Sensory Motor

OT Activity of the Day:

Roll a...

Target Age Range: 3 and up

Here's a quick game designed to get your kids up and moving.  Grab some dice, I used one, but you can use two and work on higher levels of counting if you would like, paper and pencil.  Write down all the numbers that will be in play and then designate movements for each number.  You can write the movements or draw pictures depicting the movements depending on the level of your child.  You can pick some ways to move and your kids can pick some ways to move.  Then start rolling and moving!

Enjoy!

Fine Motor Development

OT Activity of the Day:

Connecting the Dots

Target Age Range: 3 and up

Want an easy and fun way to promote fine motor development?  Use stickers, markers/crayons/chalk, and construction paper and make some simple dot to dots!  Here I've used star stickers to make a constellation.  Now I'm almost 100% positive that this does not actually represent a real constellation, I think I left out a star, but you get the idea.  

This activity is great because you're promoting fine motor manipulation with peeling the stickers and then fine motor control when you connect the stickers.  You can also allow your child to be as creative with the stickers as they would like before connecting them.  Label/name what you draw to practice letter formation. Enjoy!

Right/Left Identification

OT Activity of the Day:

Right and left identification

Target Age Range: 4 and up

There are so many ways to teach and practice identifying right versus left, it's hard to pick just one to highlight.  Here I'm focusing on teaching the concept with paper and markers! 

First trace your child's hands and then label the hands respectively.  This label doesn't have to be words, it can be as simple as the right hand has an "R" next to it or beside the left hand is a sticker.  Next give your child simple, or complex, directions such as color the right thumb green or the left index finger purple. (In addition to working on right and left ID, you are also practicing color/letter ID and following simple or complex directions)  As with other activities, switch up who is giving the directions for added entertainment!

Here are some other ways to work on right versus left: Hokie Pokie, Twister, and Simon Says.  I have done all these activities in one on one sessions as well as groups.  They tend to be big hits!

Enjoy!      

Drawing Activity

OT Activity of the Day:

Rainy Day Activity

Target Age Range: 2 and up

So it's raining for what feels like the 23986 day in a row here in Northern VA.  Might as well take advantage of the rain and turn it into a fun activity! 

All you need is a paper plate, markers, and maybe a squirt bottle if you want to cheat a little like I did.  The front side of my paper plate was very glossy and the markers tend to smear on that type of surface so I flipped the plate over to use the back side.  All you have to do is draw a picture, write a sentence, do both, on the paper plate and then stick that paper plate outside and watch it turn into an abstract work of art.

If your child has little patience, or would like to stay inside, you can always spray the paper plate with a squirt bottle.  Just make sure to do this over some paper or a sink, the colors will drip down.

With this activity you are working on fine motor manipulation with marker use, improving hand strength if you use a squirt bottle, and improving handwriting if you opt to write.

Then let the plate dry and ta-da, an abstract masterpiece. Enjoy!

Improving Fine Motor Manipulation and Letter Recognition/Formation

OT Activity of the Day:

Play doh and letters

Target Age Range: 3 and up

All you need for this activity is play doh and letter cards.  I am using the Roll A Dough letter cards from Handwriting Without Tears (www.hwtears.com), but you can make your own letters or use other letter cards you may have scattered around the house.  Your child can pull parts of play doh and roll it into letter lines or they can pick small pieces off and place it on the lines.  Either way they're working on fine motor manipulation so I'm not picky.  This is also a great way to introduce upper case or lower case letters!

Enjoy! 

Improving Scissor Skills and Much More!

OT Activity of the Day:

Pizza!

Target Age Range: 3 and up 

I have found that whenever I ask a kid what their favorite food is, 9 times out of 10 they will say pizza.  I have also found that kids love to "make" food for their friends and family.  So why not combine these two ideas!  

This activity can be scaled up and down very easily.  If you have a younger child, you can pre-make all the "ingredients" and put them in a tin for your child to play with.  You can place an order and ask for a specific amount of cheese or pepperoni so the child is working on counting.

