Finger isolation and awareness

Activities that requires focusing on finger movements:

• finger painting and drawing in sand and other textures
• pointing at pictures in a book
• finger rhymes
• finger puppets
• playing piano or keyboard
• using computer keyboard
• playing with toy telephone dial/buttons
• racing creepy crawlies – both hands placed on the table with fingers spread out, fingers propel hands across the table – who gets to the middle first?
• Subbuteo table football
• board games, using index finger to push counters round
• use forefinger to draw patterns and shapes in sand, clay, steamy windows
• feely bottles – fill containers with various textures. Child puts index finger in to feel the contents
• drumming the fingers on different types of surface
• bandage scrunching. Place rolled up piece of crepe bandage onto a table. Child rests his wrist on the end and fingers walk along the bandage scrunching it into the hand. Hide a small toy in the centre of the roll to make the game more fun
• playing with a variety of spinning tops
• finger lifts. Ask the child to place both hands palm down on a table. Touch each finger in turn and ask the child to lift it off the table, keeping other fingers and wrist still. When the child can do this try pointing to the finger to be lifted instead of touching it