How to develop fine motor skills of the baby. Development of fine motor skills up to a year. Video: Development of fine motor skills - educational games for children

29.07.2019

Ekaterina Morozova

Reading time: 10 minutes

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In recent years, many mothers are faced with the problem of “weak fingers” in babies. Delayed motor development, alas, has ceased to be a rarity: modern children hardly master the skills of unbuttoning buttons, tying shoelaces, and so on. As a result, there are adaptation problems in kindergarten. It is important to start exercises for the development of fine motor skills in a timely manner in order to prepare the child for social life.

However, there are much more reasons for such training than it seems ...

The benefits of developing fine motor skills in young children - why is it necessary?

3-4 decades ago, children's hands were not familiar with tablets and other gadgets, which today replace not only nannies, but sometimes moms and dads. Children's hands were busy sorting through buckwheat in a jar of beans, washing handkerchiefs, stringing dryers on strings, assembling wooden pyramids, embroidering - and other seemingly useless, but extremely effective activities.

A logical consequence of technological progress was the lag of children in development. One of the facets of this lag is fine motor skills, the development of which is extremely necessary for babies under 3 years old.

Why is it so important?

Fine motor skills are closely related to the nervous system , is directly related to the memory of the child, to his attention and vision, in perception. By developing fine motor skills, you develop not only his fingers.
Stimulation of fine motor skills activates speech and motor centers which are very close. By forming fine motor skills, you influence the child's handwriting, speech, reaction speed, and so on.
According to the level of development of fine motor skills, one can speak (approx. - as one of the indicators) about the mental development of the child, about him .
The development of fine motor skills contributes to the intensive development of the child in a creative way .

Video: Fine motor skills in children. Development of fine motor skills

How to deal with the development of fine motor skills with a child 1-3 so that the classes are interesting and effective?

Each child is individual, and each has its own stages of development.

But, in general, the calendar for the development of the fine motor skills we are currently studying looks like this:

From birth to 4 months: the baby reaches for objects, but squeezes toys, rather, at the level of a reflex. He is not yet able to consciously grasp the toy, and there are no preferences yet either with his right or left hand.
From 4 to 12 months: can shift a toy from one hand to another, turn the page of a book, take a bead with his fingers.
12-24 months: confidently "uses" fingers, especially index. Tries to draw - can already display circles, first lines, dots. At this age, right-handers and left-handers appear - the child chooses which hand is more convenient to draw, eat, and so on.
2-3 years old: the child is already quite capable of holding scissors and trying to cut paper. The drawing style gradually changes, and the drawn figures become more or less conscious.
3-4 years old. The child already draws consciously, holds the pencil confidently (although not always correctly), is able to cut paper along a line drawn by himself. By this time, the kid has already managed to decide on the dominant hand, but in games he uses both of them.

When to start and how much to do?

The start of "training" in fine motor skills is different for everyone, but experts believe that the ideal age is 8 months, when the fingers are already ready for such exercises.

However, up to this age, you can apply:

Passive gymnastics. That is, a massage of the fingertips.
Slingbuses. Or, as they are also called, mamabuses or nursing beads. A mother puts a similar bright accessory on her neck while feeding a baby, as soon as he wakes up with a desire to feel something and twist his fingers while eating.
Put in the hands of toys made of diversified materials - convex, rough, fluffy, smooth, etc.

Considering that all training (starting from 8 months) goes through the game, the time of training is limited only by mom's busyness and common sense.

The average class time (daily classes are recommended) is 30-60 minutes, depending on age. For a baby of 8-12 months, a 10-15-minute lesson will be enough, for an older baby, we increase the time of classes, according to his enthusiasm.

Important:

The more methods are used to train fine motor skills, the more effective the classes will be.

Basic rules for parents:

Start classes as early as possible and stick to the regularity of training.
Try to start the exercises with a massage of the hands and fingers.
To captivate the child, combine exercise with play.
In a set of exercises, it is important to use a scheme that involves compression / tension of the hands, their relaxation and stretching.
Exercises should be appropriate for the age of the crumbs and the level of his physical development.
Until the baby learns to make certain movements on his own, the mother will have to help him fix the necessary position of the fingers, perform the movements themselves, and make them correctly.
Start with the simplest exercises, the transition to complex ones should be gradual.
Contribute to the creative development of the baby - encourage him to come up with new exercises on his own.
Stop exercising if the baby is tired or naughty. And do not forget to praise your child for success.
Let your child do everything on his own that he can do on his own - from self-care to household chores. Even if you have to wait and then clean up after the child.
Constantly look for new games and exercises. If the baby has already mastered simple movements, immediately move on to others - more complex ones.

Video: Fine motor skills - the best toys for 2 years

5 best toys for the development of fine motor skills of the hands of young children - what to choose in the store?

In the variety of toys for fine motor skills that are presented today in children's Russian stores, you can easily get lost.

What toys are recognized as the most effective? What exactly to buy?

