There is no doubt that our children get caught up in the excitement of Christmas!  It is also a time when many are on a school break.  We can harness that excitement to keep their fine motor on track with some well-chosen fine motor Christmas activities. If we want to develop the foundations for pencil... Read more » The post Fine Motor Christmas Activities appeared first on The Happy Handwriter ..read more

I love fine motor groups because they offer collective motivation.  We know that to develop preschool fine motor skills, our children need repetition and practise.  When we are confronted with children whose fine motor skills are way behind the curve, they need a lot of repetition to improve their skills.  As much as we try... Read more » The post Preschool Fine Motor Activities for Fine Motor Groups appeared first on The Happy Handwriter ..read more

Cutting assists children to develop their fine motor hand muscles for pencil control and handwriting.  I believe it to be one of the most valuable pre-writing skills we have.  The cutting motion develops the exact muscles and movement patterns we need for pencil grip and pencil control so it certainly deserves our attention.  Once your... Read more » The post Cutting Skills Worksheets. Pre-School Cutting Skills appeared first on The Happy Handwriter ..read more

There is nothing like the excitement of the season to engage our children in the very activities they generally choose to avoid because they are difficult.  These gorgeous skull and crossbones Halloween cutting activities are right up there with the best Halloween fine motor activities.  You can grab your free download for this at the... Read more » The post Halloween Fine Motor Activities. Fun Skeleton Download. appeared first on The Happy Handwriter ..read more

Mark making and scribbling are our children’s first attempts at putting pen (or crayon) to paper as they begin their journey of pre-writing strokes development.  From there, they need to transition to controlled replication of the basic lines, strokes and forms as their pre-writing development progresses.  Pre-writing stroke development does have a typical order in... Read more » The post Pre-Writing Development. Scribble Salt Tray Activity appeared first on The Happy Handwriter ..read more

Find the resources on how to improve handwriting for kids below. Scissor skills remain my all-time favourite for developing hand strength and the development of the pencil grip fingers.  Working on these foundations is one of the sure ways on how to improve handwriting.  Grab your panda scissor skills download here. There is little doubt... Read more » The post How to Improve Handwriting appeared first on The Happy Handwriter ..read more

When considering the motor aspects of handwriting help for kids, looking at points of stability and movement can give us really good clues as to where to direct our intervention for improving handwriting mechanics. Controlled movement always needs a point of stability from which to move.  The old example of the crane always holds true:... Read more » The post Handwriting Help. We Need to Look at Stability and Movement. appeared first on The Happy Handwriter ..read more

We have moved on from the rigid view we had of the functional pencil grasp back in the 90s.  We now know that pencil grip for handwriting is governed by principles and pencil grasp stages rather than one grasp alone.  So have some fun and take the quiz! All of the questions on pencil grip... Read more » The post Pencil grip for Handwriting.  Take the Quiz! appeared first on The Happy Handwriter ..read more

I have always enjoyed analysing popular hand strengthening activities for kids to see if they offer the benefits they claim to. Are broken crayons all they are cracked up to be? Do q-tips develop the small muscles of the hands, and are clothes pegs doing the job they claim? Do these activities get the thumbs... Read more » The post Hand strengthening for kids. Q-tips, clothes pegs and broken crayons. appeared first on The Happy Handwriter ..read more

For years I have stubbornly refused to give age norms for the development of scissor skills milestones. This is because I firmly believe that following and mastering each developmental sequence is way more important than the age at which they are accomplished.  As soon as we attach an age expectation to something, we shift the... Read more » The post Development of Scissor Skills appeared first on The Happy Handwriter ..read more