Subscribe RSS
Comment RSSPlaydoh Puzzels
July 18, 2009 # 7:05 am # Creative Projects, Unschooling # 3 Comments
When we first got home, from Siberia, with the girls most of our focus was on trying to communicate, figuring out basic parenting and life skills, and getting calories -lots and lots and lots- of calories into the Wee Kahunas.
Once we got past the shock and awwwwww ( as in oh my goodness they are adorable) stage, we started to notice small things that the girls needed some help with.
The fact that both girls had small hand tremmors was pretty high on our list. The doctors chalked this up to effects from lack of nutrition and sunshine (read that as ricketts) and to potential nuerological delays that would take time to catch up/resolve. Basically the brain is trying to do so many new things that the signals start to get crossed up a bit, resulting in tiny hands being a bit more shaky than you’d want to see. Doing puzzles (especially ones with small pieces) was one of the recommendations we got from the team of the international adoption specialist that we met with.
That made sense, but puzzles are expensive (at least the solid wood ones we were looking at) and Elena in particular was getting frustrated by her inability to place the pieces easily.
Time to break out the playdoh. Rolling and smooshing it seems to have helped with the tremors and overall hand strength. Then one morning I realized that all those cookie cutters made it possible to create puzzles on the fly that required all the dexterity (pincer grasp, two finger pulls etc) that we were loooking for with the added bonus of no frustration since pieces can be squished into place when need be.
In our case we found that contrasting colors work best. Basically you make the puzzles twice and then switch the pieces.
After a while we added in matching, colors and shapes to the game turning it into a great lesson.
Now the girls make their own puzzles.
Popularity: 7%
This entry was posted by 
Ohhh what a good idea. I think we might try this cookie dough. I have a two year old (not adopted) she doesn’t have any motor delays, but she loves puzzles and seems bored with the ones we got as gifts for the holiday and her birthday.
I’ve been a play-doh fan for years. No kids in the house, but there’s always at least two cans here, and there’s a small can in my desk.
The can at desk turns into a great tool for product meetings – it’s an excellent 3-d modeling device.
And it’s a super stress reliever – much better for me than one of those squishy balls.
But I never thought of this, and it’s so perfect!
What a great idea! My twin 2 year olds loved it. Being able to make as many “puzzles” as we wanted saved the day. No more fighting for turns in a house that has to share more often than we like.
Where did you get the little man cookie cutter? I think it would be fun to do people and not just shapes from Xmas like we have.