Your attention - 5 most useful toys for training fine motor skills:

Mosaic. Everyone is well aware of the benefits of this toy, both for the development of fine motor skills and for the development of speech. The choice of mosaics is truly huge - both floor and "Soviet" on legs, and on magnets, and so on. Starting from a year old, a toddler can choose a mosaic with large details and a large base, and then move on to more complex toys.
Bodyboards. Such game boards, equipped with levers, buttons, frames, keys, lacing and other interesting details, will not only keep the little one busy for a long time, but will also become an excellent simulator for fingers, thinking, manual dexterity, and so on. The ideal age for such a toy is from 10 months. Naturally, you can not leave a child alone with a toy. In addition, it is important to check the reliability of the fasteners. .
Sorters(note - inserts, frames, etc.). The toy involves inserting certain shapes into the corresponding holes. The stores offer sorters-machines, cubes, puzzles, and so on. Maria Montessori is considered the pioneer of sorters. The task of the kid is to compare the hole in the frame / cube in shape and size with the details that need to be put into the holes or frame. Naturally, you need to choose a toy according to age. You can start developing a baby with the help of a sorter from 1-2 years old.
Lacing. A useful toy that you can make yourself or buy ready-made. Lacing promotes perseverance, the development of the eye and fine motor skills, the flexibility of the hand, and also develops speech and guarantees (with constant studies) the absence of problems already at school - with writing. From 1-1.5 years old, you can already offer the little one a simple lacing. Naturally, a child will be bored with braiding a year old, so it is important to come up with a number of lacing games to interest the child.
Finger Theatre. In this game, the child does not have to be "dragged by force." Finger theater is loved by all kids without exception. For the smallest, you can include games like “Magpie-Crow” and “Goat Horned” in training, and then, as you grow older, come up with whole performances in 4 hands with your child. In the absence of funds, characters that need to be put on fingers can be made of paper or sewn / knitted.

Also in the list of the most effective toys for fine motor skills, you can include designers, classic pyramids and textured rattles, soft books and cubes, three-dimensional puzzles and nesting dolls.

Video: Development of fine motor skills - educational games for children

15 Best Games and Activities for Developing Fine Motor Skills in Children 1 to 3 Years Old - Helpful Activities to Do at Home

You can come up with a huge variety of games and exercises for training fine motor skills of games - moreover, from improvised means, without investments and even without leaving your place.

Among the most effective methods are the following:

We are engaged in modeling . What material to use does not matter. It's the process that matters! Clay, plasticine and plasticine, even ordinary dough - everything will work. If the little one has already grown up, you can teach him to work on a small (children's) potter's wheel.
Home sandbox . Yes, there will be more cleaning. But the delight of the child, as well as the effect that such a game provides, outweighs all the minor troubles. Options: kinetic sand, a primitive version of a mini-sandbox in the room (supervised, of course), sculpting Easter cakes, balloon toys stuffed with sand (you can also fill with flour, but strictly monitor the integrity of the toy), as well as creative kits for painting with color sand and sand painting on glass (with backlight).
Making collages and crafts . Naturally, with cutting out details, drawing up patterns and applications.
Creating crafts from natural materials . We collect acorns, twigs, berries and cones on the street, and at home we create real forest masterpieces.
We instill the necessary skills and develop fingers : unfasten and fasten buttons, unfasten zippers, untie lacing, hook hooks, click buttons, and so on. You can make a panel on a dense basis with similar entertainment and engage with your child. Don't forget to add brightness and your baby's favorite characters to the base to make it more fun to play.
We play Cinderella . Mix buckwheat with beans and rice. The task is to fish out all the beans from the plate (jar).
Cat in a bag. Children love this game, but the age bar starts from 3 years. We put several small items of different shapes and textures in a bag. The task of the baby is to put his hand in, grab the object and guess by touch what exactly is in his hand.
Constructor . Choose any designer, according to the age of the child. Anyone will be good! From large soft cubes to small Lego, if it is already usable by age. Build castles, fortresses and palaces of princesses, schools and hospitals, and so on. Necessarily - with games and mini-performances (the child needs to be taught to play, just assembling the designer is not enough!).
Making beads! It doesn't matter from what. Use what is at hand - dryers, pasta, bottle caps, large beads, etc. Stringing objects on a string is a very difficult task for a toddler, so start with the simplest options. And then you can move on to weaving bracelets / baubles (from 4-5 years old).
Weaving, embroidery, knitting . This method is beyond the power of the little ones, but it always benefits preschoolers and younger students - writing and speech improve, creativity develops, fingers begin to work more confidently. You can weave baskets, embroider with a cross and beads, crochet napkins or knitting scarves, and so on.
Pictures from plasticine and cereals . Lesson for kids 2-5 years old. We spread plasticine on plastic or cardboard. It is better if the child does it himself, because smearing plasticine is also part of the exercise. Next, we put several plates with different cereals and press peas, beans, rice and other cereals into plasticine so that a simple (for starters) pattern is formed. You can also use shells, pebbles, beads.
We select lids for jars . It is desirable that the containers are plastic and of various shapes. For example, bottles, round jars, square and so on. Let the child decide for himself - for which container what lid is needed. Of course, he must also put on the cover himself.
We spill, pour. Pour cereal into a bowl. The task of the baby is to pour the cereal into another container with his fingers (pinch). For example, so that "the fish hid under water." You can also use a teaspoon. The second option: pour water into a container and pour it into another container with a spoon, "so that the boat floats."
tearing papers . Game for toddlers from 6-7 months. We give the baby several colored paper sheets to tear and demonstrate exactly how to tear the paper into small pieces. Do not give your child newspapers - they use harmful paints.
Treasure box. We fill the box with a lot of interesting (safe!) Items and give the child to study. More mother's and father's "treasures" (jars, watches, rubber bands, etc.).

