Child Development - Fine Motor Skills- How you can help

Children develop so quickly, progress being seen month to month. All children are different and develop at different rates but each child follows the same path.

At the age of 3 years children's fine motor skills, concentration, patience and hand and eye coordination are all beginning to increase rapidly and by the time they have reached 7 years old their skills will have very much matured.

Art and craft activities with children at this age need to be simple and fun.
But, firstly what might you expect from a child of this age?
As a guide only :
Children aged 3 years can
-Begin to cut paper with scissors
-Draw a person with a head face and limbs (no body)
-Control a pencil with a tripod grasp
-Can thread large beads on a lace
Children of 4 years old can
-Thread smaller beads with large holes
-Draw people with a head, body, arms, legs and fingers.
-Can recognise and name a range of colours
-Can write own name

What  you can provide- age 3-4 years:  chubby crayons, chunky paint brushes with short handles, liquid paint in pots or bowls, safety scissors, modelling dough, maize noodles, glue spreaders with pva glue, large beads and laces, large collage materials, plenty of paper including tracing paper, pencil grips and training scissors if need be.




Children of 5 years old can
-Accurately use scissors
- Have much improved pencil control
-Sew large stitches on canvas or sew into canvas with holes
-Draw a person with a head, body, arms and legs detailing the face
-Concentrate for longer periods

Children of 6 years old can 
-Write letters in a consistent size
- Build and model make with precision
- Hold a pencil in an adult manner
- Sew simple stitches
 -Enjoy planned pattern making

Children of 7 years old can
-Draw people with fingers and toes included
-Add clothes to their drawings of people
-Write capital letters and lower case letters in proportion to each other














Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 27, 2012

    A very useful list and great guidlines about what to buy.

    ReplyDelete

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