Your Child’s Motor Skill Development

Your Child’s Motor Skill Development

There are a lot of ways for motor skill development of the child. A child before going to formal school goes to preschool. Before preschool, the child is taught at home by parents who have time for the motor skill development of the child.

Types of motor skills

Motor skills of a child are of two general types, namely:

1. Fine motor skills – these are skills on being able to write and manipulate small objects.
2. Gross motor skills – these are skills requiring balance and coordination using the major parts of the body – limbs (arms and legs), trunk and head.

Fine motor skills

Simple exercises using the hands, eyes and brain are for motor skill development of the child of his fine motor skills.

These simple exercises that you can do for your child are:

A. Painting – you child can begin with cotton buds to swab paint on paper and then go up to a higher level using thin brushes and finally big brushes.
B. Solving puzzles – Start your child with puzzles that use large knobs that would make your child hold them with his full fist and grip with his thumb and forefinger.
C. Play dough – Your child will get a kick out of playing with play dough. It will be great to have rollers and cookie cutters.
D. Cutting paper – You can teach your child to be more coordinated with his fingers and hand by giving him a pair of child-safety scissors and some old magazines to cut out.
E. Threading – Children love to thread beads into a string. You can buy coloured pasta to be threaded by your child to exercise his fine motor skills.
F. Blocks – Your child can begin with large blocks so he would not be frustrated to build the blocks if they were small. As your child progresses then you can give him smaller blocks.

Gross motor skills

For the motor skill development of the child of his gross motor skills, you have to be creative in giving him a progressive way to build his strength in doing heavier tasks.

These exercises are a bit more physical in nature. They are –

A. Running – You can teach your child to play with running games like a relay of running to some distance and passing a stick to another child and going back and forth. Games like hide and seek and other party games can develop your child’s running abilities.
B. Climbing – If you have observed your child’s ability to reach for the table top by tiptoeing, he may be ready for climbing over small walls, small fences or net structure in parks.
C. Hopping – You can have fun hopping with your child imitate a rabbit or a horse. As your child grows older, he can practice his hopping by playing hopscotch.
D. Ball play – Throwing, catching, shooting and dribbling balls are good exercises for both arms and legs.
E. Swinging – Your child will have fun swinging a baseball bat or a tennis racket or a golf club.

When you have done these exercises for both fine and gross motor skills, you have done your part for the motor skill development of the child that you love to be completely ready for preschool and formal school.