Important:

Do not leave your child alone with toys that can harm him! Remember that any fine motor training should only be done under the supervision of an adult!

The appearance of a baby in the house is not only a joy for parents, but also a responsibility. Mom and dad take care of the newborn and raise their child. In the first year of life, he must learn to walk, pronounce some words, recognize his parents. At two - already be able to hold a spoon, draw or sculpt something from plasticine. To perform precise movements and improve coordination, it is necessary to perform games for the development of fine motor skills of hands in preschool children. Therefore, mother needs to deal with the little one so that he learns the skills necessary in everyday life.

What are exercises and games for?

In childhood, this contributes to the formation of mental health in the baby. The mother gives the baby a massage of the whole body, but pays more attention to the toes and hands. At 3-4 months, the child tries to play with toys. They should not be too small, as he pulls them into his mouth. Agility develops gradually. At first, the movements are clumsy, and only with repetition do they improve. It should be noted that doctors distinguish several periods: first, the first 12 months, when the grasping reflex is realized, then it is 2, 3, 4 years, when the accuracy of movements and purposefulness appear.

Skill Assignment

In kindergarten and school, the child must already have developed hand motor skills in order to:

Draw without going beyond the lines. It is more difficult to manage a pencil than a felt-tip pen, and accurate, confident movements are needed for paints and brushes.
Modeling from plasticine. Usually this process consists of manipulating small parts that are placed between two fingers.
Letter. The first skills in mastering the alphabet may already be accompanied by copying the curves of letters on paper or a board.
Accuracy. Sometimes a soiled T-shirt while eating does not indicate the baby's disobedience, but the difficulties in managing cutlery.

Diagnostics and norms of fine motor skills in children

Carefully observing the child, you can detect a violation of the development of this indicator. Children aged 4-5 years must meet the following requirements:

To be able to knock a hand on a hand - to clap.
Grab a small object with your index finger and thumb, such as a pinch of salt or cereal.
Draw on paper with a pencil.
Retrieve small items from a jar or other shallow container.
Play with cubes and build figurines.
Able to draw vertical and horizontal lines without a ruler.
Uses markers.
Knows how to use personal hygiene products (brushes teeth, combs, ties shoelaces).

This is not the whole list of the child's skills. The formation of skills depends on how early the parents began classes with the baby. Sometimes there is a delayed development of children. It's one thing if it's organ damage or mental illness. But there are cases when this is simply the result of neglect.

Possible deviations in hand dexterity:

There is a violation of the technique of manipulating objects (strength, coordination, accuracy).
Insufficient psychomotor.
Cannot take care of himself.
He draws without pleasure, and also performs small precise movements.
Cannot hold a pencil, pen, fork or spoon.

If a child at the age of 5 does not know how to perform these items, then this is considered a functional disorder.

Parents can independently determine this indicator. For this child, you need to ask to repeat the movements for mom or dad. Consider a list of such methods:

You can build figurines with your fingers, and your baby must display them with his fingers.
Show the warm-up for the brush. To do this, stretch your arms in front of you, and then alternately clamp and relax your fist.
Imagine that the index and middle fingers are the legs of a little man. Ask the child to walk on a piece of paper.
Give a landscape sheet to your daughter or son and ask them to draw a house, then look at the picture. Smooth and straight lines indicate a positive dynamics in the development of hand motor skills.
Take the cubes or the designer and ask them to make a house out of them.
Similar manipulations can be done with puzzles.
Play counting. The kid should bend his fingers alternately starting with the little finger without the help of the other hand.
Make dots on paper. They must be connected without lifting the pencil from the sheet.
Shading the figure with different lines (horizontal, vertical, wavy) will help to identify deviations in the dexterity and clarity of the movements performed.

If at the age of 3 a daughter or son performs 30-40%, then at the age of 5 he will be able to achieve a 100% result. If it turned out lower, then you need to deal with it, since in the future it will lag behind in this indicator.

How to develop fine motor skills in a child

You need to start classes as you grow older, sequentially. You can do the following:

Up to 6 months. Give your baby a daily massage. Children have developed a grasping reflex, so give them toys in their hands to play with.
From half a year. Buy large cubes.
Up to 3 years. Start drawing, writing, and performing precise movements together.
Over 3 years old - speech is almost fully formed, as well as basic skills. It is necessary to maintain interest in activities - encourage hobbies, buy additional toys.

Nerve endings stimulate the work of brain cells, which leads to an increase in intellectual abilities.

Methods, types of motor development

There are many methods. Consider various options that are easy to perform at home.

Palm massage. It can be made by hand. Suitable for children of any age. The essence of the technique is that the mother kneads the hands and feet of the baby with light stroking movements. We recall the proverb "Magpie-Crow".
Okay. Clapping stimulates blood flow to the hands, and also trains accuracy and speed.
Paper crumpling and page flipping. At 5-6 years old, you can offer to play with the newspaper, and then tear it up. They love this kind of thing.
Beads, rosary. The child willingly sorts out small details, and also puts together puzzles. Just make sure he doesn't eat them.
Drawing with sand.

