Funky Fingers and Disco Dough by Jackie

The rationale for my topic

I had noticed through my observations that some of the children were lacking skills to open food packets and found holding pencils and writing tools really difficult. I researched how to encourage fine motor skills and read Alistair Bryce-Clegg ‘Getting Ready to Write’ paperback – 26 Apr 2013. I also looked at his blog called ‘ABC Does’ where I came across his funky fingers blog, September 26. I also re-read Mary Sheridan ‘Birth to Five’ 2014 about the importance of fine motor skills and my mentor, who is my class teacher, shared with me some information from a course she had attended hosted by Penny Tassoni. Penny explained the importance of fine motor movements are assessed and also planned for, all developmental skills are interconnected the types of skills are: hand eye co-ordination, strength muscles in hands, helps develop pincer grasp, tripod grasp, bilateral hand use, finger isolation and hand arches. This is where I first came across  Shonette Bason 'dough disco' on YouTube

Dough disco aims were to encourage the children to improve their fine motor skills and strengthen their muscles in their hands. The hand is an extraordinary and complex piece of machinery, made up of lots of joints muscles that interconnect and work together to provide dexterity. Encouraging fine motor skills allows children to explore manipulate objects, these are all needed for handwriting movements. We all need to be able to co-ordinate both sides of the body at the same time in a controlled way. For example  being able to do the same things at the same time like jumping puddles or pushing open door, this is called Bilateral co-ordination. Being able to co-ordinate both sides of the body is an indication that both sides of the brain are communicating and sharing information with each other. Walking is a good example of this where our arms and legs will be making a similar movement to each other but in a sequence.

Finger isolation

You need to be able to move each finger one at a time, really young children will move all their fingers together in a grasping motion. As children develop they learn to move their fingers individually. This is important in the development of fine motor skills as it is the mechanism that allows children to hold and manipulate tools such as the paintbrush or pencil as well as being able to push buttons and do a host of everyday essential skills like doing up shoes-laces. Halverson (1931) did research on grasping and it resulted in the compilation of a ten-stage scale of grasping development starting with ulnar grasp which replaces grasp reflex from birth moving on to the pincher grasp.

Pincer grasp or grip

This is when you use your thumb and index finger. The most basic form of this skill is when children use all fingers to rake items into the palm of their hand. Their next phase of development might be pinching items with the thumb against the side of the index finger before moving on to a more accomplished grip where they can use the end of their thumb and forefinger in a pincer grasp to manipulate small objects effectively.

By introducing disco dough on a daily afternoon time slot straight after registering the children get use to the routine, each child has their own pot of dough with their name and photo. They take it in turn to hand out the pots whilst I put the music on for the children and set up some other more challenging activities. This activity will help develop and strengthen fine and gross motor dexterity, hand and eye co-ordination, grip and most importantly their self-esteem. Once we had introduced this routine we were able to assess all the children and adapt our funky finger activity to meet each individual child’s needs by adding more resources.  I also wanted to make areas where the children could self-select this resource by using some recordable postcard with instructions using Dough-disco as the children had enjoyed her enthusiasm especially as she used well-known finger rhymes that they could imitate.

Resources

Playdough pot per child with a labels for the child to make their own

Tweezers

Hole-punch

Buttons and straws

Scissors

Small pegs with paper clothes and a small washing line

Nuts and bolts

Padlocks and keys

Pipettes and feathers

Below is an account from my Mentor on how the disco dough has been received since introducing it:

Disco Dough and Funky Fingers

Mrs Smith suggested Disco Dough when we were chatting about some of the Reception boy’s fine motor skills - although they were appearing to be dexterous and to have strength in their fingers and hands with construction activities some were lacking the muscle strength to hold pencils and writing tools and to use them effectively, and some were still finding buttons, opening tuck food packets etc. really tricky.

Disco Dough is the first activity after the lunch break every day and the children really look forward to it and have taken responsibility for handing out the playdough, recognising the colours that they each have. Maths is incorporated: the children have to divide the dough into halves and only use a half each, the halves are often then divided into quarters during the activity and there is often counting squeezes etc. 

During the first few sessions of Disco Dough we noticed that all the children found some movements hard.  They found it difficult to roll the playdough between their 2 hands, using the palm of their hands and that instead of rolling it into a sausage they were choosing instead to squeeze the dough to stretch it. They also found it hard to use each finger separately when they were pushing their fingers individually into the dough, tending instead to tap it lightly with their index fingers, not pushing it enough to make an indentation. Combining 2 actions was hard for them, for example making a sawing movement using the edge of the hand across the playdough but also using enough downward pressure to push through the playdough while doing the action. It was very apparent that the activity was exercising their hands and at the end of one of the first sessions, one of the boys said that their hands felt really tired.

