Helping Hands Olympics

As the school year starts to come to a close, and we prepare for next year, I’ve been going to many preparatory meetings at the kids’ school about next year.  Of all of the information I was inundated with, one alarming fact, which was actually said offhand in response to a question, stuck out.  Many kids nowadays don’t have the coordination and hand strength to tie their shoes or even to write.  Apparently when we substitute things like climbing trees for video games and written letters for emails, our kids are losing the muscles in their hands.  It was said that most kids by what I think was 3^rd grade don’t have the muscles in their hands to write a multiple page paper at one sitting.  It was also said that most Kindergarteners not only can’t tie their shoes, but have never even been presented with the opportunity to try to tie their shoes in today’s world of slip-ons and Velcro.  That’s really alarming (and sociologically interesting) to me!

So today I want to work on developing hand strength in my kids.  I remember my parents had these two toys that we were supposed to use to work on our hand-to-eye coordination when I was a kid – a paddleball and some kind of hand weight that looked like two handles and you squeezed it together.  I still remember sitting in the office of my house growing up fighting with those stupid things while my very athletic younger brother seemed to effortlessly walk around and talk while paddle balling.  I am going to find something different, and less frustrating, to build the kids hand muscles.  That being said, we do have paddleballs that we got as party favors from one of the kids’ friends and we paddleball quite often anyway.  The kids think it’s hilarious for the most part and are very triumphant if they manage to knock the ball a couple of times in a row. 

Before I start I must say that I found this to be the most fascinating thing I have looked up in a long time!  I could have read forever about on the physical skills that we, as a society, are slowly losing over time…if I had actual free time.  If you haven’t figured out that I’m a dork yet, then, Hi.  Welcome to my blog.  J 

THE THEORY

Hand strengthening is apparently not as straightforward as it sounds.  In order to best develop a child’s hand and arm muscles, you must address:

	How it used to be done	How we can do it now
Bilateral integration – shifting weight between two hands	Swinging on monkey bars	Score one for gymnastics lessons and expensive backyard playsets! Also, hand-over-hand rope pulling, drumming with both hands, and passing a ball by receiving it in one hand and passing it with the other hand in a circle
Shoulder and postural stability	Wheelbarrow races (when one kid holds your feet and you race on your hands) – apparently according to my husband this is a southern game because he grew up in Philly and has never heard of it.  We used to do it all the time in Texas.	Pouring from a pitcher or watering can, shooting baskets, scooting forward or backward while sitting in a rolling chair by pulling with arms on something stable
Wrist extension stability	Crab walking – apparently my husband was childhoodless!	Leaning on one hand while working on a large picture
Stability in the arches of the hands	Rolling play, or real, dough Also whole-hand spray bottles (not the currently popular finger trigger kind)	Play dough still works, if you protect the floor first.  Also, pour sand or rice or anything loose and small grained into your kid’s hands and have them try to hold onto the sand for as long as they can.
Thumb opposition/ open webspace (the space between pointer and thumb) strengthening	Using clothespins to hang clothes	Use tweezers or tongs to grab things.  I wish we had Operation now, although Abby stills puts a lot of things in her mouth so that may necessitate an actual operation. Also use eye droppers.
Separate function of the two sides of the hand	Tearing paper or using scissors while holding the paper in the other hand	Precisely placing stickers Also, applying toothpaste to a toothbrush The old fashioned pat your head and rub your belly works too.
In-hand manipulation skills	Twirling coins through your fingers. Bead stringing and friendship bracelet making.  Also Lightbrite.	Finger walkers- hold a pencil like you’re going to write with it and walk your fingers towards the eraser without dropping it. Also, make a bead or pasta necklace.
Hand and finger strength	Hole punchers and staplers and any construction tool	Seal a Ziploc bag or use glittler glue in a squeeze bottle.

THE FUN PART

What we actually did was to have a Kiddie Olympics.  The events were designed to address all of the hand strength categories and then a few random fun events were thrown in.  I wanted to give the kids a Cheerio for each successfully completed event so that they could thread in onto a string to make their Olympic prize necklaces, but alas breakfast stole my remaining prizes and I couldn’t find anything else to string so we didn’t do that part.

The kids were super excited for the Kiddie Olympics all day so when they got up from their naps, they were ready to go.  I was armed with a list of events and ready to go too.

Event 1:  The Tong Grab and Ziploc Seal

The first event of the Kiddie Olympics was to work on open webspace (that space between your pointer and your thumb) strengthening and finger strength.  It was also designed to get the kids excited about the Kiddie Olympics although as it turned out I didn’t need to do that.

