Therapy Fun Zone

Catch a Cloud and Pin it Down: Cloud Activities

Tonya — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:00:00 +0000

I found this book called Cloudination at the AOTA conference, and it was such a simple and unique idea that would work well in some therapy situations. The book has pictures of clouds, and you draw what you see in the clouds with a dry erase marker. The book is simple, but has potential for inspiring creativity, working on visual perception, and fine motor skills with drawing.

I have added the book to the store, and also made some extra activities that go along perfectly with the cloud book. Also included with the book is a download of some sample drawings on the clouds since I know the kids will say that they don’t see anything in them.

Activities that I made:

Cloud craft on base paper
Writing activity to draw your cloud, and write about being in the clouds
Cloud bowling game with letters or words
Clothespin cloud matching

Cloud Craft

The cloud craft is a cloud printed on the base paper, or you can have the kids draw their own cloud on the base paper. Then you have to glue cotton balls onto the cloud. You can use the lines to the side to write about clouds.

Writing activity

The writing activity can be done outside using real clouds, or they can use the cloud book. You draw a picture of what is in your cloud, and then write about what if you were in the clouds.

Cloud Bowling Game with Clothespin Cloud Matching

This bowling game is similar to the monster bowling and the sea animal bowling, but with clouds. The big difference is the Clothespin Cloud Matching part. There are 6 clouds on a paper of different shapes and sizes. You have to roll the marble down the bowling lane, write a word or letter, and pick a cloud. Then you have to match the cloud to your paper and clip it on with a clothespin. You can use magnets or pins to pin them on as well.

Materials:

Skills:

Fine motor
Visual perception

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Jenga Blocks Writing Game

Tonya — Mon, 13 May 2013 08:00:00 +0000

At Christmas, I got my kids a generic Jenga game for really cheap, and I got myself an extra one because I knew that I would want to make a therapy game out of it. I didn’t give it much thought until I was brainstorming new game ideas and using dominos as part of a game was brought up. I remembered these Jenga blocks, and decided they would be easier to use than dominos because I could write directly onto the blocks for the game.

I put the alphabet on one side of the blocks, and words on the other side of the blocks. I wrote nouns, verbs, and descriptive words so that they could be used to make sentences similar to how I use my sentence dice game (the dice game in the shop). I underlined the different type of words in different colors so that it would be quick and easy for me to differentiate them.

To play the game, the blocks are place in a bag, and the student rolls the dice to see how many blocks they need to draw out of the bag. If you have a student working on lower skills, you can have them write a word that starts with the letter, just write the letter, or write the word that is on the block. If you have kids working on higher skills, they need to make and write a sentence using all of the words on the blocks that they picked.

Once the words or sentences are written, the student needs to line up their blocks in a row so that when the game is done, they can knock the blocks over like dominos. I did not really work out a winner of the game, but I think that everyone is a winner if they get their blocks to line up and knock down in a cool way.

If you don’t have jenga blocks, you could use dominos and just tape printed words onto them.

Materials:

Generic Jenga blocks, or dominos
Marker or printed words
Dice

Skills:

Fine motor
Handwriting
Motor planning
Visual perception

Kinetic Sand

Tonya — Mon, 06 May 2013 08:00:00 +0000

I went to an Occupational Therapy Conference last week and found a cool new product while I was there. It is called Kinetic Sand, and it is seriously the coolest stuff. It is sand, but it does not act like sand, and it is a wonderful sensory experience to run your hands through. I feel like I could hold it and touch it all day. When I first picked it up, it felt heavier than regular sand. It will squish into a shape, but it won’t hold that shape. When you scoop up a handful, it looks like lava flowing off of your hand in slow motion. It is hard to tell in the video, but it is really cool. I kept going back to feel it.

At the same booth as the Kinetic sand is a dough called Bubber . It is really light and smooth and feels so good to squish. I like it better than play doh.

Dexteria App Review

Tonya — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Most of the apps that I have been using lately have been for me improve my productivity and paperwork, or as a reward for a student at the end of the therapy work. That being said, I recently tried out the Dexteria App to see what it does and how I might use it.

There are three parts to the app, so I will discuss them each individually. The first part works on finger movement and isolation. You place your thumb on a spot and then have to tap spots that pop up with the correct finger. I really liked this part and can see how you can really work on getting individual finger movement. Curious as to whether you can modify it to fit a specific person’s needs though. Maybe someone only needs to work on two fingers, or they need to go slow to be successful. I don’t think that you can change it, but could probably just use it differently.

The second section works on pinching. It is a great idea, but I find that pinching on the ipad is very difficult to do because your finger pads lose contact with the screen due to fingernails. I have used ipad chopsticks to combat this problem but then you aren’t exactly working on pinching any more. I do like the pinching, you just have to make sure the finger nails are super short.

The final section practices letter formation. In this one, you follow letters and have to stay inside the lines. Nothing really special here, and there are lots of apps that work on letters.

Simple matching with clothespins

Tonya — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 08:00:00 +0000

This is a very simple activity that is easily used with a scooterboard or other motor activity. You start with clothespins at one end of the room with numbers written on them. The child attaches the clothespins to the bottom of their shirt. You could have a ribbon for them to attach them to if you want. Then the student must get on the scooterboard and go down to the other end of the room where there is a paper with numbers all around it. They then have to clip the clothespins on to the numbers and match them.

Here is a printable number card. I have trouble stopping at just one thing though, so there is a download for purchase in the the store with numbers, colors, dots to count and match, and alphabet. There are also squares that can be velcroed to the clothespins so that it is easy to change which activity you are doing. Included on these are colors, numbers, color words, number words, and alphabet.

