What are Motor Skills and How Can You Aid in Their Development?

posted on Jul 13, 2020

Right from helping us to move, enabling us to lift objects, to typing on a keyboard, the motor skills come in aid every day all through our lives. These are the inherent skills that start developing after birth and continue progressing as children grow. And, sure enough, you already have at least a faint idea about how motor skills can help in multiple areas of child development. But, what exactly are motor skills?

A motor skill is basically a function that involves precise movement of the muscles with the intention of performing a particular act. It is the ability to make a purposeful movement by sensing what the muscles are doing as they carry out the act. And this ability to move in an intended way has a significant impact on learning, motivation and classroom performances of children. So on that note, today we, at Gurukul The School, have brought to you a few effective ways you can aid your children in their motor skills development.

The simple act of coloring and cutting shapes

Coloring and cutting shapes help to improve children’s manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination. They learn to hold the crayons and pencils properly and improve their control over scissors while using it as a tool. You might get those paint-by-number books found in the market to aid them further in developing their motor skills.

Bringing easy and fun exercises to the rescue

Exercising is one of the best ways to combine fitness and motor skills’ development for the young ones. So, just take them to the backyard or the terrace, and let them try skipping, jumping jacks, hopping, or hopscotch. Let them choose any of these activities as per their liking so that they have fun while doing it.

Introduce children to the use of cutlery

Let children start using a spoon and fork at each meal that they have. It is granted that they will struggle at first and make a mess, but gradually they will learn. You will have to resist your desire to jump in to help and let them figure it out on their own.

Let them play with their favorite play-dough and slime

We know how much our kids love playing with slime and play-dough. And, we are asking you to encourage them about it because it aids in the development of motor skills. Let your children stretch, squeeze, roll worms, and cut play-dough with scissors as much as they want.

Bead races and tweezers to develop motor skills

Place a bowl of multicolored beads next to an empty bowl. Ask your children to use tweezers to separate a particular color of beads and put it in the empty bowl. You can time their activity to encourage them further in completing it quickly, or maybe you can join in the race with them!

Teach them the basics of planting and gardening

Transferring seedlings in the soil need hand-eye coordination for safely carrying the small plant into a new hole. Children will also have to use a pincer grasp to pick up seeds to plant. These are activities that need considerable muscle control, and thus, effectively aid in improving motor skills in children.

We, at Gurukul The School, one among the top 10 schools in Ghaziabad, firmly believe that the techniques suggested by us in this article above would surely come to your aid in improving the motor skills of your children. However, we would also like to suggest you not to expect remarkable developments in a day. For instance, we can’t expect our little munchkins to master the techniques of using cutlery in three days or cut exact shapes in a week. However, once you keep up the efforts, we are sure the results will show.