Within a week all the children were using the playdough with more determination, aware of trying to use alternative fingers, using more strength with their squeezing and when pushing palms together to roll. They seem to be building up more stamina in their hands and there haven’t been any more comments about achy hands.

Some children need more individual guidance and we are trying to build up resources so that children can access individual funky fingers activities while smaller groups take part in closely led disco dough sessions to practise very specific skills.

It has been a great initiative and we are already beginning to see improvements with mark-making and using simple tools like a hole-punch and scissors.    

Reception class continuous provision for fine motor skills malleable area and writing area.

Personal, social and Emotional Development ·       Work as part of a group or class taking turns and sharing fairly. Select and use activities and resources independently ·       Continue to be interested excited and motivated to learn. ·       Form good relationships with adults and peers	Knowledge and understanding of the world ·       Investigate objects and materials by using all of their senses as ·       Appropriate select the tools and techniques they need to shape assemble and join materials they are using. ·       Select the tools and techniques they need to shape assemble and join materials they are using
Communication language and Literacy ·       Interact with others negotiating plan and activities and taking turns in conversations –use talk to organise sequence and clarify thinking ideas feelings and events ·       Use their phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words attempt writing for different purposes using features of different forms such as lists labels captions and begin to form simple sentences.	Physical development ·       Handle tools objects construction and malleable materials safely and with increasing control ·       use a range of small and large equipment
Reasoning numeracy and problem solving ·       Use developing mathematical ideas and methods to solve practical problems ·       talk about recognise and recreate simple patterns use everyday words to describe position	Creative development ·       Express and communicate their ideas thoughts and feelings by using a wide range of materials and suitable tools ·       respond in a variety of ways to what they see hear smell touch and feel express and communicate their ideas thoughts and feelings buy wide  range of materials explore colour texture shape form space in two and three dimensions

Role of the Practitioner

organisation: ·       Defined writing area table with chairs alphabet frieze, phonic cards, photos of children participating in routines and activities in the area ·       Examples of different scripts and children’s display board. ·       Tables/table top with wipe able top. ·       Accessible well-organised, labelled with photos air-tight containers.  child height chairs	Permanent resources: ·       Range of mark-making/writing tools- pencils crayons chalks, felt tip pens white board markers pens, biro (range of thickness and colours) ·       Range of mark making/writing materials –paper, card post-it note books, envelopes, diaries white boards chalk boards  (different colour shapes sizes and textures) ·       Range of making holes scissors hole punch palm puncher corner puncher staplers  tweezers ·       Joining materials – pritt-stick, Sello-tape scissors rubbers name cards and wooden letters and numbers. ·       Variety of malleable materials to include play-dough coloured textured different aromas salt dough filo clay gloop cornflour icing sugar shaving foam ·       Variety of tools rolling pins, cutters, right handed and left handed scissors containers cooking utensils printing resources laminated play dough recipes. ·       Enhancement of resources through assessment
Practitioner communication and interactions : ·       To encourage children to access the area and explore available resources. ·       To support children as they develop their skills of independence within routines and activities within area ·       To role model writing –mark making writing for a purpose ·       To role model and introduce children to new vocabulary through a broad range of practical experiences incorporating descriptive commentary ·       To support child self - initiated play through positive and challenging interactions, following the child’s lead ·       To observe independent activities for intervention and future planning ·       To role model making and describing what has been made	Vocabulary: ·       Resources for writing: paper treasury tag hole punch crayons etc ·       Resources for malleable: rolling pins cutters clay dough etc.. ·       Actions for writing and cutting  : Drawing writing cutting sticking ·       Actions for malleable: roll cut squash flatten smell feel ……. ·       Descriptive for malleable: squashy sticky hard set shiny colour shape ….. ·       Descriptive for writing and cutting colour size shape texture ……..
Assessment  Look, listen and note Observe children’s learning and identify possible *schemas( repeated patterns of behaviour/play )  plan next steps to incorporate children’s stages of development and interests implementing personalised learning	ideas for improvements in the area or for more resources to be added

Here are some photos of the children and I participating in our Disco Dough and more resources for the children to develop strength in their hands which I have introduced to improve the provision. (Due to our school policy about confidentiality all the faces of children have been obscured and I obtained parent’s permission for their photos to be used):