pre Preschool

In an effort to prepare Piper for preschool next fall (sniff, sniff- how can that be???), we’ve been focusing on all those school-readiness tasks during therapy for the past few months.  Her therapists recognize that she’s easily frustrated when she can’t do things as well as she’d like, so we hope that by exposing her before the fact, she’ll be more comfortable when she gets there.  Trying to stay one-step-ahead for now.

During OT, we’ve worked on putting on a backpack and unzipping it.  We also worked on taking marker lids off and putting them back on (ironically, she was supposed to be working on coloring; if we had asked her to work on the lids, specifically, you know it never would have happened....)  And because we spend so much time washing our hands these days, she’s learned how to do a soap dispenser all on her own, too (which, for the record, also means that our daily usage stats have skyrocketed.  And that all of our hand lotion bottles are in danger.)

We’ve also started to try scissors.  Yikes.  I wasn’t sure I was ready (or that she was, for that matter), but she’s able to position the scissors correctly and take a single snip.  If I support the under side of her hand, she’s also able to hold the paper with one hand and cut with the other.  I’m pretty thrilled. 

Our speech therapist started using this set with her back early last fall:

It helped start that “scissor” motion, even though they’re a little big and she had to use two hands to make it work.  (She loves this set, by the way- sorting, counting, talking…  All kinds of good things.) 

When we started talking about scissors, I went on a hunt to find some that are small, plastic (Addy may not have any hair for Piper to trim- yet…), and easy to close.  I was going to order a few pair online, but happened to find these at a local specialty toy shop, for the steep price of $2.99 (Grandrabbits, for any of you locals- love that store…)

She’s able to get her hands in the holes correctly with a little bit of reminding (“Thumb in one hole, fingers in the other!”), they’re relatively easy to close, pop open on their own, and cut surprisingly well for being a plastic blade. 

It’s not easy for her, so it’s not her favorite activity.  So for now, I give her the option of trying to cut when we’re already coloring, for example, and try to expose her as much as possible to try and prevent any frustrations at school. 

Anyone have any scissors that worked really well for their kids?  I’m all for trying different approaches!