One of things that we will want to make sure that our children develop at a good pace. This means that anything we can do to help their development, we are likely to try. What you may not realise, is that sometimes the simplest things can have a great impact. This is particularly true with their fine motor skills.
What are fine motor skills?
A motor skills is an action or motion that a baby or child makes with their muscles. These motor skills are split into two different groups; gross and fine. Gross motor skills are large movements such as running, jumping and making movements with their arms or legs.
Fine motor skills are much smaller actions, they often involve the fingers and hands and some of the most common ones that your child will need to learn are using a knife and fork, cutting with scissors and writing.
How you can help your child to develop them
There are a number of different ways that you can encourage your child to hone their fine motor skills, and the best news of all is that it doesn’t ever have to feel like a chore, in fact, you can use play to help them to develop.
We have put together some of the ways that kids can build up their fine motor skills, all thanks to having some fun and playing.
Play Doh
Play Doh has been a popular creative toy for years. Not only is it a lot of fun to get out and play with, but it can develop a whole host of fine motor skills. All that squeezing and stretching is perfect for strengthening their fingers.
Colouring
You can’t beat a bit of colouring, whilst it might not be the most high-tech of educational toys, the simple crayon can have plenty of power for their fine motor skills. If you want to give their finger muscles a proper work out, then use some broken crayons, their smaller size means that they have to grip harder.
Make some paper craft
Using scissors is another important fine motor skill that children need to develop, the best way to do this is to grab out those scissors and get cutting. Paper doll chains are a popular paper craft, and they are great fun to make with all the family.
Shape sorters
Shape sorters have been a popular toy for years, not only does the act of posting the shape through the hole encourage a child to learn more about shapes, but it also hones in on their fine motor skills.
Whether you use educational toys, learning toys or perhaps just see what you have around the home? Developing your kids fine motor skills doesn’t have to be hard work. In fact, with some simple play activities, you can see a great improvement, and they won’t even notice that they have been working on it!