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You are here: Home / Fine Motor Activities / Finger Pinchin’ French Fries!

Finger Pinchin’ French Fries!

June 25, 2016 by Amy Smith

This game is sure to motivate even the most unmotivated child!! Kids love games that incorporate food, especially really enticing food like french fries! This french fry game develops your child’s math, reading, writing, or speech skills depending on what you write on each “fry”. Improve fine motor skills and academic learning concepts like letters, numbers, or shapes with this motivating game for kids!

As your child masters the concepts written on the craft sticks, you can just paint over them and write new ones in, or swap them out for new sticks so that this activity can grow with your child!

This game also helps to develop the child’s pincer grasp by having them either pinch the fry with their thumb and first finger, or by using kid tweezers.

The pincer grasp is essential for pre-writing skills like pencil grasp, self-care skills like buttoning and zipping, self-feeding skills like grasping, and object manipulation skills like turning pages.  So, hold onto those old fast food fry containers and you’ve got a finger pinchin’ fun learning game!

 

french fry without tweezers
Pincer Grasp Without Tweezers

 

french fry tweezer grasp
Pincer Grasp With Tweezers

Materials Neededfrench fry supplies

Large craft sticks

Playdoh

French Fry holder

Yellow Paint (optional)

Kid Tweezers (optional)

How to Construct

Paint the craft sticks yellow and allow to dry (optional, but it makes the “french fries look a little more realistic)

french fry sticks

Write one learning objective on the end of each stick (for examples, different shapes, numbers, letters, colors, etc..)

french fry shapes

(Very Important step) Place a clump of playdoh down into the bottom of the french fry container… If you don’t add playdoh at the bottom, all the sticks will fall into each other and won’t be able to stand up straight

french fry playdoh

Place each craft stick in the playdoh with the learning objective visible at the top inside the fry container

french fry box

How to Play

Once you set the game up, tell your child to find the french fry with the designated learning objective written on the top (for example, say, “Find the fry with the square”)

french fry without tweezers

Then have your child pull the fry out (with or without the tweezers) and place the fry on a plate.

french fry pincer grasp

Repeat until all the fries have been taken out of the container

Play It Smarter

Here are some ways to add extra learning ideas to the game:

Math- Using numbers on each fry, have your child place all the fries in numerical order

Reading- Using letters on each fry, have your child pull the fries out to spell words

Writing- Have your child write the letters or numbers on each fry themselves

Like this idea but need the materials? No problem, here’s the things you need below..

Finally, you can feel good about “Supersizing” your order of fries! Enjoy!!

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Related

Filed Under: Fine Motor Activities Tagged With: fine motor activities, hand stregthening, learning activities

Disclaimer

Kids Play Smarter is a blog about general ideas, theories, and concepts related to the field of occupational therapy and the growth and development of all children. The information presented on this blog is not intended to serve as or replace occupational therapy services for your child. The information on this blog is for entertainment, informational, and educational purposes only. This blog is not meant to replace formal professional consultation or evaluation from a qualified clinician. All children need to have the approval of a physician to participate in physical activities, including those described on this blog. In addition, children need to be supervised by a responsible adult at ALL times when completing activities that are illustrated and described on this blog. The author of this blog is NOT responsible or liable for any damage, injury, accident, illness, death, or adverse reaction due to participation in the activities described on the website.

Welcome to Kids Play Smarter

Amy Smith I am an occupational therapist with over 10 years of experience working with children. I created this website to offer parents, teachers, and therapists FREE ideas, strategies, and activities that they can do with their children to improve their fine and gross motor skills, handwriting, academic learning, and regulate their sensory system all while "playing" (just playing smarter)! Read More…

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