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The Physical Learning Domain is addressed through the opportunity to develop fundamental fine motor skills as well as gross motor skills in the classroom, on the playground, and during enrichment classes: Art, Music and P.E. In addition to the typical activities on the playground and in the classroom that help with this development, during Enrichment classes purposeful activities are used to promote the development of key performance components needed to complete a task. These activities provide opportunities for the development of sensorimotor, neuromuscular, gross, and fine motor functions. While making discoveries in Art regarding color, line, shape, form and texture, the children receive and interpret different sensory stimuli. The activities also allow children to improve neuromuscular and gross motor components. Fine motor activities include cutting , copying, tracing, coloring, painting, lacing, and picking up small items (promoting finger strength), manual dexterity, grasp, manipulation and coordination. While expressing their ideas through the use of a variety of art media, the children also practice midline crossing, lateral, bilateral and visual integration. During Music class the children are provided the opportunity to become familiar and creative with musical instruments, such as drums, rhythm sticks, bells and tone bars. These activities help promote sensory awareness, allowing them to interpret and localize sounds. In addition, they stimulate the muscles, joints and other internal tissues which relay information about the position of one body part in relation to another. The children also engage in group dance exercises, helping them to determine spatial relations, maintain postural control and increase body awareness. Activities in the P.E. program are presented in a way to encourage a non-competitive, life long love for exercise and physical fitness, while promoting the development of fine and gross motor coordination. Classes begin with warm up exercises, which move their body through its full range of motion. Group activities and traditional games such as tennis, gymnastics, ropes, balls, balance beams, stilts, and jump ropes allow children to conceive and plan a new motor response to an environmental demand. The children practice using large and small muscle groups for controlled, goal directed movements. (In addition, these activities promote bilateral integration, crossing the midline and laterality.)
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