Fine Motor Skills Activities: Part 6

To repeat what I said during "Fine Motor Skills Activites: Part 1":

"I have been busy lately doing activities with my kids that are more learning-type activities and not as blog friendly as kids crafts. I wanted to do a series of post about fine motor skills though because that is something we have been focusing on at my house. My daughter started kindergarten this year and I spent so much time before kindergarten making sure that she knew her letters, sounds, shapes, colors, starting basic reading and site words, etc that in retrospect I didn't probably spend as much time on fine motor activities like writing her name and scissors as I should have. She is a little behind in those categories so I searched the internet for a variety of activities I could do with her that would help her fine motor skills that were fun activities and not just practicing writing letters and scissor cutting (although we do that too). I thought maybe this might be helpful for someone else in my same position. I actually made a little fine motor activities bin that we work from and she just gets to pick activities from it and the best part is she gets excited about it and doesn't know she is 'working'. "

Gazz-it! Play

 

Supplies:

-One container of Gazz-it!

I like to get a lot of my learning things for my kids from the dollar store by our house. I think ours is a "Dollar Tree", but I'm sure you could find good teaching things in whatever dollar store you have by your house.  During Christmas time I found this little gem, "Gazz-it!" there. Maybe I have just been in the dark, but I had never seen this before.  Maybe this is like moonsand or something, but I have never used that before either. Anyway, it looked fun.....and it was!!

I bought two different colors for my girls to use.  If you too have never seen this before, they are tiny Styrofoam balls that stick together and mold together like play dough.  As I mentioned before, play dough is fine-motor skill's best friend because it worked your hands and fingers in so many different ways. I figured this would be similar and also work those little hands in all those great ways that play dough does.  It was a little difficult to get out of the container because it is sticky, but all the better to work your fingers before you even start playing.

 

They smooshed it, torn it, flattened it, formed it, pinched it, shaped it, etc. It was a hit.

If you happen to come across this stuff and you want something to help your child's fine motor skills, I would highly recommend it, especially if you can buy it for a dollar like I did. I would share a link to buy it online, but I couldn't find it online anywhere, at least not under this name.  I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have fun playing with it just for my own entertainment too.