Fine Motor Activities for Kids: 4 Best Tips to Follow

Children are like growing seeds, which need the proper amount of ingredients to nurture them. Likewise, during their development period, there are certain required skills they learn for their tomorrow. 

A child’s development depends upon the types of skills they inherit. Relatively, there are four essential types of skills, playing a vital role in developing a toddler.¹ These are:

• Physical development skills,
• Social and emotional skills,
• Language and communication skills,
• Motor skills.

Each skill has a unique value that embellishes a child’s personality and behavior productively. Today, we will deep dive into the importance of motor skills and some fine motor activities that will help your kid redefine his personality.

Child Development

What exactly defines a child’s development? Are fine motor activities a part of it?

Childhood is the time that imprints an alluring memory of joy and love in our lives. Child development is where a toddler goes through mental, emotional, and physical changes in his life. The period is divided into three major stages, which include early childhood (from infancy to 7 years), middle childhood (from 8 years to 12 years), and adolescence(13 years onwards).

Parents have always been the principal characters in a child’s growth history. How your child grows, speaks, learns, and behaves are simultaneously different from other children. However, there are particular skills and traits, which they inherit from their biological guardians.

Components of Development

Development in the human body means growth to maturity. It is an ongoing process that ends when a person reaches his eventual stage (old age). The components of development ²are distinguished into four areas- growth, experience, maturation, and adaptation. Let’s explore it further. (Fine motor activities)

1. Growth – Growth during development means an increase in the size and weight of the body. It leads to the progress of the human body towards maturity, for Example- expansion of shoulders, chest, waist, bust.
   

    

   
   
2. Maturation – It refers to the pubic transformations ³that occur in one’s body. In females, it is determined with the beginning of the menstrual cycle. Whereas in males, in the development of testis.
   

    

   
   
3. Experience – This alludes to factors inside the climate that may adjust or alter the presence of different formative qualities through the way toward learning.
   

    

   
   
4. Adaptation – It alludes to the intricate interchange or association between powers inside the individual (nature) and the climate (support)

Learning the Major Aspects of Child Development

You will search for various developing skills, but the four utmost skills that effectively progress are as follows.

• Physical Development Skills – As you know, a child’s body structure is far different from than adult’s body size. With early childhood, a child starts beginning with their structural development. Initially, physical growth takes place and formulates the body. Like, hair growth in pubic areas, broad waist and shoulders, menstrual cycle, and so on.
  

   

  
  
• Motor Development Skills – Fine motor activities like playing, puzzle-solving keep the brain active and sharp. These fun activities are the best way to trigger their mental intelligence.
  

   

  
  
• Social & Emotional Skills – These skills help a toddler to understand the modalities of society. It supports him to find a way to react socially and control his emotions.
  

   

  
  
• Communication & Language Skills – Besides fine motor activities, communication is a significant part of life. Good communication and language skills help a child to behave courteously between individuals. Learn more to enhance communication skills⁴. Click here.

Motor Development Skills in Depth

Fine motor activities are the best way to trigger motor skills. Is it true? Let’s find out.

Motor development skills include the muscles and body movement of a child appropriately. A motor change in an infant is the movement and action of muscles in different situations. It refines the ability to perform work and the motion required for successful completion.

These skills are categorized into two groups-

Gross motor skills

Gross motor skills are long-term learnings that evolve lifelong. These skills accelerate the use of muscles for heavy tasks like walking, sliding, swimming, jumping, crawling. These skills remain unchanged and reform good body language.

Fine Motor Skills

Fine motor skills enable the use of small muscles like the wrist, fingers, hand. Sometimes, These movements happen naturally, which is why Parents usually prefer neglecting the skill.

However, in some situations, children lack fine motor skills, which turns into a complication for some movements. Fine motor activities like playing with fingers, using stationaries are executed to improve their motor skills.

Phases of Motor Development

Motor skills are the changes that result in practice. These skills are found in three stages, wherein a child goes through. The phases of motor learning ⁵are- The cognitive phase, associative and autonomous phase.

Cognitive Phase – The initial stage aims to develop a basic understanding in a child, to solve a task. When a learner is new to any work, the process begins with “what is needed first”? During this phase, a child determines the objective of the skills and ability to solve or think.

