What are Fine Motor skills?
Fine motor skills are the ability to make movements using the small muscles in our hands and wrists, these movements come naturally to most people and we don’t even think about doing them. They are the skills that achieve functional tasks from grasping, releasing, turning, pulling, threading, posting, and cutting to handwriting.
Fine motor skills are complex as they involve the coordinated effort of the brain and the muscles. They are built on the gross motor skills that allow us to make bigger movements. If you think about a baby’s development, they first develop their bigger muscles (that is neck, shoulder, legs and arms) to gain body movement and later control of their bodies. As the baby develops and becomes a toddler, they start to develop and focus on the smaller muscle development (like using individual fingers, using their wrist action more etc).
Children use fine motor skills to do many school-related tasks as well as daily self-care tasks. Fine Motor skills aren’t specifically learning skills, but directly impact how well children are able to learn. Fine motor efficiency significantly influences the quality of the task outcome as well as the speed of task performance.
Fine Motor activity examples:
-
- At School – holding crayon or pencil, drawing pictures and writing neatly, using scissors, rulers and other tools.
- At home – getting dressed, brushing teeth, other self-care activities, eating & using utensils.
Fine Motor skills are essential for performing everyday skills, without the ability to complete these everyday tasks, a Child’s self-esteem can suffer, their academic performance is compromised and their play options are very limited.
Ideas to help develop fine motor skills at home: (just to mention a few)
- Playing with play dough, modelling clay, putty: encourage your child to squeeze, stretch, pinch, roll “worms” and roll balls. You can use scissors to cut the play dough.
- Painting: finger painting is always fun and messy; Painting with brushes is good to help kids learn to hold a brush and gain greater control using it as a tool.
- Playing with sponges: use different sizes and textures. Soak up water into the sponge and then squeeze all the water out of the sponge. Great Bath time activity.
- Tweezer activities: using different types of tweezers and tongs to put up different sized and shaped objects is great work for the fingers and hands.
- Water play: use syringes, squirt bottles, spray bottles, pipettes.
- Gardening and planting
- Crafts
- Threading activities
- Getting your child involved with household activities: (age appropriately) e.g. setting dinner table, pouring own drinks, baking, peeling vegetables
What are the building blocks necessary to develop fine motor skills?
- Bilateral Integration: Using two hands together with one hand leading (e.g. opening a jar lid with hand while the other hand helps to by stabilising the jar).
- Crossing Mid-line: The ability to cross the imaginary line running from a child’s nose to pelvis that divides the body into left and right sides.
- Hand and finger strength: An ability to exert force against resistance using the hands and fingers that allows the necessary muscle power for controlled movement.
- Hand-eye coordination: The ability to process information received from the eyes to control, guide and direct the hands in the performance of a task such as handwriting.
- Hand Dominance: The consistent use of one (usually the same) hand for task performance which allows refined skills to develop.
- Hand division: Using just the thumb, index and middle finger for manipulation, leaving the fourth and little finger tucked into the palm not participating but providing stability for the other 3 fingers.
- Object Manipulation: The ability to skillfully manipulate tools (such as the ability to hold and move pencils and scissors with control) and the controlled use of everyday tools such as a toothbrush, hairbrush, and cutlery.
- Body Awareness (Proprioception): Information that the brain receives from our muscles and joints to make us aware of our body position and body movement, so we can accurately control our movements.
Playwhizz Toy Library has a collection of affordable fine motor games and activities that you can rent for a 2-3 week period. Check them out here: https://www.playwhizz.co.za/product-category/fine-motor-skills/
References:
