What Are the Signs of Weak Fine Motor Skills?

Fine motor skills can be defined as small muscle movements: those that occur in the finger, in coordination with the eyes. Learning fine motor skills is similar to learning other skills.

Motor skills are actions that involve the movement of muscles in the body. They are divided into two groups: gross motor skills , which include the larger movements of arms, legs, feet, or the entire body ( crawling , running, and jumping); and fine motor skills, which are smaller actions, such as grasping an object between the thumb and a finger or using the lips and tongue to taste objects. Both types of motor skills usually develop together, because many activities depend on the coordination of gross and fine motor skills.

Development of fine motor skills is important among kids because it will in turn help them to perform better academically and physically in later years. Fine motor skills involve the small muscles of the body that enable such functions as writing, grasping small objects, and fastening clothing.

Fine motor skills involve strength, fine motor control, and dexterity. Some children have great difficulty with fine motor skills. Basic things such as writing, picking up tiny objects or buttoning and zipping clothing can be a great challenge for them. If these skills are not addressed, a child with weak fine motor skills might have difficulty at school.

For some children, their hands do not seem to work together in the way that they should. This may lead to such frustration that they may resist activities that require them to coordinate all of the muscles and joints in their hands and fingers. As a result, they do not get to practise these skills correctly or develop the correct muscles. This in turn may affect the development of higher-level fine motor skills, such as writing. It is often at the stage when formal handwriting instruction has commenced that children are identified as having fine motor weakness.
Resultant commonly seen behaviours showing the signs of weak fine motor skills might include:

• Outright refusal to participate in an activity
• avoidance techniques (‘I need to get a drink of water’)
• anger outbursts (rip up paper/tantrums)
• sadness (crying)
• ‘defeatist’ behaviour (‘I’m no good, I can’t do this’).

Further, research suggests that children and adolescents with identified motor coordination weakness are at higher risk of experiencing anxiety and even depression associated with their perceived lack of competence in motor activities. Therefore, it is important for teachers and parents to be aware of the impact that fine motor skill performance, or a child’s perception of their own fine motor performance in relation to their peers, may have on the child’s overall behaviour in the classroom. Working to help children develop the best fine motor skills possible at a young age helps to set the stage for success in school and at home, and more so, contributes to them feeling good about themselves.

Signs of weak fine motor skills:
List of observable behaviors of children with fine-motor difficulties.

• Difficulty with writing; poor grasp leading to poor form, fluency, and frequent discomfort when writing.
• Difficulty controlling speed of movements leading to excessive speed and resultant untidy work, or work not being completed due to overly slow movements.
• Difficulty with precision grip and inaccurate release and therefore problems with games that involve placement of pieces; for example, dominoes.
• Difficulty with spatial relations leading to difficulties with design and copying.
• Tearing paper and/or breaking pencils due to force-control difficulties.
• Difficulty with learning to dress and undress.
• Preference for outdoor activities.
• Clumsiness and frustration: spills food; drops objects; breaks objects.
• Frustration towards and/or resistant behavior to manipulative and graphic tasks.
• Excessive muscular tension when performing fine-motor tasks.

My next post will be about activities which can help in development of fine motor skills.

Useful links:

* How to Improve a Child's Fine Motor Skills

* Fine-Motor Skill Development: Tips for Parents

* Developing Fine Motor Skills (pdf)

* Development of fine motor skills from early years

* Fine Motor Skills Games

* Children and their Fine Motor Skills Development

Recycling of plastic water or pet bottles in creative ways

PET is one of the most common plastics being used by consumers. Bottled water is usually called pet bottles. Recycling of these water bottles is very important to save our environment, our planet. This post is about creative uses or craft projects.
Polyethylene terephthalate or as it is more commonly known PET or PETE is a polymer resin that is part of the polyester family.The PET package is simply discarded by the consumer and becomes part of the waste stream as consumer waste. Some local governments and private agencies collect PET separately from other household waste.

PET bottle recycling is more practical and more easily executed because they are more easily identifiable in the recycle stream since most soft drink and water bottles are made exclusively of PET. Some of these are used in bottles for soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, edible oils, pharmaceuticals, and detergents. 
These first 3 projects are made by children at the occasion of 'Save energy' event, followed by other recycling pictures or news found at the net.

At the occasion of  'Save energy' event, this recycled project was created which shows the use of a  soda bottle as a trash bin

Another crafts created by class 5 boys 'A windmill'

Another recycling example which was created by class 5 boys

Grandfather creates geodesic: It is an innovative sustainable design for kids: the geodesic dome building blocks shown above are constructed entirely of used plastic bottles otherwise destined for a landfill.

Make.com has a long list of ideas for recycling water bottles-including one for using a bottle to keep your yarn from tangling. 

How about creating a beach shoe made of pet bottles? Gearfuse.com offers this unique idea of recycling your old water bottles as sandals for the beach. 

The boat made of thousands of plastic bottles used successfully ply the Pacific Ocean and dropped in a number of ports without significant disruption.
This boat has a length of 18 meters have been sailing for four months with the distance traveled 15,000 km. Thousands of old plastic bottles were tied to the pontoon, so that increases used strong special glue.
Plastic Bottle Boat sailing the Pacific Ocean for Four Months

Useful links:

* Things you can make with old plastic pop bottles

* 20 crafty ways to reuse plastic bottles (An amazing post with link to 20 crafts made of plastic bottles)

* Water PET bottle from trash to treasure

What Foods to Avoid if Your Child is Diagnosed ADHD?

Eliminating or avoiding some foods from the diet may improve ADHD symptoms. If your child is diagnosed with ADHD, this diet guideline may help you minimize the ADHD and related symptoms.As diet and nutrition are related to mood and behavior, and that they can affect brain development, so particular changes in diet can diminish the symptoms related to this neurological disorder called 'ADHD'.

Avoiding or eliminating some foods means a particular food or ingredient you think might be causing ADHD symptoms. Then you stop eating anything containing that substance. If the symptoms subside, then you continue avoiding the substance. The assumption is that you are eating something unhealthy that causes ADHD symptoms or makes them worse. Proper nutrition, including an array of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and essential fatty acids (EFAs), is particularly necessary in the first few years of life to support brain development and prevent certain neurological disorders. 


Even among older children, a lack of certain dietary components such as protein, or an insufficient number of calories, can negatively affect a child’s learning and behavioral abilities, and vitamin or mineral deficiencies can certainly interfere with learning over the course of a school year.
What foods to avoid if your child is diagnosed ADHD?

• NO DAIRY PRODUCTS, especially cow's milk. The American Pediatric Association estimates that a significant percentage of all children are allergic to milk. Instead try Almond milk, Rice milk, or Better Than Milk. We are looking at "Raw Organic Milk" which has not been pasteurized. Since it still has enzymes it might be digested better than the "ultra-pasteurized" milk. And drink lots of water for two weeks.
• NO YELLOW FOODS. Especially Yellow Corn or Yellow Squash. Bananas are white, but don't eat the yellow peel. About 1/1000 people have problems with the stuff that makes these foods yellow in color.
• NO JUNK FOODS. If it comes in a cellophane wrapper, don't eat it. Stop eating junk food and your brain will work better. Junk foods tend to be very high in sugars and carbohydrates, and our brains get fuzzy and our kids get more hyperactive when sugars and carbohydrates are eaten together.
• NO FRUIT JUICES. They have too much sugar. One small glass of apple juice has the sugar content of eight apples. Later on you can have juice, but for now if you have to have any juice just dilute it with water 50/50.
• CUT SUGAR INTAKE BY 90%. If you can, cut it down to zero. Sugar is in just about everything, but try to really restrict eating it. Do your best to reduce your sugar intake without going crazy.
• CUT CHOCOLATE BY 90%. No more than a single piece, once a week. Chocolate is our favorite food here at newideas.net but it has about 220 different chemicals, some of which people can have problems with.
• NO NUTRASWEET. None. Period. Never. It's bad for you. It is bad for your brain. This is not just a two week restriction. It is not very good for your brain.
• NO PROCESSED MEATS and NO MSG. Only get meats with labels that say, “Turkey and Water,” etc. This is not just a two week restriction. If the meat has chemicals listed that you can't pronounce, don't buy it and don't eat it.
• CUT FRIED FOODS BY 90%. The Trans-Fats in fried foods and other less than healthy foods compete in the body with good Fatty Acids, and the Essential Fatty Acids. You can either have unhealthy Trans-Fats, or healthy EFA, but not both in the same space in your brain. Good fats with good fatty acids are your friends. Bad fats such as Trans-fats or Poly-Unsaturated fats are bad for us. Good fat sources can include animal fats, coconut oil, olive oil, flax oil and so on.
• AVOID FOOD COLORINGS WHENEVER POSSIBLE. See if your child is sensitive to any particular colors, such as Reds, Yellows, etc. For now, though, avoid all if possible.
• AVOID FISH. Mercury levels in most fish is simply too high to be either safe or healthy.

Related: http://newideas.net/adhd
Useful links:
* ADHD and Diet: Parsing the Recent Research
* Diet & ADHD: Are There Links Between ADHD & Diet?

Inauguration of self protective training for disaster management like fire and earthquake

February 4 and 5th  (Saturday and Sunday) a group of teachers of our School participated in a two days workshop 'Protective and preventive measures to face disastrous situations like 'Fire and earthquake'.

Purpose of this short training workshop was to learn self-protective training to the employees of the institution.
The training venue was the school itself.
It was inaugurated by 'Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defense' department. Fire Service and Civil Defence is a department working for all kind of rescue missions in Bangladesh including fire safety, safety during air raids and any kind of disaster.

Why this training?

Fire Safety: We know that every year Bangladesh and our dear city Dhaka has to face some kind of fire disasters among which many situations can be prevented. These accidents happen due to a very minor cause.
Whatever the cause may be, we can help minimize these disasters and learning what to tackle the situation as a responsible citizen.

Earthquake: After the recent great quakes that have swept away entire coastlines and cities in Japan, Haiti and Sumatra, scientists are now looking hard at the nation that may suffer the gravest threat of all: Bangladesh. With more than 160 million people, Bangladesh is the most crowded place on earth, and one of the poorest–and it is growing fast. Scientists have come to recognize that it sits at the juncture of several active tectonic plate boundaries–including the tail end of the one that caused the 2004 Sumatra tsunami that killed over 200,000 people, 1,300 miles south. Any moderate or severe earthquake situation can become disastrous for the whole country and especially for capital city Dhaka. So every citizen need to get some basic training for that difficult time to face the situation and help minimize number of causalities.

Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defense provided training to preventive and precautionary measures of different types disasters, fight the fire (fire safety), rescue trapped persons, providing first aid etc.
Whole day training included lectures, slide shows and practical demonstration. Precaution and preventive measure regarding any disastrous situation like fire or earthquake was discussed.

Importance of Self protective training:
By learning preventive and precautionary measures we can  minimize the destruction of wealth and properties of the Nation.

• We can help minimize the number of casualties and also help minimize the number of death.

Training outcome:
This kind of training and workshops help trainees getting ready to ----

• Fight all types of fire breaking out at any time day and night.
• Helping the volunteers or special teams to extricate trapped persons from burning buildings, underneath collapsed structures.
• Be able to provide first aid to the injured person before reaching the hospital.
• Advise on fire prevention and fire protection measures for buildings, industrial and commercial installations etc.

Importance of Having Nutritious Breakfast for Children

Do you know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day? Not only for adults but children and school going kids should have habit of having breakfast at the start of the day.>A good breakfast provides the nutrients that people need to start their day off right. Studies also show a link between participation in the School Breakfast Program and improved academic performance.

Many people underestimate the value of breakfast. They may only have a glass of juice or a cup of coffee and eat nothing at all. However, research has shown that this type of routine is not the best habit to get into. Eating a substantial meal within the first few hours of waking up is much healthier for you and your child.
Children who eat a good breakfast tend to perform better in school, and have a better attendance and decreased hyperactivity. Children who don't eat breakfast tend to perform not as well, and also tend to have behavior problems such as fighting, stealing, and not listening to their teachers (Dr. Ronald Kleinman, Harvard Medical School).

• A good nutritious breakfast need not include typical breakfast foods, but eating breakfast is a good habit to start off the school day.
• Studies show that children and adult students who eat breakfast do more and better work in school than those who skip it. In contrast, those who skip breakfast tend to tire more quickly, be more irritable, and react less quickly than those who eat breakfast. Because many of the basic subjects are taught before noon, breakfast is an important meal.
• National studies consistently confirm that breakfast provides fuel for school and boosts brain power. Children who eat breakfast are less likely to be overweight, have a higher intake of key vitamins and minerals and are less likely to suffer from colds than those who skip their first meal of the day.
•  In one study, test scores of children who did not eat breakfast were generally lower than those who had eaten a well-balanced morning meal. 
• Another good reason to make sure that children have a balanced breakfast is that four out of five children do not get enough vitamins and minerals from lunch and dinner alone.
•  By adding breakfast, children are more likely to get the vitamins and minerals they need. Also, children who don’t eat a good breakfast tend to eat more junk food during the day -- snacks that are high in fat and sugar and low in nutritional value.

