DIY Fine Motor Toys – Alphabet Tilt Maze
Happy Friday! Today's Fine Motor Fridays post shares a super simple DIY tutorial for making Fine Motor Toys.
You might be gazing at that contraption, wondering what on earth it is. Well I am calling it an Alphabet Tilt Maze. You know those little handheld games you had as a kid where you had to tilt it to guide the tiny marble through the maze? THAT!
We have made tilt mazes before with Cranberries and with Jingle Bells. But it was a series from my bloggy friend Colleen at Sugar Aunt's showing 31 Days of Occupational Therapy With Free Materials that inspired me to think outside the box with a common household object.
One day I was at Family Dollar and and wandered past a display of pink knobby soap savers. (I tried to look them up online but I don't quite see it.) The design of it made me think of that game, Plinko from Price is Right.
As I held it in my hand and tilted my wrist it reminded me of our previous tilt mazes and I figured we could use it for something like that.
To give the movement some sort of meaning, I used a Sharpie marker to randomly write letters on all the knobby bumps.
Next I plopped a small pom pom on it and we were good to go. You could try a marble or other small round object as well to see how this changes the difficulty.
That's really all there is to making it, now it's totally portable and ready to go.
Adapting These Fine Motor Toys
As an adult I could take my time and go slowly at this. I think you could make it harder or easier depending on the item you place into it. I could see a person working on small wrist and hand movements using this.
For children it will really depend on their age and current abilities but you could use the tilt maze another way as well.
My three year old saw what I was working on and wanted to try. Although he knows his letters, he was not really interested in tilting the soap dish to move the pom pom. I let him play with it for a while and then asked him if he could move the pom pom to his letter. He then used one hand to move the pom pom while holding the dish in the other. He also liked setting the dish down on the desk and using his hand to pick up the pom pom and move it to the different letters.
If you have a child who needs to work on pincer grasp or bilateral coordination, this might be a fun way to work on it. I'm NOT an occupational therapist, however and this should not be used in place of proper therapy. I am just sharing an idea I had that gets hands and fingers moving. I hope you enjoyed it! If so please do pin or share it!
Fine Motor Fridays
Check out some more Fine Motor Fridays ideas!
Fine Motor Oh Say Can You Seed? Garden Activity from Powerful Mothering
Three Cup Twisting Fine Motor Games
I love how you see the potential in every day items!!