Physical And Motor Development Essay

Lesson 1. Understanding Physical & Motor Development in Young Children

Worksheet Number _____

BRAINSTORMING ACTIVITIES FOR PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

Directions: Brainstorm ideas for the use of materials to promote physical development through different activities. Record activity ideas, identify materials needed and highlight the areas of physical development addressed.

Patterns of Physical Development

Normative Development

• concerns the typical (normal) capabilities, as well as limitations, of most children of a given age within a given cultural group. It indicates a typical range of what children can and cannot be expected to do and learn at a given time.

Dynamic Development

• concerns the sequence and physical changes that occur in all

Once children have found (differentiated) the parts of their body, they can integrate the movements and combine specific movements to perform more complex physical activities, such as walking, building a block tower or riding a bike.

Variations in Growth

• Children vary in their physical abilities at different ages. Different parts of the body grow at different rates. The range of physical skills to be expected in gross- or fine-motor development will be very different for infants versus preschoolers.

Optimal Tendency in Growth

• In children, growth generally tries to fulfil its potential. If growth is slowed for a particular reason, such as malnutrition, the body will try to catch up when it is able to do so. This is one reason why children may develop skills in later years even if delays occurred at an earlier point in their development.

Sequential Growth

• Different areas of a child’s body will grow at different times. In other words, development is orderly and occurs in a pattern. Children must be able to stand before they can walk. This pattern is evident in a number of way such as rolling over before sitting up, sitting up before crawling and crawling before

Large-muscle development occurs earliest, so gross-motor skills, such as reaching, waving arms and legs, crawling or walking, tend to appear first.

• Throughout the first year of life, most of the physical growth occurs in a child’s torso (trunk of the body).

• Toddlers and pre-schoolers have a higher center of gravity. This means they are more prone to falls because the legs and body are not yet developed in proportion to the upper body region. Give young children support as their large muscles in the lower body develop and eventually support them to sit or stand.

• By age 6, the child’s body proportions are more like an adult’s, with the center of gravity more centrally located to help them achieve a greater sense of physical balance.

• A variety of large-muscle activities is very important to parents, child-care programs and schools to give children a chance to develop and exercise large-muscle skills. To get a sense of children’s physical abilities related to gross-motor skills at different stages of early childhood.

 Fine Motor Skills in Early