If you have an older child, you could "place an order" and have the child first write your order and then cut out the ingredients.  You can also switch roles and have the child practice ordering what they would like.  You can use glue to make the pizza more permanent or if you would like to play another day, don't use glue and just keep the pieces.

Bonus if you have the book "Pete's A Pizza" by William Steig.  You can read the book, turn your child into a "pizza", and then make a pizza with paper and scissors!

Enjoy!  

Improving In-Hand Manipulation and Prewriting Strokes

OT Activity of the Day:

Treasure Map

Target Age Range: 4 and up

I love this activity for so many reasons.  Kids have such a wonderful imagination and I love seeing it at work.  You can have the kids hide their treasure somewhere in the house and then have them plan out a way to get to the treasure.  Or the treasure and the map can be completely made up.  It's entirely up to you and your kiddos.

To make a map, all you need is paper and crayons.  When drawing the details on the map the kiddos are working on using those prewriting strokes or words depending on the level and wishes of your child.  To get the paper to look "older" and mysterious, you have to ball the paper up and smooth it out several times.  This is great for using those two hands together in a coordinated fashion and improving in-hand manipulation.

I drew a map to treasure that is hidden in my house.  I will be doing this task today with several of my kiddos and I wanted them to see how I completed the activity.  This is also great for those kiddos who have a harder time creating a plan and sequencing.  They are working on making a plan and efficiently executing the plan while having fun at the same time.

Enjoy!

Improving Finger Isolation and Prewriting Stokes

OT Activity of the Day:

Paint in a Bag

Target Age Range: 2 and up

Want to finger paint mess free?  Put the paint in a ziploc bag!  This way your kids can draw/write then "erase" over and over again.  You can practice those prewriting strokes, practice writing letters, or just draw.  Challenge your child to use different fingers so all fingers can get a little work out.  Or use a Q-tip (or eraser end of the pencil) so your child can work on their pencil grip while having fun!  For a fun twist you can add several different paint colors to create new colors!

Enjoy!    

Improving Finger Manipulation

OT Activity of the Day:

Finger Gym

Target Age Range: 3 and up

All you need is a colander and pipe cleaners!  Your child can make any design they want and there is virtually no mess to clean up.  You can always throw some play dough in the mix and make eyes, nose and a mouth for the colander and create a person, or animal, with funny hair.  Then style the "hair" however you please!  Great exercise for the hands and fun for the kids!

Enjoy!

Improving Hand Strength

OT Activity of the Day

Busy Box 

Target Age Range: 4 and up

This is a great activity that not only works on counting and hand strength, but it keeps your young child occupied on this rainy, dreary day.  

Any kind of paper will do and Michael's has just about every different shape and size hole puncher you could want.  Pick out your child's favorite paper color, give them a hole puncher with a shape they love (they have butterflies, hearts, squares, etc...) and let them go to town.  If they don't want to count and just want to make holes, that's fine too!

Enjoy!    

Improving Handwriting

OT Activity of the Day:

Letter Fun

Target Age Range: 4 and up

You can use a chalkboard, here I'm using a large chalkboard hung on the wall, though Handwriting Without Tears makes smaller chalkboards. You could also use a dry erase board or even a window.

Most kids hate practicing their letters, especially those children who struggle with writing. So the trick is to find ways to make it fun and to move it away from the traditional paper and pencil.  I have used a chalkboard, dry erase board, and even windows in my efforts to engage kids in practicing letters.  

In this picture, I am erasing the chalk letters with a wet Q-tip and a small wet sponge.  For older kids (6 and up) I would use a Q-tip, the younger kids (4-5) would do best with a small piece of sponge.  I always find it works best if the kids get to pick most of the letters they practice, so ask them what letters they would like you to write. Then write the letters on the board and have the children practice by erasing them.  After they've picked the letter a few times, "challenge" them with a harder letter that you would like them to practice.  Switch it up, have them write the letter and you erase! 

