Lab #1- Gross and Fine Motor Observation

Based upon observation, what are the differences in motor behavior and social behavior between the St. Mary's afterschool students?

~While working with a majority of kindergarten to third grade students and a few sixth grade students, the differences in levels of ability varied as well as the interaction between children to children and also children to SUNY Cortland students. In terms of the motor behavior, the younger students had many more uncoordinated movements whereas the older students had much more controlled and deliberate movements. For instance, when we played basketball with the older students in the gym, they understood the concepts and how to move in order to successfully put the basketball in the hoop. Yet, when trying to create games with the younger kids, they struggle with understanding the purpose of their movements but rather just want to run around to just play. That is why tag games seemed to work the best for the younger kids. Gender didn’t really seem to play a large role in affecting motor behavior for the younger kids because all of them are still learning their own movements and coordination so really, they all were at the same level. Yet, with the older kids, the boys seemed to be much better at knock-out than the girls, not only in technique but general strength. Socially, at the younger level, the girls seem to sit with the girls and the boys tried to stay with the boys. Both groups, however, had no problems associating with the SUNY Cortland students equally. When playing games, there really was no gender issue but rather, everyone was just out to play. For the older students, since there were so few, in the cafeteria, they all just sat together and once we played “prisoner-tag” (what I believed they had called it) we played boys vs. girls. Motor behavior is definitely affected by age, gender and general ability due to the different levels of maturation and also, social exposure to be able to constantly develop their motor skills.

Based upon observation, what fine motor activities were witnessed?

~The fine motor skills that I had witnessed were really only eating and picking up stones. The majority of the rest of the movements such as playing basketball, playing tag or even jumping rope were all gross motor skills. While watching the kids eat, they tend to use their fingers rather than whole hand. The girls hold their cookies or cheese doodles so delicately; normally, with the thumb and index finger. Most of the girls, who were eating cookies, normally separated them in halves and again, would do that with just the index finger and thumb. Drinking the milk normally took the whole hand in order to just be able to grip the cup. The boys tended to just grab the cookie and just eat it. They did not really have any specific technique to eat their food but rather just eat it as fast as possible. I did not get to witness the older kids eat. Ability was generally equal among the students while eating. When I was out back, I was working with a young girl who was in the first grade, I believe, and we were building a castle out of rocks. She had explained to me what the castle needed: a wall, the castle itself and water surrounding the castle. She had told me to make the castle and she was going to make the wall. In order for her to create the wall, she stiffened up her hands and put all her fingers together to create a flat-like shovel and began pushing the rocks upward to create this “great wall of china” as she had named it. When she had finished the wall, she began helping me with the castle and would delicately put one rock at a time on top, and did it very meticulously. She would examine the rock and use her index finger and thumb to place the rock on the castle. Watching her fine motor skill was interesting since it was one-on-one and that was my best observation of fine motor skill while at lab that day.