These activities can be completed as a transition between activities, as a muscle warm-up for pencil and paper activities, or when one is feeling restless.
Pancake Pushes
Place the palm of hands together and push hard to squash a pretend pancake.
Spider Push-Ups
Place the palms of hands together, resting fingertips against each other. Demonstrate pushing fingertips against each other to bring palms of hands apart (imagine that a ball can now fit in the created space).
Doughnut Pulls
Make a doughnut with the thumb and index fingers of each hand. Now interlock these doughnuts and pull hands apart but don’t break the doughnuts.
Lobster Claw Pulls
Create a claw with each of their hands. Lock claws together and pull hands apart. Keep the claws strong.
Hot Seat
Put both hands on the seat of a chair. Use your hands/arms to support weighthave them push their bottoms up off the chair.
Hand-Awareness
Clapping patterns both individually or in partners. Incorporate crossing over the body’s midline into the pattern. Take turns “leading” the clapping pattern.Hands flat on table (palm down or palm up).
Child raises and wiggles one or two fingers as instructed by the leader. A child can be chosen to “lead”. Vary by having children placing hands up and out of sight at their side. Allow them to “check” their own answer by turning their head, or have a partner check them.
Use a lump of playdoh or plasticine. Poke at it with various fingers, squeeze it as hard as possible, lean on it to flatten it, make it into a shape (l, n, s, etc.).
Squirt a small amount of hand lotion (low allergy, non-perfumed) on each child’s hand. Have them rub it all in until it is not visible and hands are no longer “greasy” feeling (so pencils don’t slip when they print).
Tug-Of-War
Child can pull on each end of a pencil in a pretend game of tug-of-war with themselves.
Fiddle and Flip
Put the pencil in a “ready to write” position. Without moving their forearm or wrist, and without using the other hand, try to turn the pencil over as if to “erase”. Turn it back again to the “writing” position.
Walk Down the Block
Place the pencil in the “ready to write” position. Lift wrist slightly off the page – now move fingers only so you are holding the pencil at the eraser end instead of near the point (“walk” your fingers up the shaft). Now “walk” back down to the point.
Log Roll
Put your pencil across your palm. Use the thumb only to log roll it up and down your flat fingers – how far can you go? (You may “cup” your hand slightly!)
Pinch Press
Pinch the pencil with the tip of index finger and thumb only. Then pinch it with thumb and middle, thumb and ring, and thumb and little finger.