A motor skill is a skill that regards the ability of an organism to utilize skeletal muscles effectively. Muscles also depend upon the proper functioning of the brain, skeleton, joints and nervous system and thus motor skills involve the proper functioning of all these systems. Most motor skills are learned in early childhood.

Motor skills are divided into two parts, gross motor skills and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills include lifting one's head, rolling over, sitting up, balancing, crawling, and walking. Fine motor skills include the ability to manipulate small objects, transfer objects from hand to hand, and various hand-eye coordination tasks. Fine motor skills may involve the use of very precise motor movement in order to achieve an especially delicate task.

There are a lot of activities that you can do with children to help enhance their fine and gross motor skills. Many educators don’t realize how these skills affect a child. The development of fine and gross motor skills allows children to perform better in other, more academic and physical ways.

FINE MOTOR SKILLS
Fine motor skills are those skills that allow children to develop the ability to do such things as write and manipulate small objects. Try these simple activities to help develop fine motor skills in children.

PAINTING:
Provide fine brushes to children for painting activities. The smaller the brush is, the more control they need over their hands. Also try getting them to do some painting with cotton swabs. This requires some really fine work and allows them to develop their pincer grip; needed for learning how to write.

PLAY DOUGH:
Children will get some great fine motor skill exercise out of play dough especially if you add some extra equipment such as rollers and cookie cutters.

PUZZLES:
For younger children; start them off with large peg puzzles. These are puzzles that have the little knob sticking out of each puzzle piece. This allows them to garner more control over their finger movement. For starter puzzles you can buy them with very large knobs that require a full fisted grip then you can move onto the puzzles that require a thumb and forefinger grip (pincer grip).

CUTTING:
Bring out the scissors and some old magazines and let them get to work. Cutting requires a lot of coordination. For younger children who are just getting used to manipulating scissors, you can buy them without any metal. They are sharp enough to cut through paper but not much else.

THREADING:
Buy some beads to thread. This activity requires a lot of control and a steady hand. This is perfect practice for fine motor development.

BLOCKS:
Start out with larger blocks and move your way towards the smaller variety. The smaller the blocks, the more control they need to develop. But be careful not to introduce blocks that are small too quickly – children will only get frustrated and give up.

FINGER TRACING:
Make children trace patterns with their finger before they start writing with a pencil. Have children trace patterns in sand, finger paint, etc.