Development Of Fine Motor Skills In Babies And Toddlers – Fun And Educational Activities

February 10th, 2021 by dayat No comments »

It is a well known and research-supported fact that development of fine motor skills in babies and toddlers is directly linked to many important and complex brain functions such as, for instance, language skills. This is why it is so important to monitor how those skills are maturing and whenever possible help the child along by playing games and doing activities that help to develop them.

Here are some of the activities you can do to improve and develop fine motor skills by simply playing with your baby or toddler.

Games with dry beans, peas, lentils and other large grains

Many parents are reluctant to let their babies and toddlers play with small objects because everything tends to end up in the mouth. But playing with small objects is essential for developing flexibility and strength of those little fingers. If you supervise your child while they are playing with small objects (and generally that simply means that you are playing alongside your baby or toddler) you will always be able to catch the object before it lands in the mouth.

When buying beans and lentils pick the multicolored variety to make it more interesting. Things you can do:

Place all the beans in one large container (you can use a large cooking pot). Get your baby or toddler to fill up other smaller, different size containers and plastic bottles with beans using their hands or a spoon.
mix some other small objects (like large beads or marbles) with the beans and then get your baby or toddler to find the objects among the beans, take them out and put them into a separate container.
play the cooking game: pretend that you are making soup, porridge or anything your baby likes to eat. Get them to stir the “food”, pretend to taste it, then put some on plastic plates and have a pretend dinner with dolls and stuffed toys.
Magic Sack
This is such an easy game to make and it can be lots of fun. All you need is an average size sack, even a small pillow case will do the trick. Now fill up the sack with anything interesting you can find around the house. The objects should be preferably small and should vary greatly in shape and texture. And of course, you have to make sure that all objects are safe to touch, nothing sharp or easily breakable.

Here are some of the objects that you can put in the sack:

reel of thread
cotton wool ball
sponge
building blocks
marbles
toy car
key
small plush toy
rubber ball
…and anything else you might find around the house. The more objects are in the sack, the more interesting the game will become.
The first and the easiest stage of the game is to sit with your baby on the floor, get them to reach inside the bag and take out one of the objects. Let the baby hold and play with the object for a while. If it is a round, hard object like a marble try rolling it between your baby’s hands. If it something soft, like cotton wool, stroke the baby’s hand with it. While you are examining the object with your baby ask questions like “How does it feel?”, “Is it smooth?”, “Does it feel soft?”, etc.

The next stage of the game can be played with children who are a little older and are beginning to talk. Again, get the child to reach for the object in the bag but before they take it out they have to guess what the object is. After they take it out ask some questions about the properties of the object (e.g. What shape is it? What color is it? What do we use it for? How do we use it? etc.).

Finger Play

Here is where you can exercise fingers and hands as well as your imagination.

Nursery Rhymes

The famous Itsy-Bitsy Spider is a wonderful game for exercising little fingers. There are also many others like Open, Shut Them, This little piggy, and so on.

You can also make up your own games

Pretend that the the index and middle fingers are a little person, draw a road on a piece of paper and try to get your toddler to walk with their fingers along the road. Show them how the person can “dance” and “jump” and try to get them to repeat it with their own fingers. You can even put some music on to make it more fun.

Finger Painting

Finger painting is another easy and fun activity you can do to exercise little fingers, you can buy finger paints in any educational toy shop.

Play-doh

Play-doh is an enjoyable and educational activity for all ages. Play-doh is very versatile and most importantly, so much fun! There are so many things you can do with play-doh but here are some activities that will help strengthen and exercise those little hands while playing:

Pick only 2 or 3 colors (preferably primary colors) when playing so that you can learn and play at the same time
Pretend that play-doh is bread and get your baby to pinch little pieces of it to feed stuffed animals
Mix some large beads and buttons into the play-doh and get your baby or toddler to pick out the objects
Show them how to roll play-doh between their hands or on the desk
Spread play-doh on a piece of paper using fingers
Buttons
To button and unbutton a shirt is a skill that is not easy to master! Let your child try to button and unbutton their own shirts or dresses that have buttons. It’s a good exercise even if they get frustrated at first and you have to complete the task for them.

You can also make a play rug with lots of buttons of different size and shape. This is what you need to do if you want to make one:

Cut out a fun shape out of some thick material like felt and sew on some buttons of different shapes and sizes. Now cut out smaller shapes (use your imagination and maybe a stencil) and make one buttonhole in each shape. If you are using buttons of different sizes make sure that the buttonholes fit the buttons, otherwise the toddler will get very fru

Interdisciplinary Learning Pathways for a Well-Rounded Education

February 5th, 2019 by dayat No comments »

EXPLORE RISETravel SwiftTrip CrazeHoliday ZoomTrek Pulse