section 9
Learning to use our hands
4 years
54 meeting
Let’s review:
Once the meeting starts, welcome everyone and ask the participants: • Who can help us remember what we talked about in our last meeting? • Who was able to do the activity at home that we asked you to do at the end of the meeting? How did it go? • Does anyone have questions or concerns after doing the activity?
What are we going to learn?
We are going to learn how to develop a child’s confidence and their fine motor skills. LET’S TALK ABOUT IT! We are going to look at some pictures, so we can talk about what we all know about this topic.
Why is it important that children learn how to use their hands?
What are some interesting things that your child has made using his or her hands?
What objects can you use in your homes to motivate children to frequently use their hands?
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Activity:
“Using our hands” We will learn some activities that help children develop their confidence and fine motor skills.
What we’ll need: • Four tables
WHAT WE’LL DO: • Sand Give each participant a piece of newspaper with a • Flour dough drawing of a circle, a square and a rectangle. • Clothes with buttons and zippers • Ask the participants to cut out the different shapes using scissors in the hand they wouldn’t • Colored pencils or crayons and normally use (non-dominant hand). This will paper help them understand how children feel when they are learning these skills. • Go around the group and have each participant share what hand he or she normally uses to do these activities (right or left), and how it felt to use the other hand. • Explain that at the age of four you can begin to see which hand children use to write. It is important to allow children to use whichever hand is easiest for them and not force them to use the hand that we want them to. • Next organize four groups on the worktables that you have prepared before the class. Tell each group they have seven minutes in each station and that you will tell them when it is time to change. • When all the participants have gone to all the tables, talk together about why these activities are helpful to children as they are learning to write.
ACTIVITIES FOR THE WORK TABLES: • Flip one of the tables upside down and fill it with sand. Tell participants to draw circles, squares and triangles of different sizes in the sand. • Place dough made of corn or flour on the table and tell participants to make different shapes with the dough. • Place various articles of clothing with buttons and zippers on the table and tell participants to practice how to button, unbutton and zip and unzip. • Place pencils and paper of different colors on the table and have participants help children make geometric figures first by guiding their hands and then letting them do it alone.
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Summing Up:
What did we learn today? Now, we’ll review what we discussed today. • How do you feel after this meeting? Why? • What are the two most important things you’ve learned today? • What will you do differently based on what you learned during the meeting? • What did you like the most? Are there things you didn’t like? • Do you have any remaining concerns or questions about what we talked about? To finish, what would you recommend to improve today’s meeting when we do it again with another group. (Explain that answering this question will help the meeting be even better in the future for parents with small children.)
To do at home:
Tell participants to practice the activities with their four-year-old children before the next meeting.
Basic information for the facilitator: Learning more about using our hands: 1- Manual abilities:
• At this age children who have received stimulation in their earlier years will be better at using their hands for tasks. Parents can do activities with them that help them get even better. For example: Give them glue so they can paste buttons, beans, pasta, grains, leaves and sticks on a drawing. The drawing can be of a house, garden, animals or something they invent. Use scissors to cut up different shapes. • Parents can help children use both their hands for activities around the house. For example: washing clothes with two hands, washing plates, making beds, dressing alone, fastening clothing, starting to tie their shoelaces, etc. • If a child is already attending pre-school he will probably be using learning materials like playdough, stacking blocks and sorting objects. Parents can check with the teacher to find out what things they are learning in class so they can reinforce them at home. • If this is the first time you are stimulating your child, start with the activities for a child of 2 or 3 years-old before moving on to activities for 4 year-olds so they can progress from easier to more complex.
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2- Drawing and writing:
• Children who were stimulated by scribbling and tracing when they were younger will have an easier time learning how to make their letters. • For children who have been stimulated, continue to encourage them to draw pictures of objects. • Encourage children to scribble by using music in the background and having the crayon “dance on the paper.” It isn’t important what they draw just important that they stay on the paper. • Start to teach children their letters by first teaching them the letters in their own name, using uppercase letters. • If you see that the child is pressing down very hard on the pencil teach them about the difference between “hard” and “soft” lines. Tell them to draw a hard circle (the line should be fat) then a soft line (the line should be thin). • Children will learn much better if they enjoy this practice. It should not be stressful for them. • When the child understands how to write his name, he can move on to writing the vowels. Don’t start with other letters until the child can easily write his name and the vowels.
3- Mathematical reasoning:
• At this age parents should continue playing sorting games with their child. They can find the difference between objects focusing on size, what is the same, what is different, bigger, smaller and grouping by similarities. • Parents can begin to teach children about the numbers 1 through 10. • It works well to learn these at the same time that parents stimulate movement and physical expression. Parents can help their children count while jumping rope, kicking a ball, gluing beans or buttons, climbing steps, skipping. Parents can help children count forward (from 1 to 10) and backward (from 10 to 1). • Once children can write their vowels and knows the numbers 1 to 10, they can start to learn how to write numbers. Start first with 1–3, then 4-7 and then 8–10.
Facilitator’s Manual