Eating breakfast:                                                                                                                       

• Improves classroom performance, including better test scores and grades
• Increases children's ability to focus and concentrate on school work
• Decreases behavior problems, tardiness and visits to the school nurse
• Increases attendance rate

If your child eats breakfast at home, choose a breakfast with milk, fruit and cereal(grain product). These three foods can provide for a good breakfast. Eating a healthy breakfast does not need to take a lot of time. A good breakfast should include nutritious foods from three of the four food groups.
Whole-grain bread or cereal, fruit, milk, yogurt, or eggs are good breakfast options. 
Suggestions to get your children to eat breakfast each morning:
Offer variety. Mixing a variety of healthy cereals, especially those that are lower in sugar, are a good source of carbohydrate and fibre for children. In addition, skim or 1% milk supplies needed calcium and protein.
Make it easy. If pressed for time in the morning, try cutting up fruit the night before, so it’s ready to add to cereal or yogurt
Be creative. Breakfast doesn't have to be limited to cereal or toast. A whole-wheat English muffin with mozzarella and tomato sauce or an omelette with vegetables may seem unconventional to parents, but if a child enjoys it, it can be a healthy choice.
Useful links:                                                                                                            
* 'Breakfast'
* 'Serve up the benefits of breakfast' at 'Scholastic.com'
* Importance of breakfast for children
'Starting healthy eating habits

Natural Remedies to Treat ADD and ADHD Among Children

Children are naturally sensitive so regular medication means facing severe side effects. Natural herbs and home remedies have proven effective in treating ADD or ADHD. These remedies can be adopted for the treatment of ADD and ADHD for the relief of these neurological disorders. These excellent natural remedies are perfectly safe and effective, without any side effects. Herbal remedies are obtained from a wide variety of natural resources including plant leaves, bark, berries, flowers, and roots.

Natural remedies to treat ADD and ADHD:

Natural herbs and home remedies have proven effective in treating ADD or ADHD. These remedies can be adopted for the treatment of ADD and ADHD for the relief of these neurological disorders. These excellent natural remedies are perfectly safe and effective, without any side effects.

Herbal remedies are obtained from a wide variety of natural resources including plant leaves, bark, berries, flowers, and roots. Herbal medicine remains a popular alternative throughout China and the Far East, and is growing in popularity throughout the world. Natural remedies to treat ADD and ADHD:

There are many natural remedies available that focus specifically on child ADHD treatment. When researching natural remedies as a treatment for ADHD, look for ingredients which have been shown to be the most useful.

 Panax Ginseng: a Chinese herb, has been shown in studies to strengthen the immune system, reduce stress and fatigue, increase motivation, and normalize body functions.


Ginkgo biloba: It’s effective in restoring the functioning of the circulatory system and improving blood flow to the brain. Its active ingredients include flavone glycosides, bioflavins, sitosterol, lactones and anthocyanin.


Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora):This is a relaxing nerve tonic and anti-spasmodic, which reduces excitability and relieves depression. Its active ingredients are flavonoids, tannins, bitter, volatile oil and minerals.

German chamomile (Matricaria recutita): This has traditionally been used to calm and soothe nervous tension. Its active ingredients include volatile oil, flavonoids, valerianic acid, coumarins, tannins, salicylates and cyanogenic glycosides.

Gotu cola (Centella asiatica): It is used to revitalize the brain and nervous system, increase attention span and concentration, and combat ageing. Recent studies show that it may also help increase blood flow to the brain and improve general circulation.


Green Oats (Avena sativa): Also called Hawer, it’s used to treat nervous exhaustion and as a general nerve tonic. It acts as a nerve tonic whose calming effects grow with time and consistent use. It’s active ingredients are saponins, flavonoids, minerals, alkaloids, steroidal compounds, Vitamins B1, B2, D, E, carotene and wheat protein.
Umbabazane (Urtica Urens): This circulatory stimulant is effective in lowering blood sugar levels. Its active ingredients are histamine, formic acid, acetylcholine, glucoquinones, minerals, Vitamins A, B and C and tannins.
  Massage therapy: According to a study published in 1998, massage therapy has proven especially effective for children. A daily massage makes them happier, less fidgety and hyperactive, and more focused on their tasks. Which things to avoid for better treatment:
It is thought that diet with refined sugar and food additives can causes children to become hyperactive and inattentive.
Avoid Sugar: Research has shown that children with ADD and ADHD may not digest sugars properly. Sugar consumption has been linked to aggressive, restless behavior. 
Avoid Soft Drinks: Both sugar-free and sweetened contain phosphates which displaces calcium/magnesium levels, causing exaggerated muscle activity. 
Get Plenty of Sunlight: Seasonal Affective Disorder, SAD, is sometimes misdiagnosed as ADD or ADHD. Occurring mostly in northern latitudes during the winter months, SAD produces ADD-like symptoms. Consider exposure to full-spectrum lighting if unable to spend time outdoors each day.


