LearningFine Motor Skills

As we all start to think about getting back to classes and what our children have missed out on during lockdown and the last few months, be that social or physical development, we thought we would start to share some of the many benefits of our classes – starting with Fine Motor Skills! 

Fine motor skills involve the small muscles of the body that are used for activities such as holding a pencil/paintbrush, writing, grasping small objects.

They are important not only for most school activities but also for life in general – such as holding a knife and fork,  and for getting dressed – pulling up zips, doing up buttons, fastening shoes etc.

And all of these (everyday) tasks require highly developed fine motor skills. So it is important that during their earlier years, children should strengthen their small muscles, develop fine motor control, and improve hand/eye coordination.  

But these skills do not develop overnight. And they’re not the kind of skills that when you’ve accomplished them once then they’re mastered. They need to be practised,   which is something we do every week in our classes. It’s all part of our learning programme!  

 The activities which involve the use of the hands develop over time. It starts with primitive gestures like grabbing at objects, as babies do, like grabbing and holding food. And progresses  to more advanced activities that involve precise hand-eye coordination, like holding a pen or buttoning a shirt. 

Fine motor skills are skills that involve a refined use of the small muscles controlling the hand, fingers and thumb. The development of these skills allows one to be able to complete all of the tasks mentioned above. And importantly will give your child a sense of control and autonomy over their actions! 

A couple of terms ago, in conversation with one of our Nannies who brings a little boy to one of our Tuesday classes, she was delighted to announce that she’d just taken him for his 2 year checks and he had ‘aced’ all of the tasks! So much so that the assessor had asked her what they had been doing with him and why his ‘skills’ were so well developed? She was obviously very happy to tell them that he’d been coming to our classes since he was 11 months old and singing our praises of how great it was etc. 

She also has a (very nice) habit of approaching complete strangers in the local area – be that in the park, or on the bus – and telling them about our classes and how they must sign up their little ones! 

So if a complete stranger approaches you, singing our praises and telling you to sign up, don’t worry. She just really believes in us. As do we in her. So if anyone is looking for a Nanny………?