Get them moving! Yesterday we talked about big movements: climbing, balancing, swinging, and more. Today, think small. Let’s get those hands moving and working on eye-hand coordination. As always, play is a child’s work. At any age, these activities develop skills that pay off in other areas, like better handwriting, and better coordination.
Repeated movement creates neural pathways. I know that’s kind of technical, but this is what it means. When a child plays with legos, clay, lacing cards, puzzles, etc., it develops muscle memory for fine motor skills. When it is time to learn the art of handwriting, muscle memory kicks in and can make the process easier and faster.
Remember, this is not about getting tons of toys. There are probably already lots of items around your house you can use. When my children were about 3 years old, we started with sorting when putting away clean silverware. There are lots of options. If I’m buying a gift, then I want it to do at least double duty. Choose toys wisely even if you pay more for an item that can be used in more ways. This is a short list, but these are space-saving, simple multi-taskers.
Wins: hand-eye coordination, math, communication, discovery
*Counting Set: I love this set so much. There is so much double dipping here: counting, fine motor control, grasping, pinching, and sorting by number and color. Typically I prefer non-plastic, but this is sturdy, safe, and easy to store.
*Lacing Apple Instead of having lots of different lacing cards or shapes, I like simple. This is sturdy, the “needle” is safe and not sharp. It requires several motions to do the lacing.
*Busy Board Puzzle–lots of practical skills here
*Sensory Development Pillow My grandson loves, loves, loves stuffed animals. My daughter-in-law found this adorable squishy, sensory toy for him. Win on so many levels.
*Aarons Thinking Putty for bigger kids and adults I use this myself. Not only it is a great sensory experience, it strengthens the hands and doubles as a “fidget” to keep hands busy and boost focus. A great boredom buster.
*Mini Tins. Love it.
*Rubik’s Cube This is great for older kids and adults. It gets the fingers and the brain moving at the same time. This is a win-win! The cool thing about the cube is that once you learn the algorithms of the solutions, the skill set changes to more of a visual perception exercise that is nearly automatic. My son can solve them so easily now, that he works it repeatedly to relax. Yes! Really! This also helps teach the value of algorithms, and systems for problem-solving that you do over and over to get results.
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