Outdoor games

In winter, outdoor activities greatly strengthen the health. It can be:

Snowballs. Everyone's favorite fun forms the ability to sculpt dense balls, as well as accurately direct them to the target. In general, during the battle, the speed of manipulation increases. At the same time, they are perceived very positively, not as a lesson or exercise, but as fun.
Snowman. Building a symbol of this season is quite difficult, but very exciting. The larger the target, the more effort will be required to accurately create the figure.
Slide. The child will need ice to descend. At the same time, he strongly clings to the handle so as not to roll separately from the sled. This will fix the grasping reflex.

In winter, it is very important to stay warm all the time. This applies not only to children, but also to parents. Choose quality and water-repellent jackets. The online store of sports equipment Stayer offers a wide range of models with great functionality and bright design.

Develop fine motor skills of hands from the first months of life. This will help you quickly teach your baby to hold a pen and eat with a spoon.

The growing up and growth of children is a very peculiar process, which is distinguished by many subtleties and nuances. And every person who is a parent, by all means, must take a direct part in the development of his child. And this means not only, as they say, the teaching of the mind, sending to kindergarten and school, as well as providing the child with everything necessary for a normal life, but also more subtle actions. One of these is the development of fine motor skills.

What is fine motor skills?

The expression "fine motor skills" by physiologists means the movement of the small muscles of the hands. But here it is very important to keep in mind the hand-eye coordination, because the development of small hand movements is carried out with the help of vision.

Why develop fine motor skills?

The question of why it is necessary to develop fine motor skills is very relevant, because. Many do not understand why this is necessary at all.

To begin with, it is worth noting that in general the motor skills of the hands are most directly developed with the development of speech. And this is not a myth, as it might seem at first glance. Research scientists have shown that from the point of view of anatomy, about a third of the entire area of the motor projection of the cerebral cortex is occupied by the projection of the hands, located very close to the speech zone.

Given this, an assumption has appeared according to which the subtle movements of the fingers have a formative and developing effect on the speech function of the child. For this reason, if you want to teach your child to speak, you must not only train his articulation apparatus, but also develop fine motor skills in every possible way, namely: the movement of the fingers.

But there is something else that definitely needs to be mentioned: fine motor skills of the hands develop not only speech. In addition, it interacts with thinking, motor and observation, coordination and attention.

It is also necessary to develop fine motor skills for the reason that the whole future life of a still small person will require him to use coordinated and precise movements of the hands and fingers. Take at least quite elementary actions: fastening and unfastening buttons and locks, tying shoelaces, putting on and taking off clothes, drawing and writing, working with a computer, and much more. It would seem simple, but none of this a person will be able to perform properly if his fine motor skills are not developed.

But when should you start developing fine motor skills?

When to start developing fine motor skills?

Experts recommend starting the development of fine motor skills in children at the age of eight months. It is during this period that the fingers will already give in to active training. You can, of course, start developing fine motor skills even earlier, offering the baby to play with objects of different textures, shapes and sizes, as well as with special toys, which, by the way, are easily made from what is at home, but it’s not a fact that it will result. So eight months is the best time.

And the next quite logical question would be: “What are the ways to develop fine motor skills?”. That is what we will answer below.

By and large, the choice of means for the development of fine motor skills is quite diverse. Moreover, the more ways you use, the more effective and complete the classes will be, and the result will become more tangible.

So, consider the most common and popular ways to develop fine motor skills.

Games with small stones, buttons, beads and cereals

Games with small stones, buttons, beads and cereals have an excellent developing, healing and tonic effect on the child's body. However, they should always be carried out under the supervision of one of the adults, so that the child does not accidentally get hurt or eat one of the above items.

These games include:

Drawings from cereals. A piece of cardboard is taken, and the child draws any image on it, for example, the sun. Then you need to take the safest glue and apply it along the contour of the drawing, and the child should put, for example, peas, beans or buckwheat on these lines. Such a game serves as an excellent training for the muscles of the hands and fingers.
Exercise using forceps. You need to give the child tongs and ask him to put beads, peas, etc. into a bottle with a narrow neck.
Exercise with tweezers. The child is given tweezers, and with its help he shifts from one container to another and sorts small toys or the same cereal. In addition, it is very effective if the baby shifts small toys or cereals with tweezers into some kind of figured container, for example, into a mold for ice or baking cakes.
Sort small items by size, shape and color. Have your child sort the grains, buttons, or beads by color, size, or shape.

"Finger" games

"Finger" games are a kind of staging of any stories, most often rhymed, using fingers. You can start playing such games even up to one year, and then continue, slightly complicating finger movements. You can play until the end of primary school age.

Most of these games involve the use of two hands, thanks to which children begin to understand what is “down”, “up”, “left”, “right”, etc. To obtain the greatest effect, these finger exercises must be built in such a way that tension, relaxation, squeezing and unclenching the hands alternately change, and isolated movements of all fingers are involved.

Modeling from clay, plasticine or salt dough

Today it is a well-known fact that working with such "materials" as clay, plasticine and salt dough perfectly develops fine motor skills, and also has a wonderful effect on the imagination.

