Motor Skills - Happy Hours Nursery School

Motor Skills Development and Enhancement

Motor skills are skills that enable the movements and tasks we do every day. Learning these skills is a crucial part of child development. They are further divided into Gross motor skills and Fine motor skills.

GROSS MOTOR SKILL DEVELOPMENT

Gross Motor Skill Development (walking, running, jumping, climbing, balance, strength). Gross Motor development involves the larger, stronger muscle groups of the body. In early childhood, it is the development of these muscles that enable the baby to hold his/her head up, sit, crawl and eventually walk, run and skip.

Between the ages of 3-4 years, we ensure that our children can

Run around obstacles

Walk on a line

Balance on one foot for 5-10 seconds

Hop on his/her preferred foot

Ride a tricycle

Walk up and down stairs with alternating feet, without support

Jump from 12 inches with feet together

Between the ages of 4-5 years, we ensure that our children can:

Walk a balance beam forwards & backwards

Balance on 1 foot for 8-10 seconds

Skip, alternating feet

Begin to jump rope

Throw a ball to hit a target

Jump back

Hop 5 times on 1 foot

Climb the rungs of a playground slide ladder

FINE MOTOR SKILL DEVELOPMENT

Fine Motor Skill Development (coloring, cutting, beading, lego, drawing). "Fine motor" refers to the movements we make with the small muscles of the hands. Their fine motor skills develop as their whole body starts to move and become more stable.

They also learn to do more things with their hands as their cognitive and social/emotional skills improve.

Below are some of the typical developmental milestones for fine motor skills.

Between the ages of 3-4 years, your child will:

Build a tower of 9-10 small blocks
Use playdough to make balls, snakes, cookies, etc.
Build things with large linking blocks
Draw a circle by themselves.
Start to hold a crayon or pencil with a mature grasp (like an adult)
Cut across a piece of paper
Start to cut along a straight line
Put on most items of clothing by herself, but may still need help with shirts and jackets Feed himself well with a spoon and fork
Feed himself well with a spoon and fork

Sensory Development With Block Play:

Assorted kits of various blocks help children enhance their color, shape, size and weight recognition skills which in turn improves their memory, hand-eye co-ordination and judgement skills.