Physical Development Activities

[WLOs: 3, 4] [CLOs: 1, 2, 5]

This week we begin working on elements that will become part of your  Community Center Proposal Final Project. If you have not already done  so, go to the Week 5 – Final Project  and thoroughly review the instructions for creating the proposal. 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.

Prior to beginning this assignment, read Chapters 4 and 5, Sections 14.2 and 15.2 in your textbook, and the Physical Development: Motor Development (Links to an external site.) article. Additionally, watch the Boys: Entering the teen years, Girls: Entering the Teen Years, and Playing videos on physical development.

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.