Tonya Cooley

Tonya Cooley is a pediatric Occupational Therapist with over 20 years of experience. She loves creating things and solving problems.

Shoe Tying Methods

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There are essentially two standard methods of tying shoes, (and then there is my own non-standard method). You have the one loop method, the two loop method (bunny ears), and my own version for kids that have significant delays, and can’t succeed with the other methods is the Push and Tie (PAT) method (I had… [Continue Reading]

So you want to be a therapist blogger

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Have you ever thought to yourself, I love browsing blogs, I think I will start one? So how do you do it and what do you need to know to start? The first thing you need to do is to know why you want to blog, and what you want it to accomplish long term…. [Continue Reading]

Shoe Tying Printable Practice Shoe

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When practicing shoe tying, it is best to have the shoe sitting in front of the child either on the floor or the table. I don’t always have a shoe with me (I have been known to take my own shoe off to use for practice), so I made a shoe printable and attached it… [Continue Reading]

Balancing Bugs on a Leaf for Fine Motor

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Here is a cute little activity that combines in hand manipulation with fine motor control to place objects in just the right place. I made some leaves, printed them on cardstock, and laminated them to give them more strength. Then I balanced the leaf on a little cube. It is like the leaf is floating… [Continue Reading]

Therapy/Learning activities monthly link up

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It has been two months since our last monthly link up, so does that make it a bi-monthly link up?  Either way, link up your favorite therapy or learning activity from the last two months. Add the link to your direct blog post about the activity that you want to share. Get weekly updates: Subscribe… [Continue Reading]

The Monkey Hand Exerciser

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I have wanted to post about this little Pediatools monkey pediatric hand exerciser for about a year now, but I had only seen it on the internet, and had never seen one in person, so I didn’t know if I loved it. Now that I have seen it and tried it, I can honestly say… [Continue Reading]