During the first five years, a child’s brain grows at an astonishing pace. When a baby shakes a rattle or takes his first steps, connections are being made in the brain to tell certain muscles to work together to make those movements happen. These are called fine and gross motor skills — and they form a critical part of a child’s development.
Fine Motor Skills:
Fine motor skills are small movements that use the hands, fingers, toes, wrists, and other small muscles. Examples of fine motor skills include picking up cereal with a thumb and index finger, shaking a rattle, drawing circles with a crayon, turning the pages of a book, and stacking blocks.
Fine motor skills — like stacking blocks or holding a crayon — involve concentration and small, precise thumb, finger, hand, and wrist movements. To help strengthen your child’s fine motor skills, you can:
• Encourage your child to draw and paint by pulling out big sheets of paper, crayons, washable pens, finger paints, or paint brushes. You can also use chunky sidewalk chalk outdoors or soap crayons in the tub.
• Provide your child with toys and materials that can be pushed, pulled, and stacked. Nesting toys, puzzles, and playdough are some examples.
• Encourage toddlers to use a spoon and fork when eating.
• Give your child play items that can be poured, scooped, and squeezed.
• Use small empty plastic containers as bath toys or run sand through their fingers at the park.
• Let your child turn the pages of a book while you read together.
• Let your toddler try dressing himself or help you with the process, such as looping large buttons through buttonholes.
Gross Motor Skills:
Gross motor skills are bigger movements that use larger muscles and muscle groups like arms, legs, and feet to move the body. Examples of gross motor skills include sitting, crawling, running, jumping, throwing a ball, and climbing stairs. Even the first time a baby lifts his head is an example of gross motor skills.
There are lots of fun and simple activities you can do with your child to help develop gross motor skills.
These include:
• Playing active games together, such as jumping rope, hopscotch, tag, and hide-and-seek.
• Helping your child go down slides, climb ladders, or pump legs on the swing at a playground.
• Teaching your child to toss, catch, and kick using balls of different sizes.
• Helping your toddler build a fort by draping a blanket over a couple of chairs, or stacking empty cardboard boxes (using larger ones for tunnels!)
• Making an age-appropriate obstacle course. With toddlers, lay pillows, cushions, and blankets in small stacks on the floor and encourage them to crawl over the “hills.” For preschoolers, lay a hula hoop on the ground for them to jump into, or make a ball toss with an empty basket or box.
Source: www.first5california.com