Improving Fine Motor

OT Activity of the Day:

Painting with empty toilet paper rolls

Target Age Range: 2 and up

Here's a fun twist on painting, especially for the little ones who have yet to establish a tripod grasp.  All you need is some regular paper or a large sheet of paper, paint, a paper plate and an empty toilet paper roll.  Stamp the empty toilet paper roll in the paint and then stamp it on the paper.  You can make all sorts of designs, experiment with mixing colors and just have fun while working on simple sequencing and grasping patterns!  

Enjoy! 

Improving Fine Motor Skills

OT Activity of the Day:

Paper plate fish

Target Age Range: 4 and up

Grab a paper plate, some scissors, crayons and you too can make a paper plate fish.  This is a great way to work on improving scissor skills, crayon use, and fine motor manipulation.  All you have to do is color the paper plate, cut a triangle out of the side for the mouth and it's a fish!  

You can make guide lines for your child to cut on or they can cut any shape mouth they would like.  Again, crayons target your child's hand strength and endurance so sneak those in instead of markers if possible.  Feel free to add other manipulatives into the activity by using stickers, hole punchers, tearing small pieces of paper, and anything else you can think of!

Enjoy! 

Sensory Fun!

OT Activity of the Day:

Painting with spaghetti

Target Age Range: 2 and up (no eating!)

So now that I'm looking at this picture again, it looks a little suspicious.  In hindsight, maybe red was not the best paint choice for this picture ha.  But this is nothing more than cooked spaghetti that I dyed red with red paint.  To paint with spaghetti all you have to do is cook the spaghetti and drain it.  When it's cool enough, place the spaghetti in a bag with paint, mix it all up and you have the beginnings of a masterpiece.

This is another great sensory experience for kids.  Some kids will love this and dive right in, while some may be more hesitant.  For those that shy away from messy play you can always add a fork or paint brush for them to use.  Eventually they may become more comfortable and use their hands, but until then allow them to use these simple strategies for comfort.

Enjoy!

Sensory Fun!

OT Activity of the Day:

Sensory Fun!

Target Age Range: 2 and up

A rice and bean bin is like a portable sandbox, it can be played indoors and outdoors.  If you play with the bin inside, I would recommend laying out a large sheet to place the bin on top of to make clean up that much easier!

Most kids love this activity so it's easy to make it more educational without the kids actually knowing.  Here I've hid letters from a letter puzzle in the rice and beans.  My client will then have to dig through the rice and beans, find the letters and then place them into their correct spot.  This is great for letter recognition, visual motor skills, and exposure to sensory play.  You can always use magnetic letters and place the letters on a baking sheet once found and work on sequencing.  You can also practice writing the letters afterwards!  

Enjoy!

Improving Fine Motor Skills

OT Activity of the Day:

Hand Octopus

Target Age Range: 2 and up

This craft can be scaled up or down depending on your child's abilities and age.  All I did was trace my hand with a crayon, cut out the hand and glue it upside down on another piece of paper.  I added an underwater backdrop to create an octopus swimming in the ocean!  It's a fun way to work on cutting, coloring, gluing and tracing.  Here are all the ways this activity can be completed:

1. For the younger kids, you can help them trace their hand and cut it out.  With the younger kids, you can place more emphasis on drawing the underwater theme and even practice those prewriting strokes: circles for bubbles, lines (horizontal and vertical) for the sand or seaweed, even a cross for an anchor and square or triangle for a boat or submarine.

2.  For older kids, you can work on bilateral coordination by having them trace their own hand on a piece of paper and then cut it out.  You can even have your child write a sentence or two about their underwater picture or maybe what the octopus is thinking.

Of course you can always add your own spin on this activity, the idea is to have those little hands using crayons, scissors, and glue!  

Enjoy!

Improving Fine Motor Skills

OT Activity of the Day:

Happy 4th of July!!

