Did you know that developing radial digital grasp is crucial for pen control?
This is the first grasp that requires and involves more precise finger movements. Your baby will start picking up objects with their thumb and fingertips, rather than their whole hand. It allows babies to efficiently grasp and handle tools or items by moving the thumb and fingertips harmoniously. The skill is particularly useful for when children grip dining utensils, use a toy hammer, or paint brush. They also use the thumb and fingers in opposition to grab and pick up small objects and toys. This skill will lead to the development of the pincer grasp as they get older.
Did you know, your baby is exploring the world when they mouth toys?
Babies are learning vital things about the world when they explore with their mouths. They are unable to use their fingers as tools to explore, so they substitute them with their mouth. When something is placed in their mouth, your baby is learning about texture, temperature, shape and size.
Did you know, when your baby starts to pass objects from hand to hand, they are learning life skills such as washing up?
This is a significant moment. Passing an object between two hands is a skill that your baby will practise for the next few months and it requires coordination throughout their body.
You will start to see skilled hand-to-hand exchanges taking place.
Did you know, there are several arches in the hand which enables us to hold different sized objects?
Your toddler’s hands are developing and gaining more control. The different arches within their hands allow them to grasp objects of different shapes and sizes. The arches, bones, and muscles in the hand all work together to grip and hold objects. To hold on to the object once it has been grasped, your toddler will need to strengthen their gross grasp. Squeezing the hand closed is required, and this can only be accomplished once the hand arches have developed.
There's more to stacking blocks than meets the eye
For your toddler, stacking blocks and sending them tumbling is all about the fun, as it should be! But the next time you see your young builder in action, take a moment to fully appreciate all the developmental areas of learning they're demonstrating when doing this...
Ripping up the rule book – nine reasons why tearing paper is great!
When a baby tears a sheet of paper, the tiny muscles in their hands gain strength and endurance. They're also having to use both hands at the same time to complete an action – a skill called bilateral coordination. Although you will need to set boundaries around exactly what bits of paper your baby is tearing up, there are many reasons that the actions themselves should be encouraged with a pile of scrap paper.
Your baby's bilateral coordination and their fine motor muscles are still developing. These skills will eventually help when doing tricky tasks like fastening a zip, putting on their own shoes and cutting with scissors. These and many more life skills require the hands to work in unison, while doing separate actions, and for your baby playing is a perfect way to practise.
Let’s try this... bilateral hand use activity
Bi-lateral coordination - squeezing activity:
Tiny toys, big messes. How to handle the chaos caused by small toys and games
As a parent there is a very definite sense of dread which can emerge when you see a toy with lots of little parts, or just lots of little toys! It can feel much easier to try and avoid having them out, or only allowing them to be played with in very short bursts, but it might help you breathe through the mess to know how brilliant they can be for your child’s fine motor development.
When children play with small, intricate toys, they really begin to challenge their fine motor dexterity and hand-eye coordination. Now your child is a little older, they might be becoming very intrigued by this sort of play as they grow more able to move and organise the small parts of miniature toys.
Harnessing your child’s interests is the most powerful way to inspire their learning
Children are far more likely to engage in activities that are linked to something that interests them. And this can be used to your advantage, especially when you’re trying to encourage them to learn a skill they've not seemed very bothered about so far.
This might be anything, but one of the questions we are most often asked by parents is how to get children interested in writing when they simply don’t want to hold a pencil or learn about letters.
Do you know how important your child’s thumbs are?
Thumbs are the smallest digit on our hand, but they have the most muscles and – due to the unique formation of the joint that connects it to our palm – it can move in a wider range of directions than any other finger or toe. But why should you care about this, and why is it so important for your child to develop their thumb movements?
As humans, we have opposable thumbs, meaning that they can rotate and pivot (move around a fixed point) – it’s called ‘opposable’ because this movement allows your thumb to be moved to be ‘opposite’ your other fingers. This allows us to be far more mobile in our hands than we would if our thumb was ‘fixed’ in one position.
