Fine motor skills involve the small muscles in the body that enable movement in the fingers,
feet and toes, and face, including the mouth and eyes. Developing fine motor control helps
us gain co-ordination between these muscles, for example, hand-eye co-ordination. Fine motor skills
are a part of whole-body physicality. They empower children to navigate the world with confidence and
independence. It's important that we understand that fine motor control and fine motor skills
don't happen separately to the rest of physicality. So they are actually very dependent
on gross motor development as well, for example. And in terms of thinking about children and their
whole-body development, how do you promote that in your practise? I just think about what I see
children do at the centre every day, whether it's getting the fire ready and
kind of chopping up food and putting on the fire to cook, or whether they're gardening and sort of
digging down or trowelling down into the soil and taking out the seeds or taking out the plug of the
plant and planting that. They don't separate out their bodies when they're doing it. Actually it's
all happening at the same time. I think it's really interesting actually to think about
physical development being as that holistic approach to learning and development. So not
looking into solely about fine and gross because they are so intertwined, but also with the rest of
all of their learning and development. You know, physical development is a real gateway to learning
and development in all areas of child development, beyond the early years foundation stage. You know,
it's really thinking about actually that their brain is passing on messages to their body and
the relation and, you know, relationship between those two will then give children
the opportunity to seek what they desire. So let's have a think about purposeful tasks and play.
I think one of the key things for us at our settings is making time in our routines to allow
the day-to-day activities like putting on coats and doing up zips and doing our own shoes and
getting our waterproofs on on a rainy day, have a huge impact on making every task purposeful so we're
creating learning opportunities and allowing learning opportunities within what could be seen
as quite mundane tasks. Meal times, for example, we make sure that children have access to self
service. I'm also the thing about those everyday experiences and our provision.
Like, you know, malleable stuff and foam and clay. And the idea that children can come to
that using those fine motor skills of pinching and stretching and rolling and pulling. And they
will naturally provide those playful experiences, will naturally provide children with opportunities
to develop those fine motor skills. Let's talk a little bit about how we encourage independence.
Yeah so I think the environment provides, and it's the adult's role to model and support and scaffold
learning. So a really good example about that is having scissors out in the environment, but
supporting children how to use them safely. But also differentiating that for some children who
might take longer to be confident in using them, and having spring-loaded scissors or double-handed
scissors, and giving children lots of opportunity to kind of use them on different materials.
I think that differentiation's a really interesting thought actually, especially if we're
thinking about differentiated early years outcomes for children with special educational needs and
disabilities. That really gives us an opportunity to look at those really tiny steps of learning and
development and be able to celebrate and achieve those. Fine motor skills are a part of whole-body
physicality, and depend upon well-developed gross motor skills, core strength and co-ordination.
Having good fine motor control empowers the child, promotes confidence and independence. All play is
a purposeful task for children. The environment we create, full of tape, glue, scissors,
provides them with the rich opportunity to develop fine motor skills. Loving, trustful relationships
between adults and children allow for independence to grow naturally within the play environment.