People often ask where the idea for My First Desk came from.
The truth is, it didn’t begin with a box or a desk.
It began more than 20 years ago, when Dr. Aimee Ketchum, pediatric occupational therapist and creator of My First Desk, was asked by a first grade teacher to evaluate a little girl who was struggling with handwriting and reading.
“She cannot even write her name” her teacher told Aimee.
Aimee pulled up a chair next to her and decided they would start at the beginning. She placed a pencil in front of her and asked her to pick it up. Her grasp was immature, and she lacked the hand strength and control she needed to use the pencil effectively.
Next, Aimee gave her a full sheet of paper and asked her to write a large “T,” the first letter of her name.
She didn’t know where to begin.
Aimee told her to put her pencil at the top of the paper and draw a straight line down.
She didn’t know where the top of the paper was.
That moment stayed with Aimee.
The challenge wasn’t simply that this little girl couldn’t write her name. She was missing some of the foundational skills and basic concepts children need before they’re ready to write, read and learn successfully in the classroom.
So Aimee took a big step back.
Before attempting letter writing, they spent two months building her upper body strength, hand dexterity, vocabulary and understanding of basic concepts such as top and bottom.
By Christmas, she was writing her name and short sentences and beginning to read.
Kindergarten Readiness Begins Before Kindergarten
Throughout her career as a pediatric occupational therapist, Aimee has helped children develop skills that begin forming long before they walk through the kindergarten doors.
And over the years, she kept seeing the same thing.
Parents and caregivers wanted to help their children prepare for kindergarten. Teachers wanted children to arrive with stronger foundational skills. But families didn’t always know what to work on, why those skills mattered or how to practice them at home.
That realization eventually led Aimee to create STEM Starts Now, a digital program that guides families through child development with simple, research-based activities.
Then, in 2021, a school administrator asked her another important question:
“What else could we give incoming kindergarteners to help them be more prepared for school?”
Aimee started talking with teachers, parents and school administrators.
What she heard helped shape what would eventually become My First Desk.
Families wanted hands on activities they could easily do together.
Teachers wanted children to practice the foundational skills they would need in the classroom.
Schools wanted resources grounded in child development, not simply more worksheets.
And everyone wanted learning to be something children actually enjoyed.
The First Kindergarten Readiness Boxes
That’s when Aimee created the first kindergarten readiness boxes, originally called STEM Starts Now Countdown to Kindergarten.
The program provided families with months of hands on kindergarten readiness activities leading up to the start of school, along with the materials they needed to complete them at home.
Over the next five years, Aimee assembled more than 2,000 kindergarten readiness boxes in her garage and had the privilege of putting them into the hands of children in two local school districts.
One of her favorite parts was watching children receive them.
To the children, it wasn’t a curriculum.
It was their own box filled with treasures to explore.
And that’s exactly what we believe learning should feel like.
And Then Came My First Desk
Those early kindergarten readiness boxes taught us a lot about what children, families and schools need.
Today, that idea has evolved into My First Desk™.
My First Desk is a hands on kindergarten readiness program designed to help families build important developmental and early learning skills through play.
Inside, families find a reusable dry erase slant board, organized hands on learning materials, a storybook coloring book, and a parent activity guide filled with more than 50 simple activities they can do together.
The activities support skills including:
- Fine motor development and early writing
- Early literacy and language
- Early math
- STEM thinking
- Problem solving
- Creativity
- Executive functioning and self regulation
- Independence
But what’s especially important to us is that these skills aren’t taught in isolation.
A child might listen to a story, color a picture, cut something with scissors, count objects, build something, solve a problem or use their imagination, all while developing several important skills at the same time.
That’s how young children learn.
Helping Families Prepare for Kindergarten at Home
We don’t believe parents need to recreate a classroom at home.
And they don’t need to become their child’s teacher.
Young children learn through everyday experiences such as talking, reading, coloring, building, counting, moving, creating, imagining and playing together.
Sometimes families simply need the right tools and a little guidance about how to use them.
That’s what we want My First Desk to provide.
Schools can use My First Desk as part of their kindergarten readiness and family engagement efforts. Early childhood organizations can put the program into the hands of the families they serve. Businesses and community organizations can sponsor programs for children in their communities.
But no matter how My First Desk reaches a child, our goal is the same:
Help more children walk through the kindergarten doors feeling confident, capable, curious and ready to learn regardless of zip code.
More than 20 years after Aimee sat beside that little girl who didn’t know where to begin writing the first letter of her name, that belief continues to guide our work at My First Desk.
Because kindergarten readiness isn’t about pushing children to learn sooner.
It’s about giving them the experiences, skills and confidence that help them become ready to learn.
Dr. Aimee Ketchum, OTD, OTR/L
Creator of My First Desk™
Member of the My First Desk Team