Fine motor success, caught on video

One of Alayna's weaknesses has always been fine motor skills.  Another reason we added an outside school OT each week.

I have tried and tried to get her to do more things to work her tiny little fingers.  We do puzzles, theraputty, sort small items, dry erase boards, use scissors, color etc.  Anything to get her to use her fingers.

She has never been much into stringing things, even the big chunky blocks (which she can easily do).  So months ago I bought a package of small minuscule beads at the dollar store (love that place for thera-play items!)  I thought Dariya would love stringing these beads onto a pipe cleaner as her fine motor skills are crazy good. However, these little beads proved to be too much for her.  She could do them but, after 3 or 4 was done as it was pretty difficult.  Alayna couldn't even begin to do them without hand over hand assistance.  So I put these beads away for another time.

Lately Alayna has decided that she likes coloring inside the lines.  Don't misunderstand we still get the scribble some but, she knows the difference and is able to stay INSIDE the lines.  That is big.

She also loves writing on her dry erase board (thank you Target  2 for a dollar aisle).  She will practice her letters and writing her name over and over.  Then she draws pictures and tells us all about what she has drawn like she is doing show and tell.

As it had been a while and I have seen some real progress in fine motor skills from Alayna I thought I would try the beads again just to see how far we have come.  To my surprise Dariya still could do them and gave up after 4 (boring!) But, Alayna wanted to do it and was busily stringing tiny beads when I had to grab the camera and document it!

Yay Alayna you have come so far!  Super proud of you.

Thanks to Jana and Suzy, Alayna's awesome OT's who work hard to help her master these skills


Don't mind me saying it the 18th on the video, it was early and I didn't know it was really the 19th!  LOL