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Hand and Finger Skills

 

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Your Three-Year-Old Child

At age three, your child is developing both the muscular control and the concentration she needs to master many precision finger and hand movements. You’ll notice that now she can move each of her fingers independently or together, which means that instead of grasping her crayon in her fist she can hold it like an adult, with thumb on one side and fingers on the other. Now she will be able to trace a square, copy a circle, or scribble freely.
Because her spatial awareness has developed quite a bit, she’s more sensitive to the relationships among objects, so she’ll position her toys with great care during play and control the way she holds utensils and tools to perform specific tasks.
This increased sensitivity and control will allow her to build a tower of nine or more cubes, pour water from a pitcher into a cup (using two hands), unbutton clothes, possibly put large buttons into buttonholes, and use a fork and feed herself independently, spilling between the plate and her mouth only occasionally.
She’s also extremely interested in discovering what she can do with tools such as scissors and paper and with materials such as clay, paint, and crayons. She now has the skill to manipulate these objects and is beginning to experiment with using them to make other things. At first she’ll play randomly with craft materials, perhaps identifying the end product only after it’s completed.
Looking at her scribbles, for example, she might decide they look like a dog. But soon this will change, and she’ll decide what she wants to make before starting to work on it. This change in approach will motivate her to develop even more precision in moving and using her hands.
Quiet-time activities that can help improve your child’s hand abilities include:

• Building with blocks
• Solving simple jigsaw puzzles (four or five large pieces)
• Playing with pegboards
• Stringing large wooden beads
• Coloring with crayons or chalk
• Building sand castles
• Pouring water into containers of various sizes
• Dressing and undressing dolls in clothing with large zippers, snaps, and laces

You can encourage your child to use her hands by teaching her to use certain adult tools. She’ll be thrilled to progress to a real screwdriver, a lightweight hammer, an eggbeater, or gardening tools. You’ll need to supervise closely, of course, but if you let her help as you work, you may be surprised by how much of the job she can do herself.

Hand and Finger Skills of Your Four to Five-Year-Old

Your four-year-old’s coordination and ability to use his hands are almost fully developed. As a result, he’s becoming able to take care of himself. He now can brush his teeth and get dressed with little assistance, and he may even be able to lace up his shoes.
Notice how he uses his hands with far more care and attention when he draws. He’ll decide in advance what he wants to create and then go ahead with it. His figures may or may not have a body, and the legs may be sticking out of the head. But now they’ll have eyes, a nose, and a mouth, and, most important to your child, they are people.
Because of this growing control over his hands, arts and crafts in general are becoming more exciting for him now. His favorite activities may include:

• Writing and drawing, holding the paper with one hand and the pencil or crayon with the other
• Tracing and copying geometric patterns, such as a star or diamond
• Card and board games
• Painting with a brush and finger painting
• Clay modeling
• Cutting and pasting (using safe, nonpointed child’s scissors)
• Building complex structures with many blocks

These kinds of activities will not only permit him to use and improve many of his emerging skills, but he’ll also discover the fun of creating. In addition, because of the success he’ll feel with these activities, his self-esteem will grow. You may even notice certain “talents” emerging through his work, but at this age it’s not advisable to push him in one direction over another. Just be sure to provide a broad range of opportunities so he can exercise all his abilities. He’ll take the direction he enjoys most.

 

Source

Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5 (Copyright © 2009 American Academy of Pediatrics)

The information contained on this Web site should not be used as a substitute for the medical care and advice of your pediatrician. There may be variations in treatment that your pediatrician may recommend based on individual facts and circumstances.

By the end of Kindergarten 1 - Physical development

   FINE MOTOR-Hold writing utensils such as paint brushes, crayons and pencil colours correctly (pincer grasp)-Hold scissors correctly (thumb on top)-Cut out paper strips and bits-Uses a glue stick and glue bottle appropriately-Colors within the lines-Can handle pegs and pegging toys with pincer grasp-Can thread large beads

 GROSS MOTOR-Can run in an adult manner-Walk on tip toes-Jumps over an object (broad jump)-Catches a ball (size of tennis ball) or bean bag – catches with hands, not arms-Balance on alternate feet with eyes both open and closed-Walk heel-to-toe successfully

By the end of Kindergarten 1- Cognitive Development - Academic Skills

- Knows full name and phone number
-Recites alphabet
-Orally counts to 10
-Counts objects up to 10
-Recognizes own name
-Names shapes and colors
-Understanding of positional words (under, over, behind)
-Sorts by color, size and shape
-Recognizes numerals up to 10
-Understands the concept of more/less and shorter/longer
-Can find the object that doesn’t belong in a group of like objects

By the End of Kindergarten 1 - Language Development

-Speaks clearly (in complete sentences)
-Able to follow verbal directions
-Recognizes rhyming sounds/words
-Looks at pictures in a book and makes up a story to go with them
-Identifies the beginning sounds of some words
-Recognizes some familiar words in print (such as STOP on a stop sign or a familiar store’s signs)
-Uses language to categorize words (a cat is a type of animal)
-Uses language to describe words (a bus is big, yellow and has lots of windows)
-Uses language to define words (a pencil is something you write with)
-Expresses feelings and emotions in words
-Recites or sings familiar songs/poems
-Writes using pictures or familiar letters