Motor skills age 3 to 5
With heightened depth perception comes more developed motor skills. Expect your child to become more coordinated on his feet as he jumps, runs and hops. With practice, hand-eye coordination will improve to make buttoning a jacket and zipping pants possible.
To help develop motor skills, have your child:
- Pick up nuts and small blocks with kitchen tongs
- String beads
- Roll out play clay and cut it with scissors to build fine muscles in hands
- Copy or trace your grocery or to-do list with a pencil
Motor skills age 5 to 6
By age 5 or 6, your child will most likely have the needed motor skills and depth perception to tie their shoelaces.
Here are some suggestions to get them started:
- Use a string to show how to tie a half-knot and let him carry a string to practice
- Give him a big show to try (off his foot) and face it away from him on the correct side of his body
- Use imagery to teach him to make the first loop (loop is a tree, thumb holding it in place is a rabbit) while the other hand wraps the remaining lace (the fox) around the tree, push the rabbit farther into its hole
- If the rabbit example is too difficult for him, teach him to make two loops (one from each end of the lace) and use his half-knot to tie them together – adding a second half-knot for security
