It's Not Just a Snowflake 

Penmanship. Using scissors. Tying shoes. Skipping. Tossing a ball. These are just a few of the developmental milestones so many families take for granted. They seem so simple despite the initial struggles our kiddos may exhibit. I remember being kept from recess until I could make a proper cursive lowercase letter f. My teacher must have eventually given up on my success because to this day, my cursive f's are funky! If I'm being honest, I still struggle with some basic OT related skills. Most all of my script and printing is a bit on the funky side. I still can't cut a straight line or wrap a present pretty. I can however, skip with only an occasional trip and I hardly coach myself when I'm tying my shoes. I can even toss a ball far, well, so long as I'm throwing it down a hill. I've made some improvements, that's for sure, but I'm here to tell you that most things which look simple and not much more than a mark on a developmental chart, are in fact, quite difficult for someone with challenges from fine motor coordination, to bilateral coordination, or eye tracking or any number of other physiological challenges. Thank goodness for the OTs in our lives who work with teachers and parents to help these challenges take over less of our lives. 
And now, a gracious look at the challenge behind the 'simple' written by my peers from the OT department at BRAINS.

Not Just a Snowflake
Many of you have probably noticed the many brightly colored snowflakes that the OT department has put around the building, and have been making with our kids over the last few weeks. I thought it would be a good time to let everyone know that it is not just a pretty snowflake (although I think they look really cool). We started making the snowflakes with our therapy kids because it works on so many different skills that they need!

• To make the snowflake, it involves folding, cutting, folding, cutting, and taping/stapling.
• Since there are 6 points, the kids get to practice these skills over, and over, and over. Repetitive motor learning increases their opportunity for task mastery.
• This task is very simple, but also takes a lot of time (30-40 minutes per snowflake.) This helps the kids with attention difficulties focus on something that is also repetitive to increase focus.
• The task can be easily graded (made easier or harder) depending on the skill level of the child. Therefore, we can provide the “just right” challenge for a kid and help them succeed in making a beautiful piece of art.
• It can be completed as a group, which helps the kids with social difficulties work together to come up with the final product, and we can also limit the supplies and tools available to promote sharing.
• Since the task is actually pretty simple, but looks amazing, it gave a lot of our kids a great sense of accomplishment to get it done to show their parents and take home!
• The scraps from cutting the rectangle into a square was used to make the paper chains around the building. This task is also repetitive, but easier to achieve for some of our kids that the snowflake was too daunting of a task.

So although we do fun crafts with our kids, it’s not just for fun! Hope you learned something reading this, and everyone have a very Merry Christmas and enjoy the snowflakes!
 
~the OT department at BRAINS