To clarify, on windows you can use window markers or even dry erase markers, both work well. The Q-tip and sponge will work just as well on this surface!

Enjoy!  

Sensory Motor

OT Activity of the Day:

Color and shape identification with movement

Target Age Range: 3 and up 

This is a lot like the game "Hullabaloo" only more adaptable.  You can add as many shapes and colors as you want and pace at whatever speed your child is at.  You can also place letters or words on the cards and practice identifying letters and sight words.  All you need is colored paper and scissors.

The idea is to spread all the cards around the room.  Again, make as many shapes or use as many colors as you would like, the sky is the limit!  Then challenge your child to move in different ways (bear walk, frog hop, walk backwards, on tiptoes, etc...) to the different cards you call out.  Call out just a color or shape (yellow or triangle) or get more specific and call both together (red triangle), it depends entirely on your child's ability.  Play together or challenge your child on their own.  Switch it up and have your child challenge you!

You're targeting so many wonderful skill sets:  color identification, shape identification, letter/word identification, visual scanning, gross motor skills, processing auditory directions, and following multiple step directions if you call out several movements at once.

Enjoy!

Sensory Motor

OT Activity of the Day

Therapy (ab) Ball as a chair

Target Age Range: 5 and up, though depending on the size of the ball, this age can be younger.

While ab balls are great for exercise, they are also excellent alternatives to chairs.  There have been several news articles in more recent months and years talking about how some schools, or classrooms, have shifted entirely over to sitting on therapy balls versus chairs.  After a super quick internet search, I found these two articles, though there were many more out there:

http://www.news-herald.com/article/HR/20110413/NEWS/304139951

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-health-school-bouncy-balls-story.html

Both of these articles highlight these two principles:

1. Sitting on a therapy ball allows the child movement/input throughout the day, which in turn will help them stay focused for longer periods of time.

2. Sitting on a therapy ball will help naturally improve posture and trunk stability.

Swap the therapy ball for a chair during homework time and you should see positive results in your child's attention and focus!  I bought my therapy (ab) ball for 25 dollars at Target.  I bought the medium size because I will be using it mostly with elementary school children.  If you have a younger child you would like to use the ball with, make sure to get the smaller size.  

My ground rules for using a ball over a chair are 1. always keep two feet flat on the ground and 2. while you may bounce, your tush must stay on the ball, we should not be bouncing so high we fall off.  Give your child a few minutes (supervised) to explore and play with the idea/concept before holding them to the rules.  I find this approach tends to work best versus setting the rules right away before the child has fully explored this new idea.

Enjoy!

Improving Hand Manipulation

OT Activity of the Day

Finger Gym

Target Age Range: 4 and up 

Give those little fingers a work out!  This activity is great for promoting fine motor manipulation and visual motor skills.  

I used play doh to hold the pipe cleaners in place, though you could use tooth picks if you don't have pipe cleaners, and then just some beads.  I started the activity by color sorting, though I gave up on that quickly.  I had so many other colored beads it was becoming more work just to sort out and find the beads that I needed.  But if you have the extra prep time and would like to work on color identification and matching, feel free to provide only matching beads, or have the kids sort out the beads that they need!  

Other adaptations:  To work on visual scanning as well, break the play doh into smaller pieces and place the play doh and pipe cleaners out on different parts of the table.  Then provide only matching beads and challenge the child to scan the table to find the match.

Enjoy!

Improving Hand Strength

OT Activity of the Day

Bubble wrap

Target Age Range: 2 and up

Kids love bubble wrap.  They love popping the bubbles with their fingers, elbows, knees, feet and tush!  Here's how I've used it:

1. Improved pincer strength.  Have your child pinch the bubbles with their index finger and thumb.

2. Improved finger isolation.  How many different fingers can you use to pop the bubbles?

3. Improved body awareness.  Help kids identify different body parts, like elbow, knee, toes, belly.  See if they can pop bubbles with the different body parts you call out.  I've done this in a group setting and it was a big hit!

