Little strong muscles

Occupational therapy

﻿Hi, I'm really looking forward to our lesson today. I hope you are too. Before we get started, this is just a little reminder, we're here to support any approaches you might already be using and any work you might have already been set. we know that this lesson is going to be going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure about anything or have any questions, then please do contact your usual therapy team.

Hello today we're going to continue learning about our hands and how to get them strong and we're going to be focusing on the tiny muscles, the smaller muscles and we're going to see just how important they are, to be able to have strong hands and to be really good at our fine motor skills. What do we mean when we say, the small muscles of our hands? Well, these muscles are super important for careful, delicate movements that we need from our hands throughout the day. Okay, for example, to place that zip carefully in the slider and pull it up, or to move a pencil to do really fine colouring in, or write really neatly, maybe when you're doing your maths in little squares on squared paper, or to press buttons on a keyboard. We, get better at using our hands enough and our fingers for games, for school, and for just all the activities in our daily life such as doing buttons or opening a door. When we,, and if we strengthen these muscles. Today, what we're going to need for our lesson? Several small little items such as beads, or coins, marbles. Just tiny little pieces of little toys like that. If you don't have tiny toys, then you can scrunch up tiny little bits of paper and you can use those and some clay, or some Play-Doh. Okay. Once you have everything ready, restart the video. Okay, so for our first activity it's called, 'toy to fingertips'. So we're going to find a small toy, such as a bead or coin. I have a very very precious gem. I hope you can see that. It's pretty, isn't it? and we're going to take that and put it right in the centre of our hand. Okay, and then we're going to use just our fingertips, with this hand, to bring it from our palm, to our fingertips. Okay so look at my hand move. Okay, let's watch that again. Yeah. So don't move your hand, so that the toy just drops to your fingertips. So don't do that. Okay and don't use your body to help it move. Oh my goodness! Can you hear Buster? He's being so noisy. I wonder why he's barking? Oh my goodness, i think he's saying, "don't drop the toy, use your fingertips and don't use your other hand". And as always we're going to practise with both our hands. Okay look at that. Let's watch closer. Look at these muscles in my fingers. Look at how well they're working. Okay. You can also try putting more than one toy in your hand. So I'm going to show you all my treasure. There's a beautiful little red, Ruby gem and there's a blue one, and you can put several of them in the middle of your hand. And then bring them to, your fingertips. One two, did you notice i put the other one away? It's almost like magic. And three. And you can maybe have an adult, call out and say which colour you need to get. So, Buster, may have said, " woof woof. Get the blue one." and I'll be looking, and I'll move it into, tada, there's the blue one. Pause the video, have a go. Restart once you're finished. So next we're going to make a play-doh ball. Okay. There's my play-doh. We're going to take a small piece of play-doh, with one hand, and we're going to roll it up into a little ball using just your thumb and your fingertips. Okay. Make it as smooth and as round as you can. Right can you see that? And even though these fingers aren't being used, I'm keeping them close, to my other fingers because if they were stuck out there, it's actually a waste of energy and we need all that amazing energy to go into fingertips for making a super smooth ball. Okay. And there you go. And of course as always, what do we say is practise with both hands. Both sides of your body. So, there's my left hand, which is, it is a little bit more clumsy because it's not my strong hand. But that's why i practise it. So, you can see that's actually quite hard for me. Dadada! Here we go. And, and what you see i did there, was i was actually doing little bits like that, to get it working. Okay, and you can make this more challenging, by then holding the ball that you made earlier, with your ring and your little finger, and then, oh! Look I've got two there and then take another bit, and see if you've got two there, can you, oh my gosh a little tricky, use, can you make another ball? Okay pause the video, have a go. When you're ready restart the video. For our next activity, we're going to stick with the play-doh and we are going to roll out a long line of play-doh like a worm or a snake. So let me just grab some more play-doh from my pot. Love the smell of play-doh. Okay, and what we're going to do is, we're going to roll it out so you can use your hands together. Now my plate is a little bit old but that's fine because it just means it's, it's hard which means that I'm actually getting more practise my muscles are getting stronger. So it's absolutely fine. And what we're going to do, we're going to take it and, looking? Let me just show you. So if you have if that's the table, you're going to, oh! Sorry guys. Okay, uh, you're going to go so watching, yeah and if you're going to pinch all the way, can you see that? Yeah, can you see that? Along the top and give it a little spine. I like to practise with all my fingers and my little finger really struggles sometimes with that. Okay so do that. Yeah. And again, you want to do that with both hands and we're going to try and do it just with, our thumb in my finger and if you're finding that these fingers are sticking out, then just take a little bit of play-doh or little balls hold it in your fingers there and then, you've made quite a cool looking. Dinosaur tail perhaps, i don't know. It's pretty cool and so you can also try that with some resistance party such as therapy putty if you want a bigger challenge. So pause that video now, and try and do some play-doh pinching. Restart once you're finished. So there are loads of ways that we can make this easier, or more challenging. If we want to make it easier, we can have bigger items. Sticky tape that we bring from the palm of our hands, to our fingertips. Which then also means, if we want to make it more challenging we're going to get smaller items. Okay, and again we're going to use bigger bits of play-doh to roll that into a ball and if you're struggling to make that play-doh snake, then ask an adult to help you do that. Remember, do the best for you. Practise practise practise. Have fun , be creative. Thank you for listening. And as always if you'd like to please ask your parent or carer, to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter tagging @OakNational and hashtag, learnwithOak. Bye.

Little strong muscles

Little strong muscles

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