Summer holidays signal long periods with unstructured time and offer ample opportunity to help strengthen motor skills. When given opportunities to play with a variety of interesting and unique materials, toddlers and young children grow their mental capabilities in many new and exciting ways. Through play, children practice and perfect the control and coordination of large body movements, as well as smaller movements of extremities such as hands and fingers.
Fine Motor Skills
Developing fine motor skills opens new doors for exploration, learning and creative expression, and lays the foundations for academic learning in later years. Fine motor skills combined with sensory engagement help develop the neural-circuitry to the brain and builds strength and endurance in muscle memory. The development of these skills gradually develop through experience and exposure to a variety of toys, dolls, materials and even food. Fine motor skills are important as it helps little hands develop dexterity and strength.
Our Doll Sleeping Bag is the perfect fine motor skill accessory during play, allowing your child to develop their hand eye coordination. This is done through dressing dolly for bed by putting doll arms through armholes and using the zip on the sleeping bag, practicing feeding their doll using pretend utensils, grooming or brushing dolls hair, or rocking a doll back and forth ‘to sleep’.
Gross Motor Skills
Large gross motor skills include; running and jumping, throwing or catching a ball, climbing play equipment, riding a bike, filling and emptying buckets or pulling and pushing toys around the room. Whereas fine motor skill movements include small muscle movements such as speaking, singing, wiggling toes and fingers, painting, cutting, forming shapes out of playdough, tying shoelaces, clapping, drawing or reading.
Our Short Sleeve Layers and Bodywear range are the perfect additions to your little ones summer fun, offering freedom to move, whilst the stretch jersey organic bamboo fabric keeps playtime light and breathable! Machine washable fabrics make cleaning up after messy adventures a breeze.
As parents you can help the process by encouraging children to play, explore and interact with a variety of items. Look for opportunity throughout the day to practice movement, big or small.
