Physical skills come under two categories:
Firstly, Gross motor skills - All large-scale movements such as walking, running, climbing, hopping, balancing, co-ordination etc.
To develop gross motor skills, you could:
Tune into Joe Wicks and GoNoodle on YouTube.
Play hopscotch.
Skipping activities with a rope.
Go on a trike, bike, or scooter. (WEARING A HELMET)
Throwing and catching balls of different sizes balls. Try throwing at a target or throwing a ball through a hoop.
Wheelbarrow walks where the child walks on their hands whilst an adult holds their legs straight. Great for developing core and arm strength.
Target throwing-This activity will improve their gross motor skills as well as their hand-eye coordination skills. Draw targets on a wall at different heights -these could be bullseye targets, numbers, shapes, colours, letters of the alphabet.(or a mixture, hit the blue circle, hit the square with the number 7 in it). These targets can be changed to match the child’s ability. For example, display a range of numbers from 1-10, ask your child to throw a ball, a beanbag, a paper aeroplane or even an old pair of socks to hit their target. You could call out a number for them to hit or let them throw and let them say the number they have hit. Not only will this activity improve their gross motor skills by strengthening their shoulder, wrist, and arm muscles (important for development of writing skills that they will need in Primary 1) but it will also reinforce/consolidate number/colour/shape/letter knowledge.
Make fun obstacle course indoors or outdoors. Build an obstacle course with your child(children), get your wee one to climb under a table, climb over a chair, hop on one foot, roll on the floor/grass while holding a ball over head, toss soft balls or beanbags into a container, crawl under a blanket /sheet, walk like a crab, do starfish jumps, balance a beanbag on their head. To make it more complex, give your child a sequence of steps to follow to get through the course. This will help to promote listening skills and following directions.
For even more fun make it a water obstacle course! Add water balloons, use them to balance on your head, move them from one place to another without the balloons bursting, or put the water balloons on a trampoline and bounce on them to see how many you can burst. Use water balloons or a water pistol to shoot at a target. Have fun using the water pistol to soak a moving target like mammy or daddy! lol There are endless combinations that will keep your wee ones happy and occupied for hours.
Egg(potato)and spoon race. Running races. Sack race. Don’t forget our sports day always incudes a parent’s race! Get up and get moving with the wains!
Secondly, Fine motor skills e.g. using small tools, developing pencil grasp, scissor skills, fitting materials together and taking apart etc).
To develop fine motor skills, you could:
Continue to give opportunities for your child to mark make using pens, pencils, chunky markers, brushes, sticks etc.
Observe their grip and control of these tools, and model/correct grip where necessary.
Allow them to use scissors. Model the correct grip and show your child how to snip/cut pieces of paper.
Encourage them to colour/paint between lines.
Use clothes pegs (let them help you to hang out the washing!).
Paper folding-make paper aeroplanes to throw at a target.
Using stamps on paper or dough (make patterns with the stamps).
Using a hole punch (see our paper plate octopus’ activity).
Using stickers, pulling objects off sticky paper.
Use tweezers to pick up small objects e.g. water beads to transfer them from one container to another. Create a ‘tinker box’. Put in broken items they can ‘fix’ using real tools-wood, nails, glue, nuts and bolts, loose parts etc (adult super vision needed of course).
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