The Complete Motor Skills Activities Series (K-6) consists of the following 3 resources:

• Ready-to-Use Fundamental Motor Skills & Movement Activities for Young Children
• Ready-to-Use Fine Motor Skills & Handwriting Activities for Young Children
• Ready-To-Use Motor Skills & Movement Station Lesson Plans for Young Children

The CMSA Series has been designed as a motor skills developmental program for teachers, professionals (remedial and rehabilitation), and parents working in the school, home, or community environment, to assist children who have coordination and movement difficulties, and to help children in the performance and mastering of fundamental movement skills.
Motor memory is an important component to this learning process and relates to the child’s ability to visually and auditorially copy single movements, movement patterns and rhythm patterns.

The focus of the CMSA program is to provide enjoyable developmentally appropriate movement learning experiences in the teaching of fundamental motor skills so that children gain both competence and confidence in the successful performance of that movement skill.

The authors emphasize that teachers and parents need to be aware that although children may be able to perform the tasks adequately in terms of task completion, focus must be directed to how the task is completed; that is, focus must be directed toward quality of the movement, not just the outcome of the movement.

Current research suggests that if children do not reach a degree of competence and confidence in fundamental movement skills by the sixth grade, they may not engage in regular physical activity or sports for the rest of their lives.

What are Fundamental Motor Skills?

Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS) are gross motor movements that involve different body parts such as feet, legs, trunk, head, arms and hands. FMS are the foundation movements for more complex and specialized skills required to play low-organized games, sports, gymnastics, dance and recreational activities.

These skills can be categorized into three main skill areas:

• Body Management Skills – involve controlling body balance whether on the move (dynamic balance) such as rolling, stopping, landing, turning, twisting, bending, swinging, stretching and dodging; or being stationary (static balance) such as balancing on one foot. Body management skills also include awareness of body parts, and how the body moves in personal and general space (spatial awareness).
• Locomotion Skills – movements that take the body in any direction, from one point to another. Locomotion skills should be learned from an early age onwards and include walking, running, dodging, jumping and landing, hopping, leaping, skipping, and sliding.
• Object-Control Skills – involve hand-eye or foot-eye coordination in manipulation of such objects such as balls, hoops, jump ropes, racquets, bats, and hockey sticks. They involve underhand throwing, overhand throwing, catching, bouncing, dribbling, rolling, striking skills with one or both hands, and kicking and trapping skills.