Target Age Range: 5 and up (though you can easily scale this down for the younger hands)

All you need is a paper plate, some markers, scissors, a hole puncher, and something to hang the paper plate with.  If you don't have a hole puncher, rest assured you can easily make a hole with some scissors.  

First you use the markers and decorate the plate however you would like, I used patriotic colors, but you can do whatever.  Then you use the scissors to cut the plate in a spiral, I used a gray marker to make a guide line for cutting and it blends in nicely.  Last you use the hole puncher, or a pair of scissors, to make a hole in the center of the plate and then hang it up!  All this targets marker use, cutting skills, and hand strength if you use the hole puncher.   

Your kids can help decorate the house for the holiday and work on their fine motor skills at the same time!

Happy 4th of July! Stay safe and have fun!

Improving Hand Strength

OT Activity of the Day:

Racing Fish

Target Age Range: 3 and up (It's really for any child that can work a squirt bottle, some 2s may have no problem)

Fill up a large container, or baby pool, with water, fill up 2 squirt bottles with water, throw in some floating toys and you have yourself a hand strengthening race!  Place the floating toys at one end of the container or pool, then you and your challenger have to use the squirt bottles to spray the toys to get them to move.  So much fun your child won't even know they are working on improving their hand strength!

Enjoy!

Sensory Fun and Regulation

OT Activity of the Day:

Bubble Art

Target Age Range: 2 and up

Want a fun twist to bubbles?  Pour some bubble solution (or bubble juice as I like to call it) into a small container and then add some food coloring.  Mix it together and you have colored bubbles! Now it's hard to see in the air, so lay some paper (preferably something larger than one sheet) on the ground and you can watch the bubbles pop on the paper and make art!

Not only is this fun in general, but blowing bubbles is a great way to calm kids down.  So maybe couple this activity with an outdoor activity that has the kids all revved. 

Enjoy! 

Improving Fine Motor Skills

OT Activity of the Day:

Paper ripping

Target Age Range: 2 and up

Who doesn't like ripping paper? It's fun, easy and great practice for those fine motor skills.  It focuses on improving the pincer grasp, wrist/forearm rotation and bilateral coordination.  All these skills are necessary to succeed and have fun in preschool and elementary school as they help with efficiency in writing and cutting.  So today, ditch the markers and crayons and substitute colored paper and glue! 

Enjoy! 

Improving Hand Strength

OT Activity of the Day:

Save the Animals....and Halloween toys.....I mistakenly thought they would float, they don't.

Target Age Range: 2 and up

This is always a hit.  Grab a plastic container, place plastic animals and other toys inside and fill the container with water.  Place the container in the freezer overnight and ta-da, you have a block of ice with animals trapped inside.  To save the animals, use spray bottles filled with luke warm warm water and spray away!  As the ice melts you can free the animals one by one.  This is a great activity to build strength in those little hands and fingers!  

Enjoy!

Improving Fine Motor Manipulation and More!

OT Activity of the Day:

Legos

Target Age Range: 3 and up

From my experience, I've found that just about every kid loves legos.  Whether it's the fancy lego sets that challenge you to build the Millennium Falcon or just your Classic containers, they allow kids the opportunity to enter the magical world of imagination.  Not only are these sets fun for all, but they target some pretty key areas of development for children.  Here are just a few:

1. Fine motor manipulation- These things can be pretty tiny, so your child has to hone in on the fine motor abilities that allow them to manipulation these small objects.  That translates into better tool (pencil and scissors) use in school.

2. Visual Motor Skills- Most legos sets will come with a booklet of building instructions for different animals or structures.  This is great for your child's visual motor skills.  Can they accurately duplicate these objects?  It's also great for sequencing (following all the directions in order), and problem solving (hmm it doesn't look like it goes there, where else would that piece go?). 

3. Group development- I've used these sets in social skills groups before and have challenged the children to take turns describing the instructions to their peers.  Not only were the kids working on descriptive language, but also following directions and cooperation.  I've also challenged the children to build one object together (something they can all agree on) and each take turns placing legos on the structure as they see fit.  The challenge being that no one can tell the other where to place their lego and you may not move a lego after it's been placed.  Great practice for flexibility, cooperation and allowing all voices to be heard.  Fun all around!

