Motor skills are movements and actions of the muscles. They are categorized in two groups: gross motor skills and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills generally refer to movements involving larger muscles, like those in the arms, legs, feet or the entire body (used for walking, jumping and so on). Fine motor skills generally refer to movements involving smaller muscles, like those in hands, wrists and fingers (such as those used for holding a crayon or toy). *
Play dough Improves Fine Motor Skills
Squishing, squeezing, stretching and molding play dough helps to build muscle strength in the fingers and hands. This in turn makes it easier to complete fine motor activities like holding a pencil and cutting with scissors later on.
Dancing improves Gross Motor Skills
Jumping, stretching, dancing and ribbon twirling helps build muscle strength throughout the entire body. We also tapped wooden sticks to the tempo of Miss Joanie’s guitar, working on rhythm as we danced to “We are the Dinosaurs,” a classroom favorite!
* information taken from www.leapfrog.com
