Physical Development Activities For Your Child
Movement is a universal, full-time, personal, childhood occupation
, and its importance in children's early learning experiences cannot be overemphasized...Children develop movement in space to understand position, size, distance, and shape. Continuous activity... is essential for an optimal rather than a marginal level of motor performance." from Moving and Learning for the Young Child by William J Stinson, Ed.During the first part of life, gross motor activities dominate the child's repertoire of movements with the major objective being the mastery of walking. Now the child can focus on activities that encourage the development of fine muscles. Fine motor movements allow the child to increase skills that require finger and hand movements such as putting together simple puzzle, painting with a paintbrush, turning a page of a book or stringing beads. It also strengthens and muscles in the hands and fingers necessary for dexterity and coordination in playing formal instruments like piano and violin.
Playing simple musical instruments, such as sandblocks with back and forth alternating movement, gives the child an opportunity to develop eye-hand coordination. The eye leads the hand movements, so that the internal knowledge becomes the basis for the movement. This connection of movement with sight is essential in writing, drawing, playing an instrument, learning a sport or dancing.
Movement and language activities that single out specific body parts help the child develop awareness of those parts. Body awareness starts with the total involvement of the infant then progresses to the Our Time age child to the refinement of smaller muscles and movements that can be restricted to specific body parts. As the child becomes more aware of his own body, you will notice that he will use more body vocabulary words and will draw people with more body parts.
Body-awareness is important in the development of spatial orientation. Understanding the space of our own body aids in the perception of judging distance, how we relate to other people objects, and how we move through space. Climbing through a hoop, around a hoop, or jumping inside the hoop are activities that strengthen spatial orientation between self and other objects.
Spatial intelligence, linked to body-awareness, is a life skill that is a prerequisite to driving, ball games (tennis, basketball, golf...), and many sports, and is further an asset to professions like architecture and constructions. Spatial intelligence can be developed through movement activities that encourages spatial planning, activities such as circle / line dances, moving through different pathways, moving at different levels, and moving in different directions and orientations.
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