Associative Phase – Now that the learner has realized the ‘how to do,’ he will process to explore ‘what to do.’ Fine motor activities, including thinking and evaluating, builts the ability to resolve tasks and become more consistent in movements.

Autonomous Phase – The last stage of the learning acquires the complete finishing of the motor skills. Depending upon the learner, the stage may take from months to years. Examples- walking without granting attention, performing small tasks nonchalantly.

Fine Motor Activities for Kids

Helping your child progress in their motor skills is not rocket science. Generally, parents neglect to pay attention to a child’s motor skills, thinking of it as natural growth.

Fine motor activities for kids are simple and compelling efforts to support your children to access fruitful progression. Considering this fact, fun activities are the best way to trigger the motor learning of a child. Here we do.

Dough & Clays

Have you ever noticed- why doughs and clays are the best used in schools to teach kids? Playing and learning at the same time is a proficient way to instigate their skills. Besides playing, clays and doughs help to foster their hand development and ability to design various shapes.

Such fine motor activities encourage your child to stretch, squeeze, roll and perform several hand movements. 

Painting

Colors are the best attractions for kids. Different types of painting encourage children to progress in their hand movements. Thumb paintings, brush paintings, and several other methods help the child to hold and move the brush appropriately. It avails the child by flattering his painting abilities.

Paper Craft

Paper crafts are one of the best fine motor activities to nurture your child’s development. While painting and clay work are good ways to maintain motor skills, Papercraft is another enticing way to keep your child occupied. Easy craftwork like paper folding and creating different shapes and objects builds their fine motor skills. Hence, prooved. 

Easy Indoor games

Games like beats abacus and peekabo stimulate kids in both gross motor skills and fine motor skills. For instance- beats and abacus help them to discover different hand movements. Whereas games like peekaboo help children to progress their walking skills, supposing to catch their opponent. Fine motor activities are eventually growing high, preferable to keep the child active.

Role of Guardians in a Child’s Motor Development

Guardians are the chief role models for a child when it comes to following someone. Do you know? The semi-growth of a child depends on his parents, how they nurture him. 

The development period of a child is a crucial stage where he should be prioritized the most. Children explore various skills and habits around their environment. Lack of attention might disturb the entire circle of child development and lead them to the wrong pathway.

Being a guardian, the following are some of the common duties you should pay towards your young kids.

• Priority is the building block of child development. Prioritize your child’s growth to design a better future.
• Please support your child in their hard times. There might be situations when your kid finds difficulty in exploring their skills. Hence, they need your support to exceed in their obstacle. 
• Play and teach the different aspects of development in the form of fine motor activities. 

Role of Schools in a Child’s Motor Development

After parents, the very second place of learning for a child in schools. Schools are the best way to complete all necessities in a child’s development. Where guardians lack, schools play a vital role in accomplishing the gaps. 

Do schools have any responsibilities in a child’s motor development? Yes.

A child’s motor development depends on the education they receive from their elders. Following are some functions a school should underline during a child’s motor development.

• Children should be offered with necessary playing tools. It will help them to heighten their skills in an advanced approach.
• Besides studies, they should be allowed to enroll themselves in fun activities. These fine motor activities will step towards the betterment of their motor skills.

 Want to establish new skills? Click here!

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2. Crnkovic, Ivica, Michel Chaudron, and Stig Larsson. “Component-based development process and component lifecycle.” 2006 International Conference on Software Engineering Advances (ICSEA’06). IEEE, 2006. ↩︎
3. Hui, Mei Lin, and Gavin Lowe. “Safe simplifying transformations for security protocols or not just the Needham Schroeder pubic key protocol.” Proceedings of the 12th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop. IEEE, 1999. ↩︎
4. Roter, Debra L., et al. “Use of an innovative video feedback technique to enhance communication skills training.” Medical education 38.2 (2004): 145-157. ↩︎
5. Halsband, Ulrike, and Regine K. Lange. “Motor learning in man: a review of functional and clinical studies.” Journal of Physiology-Paris 99.4-6 (2006): 414-424. ↩︎

Last Updated on April 17, 2024 by ayeshayusuf