Core/Upper Body Strength

When working on gross motor skills, let’s look at the core muscles first. Is your child able to sit in an upright posture while seated in the chair? Or do they tend to slouch and bear weight on their hands. Having a strong core is key in developing fine motor skills. You can expect a child with weak core muscles to struggle in class. They may fatigue easily when sitting at a desk and/or find it difficult to use their helper hand for activities such as scissor cutting and handwriting because their helper hand is busy holding up their body weight. Once core strength and stability are established then, we can move onto improving shoulder and wrist stability. When the shoulder and wrist perform coordinated and purposeful movements, children will be more successful with executing precise fine motor movements.