Did you know that playing with balls and balloons has wonderful benefits for your child’s brain and body, helping support some of the underlying skills used in reading, writing, and spelling?
When a baby learns to grasp an object and brings their hands to the middle of their body to hold an object, they track or watch the object with their eyes. This visual tracking skill is vital for catching, throwing, playing with balls, dressing, riding a bike and doing many other everyday activities, even handwriting!!
The joy of playing with balls when a child learns to sit, stand, walk, run and kick reaps so many rewards, to name only a few below, it helps a child to:
- develop visual skills necessary to track letters in words across a page, when learning to read;
- sit and use two hands together whilst cutting with scissors or to stabilize the paper with one hand whilst holding a pencil or crayon with the other to draw or write across a page;
- learn to follow along as someone is reading them a book.
I would love to invite you to tune in now and find out more in this 5-minute video, where I introduce how balls and balloons can prosper your child’s development right from babyhood!
I encourage you to take action now and creatively explore the endless learning opportunities available for your child when playing with balls (and balloons!) of all sizes and textures as they roll, throw, catch, kick, lay and/or sit on them!
Check out my early years visual skills resources!
On my website, I also have a range of inexpensive ‘download and print’ workbooks and card games, designed to provide visual skill activities like: find the odd one out or make matching pairs, which teach children to notice differences and similarities in what they see, preparing them to read, write and spell.
As always, I love to hear from you, so please keep the comments and feedback coming! Take care and have a beautiful day!
