Activities, bimanual, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, Fun Foam, games, hand strengthening, Handwriting, Motor Planning, Munchy Ball, OT

Practicing Letters and Finger Strengthening

Resistance keeps your muscles strong, and the little muscles in the fingers need to work and get strong along with the rest of the muscles of your body. I love having kids get letters randomly in order to practice writing the letters and words, since the randomness is somehow more fun than me giving them a worksheet. To combine letters, writing, randomness, and resistance, I use different toys and activities, and one of my favorites is the stretchy cheese and foam letters. Many of the links to products are affiliate links and I do get some money if you purchase from the site links.

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I just cut out little squares from some fun foam sheets and write letters on them. I then stuff the letters into the stretchy cheese and the kids have to dig and pull the letters out. Depending on what level the kids are at, they will then have to write the letter, or write a word that starts with that letter. If the student needs more of a writing challenge, I will then have them use three of the words they wrote and make a sentence using those words. In this way, I can use the same physical activity of pulling letters out of the cheese, but grade it to whatever writing challenge the students need.

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