What can be done:

Paste glass bottles with plasticine and give them the shape of teapots, vases, jugs, etc.
Spread out of plasticine in the form of balls, sausages on cardboard or plywood specific specified patterns
Make prints on clay, dough or plasticine by pressing on them with your fingers, toys, coins, buttons, etc.
Sculpt balls, rings, sausages, then cut into separate pieces, and then put together again (you can shape individual pieces)
Make several different parts and make a composition out of them (you can prepare the elements yourself, and only after that give them to the child to work with)

Exercises with the use of additional items

In addition to the fact that exercises with the use of additional objects are very exciting and entertaining, they are excellent for developing spatial imagination.

Among these games stand out:

Mosaic. For starters, it’s enough that the baby will simply insert the mosaic elements into the base. Subsequently, a specific image or shape should be set for the child to post it. The ideal option would be a mosaic with different hats.
Accounts. Give the child the task of shifting the counting rings from one end to the other. To develop counting skills, you can also move the rings in order.
Threads. This refers to the usual winding and unwinding of threads on various objects. You can, for example, pre-select the figures of any animals, and the child will wrap them with thread, giving color. The same figures can be used for games.
Paperclips. To play this game, you will need the usual multi-colored paper clips and several sheets of colored paper. The task is to collect leaves of the same color in a small pack, and then fasten them with the same paper clip.
Bolts and nuts. Nothing unusual is required - only large bolts and nuts. And the meaning of the game is even simpler - to screw the nuts on the bolts.
Clothespins. Clothespins are taken and cling to a rope, cardboard or any other base. The task can also be complicated: some identification signs are glued to the base and clothespins, for example, colored cards or letters, and the child clings to the clothespins to the corresponding bases.

In fact, this list of games for the development of fine motor skills is not exhaustive. For this purpose, you can find some other games or come up with your own. Remember that anything is suitable for the development of motor skills: water, sand, shoelaces, wire, paper, etc. and so on.

And one more thing: developing fine motor skills is useful not only for children, but also for adults, so even if you do not have children, go to the store for plasticine, and we assure you, the evening will be spent with benefit.

All mothers have heard about the importance of developing fine motor skills in children, but not everyone understands what it is and what manipulations need to be done in order for the child to develop normally. In this article, we will consider the features of the development of fine motor skills in children, as well as the main ways of development in the form of exercises and games.

Fine motor skills: what is it

Fine motor skills are called the ability to reproduce the precise movements of the hands and fingers for the implementation of both simple and more complex tasks necessary in everyday life. Fine motor skills are not only simple movements and gestures, but also include skills such as writing and drawing, which take quite a long time to learn.

The development of fine motor skills begins immediately after birth. Initially, the baby looks at his hands for a long time, over time he tries to understand what they are for, and gradually tries to control them.

The baby begins to try to grab objects and hold them with his palm, eventually mastering his fingers. The connection of fine motor skills with the nervous system of the baby is distinguished, the development of skills is associated with vision, memory, attention and perception.

Did you know? Scientists have proven the fact of the dependence of the development of fine motor skills and speech. There is a very simple explanation for this. The centers responsible for speech and motor skills are located very close in the baby's brain, therefore, when the motor center is constantly stimulated, the speech center also comes into activity.

Therefore, the benefit of the development of motor skills is the rapid development of speech. If you develop motor skills from early childhood, this will later affect dexterity, accuracy of handwriting and reaction speed.

The extent to which efforts were made to develop fine motor skills in childhood will allow us to form a general opinion about how ready the child is for school, how developed his logical thinking is, how he remembers information, whether he can concentrate, speak correctly and clearly.

Features of the development of fine motor skills in children

Each period of a child's life, from 1 year to 5 years, has its own characteristic features of the development of fine motor skills. In order to understand whether the development process is taking place correctly and the need to adjust skills, it is recommended to pay attention to the approximate norms for each age.

Up to 1 year

In the period up to 4 months, the baby tries to learn how to cope with hand movements, reach out to objects that are of interest to him, and can move his thumb 90 degrees. At this age, the child equally controls both the right and left hand.

The child may have a pronounced reflex of grabbing something with his hand, but this process occurs unconsciously. From the age of one year, the baby begins to better control his hands.

Previously difficult tasks that used both hands to complete are now easier for him, requiring only one hand to complete them. For example, he can quite consciously grab a toy with one hand, and the older the child becomes, the more small toys he is attracted to.

Important! By the age of one, the risk of airway obstruction increases many times, as the child tries to try everything on the “tooth”, and small details are of particular interest to him.

At the age of 1 year, babies can shift toys from hand to hand, kick a ball, try to turn pages in a book.

Up to 2 years

A child at this age needs hands only to play, since it is no longer necessary to hold on to them in order to sit straight, or to hold on to a support while walking. Up to 1.5 years old, children also use both hands equally, and closer to two years they determine the dominant one.

The child can already move his fingers quite well, he tries to burst bubbles with his thumb, draws, grabbing the pencil with his whole hand, he can take the cube from above with five fingers. By the age of two, the kid awakens an interest in drawing, but he draws mostly circles, over time he begins to get vertical and horizontal lines.

Up to 3 years

In this period of the baby's life, the child already has good control over the body and the movements performed, actively uses the hand and fingers to perform the necessary tasks, the latter become even more obedient. The child no longer uses five, but three fingers to capture the cube.

