GROWING STRONGER!
Stories on Devanshi improving her fine motor skills
What are Motor Skills?
Motor Skills are the movements and actions of the muscles. Much of the development of these skills occurs during early childhood. Further, fine motor skills require the use of smaller muscle groups to perform smaller movements with the wrists, hands, fingers, feet and toes, which are very essential for the holistic growth of any child. Writing also involves such small and precise movements and hence well-developed fine motor skills are critical to begin writing. These stories shed a light on Devanshi working on her fine motor skills.
How it began?
This story began when slime was introduced in the class. These slime were in beautiful different colours, filled in tiny boxes. Devanshi found the invite very engaging and that is how she embarked upon her journey to become stronger.
Slimy slimy stuff
Doll spent a good part of the class emptying the slime boxes, rolling them into chapatis for her felt dog and filling them back into their tiny boxes. This required enough movements of her wrist, hands and fingers which our dainty Doll(as we call her ❤️)performed while braving all struggles that came her way.
Droppers and Syringes
Later in the week, we were taken by surprise when she successfully handled a dropper and a syringe. Building on her interest in filling up cups with coloured water, we had created an invite where she could add vinegar to bowls that had some baking soda along with a pinch of colour. The added twist was that she had to use a syringe/dropper to add vinegar instead of simply pouring. Devanshi handled both of them with a lot of precision. She was successful in dropping/injecting colours in the bowl full of water and was intrigued to see them fizzing. It was a delight for her, as well as for us, for different reasons altogether. For us, it was the joy of seeing her use a complex tool with dexterity, for her it was a party of colours, fizz, and sound.
Lacing fruits
Another fine motor skill that Devanshi exhibited was lacing. An invite had been set up with different fruit blocks, a needle, and a thread. Devanshi surprised us all with the swiftness with which she could lace all the fruit blocks together using a needle.
The rubber band puzzle
To help her build on her skills further, we created a new puzzle for her that combined the use of fine motor skills and cognitive skills. On a wooden core, she had to mount rubber bands based on a given pattern. Initially, she found it a little difficult to stretch the rubber band for mounting it on the wooden core. To her credit, she kept coming back to it and struggled till the time she got it right. It took her about 4 days when she was finally able to stretch it on her own. She also followed the pattern provided and covered the whole wooden core with colourful rubber bands.
Twister, dough, and many more…
There were many other incidents like playing with a twister, climbing on the slide backwards and sticking dough scraps on the glass wall, crushing chalk, etc. where she displayed similar tendencies. She was able to roll, mould, separate and join the slime as well as the dough. Twister excited her a lot and these engagements exhibited profound skill development on her part.
What this means?
In these stories, Devanshi demonstrates her fine motor abilities to:
- To move her fingers, wrists and hands properly.
- To handle various small objects precisely.
- To use her skills in a goal-oriented manner.
Opportunities and Possibilities
Given her progress in fine motor skills, we will give her more opportunities to improve her skills. She has started using safety scissors to cut paper and we will continue to help her become better at it. We have added whiteboards and markers in the class and are encouraging Devanshi to begin mark-making. We are creating more engagements for her that get her to use a writing instrument whilst enjoying the whole process.
