I am tweaking my Spring curriculum and I am narrowing my focus on some fine motor issues. I have known for some time that we need to work on scissors skills. I still remember his daycare teacher writing "TS is a gifted child who is verbally and linguistically gifted, but delayed in fine motor skill development."
During the fall I focused on overall fine motor skills because most boys seem to be a little slower in developing these skills and need extra encouragement. My thinking was a focus on fine motor work and the rest such as handwriting, cutting and shoe tying will come once those muscles are strengthened. I read somewhere that cutting "requires a lot of hand and eye coordination and by doing regular scissor-cutting activities, fine motor skills are improved and the small muscles are regularly exercised."
During December I noticed TS became frustrated with his scissor work, so now it's time focus in on that skill.
TS's scissor skills have improved over the last year. In the past he would get frustrated with cutting and just rip the paper. Now he really works at cutting out patterns for his lapbooks but they are not as smooth as he would like. I remind him that it is a process of practice but in true TS style he wants it "now".
So I worked with a friend who is an OT as well as internet searches to develop fun and gradually challenging cutting activities. The goal was to have at least 30 days of activities. At the end of the 30 days we will evaluate where we are and what should be our next steps.
Thirty Plus Days of Scissors Fun
The plan is to use what I have in house and not to purchase anything new.
Primary Tools for the Adventure
Fiskers Scissors
Do Dot Art
Craft Scissors
Special Scissors
Kid Tweezers
Playdough
Letter and Number Cutters
A special thanks to Angela at Homeschooling The Chaotic Family for her inspiration and direction fine motor activities for boys.
1 comment:
You can buy a Kumon book called "My first book of cutting" that has over 40 activities in various levels of difficulty, on nice heavy weight paper. My 5 y/o just finished the whole book in preparation for Kindergarten since my oldest son (now 14) also had those delayed fine motor skills when he was younger, as is often the case with little boys. He just started on the next book, My book of Easy Crafts. You can get them at Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, or local smaller bookstores as well (we try to buy as much as we can from a local educational supply store). Hope this helps!! :)
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