motor skills, but they are also practicing letter recognition! (I have read that puzzle pieces with the knobs make for great items to practice tracing techniques!) Click here to learn more about push pin punch outs!

Clothes Pins:
It seems that I always have a center or workshop using clothes pins. This year, I will have a center dedicated to moving things using just a clothespin. Students will move objects from on location to another using just a clothes pin. Objects fun for moving...cotton balls, crayons, Lego's, balled up paper, small toys, etc.

Stringing Beads:
This is a pretty easy center to set up as you can usually find packages of beads for with string in the dollar section at Target or even at the Dollar Store.

Nuts and Bolts:
This is going to be GREAT for my kiddos. First it will help them to continue to develop their fine motor skills, but they can also use the bolts for measurement. And being that the nuts and bolts will be different sizes, so they will have to use their spatial reasoning to help solve this problem!

Fill the Bank:
In this activity students will use coins to "Fill the Bank". Putting coins into a coin slot again encourages use of the pincher grasp, and therefore builds strength for holding a pencil. To connect this to graph building and data collection (another goal of mine for this year) my students will place the coins into the bank and create a graph as they go along. At the end they will be able to see which coin they had the most of and how many coins they put into the bank!

These are just a few ideas...more to come tomorrow with pictures:)!