Kaboutjie SA Mommy Blogs by Lynne Huysamen
As your baby grows, your main concern will be about his/her development of certain key skills. You may have heard about the importance of the development of fine motor skills, which basically refers to the ability to coordinate the use of the hands and fingers, with the eyes. Simply put, your child will need to exhibit that he is able to grab an object that he sees, or to move an object with his hands. Slowly but surely, your child will be developing these fine motor skills and get better at using his hands. You may give him a helping hand too by offering him toys that can help him to develop these fine motor skills.
Here are 5 of the best play products you could buy for this.
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Baby Walker
Physical playtime is important for your child, and the use of a baby walker is ideal for this. Many baby walkers are designed in a way that they will encourage the child to explore the various activity elements and buttons included in it. Spinning, flipping, pulling, pressing, pushing and other key tasks will be encouraged with a baby walker. Besides with the bright colors, sounds and lights, the baby walker will mesmerize your little one while helping him to have lots of fun! Sight, touch and hearing activities will also be stimulated with such a baby walker.
As soon as the baby learns how to stand on his feet, he will use the walker for its main purpose, which is to develop gross motor skills too. He will start to practice walking with the support provided by the baby walker, as well as increase his muscle strength, coordination and balance. For the best walker for baby you will need to consider how many activities it will encourage him to do. There are many baby walkers on the market, but choosing the best baby walker according to its features is important as it is a critical play product when it comes to developing your little one’s fine motor skills, as well as gross motor skills.
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Building Blocks
Stacking toys help in promoting fine motor skills’ development. Stacking blocks are great toys, as the child will first need to grab the block, and then think how to stack it on top of other blocks so as to build a structure. These toys help to encourage your child’s creativity as well as help him gain spatial awareness and discover the beauty of building and construction.
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Pegs and Pegboard Set
A pegboard with several colourful pegs for your child to stick them into the various holes is a great way to encourage your little one to grab, place and push. These are all important tasks in the development of fine motor skills.
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Jigsaw Puzzles
There are simple jigsaw puzzles for young children which help in the development of fine motor skills. These consists of a board with hollow spaces where the child will need to place the matching pieces. Choosing the right piece is not always easy at first, but your little one will be taking the time to try to place each piece in the corresponding space, and even if he does not manage to do this instantly, he will have been practising turning, moving and trying to press the piece into the spaces.
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Doughs and Clays
While playing with dough your little one will be squeezing, squishing, rolling and building stuff. These tasks are all great to develop fine motor skills.
My son loves dough he makes all those kind of fun creatures and gives them names .
My son also loves playing with dough and blocks.
Other manipulative activities that we can also do to develop their fine-motor skills are packing and unpacking baskets, interlocking activities, toys that encourage twisting, paging through book etc. Their are so many “home-based” activities that one can also do.
I think the main thing is that parents need to read up about the different skills so that they have a better understanding of the concept. If they have that, they will be able to create their own games/toys for their children.
Sand…..
this is a definite winner with most boys now days.
I went to a parent teacher meeting at the preschool that my son attends and one of the most simplest ideas of play time was Sand in either a pit or a table top with a bit of water and they can mould away as they like.
My son is a typical boy he loves it, in winter I don’t allow water so found this “Magic” sand at the Game stores as this works well, some kind of kinetic sand so it does not mess as much as the play sand does.
It keeps them occupied for an extended period of time which also allows me some time for coffee and just keep a watchful eye.
Totally agree with ronitha sand my girls love sand and the garden whether it’s planting or making mud pies they love it the texture of it working with their hands they mould it and create an adventure of it I don’t mind the dirt if it keeps them busy and away from the tv
My boy also loves to play with dough. Especially that Play-doh modeling kits where you can make alot of different shapes/animals. He will make a small mini town out of play doh. Very good for fine motor development and imagination.
The best part about learning through play is watching how your child goes from infant to baby to toddler. From nibbling puzzle corners, to randomly sticking the pieces together in no orderly manner, to recognizing the image and building it accordingly. And the best part if you get to be a part of that fun. I love these ideas mentioned in the article, and those further listed by the other moms. I myself love the especially messy learning, so I often forget there are other areas to be explored. This article gave me great ideas (Puzzles? DUH!). The only thing on this list I wouldn’t just recommend to anyone is the walking ring, and that’s purely because it can cause more delays than growth if it is introduced too early, or used to often, etc. But still a great buy when baby is ready 🙂
Thank you for the handy suggestions on how to improve fine motor skills. I was interested in the idea of pegs and a board as I had not come across this toy before. I also hadn’t fully realised how great playdough is in helping children to finetune their motor abilities. I have been given a great recipe which I used to make for my eldest – I think I should fish out the recipe again and make some more dough. It is especially nice when vanilla essence is added to it. Stimulates the olfactory senses – mine too!!
I bough my boy blocks and wow it keeps him busy he loves it then he will come show me what he build
Thanks for this article 😉
My little one loves puzzles.