Enjoy!

Improving Fine Motor Manipulation and More!

OT Activity of the Day:

Play Doh Fun

Target Age Range: 3 and up

Parents are always asking me what games or activities I would recommend them buying to help their children thrive.  For the most part any game that you can buy will focus on certain aspects of your child's development, so rest assured you can't go wrong in the game or toy isle.  

Here I have a play doh activity set that I recently bought and have been able to use for a variety of different children.  For example:

1. Sequencing and Thought Organization: How do we build a pizza?  What do we need to make first, second, last?  Make a plan!

2. Fine Motor Manipulation and Strength: There are several small utensils in this set that you can use for for wonderful tool practice.  You can also add larger plastic silverware to really practice fork and knife skills, just be sure to monitor!  You can also "kneed" the dough and challenge your child to squeeze the play doh with both hands together or just use one hand at a time.  Challenge your child's bilateral skills by having them make a "dough" ball first before using the rolling pin to roll out the pizza.

3. Handwriting: Be a pizza restaurant! Have your child write down your order first or maybe they want to make a menu of what their restaurant offers.  

These are just a few ways I have adapted a store bought play doh set to meet my OT needs.  There are other ways of adapting this I'm sure, so be creative!

Enjoy!

Sensory Fun

OT Activity of the Day:

Bubble Fun

Target Age Range: 2 and up

Want a fun and easy way to make bubbles?  Grab a bucket, whisk, dish soap, water, mix everything together and you will have bubbles for days!  This is a great sensory experience and fun for all.  Add small cars or animals and pretend to have a car wash or a bath for the animals.  You can add more tools, like an old toothbrush for the bath or car wash, or even more kitchen utensils to help improve tool use.

Enjoy!

Improving Bilateral Coordination

OT Activity of the Day:

Water play-squirt gun

Target Age Range: 2 and up

It's summer and there's little chance that your child is going to be ok with sitting inside at the table and practicing their handwriting or cutting or other fine motor related skills that hindered them during the school year.  So let's make it more fun!  For those kiddos who struggled with bilateral coordination (this kiddo would have a harder time appropriately coordinating both hands to cut or has a harder time using the helper hand to stabilize the paper when writing) here's a squirt gun just for you!  What you want to look for is the squirt gun that needs both hands to operate (those that are pump based instead of just trigger).  This will help your child start learning to use both hands in a more effective way.  It's motivating because without without coordinating both hands effectively, your child will not be able to squirt the water at their enemies.

Get outside and enjoy!  

Improving Tool Use and Prewriting Strokes/Letters

OT Activity of the Day:

Painting with water

Target Age Range: 2 and up

Who doesn't love water play?  It's officially summer and kids love to play outside in the water.  Why not add a small dish of water and a paint brush so your child can paint the patio, driveway, or the sidewalk?  If nothing else your child can practice holding the paint brush appropriately (ideally tripod, though if an appropriate pencil grip is challenging for your child, try to get your child to grip the paint brush so the brush rests between the thumb and index finger webspace). Or you can challenge your child to practice those prewriting strokes or letters.  Best part is there is virtually no clean up!

Enjoy!

Improving Fine Motor Manipulation

OT Activity of the Day:

Ice Cream Bowls

Target Age Range: 3 and up

Apparently I have a thing with ice cream, I think this might be my third post about the delicious dessert.  And I know I'm not the only one, kids love ice cream as well.  Here we're using tongs, dice, poms and ice cream "bowls" to help us work on improving our fine motor manipulation.

With this activity, I will have the child roll the dice first, I only have one pictured here, but you can use two to work on counting higher.  Then after we figure out what number we have rolled we will then use the tongs to help build the ice cream sundae in one of the bowls.  You can add movement to this activity and fine motor endurance by splitting up the container of poms and the bowls/dice.  Place them on opposite sides of the room and the child would then have to walk back and forth across the room carrying the poms in the tongs without dropping them.  

