Early Childhood Education: Development of Manipulative Skills

Introduction

Manipulative talents, generally, are those in which a person learns to grip things with accuracy in accordance with speed and control. These talents mainly contain physical events with the use of hand and body. Keep fit the figure to carry out physical activities is needed for the all-round development of the child.

All body movements require us to make use of our muscles. Motor talents are divided into dual categories - fine and gross. Fine motor skills are a minor set of skills used to manipulate smaller things, and involve smaller liveliness.

Cases of fine motor skills include picture, drawing, cutting, etc. Gross motor skills are those which make use of comparatively bigger muscles in the body, and require high level of judgment and coordination. Some examples of gross motor skills are jumping, running, climbing, etc. (Holecko, 2019).

More importantly, manipulative activities must begin at a young age so that the child can reap the following benefits:

• Healthy growth plus progress
• Building tough strengths and skeletons
• Progress of simple motor talents
• Upgraded sense of movement, sense of balance, and bringing together
• Progress of intellectual faculties
• Developed social interactions, a heightened sense of confidence
• Healthy weight and frame (Singh, 2018).
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In this assignment I will focus on the progress of Manipulative Talents and how motor skills effects children’s learning skills.

Improvement of Manipulative Skills

Thing control skills are tougher for kids to controlling because they are more difficult and challenging than motor skills that don't involve objects. So, they progress after other gross motor skills.

When children are first learning manipulative skills, the goal isn't complete accuracy (striking a ball right at a goal, for example, or throwing it to another player in a game). They must first learn the basic action—for example, throwing a ball—before they can fine tune it.

Fine motor skill efficiency expressively impacts the value of the task outcome as well as the speed of task performance. Effective fine motor skills require a number of independent skills to work together to appropriately manipulate the object or perform the task (Holecko, 2019)

Fine Motor skills

Fine motor skills are minor parts of the body, like those of the hands and fingers, with the eyes. Fine motor skills contain the small muscles of the body that enable such roles as writing, clutching small objects and clasp clothing. They involve strength, fine motor control, and skill.

How Fine Motor Skills Effect Child’s Learning and Living Skills

These skills are important for the school activities as well as in life in over-all. Weaknesses in fine motor skills can affect a child's ability to eat, write legibly, use a computer, turn pages in a book and perform personal care tasks, such as dressing and cleaning

How Can You Help Your Child Practice Fine Motor Skills

Here are some activities will help develop eye-hand coordination, develop finger control and help children learn how to manipulate objects

• Play dough. Roll, squeeze, stretch, pat, pound or use tools such as plastic knives, scissors or rolling pins for cutting and rolling.
• Finger paint. Use fingers to paint pictures, letters or numbers.
• String noodles. Use dry noodles of all shapes and sizes and loop them on string or yarn.
• Tweezers, clothes pins or chopsticks. Use tweezers, clothes pins or chopsticks to pick up and sort objects like beads, cereal, cotton balls, pompoms or other small objects (watch closely for choking hazards).
• Drawing between parallel lines - this can be introduced at an appropriate level for the child in question and gradually made more difficult. E.g.:
  • Moving a toy car (or a finger) between lines on the floor.
  • Moving chalk (or a finger) between lines on a blackboard.
  • Moving a finger between lines on a sheet of paper.
  • Moving a crayon between lines on a sheet of paper.
  • Moving a pencil between lines on a sheet of paper. The distances between the lines can gradually be reduced. Check that the child is holding the pencil correctly and that the paper is kept still, and that s/he always goes from left to right. Start by using straight lines, then make it more difficult by introducing angles and later curves.
• Crayons, markers, pencil, chalk. Draw, scribble or write.

Practicing fine motor skills will help children have a concrete foundation for their future everyday tasks (Moyses, 2016)

Gross Motor Skills

Gross motor is a larger mussels of the body parts. It is the whole body movements. Gross motor skills are activities such as running, crawling, swimming or hopping. These types of activities are important for young children to practice as they develop because they help children learn how to manage and control their body movements. Gross motor skills also help lay the foundation to be able to complete fine motor skill movement such as pinching or grasping.

How Can You Help Your Child Practice Gross Motor Skills

Here are some activities will help develop hand-eye coordination and help children learn to control and coordinate the movement of their bodies.

• Ball play. Roll, throw, catch, toss, kick and bounce balls.
• Tag. Run and chase each other around. For an added twist, when someone is caught have them freeze until another person touches and unfreezes them.
• Tape line. Using tape to mark a line on the floor or ground, have children practice walking and balancing on the line. Have children hop over the line from side to side to practice hopping. You can also use other items such as a piece of wood or large branch to make a balance beam.
• Balloon play. Throw balloons in the air and try and catch them, keep them from hitting the ground or volley them back and forth together.
• Obstacle course. Set up items such as hula hoops (or yarn circles), chairs, small tables, balls and buckets and have children climb over, under, run around and transport items from one area to another.
• Bubble play. Blow bubbles, chase and pop them. Have children use the bubble wand and spin around or run fast to make bubbles instead of blowing to make them.
• Simon Says or Mother May I. Play Simon Says or Mother May I, focusing on doing large movements such as hopping on one foot, hopping up and down, touching your toes, swinging your arms, taking giant steps, spinning steps, crab walking, etc.
• Music. Play different types of music that include fast and slow and have a dance party. Do a movement and have children copy that movement, then have them do a movement and copy them.
• Box play. Using empty boxes of all sizes, let children crawl through them, over them or under them. Have children push and pull the boxes to move them around.
• Toss and throw. Using bean bags, socks filled with beans or soft toys, have children toss items into containers, taped off area on the floor or chalk drawn areas on the driveway.

Practicing gross motor skills will help children learn how to control and coordinate their body movements (Moyses, 2016)

Recommendation

Young children are talented of understanding and actively building knowledge, and they are highly motivated to do so. They were learn things in fun and enjoyable ways. While there are developmental limitations on children’s competence, those constraints serve as a maximum below which there is huge room for difference in growth, skill achievement, and understanding. If your child has difficulties with fine motor skills, it is recommended they consult a Professional Therapist.

Conclusion

Fine motor skills contain the use of the small muscles in the fingers, hand and arm to manipulate, control and use tools and materials. Hand-eye coordination, where a person uses their vision to control the movements and actions of their small muscles, is also an important element of fine motor skill development.

How can you help your child practice gross motor skills? You can develop your child’s motor skills, give them opportunity to play things like run, throw balls etc.

References

• Holecko, C. (2019, January 10). How Kids Master Manipulative Motor Skills. Retrieved February 11, 2019, from www.verywellfamily.com: https://www.verywellfamily.com/manipulative-skills-1256926
• Holecko, C. (2019, January 10). How Kids Master Manipulative Motor Skills. Retrieved February 11, 2019, from www.verywellfamily.com: https://www.verywellfamily.com/manipulative-skills-1256926
• Logsdon, A. (2018, October 31). Best Ways to Improve Fine Motor Skills. Retrieved February 11, 2019, from www.verywellfamily.com: https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-are-fine-motor-skills-2162037
• Logsdon, A. (2018, October 31). Best Ways to Improve Fine Motor Skills. Retrieved February 11, 2019, from www.verywellfamily.com: https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-are-fine-motor-skills-2162037
• Moyses, K. (2016, June 14). Building fine motor skills and why it matters. Retrieved February 11, 2019, from www.canr.msu.edu: https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/building_fine_motor_skills_and_why_it_matters
• Singh, A. (2018, June 03). The Importance of Manipulative Skills and Activities to Enhance Them. Retrieved 02 11, 2019, from aptparenting.com: https://aptparenting.com/manipulative-skills