Pencil Grip

One of the goals of all the fine motor activities we do is to make writing easier. Many kids get to kindergarten or first grade and don't want to do writing assignments because it hurts their hand. I realized with all the fine motor we work do, I haven't focused on correct pencil (crayon, marker, pen) grip.

One trick I used when teaching was to have kids hold a cotton ball in their palm with their ring and pinky fingers. This makes them use the other three for holding the pencil and typically leads to better pencil grip. Toward the end of my teaching (I left to stay at home with these two), I learned of a product that I wanted to try out. Pencil Grip The Classics Writing Claw

They come in small, medium, and large and since my kids are tiny two year olds, I order the small. It has a hole in the middle for a pencil (or crayon) and three tips. After inserting the pencil, just find the one with the T and put the child's thumb in that one. Then the other two fingers simply slip in the other two tips. The kids loved using them, though since I only bought two, they couldn't easily switch colors.

You can see here how it forces them to use proper grip. We only used these a few times before they were doing it naturally and I put them away. Part of that is because they already had the strength in their hands and the other part is because if you learn the proper way early enough, it is easier and becomes the "default" way of doing it.