4. Improved attention to task.  How many times have you asked your child to sit still to do their homework, eat, etc..  Give them a 5 minute movement/sensory break and cut a piece of bubble wrap for them to demolish any way they please.  

5. Improved gross motor skills.  Trying to teach a child to jump with two feet? Have them practice on bubble wrap.  Want to work on walking backwards? Practice on bubble wrap. Want to work on imitation of gross motor movements? Practice on bubble wrap.

6. Want a few minutes to yourself?  Give your child some bubble wrap, they will be entertained.

You can buy this in bulk at Staples, Target, Office Depot, or any other packaging store.

Enjoy!   

Prewriting Strokes

OT Activity of the Day

Drawing

Target Age Range: 3 and up

By the age of 3 children should have no problem copying a vertical line, horizontal line, or circle. By the age of 4 and a half children should be able to copy a square and be working towards copying a triangle.  These are what we call "prewriting strokes".  By being able to look at these lines and shapes and accurately copy them, children are displaying adequate visual motor abilities that signal they are ready to start writing letters.  Visual motor is the ability to recreate with your hands/body what you're seeing.  While this skill is very important in life in general, it's very important to your child's ability to write.

To practice visual motor skills at an early age, you can draw pictures with your kids using just the basic shapes.  Start with just one aspect of the picture and see if your child can copy it, from there you can build until you have a full fledged picture!  If you can look past the masterpiece I've drawn, you'll see that this picture is made up entirely from these prewriting strokes.  In case you can't tell, it's a train on a track.  Trust me it's a real crowd pleaser with the kids.  Other things that can be made up from simple shapes: a person, a house, a truck or a car just to name a few.

If you have an older child (like 6 and up) and feel like they struggle with visual motor skills (learning to write letters and words is just harder for them) you can go on Pinterest and search "drawing tutorials for kids".  When I did that I was looking at numerous pictures that had been broken down and laid out in a step by step format.  Your child can practice their visual motor skills by drawing what they see and hopefully create a picture to be proud of.  This is so much more fun that practicing letters to improve visual motor skills.  

Enjoy!  

Hand Strength

OT Activity of the Day

Tennis Ball Man

Targeted Age Range: 5 and up, though try with your 4 year old if you'd like!

I took a tennis ball that I bought from Target, a very sharp knife (like a box cutter or something similar), some glue, eyes and made myself a tennis ball man.  There's no trick to cutting the ball, just a straight line somewhere in the middle will do.  The longer the line the easier it is to squeeze open, on the flip side the shorter the line, the harder it is to open.  

In this activity, the child can dig a bead out of the therapy putty (or play doh) and then "feed" the tennis ball man.  This activity is targeting hand strength through the therapy putty and squeezing the tennis ball open, bilateral coordination when using both hands in a coordinated fashion to "feed" the man, and then fine motor manipulation with the small beads.

We want those little hands to be strong so they can support the school work that needs to be done in the years ahead.  The stronger the hand, the more legible and controlled the writing tends be!  If you feel like your child is struggling with handwriting, this is a great activity to start introducing.  Generally speaking, handwriting issues tend to stem from a lack of strength/endurance in the hand, though in some cases it can be more than just hand strength.  An OT could help you pin point the exact problem. 

As with all activities, if you would like to deviate and add your own flare, please do!

Enjoy!

Sensory Motor

OT Activity of the Day

Rice/Bean Sensory Bin

Target age range: 2 and up, again, as soon as your child won't eat the rice or beans this is a great activity to introduce.

As OTs we love our "sensory bins".  These are bins that are filled with dried rice or dried beans or water beads or dirt or any other tactile modality that your child enjoys to touch and explore. (You can also use a sensory bin to expose a more "tacitly sensitive" child to these textures in a more controlled way.  As with the shaving cream, they can play with the texture and tolerate it without having to touch what makes them uncomfortable).  