First published at 'factoidz'



Useful links:
* Herbal Remedies for ADHD

* Natural Remedies for ADHD and ADD

* How to Treat ADHD, or ADD, with Natural Remedies

* Teacher's Ideas: Dealing With Students Having ADD/ADHD

* Food colours are linked with hyperactivity of your child

* Why use herbal and home remedies to cure and how to use these remedies effectively?

Why Proper Development of fine motor Skills is Important?

A motor skill is simply an action that involves your kids using his muscles. They are divided into two groups: gross motor skills and fine motor skills. Both types of motor skills usually develop together, because many activities depend on the coordination of gross and fine motor skills.

Gross and Fine motor skills have become an important parameter for assessing the development of the child. So it’s important to develop these skills in them which will in turn help them to perform better academically and physically too.

Gross motor skills involve the large muscles of the body involving physical movement of the child like running, jumping, hopping etc. These require balance and coordination skills.
Fine motor skills are the collective skills and activities that involve the small muscle movements using the hands, fingers with vision. 
Today we are learning about 'fine motor skills', and its importance. Moreover what tasks your kids can perform if he/she has developed fine motor skills properly.

Fine motor skills are the coordination of small muscle movements especially the coordination of finger movement with vision to perform precise and refinded movements. These skills are acquired as children, and humans secure and perfect them throughout life.

How to adopt brain gym in classroom to boost skills among students?

I am adopting brain gym exercises before starting my class and noticed that these simple body movements help students become more focused for the learning. Brain gym is most effective when used in the classroom as part of the learning process. These physical activities help the chemical and electrical processes which take place during mental and physical efforts.

Brain gym is the easiest and fastest way to shift students from scattered to focused, from confused to clear, and from tense to relaxed. A typical classroom experience lacks the quantity of movement required for healthy physiological development. Brain gym can be effective in changing attitudes and the classroom atmosphere;

 To be successful, it is important
* that the teacher is confident with the Brain Gym exercises and has an understanding of underlying concepts on which Brain Gym is based;
* any initial resistance to using the exercises by students feeling embarrassed is recognised.

When to apply brain gym?
These and other brain training exercises are especially effective for children with learning difficulties. A good time to perform them is right before learning activities. It seems your students are too lethargic and need a bit of revitalization to be ready for learning Or when you see they are too nervous and restless so that they can calm down... and you as well!

Centralization: These are mostly relaxation exercises which help to reestablish the neural networks between brain and body and, this way, facilitating the passage of electromagnetic flow through the body.

Brain buttons: One hand massages two spots below the clavicle while the other rests on the navel. The movements stimulates the carotid artery and this way enhances the blood flow to the brain.
It activates the brain for:
• reading skills

• memorization.                                                                                  
 Earth buttons: One hand fingers rest on the lower lip while the others stay on the pubic bone. While having the sensation of a better connection between the upper and lower parts of the body the students feels more stable and centered.
It improves:
• reading skills.
 Balance buttons: These buttons reestablish balance in every dimension: left-right, above-under, behind-before. The student massages the spot where the skull is attached to the neck and, at the same time, the navel.
It improves the next learning skills:
• critical and decisional capacities
• spelling accurateness
• Maths calculations.
 Space buttons: One hand rests on the upper lip while the other lays on the back-bone.
It activates the brain for:
• relaxation and concentration
• eye-contact in communication with people
It improves these learning skills:
• focusing during a test
• reading
• motivation and interest.
 The thinking cap: This activity helps the student to focus attention on hearing. It also lessens tension in skull bones. The student gently pulls ears backwards and unrolls them with fingers. They start from the top of the ear, massage them delicately and end on the lobe.
It activates brain for:
• hearing one's voice
• short-term memory
• inner dialogue and thinking .
 Hook-ups: The exercise can be done while standing, sitting or lying down. Students cross the left ankle on the right one. Then they intertwine fingers and bring them near the chest. They close their eyes, breathe deeply for a few minutes and relax. Then students free hands and legs and finger tips touch gently while they keep on breathing deeply.
Hook-ups help:
• mind and body relaxation
 The energetic yawn : Don't get angry at your students if they yawn during English classrooms! Not now that you know that scientific research has proved yawing to be a perfect exercise which brings oxygen to the brain and so enhances learning performances!

Related post: What is brain gym and how to integrate it in classroom to enhance learning abilities of students?

Useful links:

* Brain Gym's Energy Exercises. Energy Exercises help to re-establish neural connections between body and brain.
*  Brain gymnastics therapy can reduce autism symptoms