The book is very well set out and covers a wide range exercises and worksheets that assist in the essential development areas for children aged 5-7 years (Grade 0 / Reception year). It is easy to use and starts off with some valuable guidelines for both mom and teacher.
Listed are 10 common areas of concern that may be faced by parents with regards their child’s development. Some of these are :
- “My child struggles to follow instructions”
- “My child struggles to finish tasks in class”
- “I struggle to get my child to sit still at a table and do activities”
- “My child is exhausted physically after a day at school”
If any or all of the above sounds too familiar to you, your child will benefit from doing the activities in this book. The emphasis throughout the book is to make these activities fun at all times! I found the instructions for each activity clear and simple, making life easy for me to give my kids an activity to do, whilst I was preparing supper!
The aim of this book is not only to encourage us as parents to spend quality time with our children ... after all they are little for such a short time, but also to develop their fine and gross motor skills. And there is a detailed program, with diagrams, that you can work through with your children to help develop and strengthen their core muscles and posture.
In present times it is almost the norm for moms to be working. The television, an easy escape goat to distract the kids whilst us working mothers are trying to get on with the daily necessities, is seen as one of the biggest causes in this deterioration. Gross motor skills are getting worse and worse, in children, every year of inception at schools, from lying in front of the TV.
This book outlines a good range of exercises and games children can play to develop their back, shoulder and stomach muscles (gross motor). I found the photographs in the book to explain these exercises particularly helpful.
Good gross motor development will strengthen your child's fine motor development. In her book, Almarie has listed 80 games that will stimulate and strengthen your child's fine motor co-ordination - all fun home based games.
She has also covered Occular Motor Co-ordination (eye movement) with a number of activities that will strengthen eye muscles. Visual Perceptual Skill are discussed with a brief explanation on how these could affect scholastic achievement if not properly developed.
You will also find numerous worksheets and activities in the book that can be done with your children to aid development in all these areas. Each page is conveniently labelled at the bottom for ease of reference, when choosing your activity such as :
- Cutting to a point
- Visual discrimination
- Fine motor co-ordination
- Visual motor integration.. etc
If you have young children who are about to enter the big world of formal education or who have already started and you would like additional activities and exercises to assist their development and learning skills I would highly recommend getting a copy The Children’s Fun Activity Workbook. It is so comprehensive and easy to use that it would be an absolute gem to have in any home!
View more information or purchase this workbook
Posted: 1 February 2012
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