Is your child starting school soon?
Learning, whether in the classroom or elsewhere, is based on a strong foundation of sensory and motor skills. These activities will help your child to be developmentally ready when the big time comes, and they start school. Not only that, but you are preparing them for lifelong learning in all its forms – social, emotional and physical – well beyond their time in the classroom.
No digital devices, no flash cards – just games and other activities using their bodies, that you can do together.
It’s all about Play
Research suggests that the security of close relationships in infancy and early childhood are a strong predictor of later academic success. Most importantly, remember to be playful, and have fun. The relationships you build in these early years form the foundation for all later learning.
All learning is built on a solid base of sensory and motor skills, including:
- Balance – moving and also sitting still
- Vision and visual processing
- Listening or Auditory Processing
- Memory – visual and listening
- Gross Motor – the big muscles
- Fine Motor – the tiny muscles
- Hand-eye coordination – eyes are able to watch the hand movement
- Touch – being comfortable in relationship with others
- Communication – speaking and listening to understand
Here are some playful ways for having fun with your children, while building essential skills and preparing them for school. Your children will love sharing these activities with you.
1. Balance
A well-developed sense of balance will help your child to listen and sit up straight in class, focus and pay attention, listen, sit still and take their eyes away from the horizon to read a line of text.
How you can Help
- walk along a balance beam,
- walk over rough, soft or uneven surfaces
- bush walks,
- beach walks
- roll down a hill,
- play on swings and roundabouts
2. Vision
Good visual skills are essential for classroom learning, such as reading and writing. Your child’s eyes need to be able to work together as a team, to interpret those written symbols on the page
How you can Help
- Name five things you can see,
- describe the bird in that tree,
- catch and throw a ball,
- go outside and look into the distance
- puzzle books
- books with things to spot
3. Listening (Auditory Processing)
You know your child can hear, but how well can they listen? Can they tune out background sounds and focus on the teacher’s voice?
How you can Help
- listen to the sounds in nature, and
- describe what you are hearing – the wind, the crackle of autumn leaves underfoot, the sea, bird song,
- recognise the direction the sound is coming from,
- hide a ticking clock (and find it by listening for the sound)
- listen to a story and repeat it back
4. Memory
Good memory is essential for learning to read, to be able to memorise those small sounds within words, and to follow instructions
How you can Help
- card games, such as matching pairs, snap,
- telling stories,
- recalling the day’s activities,
- talking about what you did yesterday
5. Gross Motor (the big muscles)
Strong leg, arm, tummy and back muscles will help your child to sit still and maintain focus in the classroom
How you can Help
- Find time for lots of free play and outdoor activities,
- climbing trees,
- scrambling over rocks,
- running,
- jumping,
- hopping,
- skipping
- dancing
6. Fine Motor (the smaller muscles)
These little muscles develop after the bigger muscles, and will help your child to hold a pencil and maintain focus while moving their eyes together across a page of writing
How you can Help
- using scissors,
- puzzles, especially jigsaws
- crafts,
- clay modelling,
- painting, drawing
- play dough,
- kneading bread
7. Hand-eye Coordination
Your child’s eyes need to be able to work together and follow their hand movements in order to be able to write neatly and legibly. Consider activities where both eyes are moving together and focussed on following hand movements, such as:
How you can Help
- knitting,
- finger knitting,
- drawing,
- jigsaw puzzles,
- card games,
- clay modelling
- play dough
- play with train sets, toy cars
- spinning tops
8. Touch
Our sense of emotional touch helps us to connect with others, and also ourselves.It is an important part of forming close relationships, developing an awareness of feelings, empathy (noticing how the other person might be feeling). Her are some ieas for exploring both physical and emotional aspects of the sense of touch.
How you can Help
- explore textures with hands and feet,
- use a blindfold and describe what you can feel
- walk barefoot on the sand, on the grass,
- notice how each surface feels different,
- use words to describe these sensations
- talk about feelings and how to recognise them in others
9. Communication
We need good communication skills for building friendships, being able to speak our thoughts, and listen to understand what someone else is saying.
How you can Help
- start by telling stories,
- taking turns to talk and listen,
- asking questions,
- playing board games, read a story and recall events together,
- draw a picture of something you remember from the story
Remember to allow time for boredom. It’s in this space of “nothingness” that the most creative ideas are able to surface.
I help parents who are looking for answers, and for the last 20 years I have been supporting children with learning and behavioural challenges. Rather than wait until your child is struggling at school, I would prefer to help you to give them the best start.
The Next Step
It’s never too late to help your child, but is is much easier when they are younger, before secondary issues such as poor self esteem, anxiety, anger and frustration start to creep in.
Our aim is to help you to raise happy, healthy children who are able to achieve to their potential and find their place in the world.
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