Fine Motor

One of the most important aspects of being a successful learner is not only to be able to receive, discover and analyze new information, but also to be able to express that knowledge and represent it symbolically. Opportunities to experience a wide range of activities that compel children to learn new fine motor skills and practice newly acquired ones, will allow children to increase their level of competence in the many different areas where they will need coordination and dexterity to express their ideas.

e.g. Creating a painting of a fireworks display that a child has seen, then sprinkling glitter in the wet paint provides the child with an opportunity to practice a variety of fine motor skills (holding a paintbrush, dipping in paint, creating lines, pinching glitter, sprinkling glitter) and also to use those skills to share a remembered experience symbolically in a creative way.

Gross Motor/Dance and Drama

For young children, learning involves whole body experiences. By becoming aware of their bodies, children develop an understanding of the importance of physical health and well-being. Gross motor activities provide opportunities to develop strength, endurance, coordination, flexibility, body and spatial awareness. When an arts element, such as dance or drama, is introduced into a physical activity, children are given an opportunity to express and communicate an idea and create something of aesthetic and emotional value for others to appreciate.

e.g. Pretending to be animal - mimicking the type of walk (fast, slow, heavy, light), movement of other body parts, sounds the animal would make – is an activity that integrates physically, what they have learned about how animals move, eat, play and socialize; creates awareness of how they can use their own bodies; and allows them to be creative in how they would represent those ideas in a physical form.

Cognitive

Children learn most effectively when they are engaged physically, intellectually and emotionally. When they are provided with an environment rich in both meaningful experiences and time to think about and discuss these experiences and then are given the opportunity to represent their ideas in the medium they prefer (stories, music, graphs, art) they are able to construct and communicate meaning in varied and diverse ways. They develop the ability to analyze critically and to reason and think independently. Activities that allow children to make new discoveries and provide them with an opportunity to develop and express ideas about those discoveries increase their cognitive awareness.

e.g. To identify each plastic animal in a set, sort them in several different ways (size, colour, habitat, family), then make a chart showing the different characteristics that have been used to classify each animal.

Language

Language is quite possibly our most versatile cognitive tool and literacy is a resource for learning long before children can read and write. Stories, poems and nursery rhymes, although learned orally, lay the foundation for emerging literacy and are part of a child’s cultural heritage. Learning about written language means becoming aware of the nature of written language. A fundamental aspect of this awareness is the understanding that there is a relationship between printed letters and speech sounds (i.e. that talk can be written down and that what has been written can be read or spoken). By integrating literacy across all areas of study, children

• learn through discussion, collaboration, reading, writing and representing their ideas in various ways
• expand their oral and reading vocabulary
• learn that there are a variety of purposes for reading and writing
• increase their motivation to read, write and represent
• are exposed to a variety of written genres and forms of representation (paragraph, chart, poem) and learn to translate information from one form to another

Social/Emotional

Emotional Intelligence encompasses the ability to understand and express emotions and to express these emotions appropriately. This awareness allows children to make positive choices and take responsibility for their behavior. Social Intelligence encompasses the ability to empathize, communicate and interact effectively with others. Children need opportunities to interact with others in a variety of contexts and for many purposes: cooperative, collaborative, emotion-sharing, showing leadership and supporting and encouraging others. Through these social experiences, children begin to move beyond their egocentric view of the world and understand how others relate to them, an important step toward realizing a sense of self. They learn empathy, critical thinking, conflict resolution, individual and collaborative decision-making and through these insights a sense of community, all of which supports their intellectual development. 

e.g. Having children take turns creating different jack-o-lantern faces on a felt board and then identifying and discussing the emotions the jack-o-lanterns portray is an exercise in recognizing emotions, identifying parts of the body (face), turn taking, cooperation and sharing within the group.

Math

Math activities provide an opportunity for children to explore various areas that depend on spatial, numerical and pattern-based thinking as a complement to more language-dependent skills. Numeracy skills provide children with tools for interpreting and constructing meaning in their environment. They learn to make sense of the world by developing their abilities in the areas of spatial sense, data evaluation, probability and patterns. Competence in math skills supports the ability to learn through science.

e.g. A simple math activity that also provides an opportunity to practice fine motor skills would be to identify simple shapes, cut them out, then create a pattern and describe it to another person.

Science

When children participate in a science-based activity, what they are learning through science (forming a hypothesis, devising ways to test that hypothesis, evaluating evidence and finally confirming or rejecting the hypothesis) is as important as what they are learning about science. They are learning to engage in scientific thinking, which can be applied across every field of knowledge. When children make their own discoveries through scientific activities, their feelings of competence reinforce the intrinsic motivation to further learn and discover.

e.g. A fun science experiment as part of a unit on plant lifecycles might be to have each child guess how many seeds may be in a cantaloupe, to graph each child’s answer, then open the cantaloupe, count the seeds into groups of ten and compare the actual number to the hypothesized numbers using < > sentences.

Visual Arts

As children learn to express themselves artistically, the arts become an important avenue for developing problem solving, critical and creative thinking and clarifying and expressing ideas, feelings and imaginings based on real world experiences. Observation and expression in visual arts build important bridges to reading and writing by compelling children to think and express ideas symbolically. Enhancing children’s awareness of pattern, line and symmetry fosters numeracy development. Manipulation of a variety of materials in the creation of visual art provides an opportunity to develop the fine motor skills necessary for written expression.

An example of an art exercise expanded to incorporate fine motor skills, comparing and classification and aesthetic evaluation might be to collect leaves of different shapes and sizes; press and dry some, while keeping some fresh; make crayon rubbings; compare the rubbings done with dry leaves to those done with fresh; cut out the rubbings and create a collage using both rubbings and pressed leaves.

Music

Recent studies have shown that musical training affects brain development related to general cognitive functioning, particularly in the areas of memory and attention. Musical experiences enhance children’s awareness of pattern and relationships, supporting development of math skills. Language development is enhanced by increasing awareness of rhyme and language patterns and by extending vocabulary. Perhaps most importantly, music gives children a way to develop awareness of their emotions and express feelings and ideas physically, in a venue that is aesthetically pleasing and socially encouraged. Fine arts are particularly important for allowing children with different learning styles to be successful. 

e.g. A song about caterpillar metamorphosis using hand a finger actions reinforces what has been learned about butterflies (vocabulary, understanding of lifecycles) through other media; is an opportunity to develop awareness of pitch, rhythm and rhyme; improves hand a finger dexterity and coordination and requires a physical representation of a child’s understanding of metamorphosis.

Outdoor

At Fun-In-A-Box Canada we are concerned with the development of the whole child. To this end we include outdoor experiences in every Activity Kit. The outdoor activities provide children with opportunities to explore their environment, develop a sense of their place within the community, extend the range of gross motor activities they are able to experience and interact socially with both adults and other children in a variety of contexts.

Recipe

The recipes included in Fun-In-A-Box Canada Activity and Mini Kits range from fun, thematically relevant food presentation ideas to baking activities that give children the opportunity to sequence, measure, discover and observe physical and chemical reactions, make choices and practice fine motor skills. A food preparation activity is a perfect opportunity to discuss healthy eating choices with your children and help them discern which foods give their bodies the nutrients they require and which are “treats” that are fun to make and to eat, but should be enjoyed in moderation.