Fine Motor Skills and Educational Toys
"What do fine motor skills have to do with toys?"
"Well.actually very much. "
"Do you want to help your child be ready to write or draw with a pencil successfully by the time of kindergarten?"
"Of course you do.or you wouldn't be seeking out toys to help a child learn."
"So what are these skills? "
These skills define the smaller movements we use including pinching something with our fingers to squeeze or grip it, wiggling our toes to remove the dirt or mud from our feet, or using our mouth, tongue and lips to taste food or suck through a straw.
Development of these skills comes at the same time as gross motor skills because much of the time both are needed to do a certain task.
You should know that before a child is of age for kindergarten he/she will gain much by you encouraging the development of fine motor skills in the fingers and hands. Strength and dexterity in fingers and hands will help for the future task of writing with a pencil on paper.
This body development will help to avoid an inappropriate pencil grasp often found in a child of kindergarten age. The activities and toy suggestions below will help greatly to allow these fine skills to develop in a young child.
- Have your child use the tips of his/her fingers to roll clay or play dough into small little balls the size of peas.
- Your child can use her/his hands and fingers to roll a large play dough ball into a long cylindrical piece.
- He/she can use large tweezers to sort the big marbles from the small ones.
- Play some games that use dice. Have her/him shake the dice by cupping of the hands together.
- Make a collage of stickers.
- Stack, sort, manipulate small toys
- Draw, scribble, doodle, scrawl...
- Encourage him/her to eat finger foods
- Select toys to encourage development of these skills. Some toy merchants will define a toy as helping develop certain skills more than others. Sometimes they will have a chart that shows what toys are better for developing these skills. If you find a chart like this, it is often much easier to rely on it to help you make a selection. Take advantage of it when you can.
You get the idea.using the fingers and hands in ways that force them to pinch, squeeze, and manipulate things on a small scale.
Great Brands for educational toys that help develop fine motor skills