Here's my latest project in this series.
In case you're wondering why I've been on this kick lately, I thought I'd give a little background. I don't post a great deal about my children's day to day lives, and particularly my son's special needs, largly out of respect for their privacy. I don't want them to be completely mortified one of these days when they're teenagers, and accidentally stumble across mom's blow by blow description of their potty training dilemmas or whatever.
With regards to my son, suffice it to say that he is a very bright, high functioning little boy, who almost certainly falls somewhere on the Autistic spectrum. He's currently receiving occupational therapy for SPD and fairly significant fine motor skill delay.
I've been trying to come up with ways to help L improve his fine motor skills, which are at this point limiting our ability to move forward with writing, etc. A lot of the Montessori activities lend themselves to that end, so that's why I've been busily coming up with quickie, cheapo knockoffs of proper Montessori materials.
Anyway, here's my version of a dressing board. L still has a good bit of difficulty buttoning shirts, and I thought this might help with that particular skill, as well as perhaps improve his motor control in general. As I run across other suitable clothes, I may make further additions to this series...
I basically just hacked up one of his shirts, and stapled it to a cheap wooden Ikea picture frame, using a heavy duty stapler. I used pinking shears on the shirt to minimize fraying.
It occurs to me that this would have almost certainly looked neater if I had measured a little more carefully, and used some sort of glue, instead of staples.
Nonetheless the result is pretty sturdy, and entirely functional, if not beautiful. :)
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