How To Boost Fine Motor Skills of Children
What is Fine Motor Skills?
Fine motor skills are the capability of a child to control the small muscles of the body to do certain functions, like writing or tying a shoelace.
Some of the examples of Fine Motor Skills are:
- Drawing, painting, etc.
- Holding/handling small items
- Turning the pages of a book
- Building with blocks and playing with small objects
- Cutting, pasting and folding
- Eating by own self
- Dressing, buttoning, tying shoelaces, brushing teeth & many more
- Writing on paper
Children must build up fine motor coordination to perform basic everyday tasks like as tying shoe-laces, dressing, preparing food, and other self-care tasks. During school time, kids should be able to cut, paste and draw and hence motor skills are completely essential for learning to write and perform such activities
Activities which can boot the Fine Motor Skills:
1. Drawing
Process art activities are one of the greatest ways to increase fine motor skills. Offer your child with daily opportunity to be creative, by using different materials and mediums to make drawings. Kids should do drawing every day without fail.
2. Painting
Painting is another activity which children love to do, which is a good thing as it helps to boost the skills. One rule related to skills is “The messier the activity the better”. There are a lot of different ways to paint. For example paint on paper with various sized brushes, make your child sit down or stand up and let them paint.
3. Cutting and Tearing
Cutting is one activity which helps improving skill and hence it should be practiced regularly.
As the child grows, they learn to hold scissors properly and hold the paper in other hand, and they can cut the paper slowly which may not be perfectly cut but still they can do it. Show them the demo of how to cut the paper with accuracy through perfect grip and help correct it when necessary.
4. Pasting
It takes time for a child to learn how to apply the right amount of glue to something to stick it and how to paste it precisely where they want it to go, paste it straight, etc. It takes concentration and focus to stick a thing perfectly.
5. Play dough
Play dough not only helps in strengthening fingers and develop motor control, but it also boosts creativity, planning and thinking skills. Play Dough is a fun activity where parents can also engage with child to make it more exciting for the children.
6. Threading and Lacing
Threading is one of the best activities for developing fine motor skills. A lot of children struggle with it, so make it a priority to make your child do threading and lacing. Threading activity can be done from the early age of child
7. Construction
Construction helps in boosting both gross and fine motor control. For construction activity child can play with blocks such as Lego or building with boxes or waste products.
8. Puzzles
Puzzles are not only good to develop cognitive skills as well as fine motor skills. Even toddlers can are able to build basic puzzles. Parents can engage with child in the puzzle activity and guide them if they are on the wrong track.