Drawing in 3D can help a child’s fine motor skills

Table

Table

At one workshop we ran at the recent Maker Faire in NYC in late September, we had four children, aged 6-7, learning how to draw a 3D table in 123D Design. Children that young tend to have some issues controlling the mouse and their resulting drawings are proof of that. The picture below shows how one child drew his table in 3D. While the table itself was easy to draw, each leg took on its own life.        We adults, who have spent years in front of a laptop, are all too familiar with where to point a mouse cursor. I guess we take it for granted that mouse control was also a learned skill.When my daughter was just two years old, we were told that it’s important for children to develop fine motor skills. One teacher explained that there is a connection between fine motor skills and doing well in school. For me, at the least, if she can hold her own spoon, she can feed herself. And of course, holding a pencil is an obvious skill needed to learn your own written language.Given this, I think most parents would agree with me that if they want to improve their child’s fine motor skills, drawing in 3D could be one way of doing this.