Fine motor skills generally refer to the small movements of the hands, wrists, fingers, feet, toes, lips, and tongue. Activities such as when doing up buttons, opening lunch boxes or using pencils or scissors will actually develop your child’s fine motor skill.
Your child won’t be able to do everything right away. But with encouragement, support, and lots of time to learn, he might surprise you.
Stacking blocks, for instance, involves not just picking up the blocks, but knowing what to do with them and planning out the action.
So back off and let him try his hand at simple tasks, like getting dressed (he can start looping large buttons through buttonholes), making breakfast (hand him a spatula, a plate of fried rice and let him get busy).
REMEMBER!
Fine motor skills are essential for performing everyday skills like cutting, self care tasks (e.g. managing clothing fastenings, opening lunch boxes, cleaning teeth) and pencil skills. Without the ability to complete these every day tasks, a child’s self esteem can suffer and their academic performance is compromised. They are also unable to develop appropriate independence in life skills (such as getting dressed and feeding themselves).
Therefore it is important for parents to focus on this development. Kids who are excessively exposed to gadgets develop poor fine motor skills.
If we may suggest, these are some activities that will encourage fine motor skills development:
- Filling up and dumping out
- Dressing and undressing
- Drawing and scribbling
- Stacking, sorting and stringing
- Poking and pinching
- Correct toys selection: Clay, Small Road Bead
- Sand Play