Wrapping Presents

I’m loving the holiday season and I definitely have presents on the brain (it could be because its my birthday too)!  With that said, what a great way to get kids involved and work on some fine motor skills than to have them help with wrapping the presents.  Not only will they work on the following skills but they will also have a ton of pride when they give the gifts to their teachers or therapists or friends or siblings or parents (I could go on and on but I’m sure you get my drift)!

They will work on:

• Scissor skills to cut the paper
• Spatial awareness for measuring how much paper they need
• Visual motor skills to fold the paper and line up the edges
• Bilateral coordination to use both hands to fold the paper, hold it still while applying tape, cutting the paper
• Hand strengthening to firmly fold the edges and push down on the tape
• And ripping tape (which is fun) works on a bunch of skills – grasp patterns, hand strength and bilateral upper extremity coordination

Now I know that it will probably take longer to wrap presents with your ‘helper’ but think of how much fun they will have and the skills they are working on!