After the age of two, the manner of drawing changes, he holds the pencil perpendicular to the sheet, he is good at drawing circles, lines, trying to put some kind of drawing out of them.

By the age of three, a child can already use scissors and cut a piece of paper into several pieces. The kid is very interested in playing in the sand, he is already able to carefully pour it into a bucket, to sculpt Easter cakes.

Up to 4 years

At this age, the baby uses both hands in the process of work, for example, the main one draws, the auxiliary one holds the leaf. The kid is trying to draw more complex drawings, he can redraw the simplest figures that he saw in the book, he gets almost even vertical and horizontal lines.
He manages to do better with scissors - cut along the drawn lines. The kid can build small towers from 3-5 cubes. During this period, the child already confidently uses his fingers, he can take small crumbs or a bead from the table with his index and thumb fingers.

Up to 5 years

The necessary movements are already carried out exclusively with a brush, the child perfectly paints the drawings, does not go beyond the contour, the child already uses scissors quite confidently, can easily cut out simple geometric shapes.

By the age of 5, the child is already confidently holding a pencil, like an adult - with three fingers, this is a sign of readiness to master writing skills, the drawings become more understandable, the child is already quite good at drawing people, trees, clouds, the sun and other simple elements.

A special place at this age is occupied by a designer and puzzles. If earlier it was not quite possible to combine elements into one picture, by the age of five the child can already put together a small picture on his own.

How to develop fine motor skills of hands: exercises and games

To develop fine motor skills, special exercises and games were invented for children of different ages, we will consider them in more detail.

Young children cannot do exercises on their own or play games to develop fine motor skills, so they are recommended to massage their hands and fingers.

Initially, each finger is massaged, starting with the little finger. Make movements from the fingertip to the palm, carefully massaging each joint.
Then pay attention to the pads of your fingers, massage, lightly pressing each pad.
Next, the palms are massaged with circular movements of the index finger.
After that, the baby's palm must be placed in his hand and with his thumb to make light pressure movements in the center of the child's palm.
To perform the following massage movements, you must use an annular spiral massager. It is put on the baby's fingertip and moves up and down. This is done with each finger.
To perform the final stage, massage brushes are used, which are passed along the palms of the child.

Game "Okay"

Old, but not lost its popularity is the children's game "Ladushki". This fascinating nursery rhyme is used while playing with the hands, which allows you to teach kids to keep their fingers straight, to clap their hands, thereby developing fine motor skills of the hands.

Playing "Ladushki" is quite simple. During the game, you must say: Sweeties, sweeties! (straighten the baby's fingers) Where were you? (connect the child's palms with a light clap) Grandma's! (split hands) What did you eat? (make a light clap of the palms) Porridge! (split hands) What did you drink? (again light clapping) Brazhku! (disconnect the palms) They flew, flew, flew, (now make movements with the baby's hands, imitating the flapping of wings) They sat on the head! (with open palms of the baby touch his head)

After a year, a baby can be taught to turn pages in books and magazines. Choose books with dense pages for this to make the process of turning over easier for inexperienced children's hands.
Thanks to such exercises, the baby tries to use two fingers (thumb and index), connecting which a good development of fine motor skills occurs.

Older children can be offered a game of constructor. Such a game is suitable for children from 2 years of age and older, the designer differs in the size of the elements, the presence of additional details, figures. When choosing a constructor for the smallest, you need to pay attention to the fact that the elements are easily connected and disconnected, and their size is large.

Older children, on the contrary, are interested in collecting smaller details, sets of a certain theme, created based on cartoons or fairy tales, with colorful figurines and decorative elements, are very popular and interesting.

The presence of many elements in the designer, which must be connected to each other, creating a variety of compositions, perfectly develops the fine motor skills of the child, allows you to develop memory, spatial vision, abstract and figurative thinking.

You can sculpt from plasticine starting from 2 years. To do this, there are many types of children's plasticine on sale, differing in composition, price and age category. For the smallest, you can buy dough-plasticine, which is harmless to health even if swallowed. To save money, you can make homemade plasticine from salt dough.

To prepare it, you must use:

cold water - 1 glass;
salt - 1 cup;
vegetable oil - 2 tsp;
food coloring - on the tip of a knife;
flour - 3 cups;
cornstarch - 2 tbsp. l.

Cooking process:

In a deep bowl, mix liquid ingredients and salt until smooth.
Gradually adding starch and flour, bring the mixture to a thick consistency suitable for modeling.

Store the finished dough in a tightly closed container. Modeling trains fine motor skills well, due to the fact that the baby learns to pinch off small pieces of plasticine, roll them into balls, tubes, and connect them together. Thus, both fingers and palms are trained and strained as much as possible.

kinetic sand

Kinetic sand is a modern and fairly popular tool for developing baby's fine motor skills. It is a mass resembling wet river sand, which allows you to sculpt Easter cakes and build castles or roll them into balls, flagella, like ordinary plasticine.

Kinetic sand is classified as an environmentally friendly and safe material, it is very pleasant to the touch, it is easy to work with even the smallest children.

Did you know? Kinetic sand is a modern invention, it was first produced in Sweden, the product went on sale in 2013 and turned out to be so popular that after 3 months they paid attention to it and began to buy foreign children's goods stores.

