This week, you will be creating three activities that will become part of the infant room, early childhood room, and adolescent room of your center.
Physical development, especially in infancy and toddlerhood but also into middle and late childhood, is primarily focused on the development of fine and gross motor skills. But the milestones and activities for each age group are very different. In adolescence, the fine and gross motor skills have been mostly developed, and the focus is about strength and skill building as well as dealing with the effects of puberty.
For example,
- Coloring or playing with clay would not be an appropriate activity for an infant to improve fine motor skills, but it would be for the early childhood room.
- In middle and late childhood, children are developing the muscle mass to greatly improve their abilities to run and jump and play organized games, which would not be appropriate for infants or toddlers.
There are many websites aimed at both parents and educators that describe activities to promote physical development. The activities you select do not have to be complex, but they do need to be age appropriate and grounded in developmental milestones. Focus on the primary developmental tasks of each age period. For each of the three activities, write a paragraph that addresses the following:
- Describe the age appropriate activity in some detail (provide more than just the name of the activity).
- Identify developmental milestones which supports the use of this activity (Table 5.1 in your textbook will be useful here).
- Identify how the activity supports physical development for that age group.
The Physical Development Activities paper
- Must be two to three double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.)
- Must include a separate title page with the following:
- Title of paper
- Student’s name
- Course name and number
- Instructor’s name
- Date submitted