Enjoy! 

Improving Attention/Regulation

OT Activity of the Day:

Sensory Break Fun

Target Age Range: 5 and up

Sensory breaks are wonderful things.  We all take them throughout the day (stretching, taking a quick walk to get more water or coffee, exercise, or fidgeting with an object).  I, for one, love fidgeting with my pen.  Bottom line, we all have our strategies and use them appropriately, throughout the day.  

Unfortunately many children feel this same need for a break/movement during school, so they find ways that work for them, use them, but then those strategies are sometimes not deemed appropriate.  "No Johnny, you may not jump off your desk, or push your friends, or run around the classroom, etc..."

OT helps by teaching children and their families/teachers/caregivers appropriate breaks that children can take, before, after and during school so they can sit and focus when it is required.  

Here I've created a "sensory break" game to help introduce sensory breaks to kids.  On the backs of these cards I have various breaks that kids can take during the school hours.  (I realize I only have two cards pictured, but there were about 8 cards taped to the wall). Next we will take turns throwing the sticky animals at the wall and if we hit a card we get to do that sensory break.

It's fun, there's no pressure, the kids just get to try out various breaks to see which ones work for them.  Once we've established what works, it's easier to implement them into the classroom setting.  

Enjoy! 

Improving Handwriting

OT Activity of the Day:

Silly Sentences

Target Age Range: 6 and up

If handwriting is difficult for your child then odds are homework and handwriting practice are pretty challenging.  The trick to practicing handwriting at home is to make it fun.  When activities are fun, kids have no clue what it is they are actually working on.  I was on Pinterest the other day and found this amazing printable worksheet.  All you need in addition is a deck of cards.

I used this with a handwriting kiddo earlier this week and it was an absolute hit.  The child and I were able to sit and practice writing for an extended period of time and the child was actually bummed when it was over!  The child wasn't even bothered by the gentle reminder for letter placement or spacing between words.  

To play, you can do this one of several ways, you can sort the cards into suits and then take turns pulling from each pile, or you can have one pile and pull from there.  You can have the cards at the table with you or you can spread them around the room to add movement to the game.  You can use the words already provided or make your own silly words.  

Let the laughs begin! Enjoy!

Improving Visual Scanning and More

OT Activity of the Day:

Number Find

Target Age Range: 4 and up

Visual scanning is so important.  It helps with reading, writing, and other classroom activities.  However some children's eye muscles do not move as easily or as smoothly as they should.  If this is something your child struggles with, you may notice that they rub their eyes frequently throughout the day or complain of headaches.  They may have no problems actually seeing, it has more to do with the strength and endurance of the muscles responsible for moving the eyes.

A great way to work on this skill, if this is something your child struggles with, is to create a page much like I just did.  The object of this task is for your child to scan the page and locate the numbers and then place the appropriate colored sticker over top.  So not only are your child's eye muscles getting a work out, but your child is also working those fine motor manipulation muscles by getting the sticker off the page.

Enjoy!

Improving Fine Motor Control and More

OT Activity of the Day: 

Color by number

Target Age Range: 5 and up

Coloring is a really easy way to improve fine motor control, in addition to other fine motor aspects.  When the emphasis is on control, you can "challenge" your child to stay inside the lines as best they can.  Obviously there's no shaming if the marks go outside the lines, this is just fun and practice!  

A great way to do this is to find a color by number.  Not only are you working on controlling the crayon marks so they stay inside their designated area, but you're also working on following directions.  If you "Google" color by numbers, and then click on the images section, you will find plenty to choose from (which is how I found the picture above).  You can even be more specific in your search and find your child's favorite character.  In the past I've also photo copied a picture from a coloring book and made my own color by number.  So don't feel like you have to go out and buy a new coloring book, you can easily do this with the materials you already have.

Enjoy!