Drawing, in order to develop fine motor skills, can be done from an early age. For the little ones, there are special safe finger paints that you can use to decorate drawings or create masterpieces on your own.

Also on sale is a wide range of coloring pages, where individual elements of the picture are drawn with finger paints, which develops fingers and palms very well.

Older children can color the pictures with pencils, felt-tip pens or paints. In order to decorate the picture without going beyond the outline of the picture, it is necessary to make considerable efforts, while simultaneously training fine motor skills.

Bead game

Beads of different sizes and shapes will definitely interest the child, it will be especially interesting for children under 2 years old. Beads can be put on your neck, so the baby will be even more interesting, and fingering each bead will develop fine motor skills.

Older children can be offered to make beads on their own. To do this, prepare your child with home-made or purchased beads and a thread on which the child will string them. You can lay out tracks from beads, stick them to paper, create pictures that will not only develop fine motor skills, but also imagination.

Grain games

For the development of fine motor skills, games with cereals are very suitable. As the main component of the game, you can use any cereal that is in the house, it is advisable to use several types so that the child can feel the different shapes and sizes of grains and grains with his fingers.

Important! When playing with grains, out of curiosity, a child may try grains or even put them in his nose, so be especially careful and watch your baby during the game.

You can play different games with cereals. Small children can be offered to pour cereal from one palm to another, hide a small toy in a container with cereal so that the child finds it, pour fine cereal in an even dense layer on the table and draw with fingers.

Older children can be offered to make an application from different cereals; connect several cereals with each other and offer to sort each cereal into a separate bowl.

Children from the age of 2 can collect mosaics, they are offered games with large elements that cannot be swallowed, and it is convenient for the baby to hold them in his hand. Mosaics allow you to train not only fine motor skills, but also imagination, when the baby seeks to create any picture with the help of parents.

Children after 3 years are offered mosaics with smaller elements that allow you to create large compositions.

finger games

Under the finger game is meant the staging of a rhyming story or fairy tale with the help of fingers. Children can start playing finger games from the age of 1, using only one hand, and even 2-year-old children can repeat the movements of the parent's hand.

From the age of 3, you can already involve both hands of the baby in the game and gradually complicate the task by learning to change one movement of the hands to another.

Such games develop fine motor skills well and prepare the child's hands and fingers for writing and drawing. The hands become more mobile, flexible, stiffness disappears, which in the future will become a good basis in the process of learning to write.

Tightening caps

An excellent exercise for developing fine motor skills is twisting and unwinding the lids. As a rule, babies love to play with bottles, so teach your child how to twist and twist bottles.

Video: "twist the lid" game To make it easy for the child to complete the task, provide them with small bottles with small caps that fit in a small hand.

Starting to develop children's motor skills is necessary from an early age. As soon as the baby begins to hold objects in his hands, it is recommended to offer him toys of different shapes and textures.

If the proposed games or exercises do not arouse interest in the child, they can always be replaced with other more interesting developmental activities. If the child does not like the games that you offer, you can always find more colorful and interesting options in the store, or show your imagination and make your own toys no worse.

It is also recommended not to leave the baby alone with the game, tell what and how to do, explain, support if something does not work out, and interest. If you show your baby how exciting it is to play with you, then soon he will definitely show interest in the game.

Video: ideas for developing fine motor skills

Important! If you offer your child any game purchased in the store, be sure to look at the age restrictions that are indicated on the package in order to exclude the possibility of swallowing some elements or causing other life-threatening situations for the baby.

Thus, the development of fine motor skills in children should be given special attention and begin to engage with the baby from an early age. There are many games, exercises and other fun activities to choose from, according to the age, preferences and abilities of the baby.

A trifle for the development of fine motor skills

Development of fine motor skills | Important Preface

Once I read a post by a mother about how she actively engages in fine motor skills with her baby, sometimes finding “surprises” in the diaper, and I was horrified, because each of the small motor surprises could be the cause of the baby’s death! I want to warn everyone that small objects in the airways are deadly And if you are not ready to keep your eyes on the baby during fine motor skills, it is better to wait until 3 years!
When practicing fine motor skills with kids, do not forget about most important rule: If a child under three years of age has objects less than 5-4 cm within reach, your gaze should be constantly riveted on the child.

All children put everything in their mouths

Lots of kids do it, but Not all! I was lucky - Yana almost never put anything into her mouth. At the first games with small objects, I gave her a few warnings. For about a year, such warnings were no longer required.
Sometimes she has a desire to pour loose objects, including on her head. Especially when getting acquainted with a new bulk filler. As a rule, after a series of explanations, this desire passes.
I suggest trying to collect statistics by answering the question:

Fillers for the development of fine motor skills

Fillers-grains for the development of fine motor skills

The very first question for those who are just thinking about fine motor skills is “Which filler to use?”.
Basically, everyone wants it to be economical and look aesthetically pleasing.

