The PlayDoh “Sausage”
This activity has been designed to help your child develop their knife and fork skills through visual markings on a PlayDoh “sausage”. Combining sensory play with a functional-based activity is a great way to engage your child in a task that can be seen otherwise as a “chore”! The PlayDoh Sausage offers a less “intimidating” approach to cutlery practise as it is more of a fun game than a direct mealtime activity.
There is a lot to think about when using cutlery; the placement of our hands on the utensils, the positioning of our arms in line with the food, and the different motions required to move the knife and fork in unison.
Using two hands to complete different actions can be challenging, particularly when using a knife and fork. If your child has only just begun to practice cutlery, attempt this activity with just a knife at first, encouraging the “backwards/forwards” motion.
Celebrate Your Child’s Effort
Cutlery skills take some practise, but by celebrating each success in the process, your child will feel encouraged and motivated to keep giving it a go.
What are the underlying skills needed?
Developing bilateral coordination is a necessary skill in cutlery use, whereby one hand stabilises the food with a fork, whilst the other manipulates a knife to cut the food.
By using visual markings on the PlayDoh “sausage”, this will allow your child to have a visual guide as to where to place both the knife and the fork, before performing the cutting action.
By circling our fingers around the cutlery, with our pointer fingers separately placed downwards, this will also assist your child in maintaining a stable grip on the feeding tool.
Note: Use cutlery utensils that are appropriate to your child’s needs, such as smaller utensils, and those that are lightweight.
Hint: ask your child to help roll out the PlayDoh, this will assist in warming up their hands and also engage them in tactile sensory play! If you would like to further the sensory engagement with your child, make homemade PlayDoh together! Playdoh is a great material to use for cutlery practise as it is squishy enough to push a fork through, yet offers adequate resistance to conduct the “sawing” action of a knife.
Fine motor skills
Bilateral integration
Hand-eye coordination
Visual perception
How Does It Work?
Print out the template and place it on a flat surface within clear reach.
Ask your child to help roll out the PlayDoh by using both their hands in a backwards/forwards motion. Roll the “sausage” out to align with the length of the sausage shown in the template.
Place the PlayDoh sausage on the template.
Starting with the fork, ask your child to line up the fork on the PlayDoh sausage with the four dots on the template, and push the fork downwards.
Next, place the knife on the PlayDoh sausage in line with the line as shown on the template.
Encourage your child to move their knife hand backwards and forwards, while keeping their fork hand still. You may wish to model this motion to them.
Continue this process until all pieces of sausage have been cut.
Give this activity more purpose by preparing a “tea party” for your child and their toys to engage with the cut-up PlayDoh sausage pieces.
Comments