There are two predominant groups of motor skills. Fine and gross motor skills. They are both important to develop during your child’s early years, to help with their cognitive and physical functions.
Why are they important?
Motor skills are fundamental to your child’s development. Because it is tied to their physical development, it sets up the foundation for development in other areas too. For example, children who develop motor skills and start to crawl can then explore their environment. By developing gross motor skills like crawling and walking, your child will then begin to master fine movements like writing.
Gross motor skills:
Gross motor skills are functional skills that include bigger movements, engaging larger muscle groups. Some examples of gross motor skills include:
- Sitting
- Crawling
- Running
- Jumping
- Climbing stairs
- Throwing a ball
These are just a few examples, but there are so many ways you can help your child develop their skills and include some parent-child bonding.
Playing active games with your child or taking them to the park can be a fun way to keep them active and help them develop their gross motor skills. Playing with a ball and learning throwing and catching movements can also be useful.
Dancing is also a great activity to help kids build their muscles and develop more acute body awareness.
If you fancy doing something fun at home, building a fort is always a good option to keep active, and allows your child to be creative.
Fine motor skills:
Fine motor skills involve the smaller movements in your child’s body, such as their hands, wrists and fingers. Some examples of fine motor skills are:
- Eating
- Writing
- Getting dressed
- Turning pages
- Clapping
- Picking up things/putting them down
Fine motor activities such as talking, writing and drawing can help your child’s communication skills. It is also paramount for developing their hand-eye coordination skills! Multisensory engagement,like hand-eye coordination will help them combine different senses, such as touch and sight.
Ways you could work on your child’s fine motor skills vary. You could try letting them get involved with their food. Engaging with their meal, and using plastic cutlery will help them develop their smaller movements.
Colouring and holding a pen or pencil is also a good way to get use out of their smaller muscle groups. Colouring can be a fun and easy creative activity too. Or try getting your child to thread things into a string. It can be engaging and help their attention span.
Little acorns
Here at little acorns, we want to help your child develop in every aspect of their life. Our range of child activities is sure to help your little one start building the skills they need.
If you have any enquiries, or you are interested in coming to see our nursery schools, based in Southampton and Eastleigh, you can get in touch with us today!