Documentation Panel By: Collin Vander Wal

How Does Kayden Track Objects Above and Below His Head?

Overview At the beginning of class we were told to watch the kindergartens during PE class and watch the way they move, act, and response to the other students and objects around them. During the second day of class I picked Kayden out right away. He was a student that was well developed for his age group and had really good hand-eye coordination. So I chose Kayden to monitor his progress through class and see if his hand-eye coordination was as well developed above and below his head as it was in front of him.

Interview Q.) Do you like to play catch? A.) Yes. Q.) Do you like to catch the ball on your right side or left side better? A.) Right. Q.) Do you play catch with your parent(s) and/or siblings at home? A.) Football with my mom.

Research For my research I wanted to look into how children develop their hand eye coordination and what types of activities helped improve these skills. I found an article from WAHM.com that talked about four different types of activities that would help improve a child’s hand-eye coordination. These activities included hacky sack, martial arts, sports, and flash games on the computer. I thought this was a very wide range of activities but after reading into them more it made sense on how each fit into this category.

The most important thing I learned from this article was that children just need to get involved in sports of any type. Being involved helps improve your hand eye coordination is any sport and the younger you get active and involved the more advanced your hand eye coordination can become. In another article from Bodyomics.com it also reinforced the above statement about getting involved in sports at a young age. It also went on to talk about some more activities that helps improve hand eye coordination. The activities they listed were; connect four, playing catch with self or with others, being a goalie on a soccer or hockey team, racquet sports like tennis or ping pong. All of these activities are fun at all ages and are a great way to help an individual improve their hand eye coordination.

What I Learned After watch Kayden develop over the semester I learned a couple things from him and also from my research. I learned from Kayden that playing catch at home really gave him an advantage over the rest of the class when it came to hand eye coordination. From my research I learned that students need to get involved with sports at a young age. This doesn’t have to be competitive sports but some type of activity whether it is hacky sack, ping pong, any sport, or playing catch all of these help improve a growing child’s hand eye coordination.

What do I still want to know? When I reflect back on everything I had learned from this project I still had one major question that was not answered. I still wanted to know how to develop a child’s hand eye coordination with object that were below his feet but didn’t involve foot eye coordination. I think this would be a great thing to research more. I feel that activities like hockey and dribbling a basketball would be great for developing a child’s hand eye coordination below his head.