A, B, C….

It is so exciting to see your child write their first letter! I remember when my daughter wrote the first letter of her name. I was so proud of her! How did she get to that point? What had to happen before she was able to do write that first letter?

We do not learn to walk before we crawl, so with writing we must acquire skills that lead us to be able to write…

Developing fine motor skills is where it all begins. According to the National Childcare Accreditation Council, “fine motor skills involve the use of the small muscles in the fingers, hand and arm to manipulate, control and use tools and materials.”

Fine motor skills are so important when it comes to our children’s growth because it lets them build up and use those small muscles that allow your child to eventually be able to press down and write.

When your child enters a preschool environment we are working on diverse and creative ways to further develop these small hand muscles. We set up different activities that allow children to manipulate a variety of items that challenge those little muscles to move and grow stronger.

Even though children spend time at school working on fine motor activities, parents can also do this at home while connecting with your child and having fun! Making this practice a fun and challenging experience is the easiest way to help your child further develop these skills.

Here are a few examples of what we do in our Prekindergarten classroom, which you could do at home:

• Dipping marbles in paint and having your child paint with them. Not only are you creating a work of art and having fun, but having your child pinch and hold the marble steady between their fingers is hard work. This is building up those finger muscles and practicing movement.
• Having your child simply cut paper is an easy way to strengthen fingers. So you have a pile of papers to be shredded? Done! This is an easy way to strengthen finger muscles and get movement going.
• Have your child tear off Band-Aids and apply to a cookie sheet, then have them rip the Band-Aids off. This would work great on a long car ride! It keeps them occupied in the backseat and busy working on their fine motor skill development.
• Lacing is also a fun activity for preschoolers. You can easily create this at home by cutting out a shape and hole punching around the edge. Have your child use yarn or string to start lacing through the holes.
• Pipe cleaners and beads are also a fun, cheap, and easy way to practice fine motor skills. Recently, we took different colored pipe cleaners and turned it into an octopus. Then we had the kids match and string on colored beads. They loved doing this! It is also a quiet/calm activity once they get to “beading”, the children really focus and work hard.

These are just a few fun ways to help your child’s development of their fine motor skills, which is a part of the foundation to writing. Working on these skills early will help them to be confident and successful when they are first beginning to write. Just remember to have fun!

-Ms. Whitney, Curriculum Instruction Coordinator

Omg! My toddler was bitten.

As a parent, I have been there. The 300 emotions go through my head. Who did it? Why was no one watching? How could this happen? I have also been on the receiving end of my little minion being the biter. You go through the 300 emotions there too except you are more self-blaming at that time.

As a teacher, it can happen in a blink of an eye. No one is to blame- biting is a developmentally appropriate stage for infants through toddlers. So, let’s put the blame game aside and focus on what we can do to help the child through this natural stage.

Biting usually becomes an “issue” in late infancy through toddlerhood. There is a red flag or trigger that causes the child to turn to biting as their response.

As a parent, I had to put aside the emotions and figure out why and what I could do to help. The little guy learned biting and thought it was a great source of defense. Then he learned oh it makes my mouth feel good when I bite. (yah teething) With knowing what was enabling or letting the child think it was okay to bite I now needed to redirect those strong toddler feelings into another safe response or action. Usually it is a security object that can take the biting or frustration. The child then learns to direct those emotions to the security object.

The cool thing about going through this with my own child is it has also given me further skills to improve my teaching world. We have all been in a room where there are bitters. We have all had to deal with both (biter and bitten) parent reactions as educators. This is where we must come together and be a team for the benefit of our children and students.

As an educator, we can sometimes get bogged down with the emotions of the problems at hand and miss the triggers. As one of my mentors says “take the emotions out of it and focus on the facts”. Is it happening during transitions? Is it when the child’s personal space is threatened? Is the child’s security object being tampered with from others? Has the child’s security item been reduced or weaned from them? All these things can cause an emotional reaction for a child. If we can find a pattern, we can find the trigger which will lead towards a solution.

Remember infants and toddlers are just learning speech. This can cause further frustrations with the child. Model and empower the child by using feeling words- i.e. Are you feeling frustrated right now? Are you mad that they were in your space? We must model and give the tools for success.
Thank you to the toddler rooms for allowing me to be a part of your world and help work towards solutions for an “issue” at hand as a team. As child advocate for YSA I want us to come together and empower our children to be successful. This includes infants all the way to school age children.

Here are a few links that I used to help identify triggers and possible solutions. Each child is different and so is each parents’ response to the situation.

• Stop Your Biting Toddler with These 7 Tips
• Hitting and Biting in Toddlers: How to Handle It

I am always available to discuss any challenges or behaviors that you might want an outside look in on.

Empower today’s children for our future
Child Success Advocate of Young Scholars Academy
~ Ms. Michaela (Mic)