Letter Y – OT, handwriting without tears, alphabet puzzle, etc

Today I worked with a 4.5 year old preschooler on his “y” in his name, and when he finally got it, we did a “Y” dance, plus he got 2 goldfish. He did it successfully a total of 7 times, so we had seven dances and 14 goldfish from the bottom of the container…he would chortle with glee each time he got slightly more than 2 goldfish (ie goldfish debris). Pretty cute. 🙂 PS: On normal paper we couldn't get the Y….but with the little gray boxes of Handwriting Without Tears, he was finally able to do it.
The first time he got it right, after we've been trying for quite a few sessions, I jumped up and did a celebratory “You know how to do a Y” dance, and then it became mandatory for each subsequent Y. lol.

We also cut up straws and shot them into the waste basket, worked on a few different letters, and did an alphabet puzzle which is shown a few down, a 1 dollar foam one. He did NOT want to do the puzzle, but I turned it into a game…I push out the foam letters saying “WHAT! Go to bed!! Stop jumping out of bed!! What do you think you're doing!!” Then I sigh and am like ugh…have to get all these letters back to bed…they are really misbehaving….so then I start putting them back, but I might, for example, put Mr W in Mr D's spot, and be like MR W!!! STOP PLAYING! STOP DANCING IN MR Ds SPOT!! If you don't behave it's going to be a time-out!! And so then we get into putting all our letters back into bed, and it's quite an ordeal, with a lot of threatening of time-outs, and dancing in the wrong spot, etc. And if the kid is struggling to put the letter back where it goes, I push it out again after it's in, then admonish that letter for getting out of bed again, etc. So it's super dramatic and silly.