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As your children grow and explore the world around themselves, their fine motor skills will develop and evolve.
By exploring, understanding, and interacting with their surroundings, your toddlers can learn how things work and obtain the confidence and mobility skills needed to be self-sufficient one day.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, "fine motor skills are the small, precise movements we make with our hands, fingers, feet, and toes. They involve the complex coordination of your muscles, joints, and nerves."
These skills begin developing on their own from birth onward. They require awareness and planning, coordination, muscle strength, and precise dexterity.
Fine motor skills play a pivotal role in everyday actions. This can be anything from grasping and picking up objects (writing with a pencil or eating with a utensil), to manipulating items (fastening a button, doing up a zipper, or operating scissors), to stacking or turning items (folding laundry, tying your shoes, or turning pages in a book).
Fine motor skills play a pivotal role in everyday actions.
This also encompasses the fluid movements needed for many of the things we do throughout the day, from typing on a keyboard, to opening a window or twisting a doorknob, to playing video games or musical instruments, to getting dressed and brushing our teeth.
All kids develop these skills at their own pace, but they'll generally hit milestones at roughly the same time. Having said that, sometimes, their adjusted age, if they were born prematurely, could be a factor in a child's slightly delayed development.
In those cases, health care providers may follow an adjusted growth chart and monitor milestones until the children reach two years of age. If you're ever unsure about where your twins should be with their fine motor skill development, discuss any concerns you have with their pediatrician.
While skills can progress on their own with time, there's no harm in helping your little ones to hone their skills (does the phrase, "Practice makes perfect," sound familiar to anyone?) by introducing them to toys that could help pique their interest.
Here are five of our favorite toys to foster the development of your toddlers' fine motor skills
1. Top Bright Car Ramp
This car ramp toy by Top Bright helps kids develop their fine motor skills by moving the racecars from their parking spots and placing them precisely onto the ramp, so they can track the cars as they slide from left to right down the ramp.
Sometimes, the cars get turned sideways on the ramp or in parking garage, depending on how they're placed down, but they can easily be adjusted with the help of a sibling or caregiver if your toddler can't sort it out just yet.
2. Buckle Toys Buddy Activity Backpack
The Buddy Activity Backpack by Buckle Toys incorporates zipper and snap pockets, bright buckles, and various rainbow-colored clasps to encourage your toddlers to practice how to fasten and unfasten the clips through interactive play.
The inner storage area of the bag allows your little ones to practice loading and unloading their books, toys, or other essentials for when they're on-the-go.
3. Lego Duplo My First Number Train Toy
This is the My First Number Train Toy by Lego Duplo. It is an educational toy that helps children develop their fine motor skills by learning how to load and then unload the numbered bricks onto and off of the train cars.
The numbered bricks also help your toddlers learn about numbers, with bricks labeled from zero up to 10 that can be placed in order from lowest to highest on the train cars.
4. Relodica Montessori Wooden Busy Board
The Montessori Wooden Busy Board by Relodica keeps your small ones busy and focused on the task at-hand: pushing and turning various switches and keys to activate 27 different-colored LED lights.
This toy keeps your kids entertained and helps them develop their skills while learning about cause and effect through cognitive play.
5. Imaginarium Discovery Giant Activity Cube
This wooden discovery activity cube by Imaginarium features five brightly-colored panels with interactive activities for your twins to explore.
From spinning gears, to pushing, pulling, and sliding beads through a maze, flipping panels to create pictures, and more, this toy will keep your little ones entertained while they enhance their fine motor skills. Our twins have logged many gleeful hours with ours, and every kiddo who's come over has been immediately drawn to this activity center.
Help them hone their skills
Toddlers learn how things work by interacting with and understanding their surroundings, which gives them the precision, confidence, and mobility required to take care of themselves down the road.
Your children's fine motor skills will develop and evolve as they grow and explore their environment.
While each individual child will develop their fine motor skills at their own pace, you can always try to pique your twins' interest by introducing them to toys designed to help them hone these important lifelong skills.
Which items were your favorite for helping enhance your kids' fine motor skills? What made them so interactive? Let us know in the Comments section below.
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