I get out some giant kitchen tongs and some mini M&Ms from the kids’ Easter baskets.  I tell them to take turns picking up M&Ms with the tongs and putting the M&Ms in their Ziploc bags.  In the end we will zip up the bags and eat the M&Ms after dinner.

Event 2:  The Wheelbarrow Race

I used to love wheelbarrow races as a kid.  My kids were no different.  Briana powered her way clear across the kitchen.  Then she helped Abby get through a couple of steps.  This is turning out to be a lot more fun than expected.  In case you’re wondering, yes Abby is wearing a shirt and tights.  The kids get to wear whatever they want in the afternoons since we tend not to go anywhere and that’s what she chose.

Event 3:  The Chair Scoot and Spin

The chair scoot helps with shoulder stability.   Basically the kids took turns in the rolling chair holding my hands.  They had to pull themselves, and the chair, to me and try to push back away.  This was met with limited success, mostly because of the carpet.  I should have dragged the chair onto the hardwood in the hallway, but I thought they’d be able to do it on the carpet.  The chair spin was just for fun.  The kids were super excited because the office is usually off limits to them, primarily because of all of the plugs and the lack of babyproofing, so when we walked in they were already jazzed.

Event 4:  The Playdoh Roll

Also hidden in the office of our house is the box of Playdoh.  Playdoh, as you know if you have kids, has a way of getting everywhere.  No matter what kind of floor protection you have provided, it will be all over the carpet when you’re done.  Even if you play with it on the hardwood flooring parts of the house or in the official playroom, which we are rarely in, which has squishy foam like flooring.  Only once in a blue moon is Playdoh allowed inside.  Today is apparently a blue moon day because I had intended to do something else, the flour hold, to work on arch and palm stability, but the kids saw the playdoh and there was no talking them out of it.  So we rolled the playdoh – in our hands not on the floor! – into balls.

Event 5:  The Flour Hold

Then we did the intended palm stability activity, the flour hold.  Except we didn’t hold flour because I need that for cooking.  I don’t, however, need the powder stuff that is supposed to be coffee but is more like hot chocolate that I got in my P&G Christmas basket forever ago.   Standing on stools over the sink we tried to open our hands and squeeze some of the powder 10 times without dropping it all.  Abby kept dropping hers but Bree held on to most of it.

Event 6:  The Rope Pull

Then we did the rope pull.   I tied a jump rope to the doorknob that leads to the backyard.  The kids were supposed to pull themselves up from the floor in a hand over hand race to the doorknob.  Instead they pull themselves to the door hand over hand while standing.  The difference is that they weren’t really supporting and shifting their weight, but we tried.

Event 7:  The Fingerwalker

Walking your fingers up a marker without using your other hand was quite difficult, even for me.  We did our best.  No good pics.

Event 8:  The Head Pat and Belly Rub Off

An oldie but a goodie.  The kids took it way more seriously than they should have.

Event 9:  The Crab Walk

Pure silly fun!

I have some super cute pics of the girls crab walking, but Bree is in a skirt and there are lots of crazies out there.  Not that any of my blog readers are, but you understand…

Event 10: The Marathon

Then we ran our marathon.  How can you have the Olympics without a marathon! 

Great rainy day fun!  The kids loved the Kiddie Olympics so much so that Briana wanted to do a Foot Olympics afterwards because I told them that this was the Hand Olympics.  So we did some leg lifts and bicycle legs while Briana counted to see how many we could do. 

Then we had quesadillas to dip into salsa for dinner.  The kids decided to eat them with the tongs, which was kind-of funny and less messy than expected.  My hands, especially my palms were actually kind-of sore.  Maybe I need more hand strengthening.  Yes, I know how that sounds.  This is a kiddie blog!

This will have to be something we continue to work on.  By the time my kids are old enough to be expected to write long papers, no one will be handwriting papers anyway, but at least they’ll have the strength to do it.

If you are looking for toys, the One Step Ahead company has a cute website presentation where they order their toys by the coordination skill they help with:     http://www.onestepahead.com/content_group.jsp?pageId=212

An unbelievable font of information on this topic can be found at:

http://www.school-ot.com/fine%20motor%20activities.html

So are you as excited as we are about all the different ways to regain the lost art of hand strengthening or were you just stuck on this page while you rested your hands from surfing the net?  J

<3 Pedigreed Housewife