I've put together a rice/bean bin, which is like an indoor sandbox.  This is a great way to work on fine motor development and also have fun.  Pictured in the bin are beads that can be strung, tops that can be twisted on and off, scissor tongs, small animals and a scoop.  However, as with other activities, don't feel constrained to just these manipulatives.  Recycle old items into the bin!  For example, I am using an old spice container and protein scooper that have been cleaned and repurposed:).  

Initially allow your child to just play in the rice and see what they come up with.  If after a few minutes you'd like to engage them a bit more, "challenge" them to complete 2 out of the 3 activities that you have placed in the bin.  For example, "How many beads can you string?" or "How many animals can you collect with the scissor tongs?".  Time them if you want, children loved to be timed.  All in all, if your child plays with all of these items pictured, they will be improving fine motor manipulation, scissor skills, and wrist/forearm rotation.  

Rice and beans that have escaped the bin are easily cleaned up with a vacuum.

Enjoy! 

Handwriting and Hand Strength

OT Activity of the Day

Outside FUN

Target age range: 3 and up

All you need is paper, crayons, a hole punch and anything that can be scavenged from outside.

This is actually two activities in one.  In the first activity, you are focusing on letter recognition and building letters with things that have been collected from maybe a walk, or simply your backyard or your front yard.  Moving is so important for kids, it helps with overall regulation, coordination, and building strength and endurance.  So encourage your child to run around and collect as much "nature" as they can so you can build all the letters of their name, or even the alphabet! 

In the second activity your child is using a hole punch to make holes in leaves, just like the very hungry caterpillar.  Bonus if you have the book, you can read it together and then head outside to act it out, what other things can your child find to have the "caterpillar" eat so that he/she can grow into a butterfly?  In addition to fun, the hole punch is a great method to help build hand strength!

Enjoy!

Hand Dominance

Activity of the Day 

Establishing Hand Dominance

Target age range: By the age of 5, at the absolute, very latest.

Ok, Melissa, why should I worry about my child pulling beads out of play doh, or using scissor tongs, or playing with shaving cream, or participating in any of the other activities that are shown in this picture?

Great question, all this talk about improving hand strength or finger manipulation in your young child is so that your child can establish hand dominance.  Hand dominance is so important because once your child has established dominance they can start to really control and understand the roles of their dominant versus helper hand.  They will also be able to really start strengthening and preparing their dominant hand for future demands.  Why is this important?  This will help with eating (using a fork or spoon), dressing (manipulating all those little buttons and zippers), playing, and ultimately writing.  

Children are expected to do some much these days at such a young age.  By the end of Kindergarten, you child will be writing both upper and lower case letters, words, and even small phrases. (Remember when Kindergarten was just for play?? I'm pretty sure I just had to know my name in Kindergarten, maybe more??, and even then I'm pretty sure I reversed both my "s"s and was still considered to be of "average" development.)  If your child is on the later end of establishing hand dominance then this will all be very challenging for them as their hand simply will not be strong enough to keep up with the work.  If severe enough, this can lead to illegible handwriting, a complete dislike of school work and homework, more than what would be standard, and a lower overall confidence in their abilities.  I've seen this scenario play out countless times.  And while I can't change the curriculum or school expectation, I can tell people to have their children pull beads out of play doh, play with scissor tongs, play with shaving cream, and participate in any of the other activities that are shown in this picture.  

So, enjoy!   

Do you have a young child and are unsure if they will be a righty or lefty?  For a week or so, place whatever utensil, fork, spoon, crayon, in front of them on the table but in the middle of their body between the right and left hand.  If you place the item too far to the left or right they may just go with that side out of convenience.  However, if you place the item in the middle of the body then the child has to choose which hand to use, and 9 times out of 10 they will always opt for the hand that will be their dominant hand.  Tally which hand they use the most, and you will know if you have a righty or a lefty.  Once you feel confident in the handedness of your child, start encouraging tool use in that hand only.