Why you should get your little tots lacing and threading toys
March 10, 2023 2023-06-26 13:26Why you should get your little tots lacing and threading toys
Why you should get your little tots lacing and threading toys
Bumpy Rides' Lacing Toy
The Benefits of Lacing Toys
Fine Motor Skills
Lacing is a timeless fine motor activity for your toddler or preschooler. Weaving the strings in and out of the holes in the lacing toy takes quite a bit of effort and strengthens the little muscles on their fingers, wrists, and hands. It develops their pincer grip, which is the ability to hold an object between the thumb and another finger. When children play with lacing toys, they hold the string between their thumb and index fingers. This helps to develop a pincer grip and improves their hand strength.
Improves Patience, Perseverance, and Attention
Inserting the strings into the holes does require a degree of concentration and attention. When kids are introduced to lacing toys regularly, it will improve their perseverance, particularly when they want to get better at it. When they keep at it to finish the lacing activity, it improves their concentration skills in unimaginable ways! See those frown lines on the forehead and their faces wrinkled when they try to shoot the strings in and out of the holes? That’s concentration! It’s not exactly easy to shoot the strings into the holes. The string may fall before it can go in through the hole and out through the same, and the child has a chance to grab it with his other hand. It could also be quite a challenge to get the string through smaller holes, or it may get caught before it makes its way through to the end of the toy. If you notice your kid continuing at it despite the challenge, then you should know that he is picking up on some crucial survival skills like focus, patience and perseverance.ÂImproves Hand-Eye Coordination
Children put both their hands and eyes to good use when they are performing a lacing activity. They track the string with their eyes and use their hands to insert the string into the holes. When they use one hand to insert the string through a hole and the other hand to pull the string out, the use of both hands to complete a task improves their bilateral coordination.
In this seemingly fun task, when both hands come together to perform a task, it helps to coordinate both sides of the body and both sides of the brain as well. Bilateral coordination begins to develop at around a year, and gets better between the ages of 3 to 5, so introducing lacing toys and activities at this stage helps them with other skills like writing, tying their laces, zipping their pants, putting on their shirts and buttoning them, and many sporting activities. It could also help to teach your little one sewing later on.
Spatial Awareness
Spatial awareness is the ability of toddlers and preschoolers to determine their position concerning objects around them and the relative position of objects with one another. When the child is manipulating the string, he will understand how much distance he has to cover to reach the next hole, where the next hole is located, and the direction he/she has to manipulate the string to shoot it into the next hole.
Spatial awareness begins at infancy and strengthens over the toddler years. When your toddler or preschoolers tries to precisely aim for each hole and gets it right, it helps to enhance their spatial awareness.
Identifying Shapes and learning basic math skills
Lacing helps to teach shapes to your kids. When they pick up a shape, run their hands and feel the shape's outline and what size it is, they will get familiar with the different shapes.
You could also teach some basic math skills like counting, addition and subtraction. For instance, insert the first bead, then the other. Now you have threaded two beads. (Counting and addition) Remove one of the beads, and you will be left with just one (Subtraction). You can also count the number of stitches as each hole is being threaded to introduce basic math skills of counting, addition and subtraction
Creating patterns, identifying shapes, learning some basic math skills, improving fine motor skills, enhancing spatial skills, sharpening focus and perseverance, developing hand-eye coordination and bilateral coordination - there is so much a lacing toy can do for your little one. It’s fun, it's challenging, and does so much for your little one’s development. Every little string or bead aimed and laced or threaded accurately is a small victory for your little one!
