How doe we OTs use wikki stix for improving fine motor skills in children?
Children love new and different toys. Sometimes this is just what we need to maintain their interest in a fine motor task long enough for them to build up endurance in their little hand and finger muscles. That’s why both in our Occupational Therapy rooms and in our Happy Handwriter fine motor Muscle Mania groups we love using these wacky wikki stix! These new sticky strings never cease to get the most reluctant child to engage in our fine motor task.
What OT goals can we meet with these wikki stix?
Not only do we love seeing how their two hands work together to manipulate these sticky stix, but we also love the pressure they need to apply to get them to stick! Both bilateral integration (the two hands working together) and fine motor strength and endurance are popular goals with our little ones. Goals we can achieve with the help of our sticky stix!
We also use these wikki stix to make handwriting multisensory. Out with boring pencil and paper and in with wikki stix and acetate sheets! By placing the acetate sheet over the letter or number, we provide an accurate map. This way your little one can learn to form their letters and numbers, as the Happy Handwriter always says, “the right way the first time”. Handwriting has never been so sticky and wacky and FUN!
We can even achieve some visual perceptual OT goals by letting them find their way through a 2D maze worksheet using the wiki stix. This is way more fun than drawing their pathway through the maze. Improving figure-ground perception (the ability to focus on a specific object in a busy background, important for reading) has never been less boring. Less 2D and more sensory!
But what the children love best is developing their motor planning skills (important for work pace and task completion in the classroom) by coming up with creative new ideas of how to bend, twist, plait and shape their sticky stix into whatever their mind can imagine! And what is the cherry on the top – they are re-usable for hours and hours of fun!
Get yours here: https://www.jumpleapfly.co.za/product/a-wikki-stix-bundle/
