Mystery Shapes and Functional Fine Motor Practice

Want to entice students to write words?  Keep your eye on the giveaway pile in the teachers' lounge until you find a cool, velvety sack and then plop in a few cute critters:

Have the student dive into the sack and tell you, without using their eyes, which critters you've hidden in the bag.  Start with just one or two. 

When you can tear the student away from looking at the fun critters or exploring the soft bag, start a table on a sheet of paper taped to the wall to keep track of which critters you both will find.

Writing on a vertical plane helps the student use just the thumb and first two fingers to grasp the pencil.  It doesn't cure an inefficient grasp, but it provides practice using a more efficient grasp.

It's also a good opportunity to gently demonstrate more efficient letter formation.  Not many teachers have the luxury of observing each student in class during writing times and lots of poor letter formation habits are practiced over and over.

Practice a little spatial relations/body position in space while picking up the runaway critters and then...

put 'em away in their critter nest and practice closing the zip top bag, which is what students need to do for themselves countless times every day in class and at home.  Seems like so many students use zip top bags instead of pencil boxes this year.