As an ex-professional tennis player, I have years of tennis playing and coaching experience. When my daughter reached two I started to recognise that games we played were not only fun but helped develop hand-eye co-ordination and many other skills. I soon realised that this was something that many other parents would appreciate and started to develop Tennis Tots.
The Tennis Tots curriculum helps improve agility, balance and coordination in young children as well as devising educational based lessons; which allow children to learn numeracy, colour recognition and language skills whilst building their confidence along the way.
Parents play a crucial role in both the introduction to sports and earlier stages of a child’s development. Children from the ages of 2-5 years can be introduced to many fun games and skills to help improve their Hand-Eye Coordination; the ability of the eyes to guide the hands in movements.
Why is it so important for your child to develop this skill?
• In school, visual-motor integration, which is a vital skill for handwriting, grows out of a good hand-eye coordination base. The eyes need to guide the hand in forming the letter shapes and making sure they stay within the lines of the page.
• In gross motor games, hand-eye co-ordination can help your child to catch a ball and hit a ball with a bat or racket
• Eye tracking skills, which are vital for reading, can also develop through the gross motor games used for hand-eye coordination.
Here is a list of tennis based activities from the Tennis Tots curriculum that you can use at home with your children to help develop your child’s hand-eye coordination. All of these activities are used within the Tennis Tots programme and can benefit children from age 18 months-8 years of age in a number of ways. They are also a great chance for you to spend some fun time with your child doing something that is both active and educational.
Balloon Tap Up
Try to keep a balloon up in the air by tapping it up with both hands or by using a racket. Children can try using one hand or two hands depending on their ability and parents can tap the balloon alternately with their child to make it more fun. This exercise is great for developing each child's hand eye coordination and helps to improve tracking skills at an early age. Try to count the number of hits you get and improve on your score each day.
Catch and Bounce Catch
Practice throwing a big ball (no bigger than a football) underarm so that the children can catch it without a bounce. Try to kneel down so that you are at eye level with the children when you throw the ball. This will help the children track the flight of the ball more easily. Try to count to ten catches before progressing the exercise to throwing the ball with a bounce before catching it. Practice saying "Bounce and then Catch" so that the children get used to the rhythm of the ball bouncing and then catching it. For a more challenging exercise you can throw the ball to the right hand side and the left hand side and see if the children can move and catch the ball after one or two bounces. If the children can handle this get them to say split and do a split step before you throw the ball. This will help them be ready to receive the ball. Counting the number of catches you do allows the children to develop their numeracy skills along the way. You could count from 1-10 or count backwards from 10-1 or even start at 20 and progress from there depending on the age and developmental stage of your child.
Fetch
Practice rolling a tennis ball through your child’s legs with them facing away from you. As soon as the ball comes into vision they chase it and pick it up with either their left hand or right hand depending on the instruction. Try progressing this exercise by asking the children to sidestep back like a crab or jump back with their feet together like a Kangaroo.
Rollerball
Sit down on the floor opposite your child with legs apart. Practice rolling a big ball (no bigger than a football) between your legs and counting the number of rolls you can do. Encourage your child to stop the ball with two hands by putting the palms of their hands on the top of the ball before pushing it back.
For older children who find this task easy try getting them to stand on a marker and roll a ball to either their left side or right side. When the ball comes, encourage your child to move and stop the ball with either their right or left hand, depending on where the ball was rolled and then encourage them to roll it back with that hand before sidestepping back to their marker to repeat the task. This is an excellent activity to develop perception skills as well as developing hand eye coordination and balance whilst helping children learn about the left and right sides of the body.
Floor Tennis
Practice rolling a big ball with a 17 inch or a 19inch racket along the floor standing about 5 ft from each other. Encourage your child to trap the ball with the racket and then roll it back to you. Try counting to ten rolls and then start again.
For older children this exercise can be done using left and right hands and will involve more movement. Starting on a marker, try rolling the ball to either side try rolling it away from your child encouraging them to move and trap the ball with their racket either with their left or right hands. Once the ball has been trapped, children should attempt to roll the ball back from a sideways on position before recovering back to a marker with a side step.
Try doing this exercise three times per week for five minutes each time and it will really help your child improve their hand-eye coordination skills as well as improving their overall development in a number of areas.
Matt will be at Eureka! on Sunday 12 June giving Tennis Tots half hour taster sessions. To watch a video of some of these exercises and to learn more about the Tennis Tots programme watch the video below:
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