Tom Becomes a Dentist...

Today Tom found a new occupation, or maybe not? Tom was bought a lovely little PlayDoh set called 'Drill and Fill'. We gave it a go today whilst Tom was in his standing frame. 

The set itself comes with so many different attachments things to play with and of course the PlayDoh. Within the set you get; a head that you can fill with teeth, teeth moulds, a mirror, braces maker, tweezers, a toothbrush, an electric drill,3 pots of white PlayDoh, 1 pot of red PlayDoh, and 1 pot of green PlayDoh. There really is a lot in this set! 

This is great for Tom as often PlayDoh on its own can be a little boring and it normally ends up in me moulding things for Tom. With this set Tom had more control over what he wanted to do.

This time I helped Tom to make up all of the teeth and fit them into the mouth and then together we played make pretend to pull them out, make braces, drill holes and fill them or just brush the teeth. Not only is this great fun to make pretend it also is amazing at encouraging Tom's fine motor skills. 

Fine motor skills are something we are really trying to focus on at the moment. Tom is becoming much better at being able to hold things in his hands. Today Tom was being a bit rebellious and kept letting things go but often Tom will be able to hold something with support for a few seconds. This improving with time and practice. PlayDoh is great for encouraging the use of fine motor skills on its own, but adding in the tools makes it even better. Some of the tools like the drill are still a bit too big and heavy for Tom to get a real grip on, but the mirror was the perfect size, shape and weight for Tom to practice holding and he was doing really well with this.

Another thing we do is I give Tom a sausage shape piece of PlayDoh in his hand and together we work at squeezing it. This is with the aim of gradually building the muscles in the hand and also showing Tom what his hands can be used for. Recently we have been noticing Tom is using his hands a lot more to hold onto people hands. This is very encouraging to us and a massive step forward! Tom never fails to surprise us. 

On top of all this educational talk PlayDoh is great fun! This set would be fun for any little one. You can find it in most toy shops but also online. I have left a link for you guys to check it out. There are many different sets you can get, maybe Tom will start collecting them!

Drill and Fill set: https://www.smythstoys.com/uk/en-gb/toys/science-tech-art-engineering-math-steam/arts/play-doh-doctor-drill-n-fill-set/p/152102