Toddlers take part in gross motor fun day |28 November 2019

Representatives of the sponsors handing over their contributions (Photo: Louis Toussaint)

The Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development in collaboration with the Institute of Early Childhood Development organised a gross motor fun day yesterday at the NSC hall, Roche Caïman.

In his opening address the director general for early childhood and primary education Cyril Pillay said that this activity brings together all the kids in their last year of day care.

“The objective of this is to bring kids who are similar in age to socialise and to develop a sharing attitude towards one another as well as enrich the knowledge of day care, assistant and parents on the different physical activities needed for the development of young children,” said the director general.

Gross motor (physical) skills are those which require whole body movement and which involve the large (core stabilising) muscles of the body to perform everyday functions, such as standing and walking, running and jumping, and sitting upright at the table.

Gross motor skills are important to enable children to perform every day functions, such as walking and running, playground and sporting skills like catching, throwing and hitting a ball with a bat.

However, these are crucial for everyday self-care skills like dressing where you need to be able to stand on one leg to put your leg into a pant leg without falling over and climbing into and out of a car or even getting into and out of bed.

Gross motor abilities also have an influence on other everyday functions. For example, a child’s ability to maintain appropriate table top posture (upper body support) will affect their ability to participate in fine motor skills (e.g. writing, drawing and cutting) and sitting upright to attend to class instruction, which then impacts on their academic learning.

Gross motor skills impact on your endurance to cope with a full day of school (sitting upright at a desk, moving between classrooms, carrying your heavy school bag).

They also impact your ability to navigate your environment (e.g. walking around classroom items such as a desk, up a sloped playground hill or to get on and off a moving escalator).

Without fair gross motor skills, a child will struggle with many day to day tasks such as a eating, packing away their toys, and getting onto and off the toilet or potty.

Mr Pillay further noted that day care centres must make sure that these activities are incorporated in their day to day activities and parents should take the time to play with their kids.

The director also thanked the different partners who had made the day possible mainly, Sodepak, Seychelles Trading Company and Pillay R group.

The accompanying photographs taken by our photographer Louis Toussaint show some highlights of the gross motor fun day at the NSC hall, Roche Caïman.

Christophe Zialor