I suggest focusing on age limits. It makes no sense for a baby of 6-8 months to offer small cereals for the development of motor skills. As such, small-motor development in this case will be ineffective. The baby will receive a portion of tactile sensations, but for small hands, whose sensitivity is not yet developed, fine grits overly complex filler. Imagine if you are offered to sort out cereals in mittens. It's not very convenient, is it? Therefore, we start with large parts, gradually reducing their size.
After the baby begins to confidently hold medium objects 5-4 cm, we provide smaller ones.
It makes sense to add cereals and other small fillers when the baby begins to learn to hold spoons, spatulas, pour, sow. Most often, this age corresponds to 1 year, for babies with a rapid pace of development, it is better to start playing with cereals from 9 months.

For aesthetic combinations, I have the following guidelines:

A dark-colored trifle goes well with buckwheat, figurines and beads made of wood and nuts.
Universal for combinations of cereals - rice. It can even be painted to match the little things.

The most economical fillers and their companions:

cereals;
grandmother's buttons;
beads from cheap jewelry.

The most interesting filler (one of our favorites) is kinetic sand (I have a beautiful and detailed one about it). It's good in every way, except for the price. A variety of games with him requires a separate post :-).

Disadvantages and features of some fillers:

hydrogel- popular due to the unusual tactile texture, but with a detailed study of the composition, you can find out that when it is destroyed, potassium acrylate and acrylamide are released. Acrylamide is a lethal neurotoxin and has been found to cause cancer in laboratory animals. It easily passes through the skin and can be inhaled as a dust. If swallowing is excluded, then games with hydrogel are dangerous only if it rolls into a far corner and begins to break down in the room. Therefore, we do not use hydrogel in our games.
glass pebbles for aquariums (marbles) - I considered them an excellent option until, when buying another portion, I did not encounter broken ones. It turns out that during the game there is a chance that the child can break the pebble and cut himself with fragments. We do not leave the baby alone even with large pebbles! This is, of course, reinsurance, in general, marbles are very pleasant for games - I recommend it!
round beads and marbles - they like to roll into various cracks. Yana loves them so much that sometimes I just can't refuse her the pleasure of driving them around the apartment.
semolina and ordinary sand are very loose, quickly capture the territory and therefore are not convenient. We deal with them in rare cases, only when the occupation requires a fine texture (learning to use a sieve or salt shaker).

The development of fine motor skills in games for the little ones

Fine motor skills, according to various sources, are the movements of the fingers or hands and fingers. By the way, gross motor skills are the movement of arms and legs, and it is no less important :-).
The development of fine motor skills should begin from the moment when the child has learned to hold the first rattle. For starters, we suggest holding the most comfortable light and small items. Gradually we complicate the task - we give out smaller items and offer them to touch / get / put / hide / select / sort from various containers, etc. There should be a lot of games because most are disposable - they get bored after one game.
For games with the smallest it is better to use:

Ideal options for the development of fine motor skills are many items that are in every home:

tea bags in individual packages;
a set of sponges for washing dishes (it is even more interesting to play with them if cut into pieces);
chess;
hair bands;
to develop tactile sensations, pour fillers of different textures into small socks (beans, semolina, rice, cotton wool, etc.), sew them up so that the filler does not spill out. Some socks can be stuffed tightly, others softly. Give this variety to the study of the child. The game will probably take about 5 minutes. After losing interest in sock blanks, hide them away and take them out in a month or two. Interest in socks will return each time until the child discovers their secret - i.e. up to 4-5 years, and maybe older.
colorful toilet paper :-).

Here are some of our game options, I hope I will be original:

Scarves and pyramid rings are a great start to developing fine motor skills.

Hair bands are another safe and fun option to play with.

Development of fine motor skills in children older than 1 year (in rare cases, 9 months)

Depending on the pace of development (for faster ones - in 9 months, for slow ones - by a year), we add games with:

cereals;
sand accessories;
toy dishes;
pyramid with cups.

Some mothers recommend giving babies a spoon as soon as possible for the fastest learning to eat independently. I am against this, because if you have a child with a slow pace of development, you will have to wash the entire kitchen and the child himself for a long time. It is quite another thing to learn how to use a spoon on cereals!

We sift the rice from the beads. This is our favorite sieve - large and convenient

For some reason, Yana attracted these ducks to small-engine games

The dishes can be replaced with a pyramid of cups and a regular spoon

The easiest thing to do with a spoon, you can use an egg cell and beads for it

Development of fine motor skills of advanced kids (from 1.5 years old)

At an older age, the kid himself begins to invent games, often turning them into role-playing ones.

Beads 0.5 cm perfectly laid out in the cells of the back side of Lego parts

Small cubes of dish sponge Yana was carried away for several hours

Many of the games in this post come from watching Yana.

Fine motor skills | A few words about Jan

For those who are interested in our success, I will write about its development (it is now almost 1 year 10 months old). Despite the active, plentiful classes in fine motor skills and other things, the results of speech development are very modest - there are only about 10 words in the active vocabulary. Sometimes I get the impression that my daughter decided to prove the failure of modern pedagogical theories :-).
Nevertheless, this is not a reason not to follow them and, at a slow pace of development, consider your efforts in vain, since most likely the results are not visible to the naked eye. After all, in fact it is very difficult to objectively assess the development of the child(the degree of his understanding of the surrounding situation, the ability to make decisions and other really important things) - therefore, they took for standards what can be counted and measured (such superficial signs as the number of words in the active dictionary, cubes in the tower, etc.).

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