Strong arms and shoulders and hands are crucial for developing many school skills in young children. Sometimes we focus so much on fine motor work, we forget that gross motor abilities are a foundation on which fine motor skills grow.
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Upper Body Games
Mr. Licato, the Mustard Seed PE teacher, spends two days a week with The Nest students in the park. He just completed a unit with the children that focused on soccer. After working on lower body skills that relate to kicking and ball-handling, Mr. Licato is now focusing on upper body strength and control.
Strong arms and shoulders and hands are crucial for developing many school skills in young children. Sometimes we focus so much on fine motor work, we forget that gross motor abilities are a foundation on which fine motor skills grow.
Mr. Licato has developed some games that get children crawling and bear-walking and crab-walking and rolling. He will be teaching these games over the course of several weeks.
Today's game involved walking on hands like a bear to get to the food (a ball on a cone). After grabbing the food and bear-walking across the field, children had a chance to bounce a rubber ball as high as they could. This was a motivating reward.
After playing, children came running back to the classroom teachers to show us how much stronger they are becoming already.
Strong arms and shoulders and hands are crucial for developing many school skills in young children. Sometimes we focus so much on fine motor work, we forget that gross motor abilities are a foundation on which fine motor skills grow.
