Activities to Develop your Kids Motor Skills

Author – Tejasvi Lohia

(Reading time ~ 4 mins)

Motor Skills play an important part in physical development. It is any action that involves your kid using his muscles. Motor skills include locomotion (running, walking, jumping, hopping), manipulation (throwing, kicking, catching, bouncing), and stability (bending, twisting, rolling, dodging). There are two kinds of motor skills. Fine motor skills and Gross Motor skills.

Fine Motor Skills: Fine motor skill (or dexterity) are the small movements, usually involving the coordination of hands and fingers with eyes. For example, your kid picking up things with his hands, holding on to your fingers, etc.

Gross Motor Skills: Gross Motor Skills are larger movements made by your kid using legs, arms, feet or his entire body. For example: Crawling, jumping and running.

Great Play helps each player reach his or her full physical strenght. Here are some games or activities which can help a kid of 2-5 year of age in improving his or her motor skills:

1. Toss and catch:

Tossing a ball in the air and catching it again is a good exercise for improving hand-eye coordination (fine motor). If your kid throws it aimlessly, have your child stand in a hoop or make a circle and make him/her stand in it. This will challenge your kid to throw carefully.

2. Object Relays:

Racket drill plays very important part in Fine Motor Skills as well as Gross Motor Skills. Hold the racket in your hand, with your palm pointing up. Try bouncing a ball for few times at one moving your feet.

3. Racket drill:

Tossing a ball in the air and catching it again is a good exercise for improving hand-eye coordination (fine motor). If your kid throws it aimlessly, have your child stand in a hoop or make a circle and make him/her stand in it. This will challenge your kid to throw carefully.

4. Swing on the playground

Swing helps your child develop balance. It also requires him to coordinate shifting weight and moving his legs back and forth. Going up or down on a slide and climbing are some more ways to develop gross motor skills.

5. Swimming

Swimming is not only fun, but also helps improve gross and fine motor skills. It helps understand coordination and balance. It helps increase your muscular movements.

6. Martial Arts:

Martial arts like taekwondo, karate and judo helps build gross motor skills. This is to be done under professional guidance.

Children learn more when given freedom. Let your children create their own games, exercises; let them build stuff, explore the environment. Never limit your child’s exploration.

Image courtesy – nspt4kids, marinaswimschool, deltamaa