Children’s Developmental Milestones & Fine Motor Skills

In some of our classes, we introduced the skills of handling, rolling and cutting dough. It is certainly no easy task for our 3-5 years old, as their fine motor skills are still being developed.

Fine motor movements involve the coordination of small muscles in the hands and fingers. Strong fine motor skills are essential to complete tasks such as writing, cutting, using a fork or spoon, threading beads, moving puzzle pieces, zipping, buttoning, and tying shoe laces. Without well-developed fine motor skills, a child may have difficulty learning to write or performing many of the other critical tasks presented in the preschool and kindergarten classrooms.

Thought it will be interesting to share on the milestones for the 3-5 years old, which was adapted from this website.

Between the ages of 3-4 years, your child will:

• Build a tower of 9-10 small blocks
• Use playdough to make balls, snakes, cookies, etc.
• Build things with large linking blocks, such as Megablocks or Duplo
• Draw a circle by herself
• Copy a cross (+)
• Imitate you drawing a square
• Start to hold a crayon or pencil with a mature grasp (like an adult)
• Cut across a piece of paper
• Start to cut along a straight line
• Manage buttons
• Put on most items of clothing by herself, but may still need help with shirts and jackets
• Feed himself well with a spoon and fork

Between the ages of 4-5 years, your child will:

• Start to use one hand consistently for fine motor tasks
• Cut along a straight line with scissors
• Start to cut along a curved line, like a circle
• Draw a cross by herself (+)
• Copy a square
• Begin to draw diagonal lines, like in a triangle
• Start to colour inside the lines of a picture
• Start to draw pictures that are recognizable
• Build things with smaller linking blocks, such as Duplo or Lego
• Put on his own clothing, but may still need help with fasteners like buttons/zippers
• Start to spread butter or cut soft foods with a small table knife (with supervision)
• Start to learn to print some capital letters