What are fine motor skills in preschool children?
GamingFine motor skills is a term that means the development of small muscles, as opposed to large motor skills that would be the development of large muscles, such as the legs and arms. When children run and play, they are developing and strengthening their great motor skills, which also include balance and coordination. When children play with small toys or crayons and use their fingers to play with manipulatives and puzzles, this is what fine motor development is all about.
Why are these skills so important? Young children learn every day to control their bodies through play and movement. It is not natural for a child. If you ever observe a helpless baby flailing and jerking his arms and legs, you will witness poor development of muscles (large and small). These movements are very important as they strengthen the baby’s muscles and as the days and weeks go by they get a little stronger. As babies go through various stages of physical growth, they reach many milestones: raising their heads, rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking, running, etc.
As babies approach the preschool and toddler years, they have achieved a good level of large muscle skill development and their focus is more on improving their fine motor skills. They are interested in playing with small things like puzzles and manipulatives like Legos, blocks, and crayons. This natural progression results in children being able to hold a pencil correctly when they reach kindergarten, but they need several years of practice before that milestone (and not all children make it in time to enter school).
The preschool educational environment should be filled with endless opportunities for children to practice fine-tuning those fine motor skills. The parts of the body that are used in fine motor skills are the small parts such as the fingers, toes, eyes, tongue, lips, and hands / feet. These body parts along with the senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight work together to increase manual dexterity, hand-eye coordination, manipulative skills and control, sensory perception (touch) and ocular motor control (the eyes can go on and on). attention).
What kinds of activities for 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds are effective and appropriate for developing small motor skills? There are many! A good point to remember is that each child develops on his or her own schedule and no two children of the same age have exactly the same skill level. There is a wide variety of variations and that is normal. Here are just ten great activities for kids that will allow them to practice and grow while playing. If you want to add to this list, please add your comment below to share with other caregivers.
1. Play Doh: it is one of the best tools for the development of small muscles. Kneading and squeezing the dough are the best muscle builders. Have a basket or shoebox full of tools like plastic knives and forks, popsicle sticks, rolling pins, cookie cutters, etc. available to make shapes.
2. Lanyards: You can buy lanyard cards commercially or make your own. The child passes thread or shoelaces through the holes in the card. The cards may have patterns, letters, numbers, or pictures, but younger children may not be able to tie a pattern and will simply tie it in a large stringy criss-cross. Children also enjoy tying beads or pasta on shoelaces to make a necklace. Tip: To create a shoelace with regular thread, wrap the ends of the thread in tape or dip the ends in candle wax and let them cool and harden to facilitate lacing.
3. Scissors Skills: (Child Safety Scissors) This is definitely one of the hardest skills to master, but still great for practice. Younger kids usually can’t coordinate this at all, but 4- and 5-year-olds can and will eventually be able to cut out a black line shape with practice.
4. Tweezer grip: Tweezers, tweezers or clothespins are great for opening and closing to pick things up, they strengthen the muscles of the fingers and hands. You can have the child try to transfer cotton balls from one bowl to another or invent relay games in which the children have to run to pick up a scarf with the tweezers and place it on the finish line.
5. Tracing: (Use salt, sand, shaving cream, or pudding) Have the child use their fingers or a popsicle stick to trace the sprinkled salt onto a cookie sheet or paper plate. Say a letter or a number and help them track it. Another fun tracing activity is to get the children together and have one partner trace a letter or number on the other’s back and guess what it is. Kids love that one! Lots of giggles and tickles!
6. Scribbling! Yes, deliberate squiggles. Markers, pencils, pencils. Create an art gallery with doodle drawings.
7) Eyedropper: Eyedroppers can be used to mix and learn about colors. Place water in all the separate spaces of a cupcake pan (6 or 12). Put a few drops of different colored food coloring (blue, green, red, yellow) in just 3 or 4 of the wells and allow the children to mix and change the colors using the eyedropper to change the remaining wells of water.
8. Spray Bottles: Fill the spray bottles with water and allow the children to squirt whatever they want outside. The water is harmless and will just disappear. This is fun for hot weather. If you have snow outside, put food coloring in the water and let them sprinkle different colored snow. This makes a very attractive snowman.
9. Finger games and finger painting! (obvious, right?)
10. Skills for Everyday Life: Getting dressed (buttons, zippers, buckles, shoelaces), helping set the table or pouring their juice (expect and even anticipate spills, but they’ll never learn if they can’t practice!), Help Mom bake cookies (mix, stir, and measure), help Dad fix things (hammers, screwdrivers, and nails), brush teeth, and sing songs.
These are age-appropriate activities for 2- to 5-year-olds and all can be adapted to various skill levels. These are fun developmental activities for any time and are great rainy day activities that keep little hands busy!