The wonder of play #2 fine-motor focus

One of my favourite sayings from my time teaching in Early Years is ‘Play is the work of the child’. It was said by a child psychologist named Jean Piaget, and I take it to mean that, for children, play is serious business. It’s not a relief from something more arduous or from more prescriptive learning… play IS work, play IS learning. As adults, it’s tempting to draw children away from their play sometimes to do something that seems more structured. However, this can sometimes breed resentment and have children see ‘learning’ as boring… the enemy that steals their playtime. In my opinion, the best thing that we can do as adults is give small children the opportunities in their play to build their skills without them even realising they’re doing it.

One of the most significant skills a child can gain from their play is to build their fine motor control. This means fine tuning the muscles in their fingers, hands and wrists while improving their hand-eye coordination. Activities that build on fine-motor control will aid in so many tasks for children. From buttoning up their coat independently, to having the stamina to write when they get to school. All this will work wonders on their confidence and give them more motivation to sit for more structured learning opportunities. I’ve listed some of my favourite fine-motor activities below for inspiration. The best thing is, a lot of these toys and activities are things you probably already have in your arsenal!

Playdough

Playdough always featured heavily in my classroom and now it features heavily at my stay and play sessions. The process of squeezing, rolling, pinching, poking and kneading works all the muscles in the hand before the child has even started to fine-tune their creation with their fingers. It’s such an important resource that many EYFS settings now do a daily ‘dough disco’ where children mould their dough in time to music. It also has therapeutic benefits but I’ll save that for another blog post...

Beads

Beads are just a terrific toy. Kids while away the hours making granny a beautiful gift that she’ll treasure forever, all while giving their fine-motor muscles and hand-eye coordination a serious work out. If your children are too small for anything pea-sized, Melissa and Doug do an amazing set of large beads that are perfect for little hands and far less likely to be wedged in any nostrils or ear holes.

Loose parts - i.e. buttons, nuts and bolts, conkers etc.

I love to see what kids come up with when I give them a jar or tray of loose parts. As I detailed in my last blog post, loose parts are amazing for their imagination but also, tend to be played with using a pincer grip… invaluable for helping them to develop the control they will need for writing. To enhance this further, you could add some plastic tweezers or children’s chopsticks to the play.

Sticker books

Kids love stickers and, providing they have something to stick them to, they are relatively mess free! Plus the actions of peeling, pinching and softly pressing the sticker on a page are helping our children with those skills they need for surviving school without a dry-wipe handwriting book in sight. These ‘Sticker Dolly Dressing’ books from Usborne are a favourite in our house, keeping my daughter occupied for hours.

Tough spot with spaghetti and a colander

Yes, I know, we are branching into messy play territory now but if your child loves a challenge then this could be right up their street… all you have to do is see how many pieces of spaghetti they can insert into the colander without them snapping and they will proceed with razor sharp focus and apply their pincer grip like a ninja… for an added challenge, see if they can then add Cheerios to the spaghetti strands.

Building and stacking

The process of building a tower is wondrous for a child’s motor control and spatial awareness. Babies can start with colourful stacking cups, preparing them for a childhood of building things up just to watch it ‘all fall down’. Obviously, Duplo, Mega blocks and Lego are insanely popular, but I also love Jenga-type play, mainly for the pure delight of watching it build up and inevitably crash to the ground!

Roll it out!

Mysteriously, children are far more likely to engage in drawing and writing activities when it’s laid out horizontally across a floor space. My kids love to make giant maps or draw round their body parts. It’s a fantastic way to give them some tummy time when they’re littler. It’s something I used to use in school to engage reluctant writers and it worked a treat! You can get big rolls of paper from scrap stores or Ikea, but you can also use old wallpaper or tatty wrapping paper.

Snippety, snip, snip

Small children tend to love the idea of scissors until they’re asked to use scissors and then they realise that they, in fact, hate scissors. To help them gain scissor control and grip, I turn to my very overgrown garden. This is a picture of my daughter learning about scissors with an old daffodil stalk. It was the first time I’d let her anywhere near scissors and I just let her learn about their effect without correcting her grip or position. It’s certainly more satisfying for children for things to be chopped with one snip, rather than fruitlessly hacking away at a piece of paper.

Puzzles

Puzzles where babies can hold onto little handles are brilliant for pincer grip, but even the trusty carboard ones are great for fine-motor control as well as spatial awareness as children get older. I particularly love giant puzzles for toddlers. They’re a great solo or group activity and amazing for communication and language too. We have so many puzzles and I would definitely have more if there was space in the cupboard.