Developing Object Control Skills HEAD START BODY START NATIONAL CENTER FOR PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT AND OUTDOOR PLAY (HSBS) Play on the GO! Developing Object Control Skills

Session Focus Learn fun activities to do at home -- inside and out -- to foster physical development of Object Control skills or GROSS motor skills.

Can you name the object control and manipulative skills?

Object Control Skills Gross Motor Skills Catch Throw Kick Volley (Manipulative Movements) Catch Throw Kick Volley Strike Roll Dribble Let’s practice!

The Goal is for children to have Strong, Rich Movement Foundation We want children to do each movement skill in a variety of different ways Describe how when we are born we have a ‘bag of movement skills’, but the main movements that are in our bag at birth are reflexes and very simple, spontaneous movements such as thrusting, squirming, and wiggling. As we develop and grow we put more skills into our movement bag. During early childhood we are primed and ready to really fill our bag with a lot of different skills. Our main mode of learning is through movement exploration. As caregivers, teachers, and parents, we want to ensure that our young children have lots of opportunities to practice these manipulative and object control skills so that these become a permanent part of their movement bags or movement foundation. These skills are important to have early in life so that as the child grows and develops he/she can use these skills, and combine them into more complex movements. However – we also want to make sure that each of these manipulative skills is in the bag in a VARIETY of ways. We want throw in their movement bags many, many times but in different ways – for example throwing far and near, throwing high, medium, and low, throwing hard and soft, and throwing over, into and under. This gives the young child a HUGE movement repertoire to pull from when they want to begin learning more complex movement skills, such as playing soccer, football or baseball.

The Head Start Child Development and Early Learning Framework Domains Approaches to Learning: Object control activities increase children's capacity to maintain concentration over time on a task and allows them to voluntarily participate in a variety of tasks and activities Science: Children use the senses to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships. Object control activities help increase awareness and beginning understanding of changes in materials and cause-effect relationships. Fine Motor Skills: Control of the small muscles, especially those in the hands, to execute small movements, such as picking up a raisin, cutting with scissors, writing, and using buttons, snaps, and shoelaces. Object control activities help with hand- eye coordination. Gross Motor Skills: Control of the large muscles, such as those in the arms and legs. Gross motor activities include walking, running, and climbing. – These activities help with learning object control and learning to use your arms and legs.

Activity – Palooza! Newspaper Throwing Fun Can you Challenges Sock Balls Carnival Tossing Milk Jug Kicking T-shirt Manipulation

Questions?

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