Fine Motor Skills are the building blocks to writing. We develop our fine motor skills and our pre-writing skills through much of our play. In order to develop fine motor skills we also must develop gross motor skills.

Pre-Writing involves using cognitive skills, visual skills, coordination skills and pencil control skills.

Talking about our drawings and marks, or things we have made, helps develop our cognitive and visual skills. We need cognitive skills for writing because writing needs us to use our memory, attention and sequencing. We need visual skills in order to place letters and words in the correct places when we do formal writing later.

Before we went to the shop on Wednesday some of us decided to write shopping lists. There was a lot of discussion about things we would like to buy as well as the ingredients we needed to make pasta. We spoke about what we would need first, next and last and we recalled pasta ingredients we had learned about.

Harry drew a story. He explained “the digger is working very fast. Dir is a lot of gutter going into d park I need to draw more gutter.”

Lottie experimented with making letters and spoke about people that she included in her letter story, “Here is Henry’s name. He is feeling better noo.”

Tommy wanted to show Mrs Williamson all the lines he could draw and asked her to draw some shapes. They spent time talking about the marks they were making.

Stanley took his time and carefully drew two zombies. He shared his ideas about them and told Miss Stewart some stories about the adventures the zombies were going on.

Jim drew his dad’s car. He spent time concentrating on the shapes he would need to draw. He told Miss Sandison all about the type of car it was.

Sophie drew her family going for a walk to the beach. She drew daddy first, then mummy and then Joanna.

Looking at books and stories and picking out different things that we notice also develops our visual skills. Throughout each day in nursery we talk about stories and books. Sometimes we relax with a book alone and sometimes we want an adult to read to us and help us to talk about the pictures and words that we see and hear.

Every day at nursery, through our play, we naturally develop our pencil control skills. Often we develop these skills without a pencil in our hands.

Gross motor skills involved in handwriting mainly refer to postural control. Developing control of our larger muscle groups in the neck, shoulders and trunk is important as they are used to maintain stability of our fingers and hands in handwriting tasks later on in school. We need good gross motor control in order to have good fine motor control. Writing requires a lot of motor planning and coordination so it’s important we develop these before formal writing.

Drawing on the Smartboard uses our full arms and shoulders as well as our fingers control.

As does using a rolling pin to roll out dough when baking.

Outdoor play that includes running, jumping, balancing and climbing is very important for developing core strength and arm and shoulder stability. Our big blocks area indoor also helps us develop our gross motor skills as we lift, manoeuvre and position heavy bits of wood.

Holding on to the see-saw as it moves makes our core, arms and shoulders strong.

Making a tunnel together really works that core, arms and shoulders!

Scooping sand, mud, stones into pots builds strength in muscles and develops our balance.

Pouring from heavy pots and pans develops shoulder stability, core strength, wrist and hand strength and co-ordination.

Splashing in puddles works our core and big body muscles and develops our visual perception and depth perception as we take off and land.

Climbing increases shoulder strength and stability and our overall balance.

Developing big body movements helps to make our smaller movements easier to master. In nursery we need to be able to make marks and move our bodies through playing on the floor. Here are some examples from this week.

It is also important for us to play and mark make on horizonal surfaces, such as tables, and on a vertical planes, such as walls (with wash away resources), the Smartboard and easels. Floor play and mark making on horizontal and vertical surfaces help us to develop all of the skills necessary for formal writing later on.

Here are some ways that we have been mark making on horizontal and vertical surfaces recently.

Painting…

Using chalk to draw on pavements and different surfaces. Drawing over the bumpy stone really works our hand and finger coordination and strength.

As does mark making on the rubber tyres. Sophia noticed there were letters and numbers on the tyre and tried to trace some of them.

In sand…

Using finger paints really gets all of the muscles in our hands and fingers working!

We made pasta from scratch this week too. A great way to get our fingers and hands moving in functional ways!

Using glue and sellotape to stick letters on the wall of peerie hoose when making a banner naturally enabled us to make marks on a vertical surface…

As did using chalk outdoors…

and painting at the easel….

It is important for us to build hand and fingers strength and develop the skills needed for our fingers to work together so that we can grasp a pencil correctly and control it when writing. We do this through developing fine motor skills through play at nursery. Here are some ways we have been building strength and coordination in our hands and fingers this week.

Through nipping water…

Scooping…

Twisting taps…

Pouring…

Squeezing and grasping bottles, clothes pegs and sponges…

Pushing and pressing wood into holes and hammering in nails…

Getting dressed for outdoors…

Pinching hard pasta and soft dough…

Developing our fine motor skills in these ways also help us to learn how to operate scissors effectively. Being able to use scissors correctly helps us prepare for handwriting later on. Cutting skills are complex and it takes time and practice for us to develop and master this skill with many stages of development to master. There are scissors available for us to use throughout the nursery. Here are some examples of our recent play with scissors.

Cutting playdough…

Cutting, tearing and snipping paper…

And cutting forwards along lines…which increases our focus and attention skills, promotes bilateral coordination, as we hold scissors in one hand and paper in another, and helps develop our eye-had coordination. All of which we need for writing.

As you can see developing gross motor and fine motor skills and scissor skills is a very enjoyable and fun experience for us! When we enjoy learning we keep learning. We look forward to sharing more of our learning with you next week.