
Teaches child about different shapes, colours fitting together, developing fine motor skills, problem solving, cause and effect and concentration.
Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills involve those activities that help the child to write and use small objects. Some of them are:
Painting: Children should be asked to use alternatively big, broad brushes and slim, fine brushes. The slimmer and smaller ones help to develop control over their hands. Using cotton swabs for painting will develop the pincer grip which is needed for learning to write clearly.
Puzzles: Puzzles help to develop control over the finger movement. The beginners could start with large knob peg puzzles that require full fisted grip and gradually move over to the ones that require thumb and forefinger grip also called as pincer grip.
Play dough: It’s an excellent tool to improve fine motor skills and becomes interesting to the child if rollers and cookie cutters are also added.
Cutting: Cutting helps in developing hand and eye coordination. The kids could be given some old magazines or newspapers to cut. Instead of mental scissors, they ought to be given non metallic ones which would be good enough to cut paper only.
Stringing: Stringing helps to control the hand movements. The kids could be given beads, pasta etc to string. This is one of the best means of developing fine motor skills.
Blocks: Stacking up the blocks is a good way to develop fine motor skills. Initially the kids should be given the larger ones. The smaller ones should be introduced once they have the control and grip other wise they may give up as the blocks would not set in place.