Materials:

clothespins
scooterboard
number sheet

Skills:

fine motor
upper body strength
visual perception

Garden Bugs Fine Motor Game

Tonya — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 08:00:00 +0000

I started working on a craft for cutting out bugs, and it morphed into a complete game that includes catching bugs and using clothespins to hold the bugs in the bug jar. I am thrilled with the little bug jar, and they can stand upright using a stand made out of popsicle sticks ( Wood Craft Sticks), which then lets you use both hands to clip on the bugs.

Each player has his own bug jar to hold their bugs. You play the game by rolling a die and moving around the game board. Some spaces will tell you to catch a bug and draw a card. That is when you randomly pick a bug card and clip it on to the bug jar. If you pick a spider, it will eat one of your bugs, so you put one bug back into the bug container, and you can put the spider back in too.

I have included cards with questions on them and letter cards. The older kids enjoy answering the questions and writing their answers, and the younger kids do better with practicing writing letters and words using the letter cards. You could use your own cards as well to practice other skills or review lesson information. You could use multiplication or addition cards, or make your own review cards for any subject.

You can go around the game board one time or just keep going for the amount of time you have available. Once done with the game, all of the players count how many bugs they have caught of each kind. I have included a score sheet that gives the bugs different point values. There is also a score sheet with no point values so you can choose whether to have the kids just tally their bugs, or to add the challenge of adding up the point values.

I made three different styles of bases for the jars so that they would stand up. The first one is with strips of paper the width of an 8 ½ inch piece of paper. I laminated the 1 inch strips and stapled the ends to the bottom sides of the jar on each side so that they stuck out like a V. This made a stable base, but not sure how well it will hold up over time. All of the bases do best if they are double cardstock so that they are sturdy enough to hold all of the clothespins.

The next base I made is with wide popsicle sticks, which were more the size of tongue depressors. I put two together and a bead of hot glue along the bottom. Then when that was dry, I hot glued two more sticks, one on each side at a right angle. The jar slides between the two popsicle sticks and is held upright fairly securely.

The last one I made used two clothespins with a popsicle stick hot glued to the bottom at a right angle. You then clip the clothespin onto the bottom of the jar. This one can not be moved around easily as the clothespins wiggle when it is picked up.

To make the game, print out the number of jars that you need for the number of players that you will have, and laminate them. Make the jar base so that the jars can stand up. Print out one of the game boards, the bugs in the boxes, cut them out and laminate them.

Materials:

Skills:

Fine Motor
Finger strength
Bimanual
Motor Planning

Bugs In a Jar Craft

Tonya — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 08:00:00 +0000

I started this craft thinking it would be so cute to cut out bugs and glue them onto a bug box like you caught the bugs. This morphed into a jar, because a jar is see through, and a bug box is not. It then morphed into a full game with clothespins and everything, but I will talk about that next week. I wanted to have the game done this week, but time is running out and I have to get a post up.

With this craft, I have just my usual activity base paper. I printed the bug jar right on the base paper so that the bugs could be cut out and glued right into (on) the jar. You can either color the bugs, or have them already colored. The is a white jar version, and the blue jar. The file is all one pdf so you have to pick which pages you want to print out.

Materials:

Bugs in a jar craft
scissors
glue
crayons

Skills:

Fine motor
writing
Scissor cutting

New iPad App in Town: Dexteria Jr. for Preschool

Tonya — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 08:00:00 +0000

There is a new app that was developed by the makers of Dexteria that is specifically for the preschool set. The activities are simple, and it has some fun, motivating parts to it. The app is called Dexteria Jr, and is made by Binary Labs. The folks at Dexteria got feedback that some parts of their app was too hard for kids to do, and that it wasn’t very motivating for younger kids. This new app is going live today, 4/4/2013, and has some cool features to it.

The app has three sections. The first is a tapping activity called squish the squash that is very simple, basic, and entertaining for beginning visual perception and motor control. It starts by you touching stationary squash, and they squish under your finger. As the levels progress, the squash move, and there are more of them that you have to squish.

The second section is Trace and Erase. This one is my favorite, and has a little motivating twist that I have not seen before. You have to draw a line in a path, or multiple paths. Then up pops an eraser and you have to drag it over the lines that you just drew to erase them. As you erase the lines, it essentially erases the whole screen, and then the forward camera shows a picture of you. It uses some cool photo effects as the picture of you is revealed by the erasing job. I can see that as being a very motivating action for some kids, and they will love making faces into the camera as they are erasing their lines.

The final section is Pinch the pepper. It is similar to squishing the squash, but you have to pinch two fingers together to make the peppers disappear. It is simpler to pinch than some of the other pinching apps I have tried, which is good, because I find the pinching to be very frustrating for some people (me).

The only thing that I think I will wish this app could do is to be able to jump to a harder level if I want. There does not appear to be any way to have multiple users, and some kids that need the higher levels would have to go through the lower ones first, which is a bummer.

Overall, I will very likely use this app for some kids that need to work on basic skills, as it has some good motivating characteristics.

Free Standing Wall Marble Maze

Tonya — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 08:00:00 +0000

I love marble runsfor a variety of reasons, and have posted about many different kinds. There are the plastic free standing ones that you put together, there is the fabric marble maze, and there was a wall mounted marble run, and the cardboard marble maze. Needless to say, when I saw this marble run that mounts on a free standing included wall, I had to try it out. It is called the Weird And Wacky Contraption Lab. I found it at Michaels, and use a 50% off coupon, so that put it in my acceptable price range, although it is cheaper on Amazonthan it was full price at Michaels, so don’t go without a coupon.

You clip the tubes, slides and other pieces onto the connectors, and then you Velcro them onto the board. It is a great fine motor activity as well as visual perceptual and problem solving to figure out where to put the different pieces to get the little balls down to the end of the run.

Some of the things I love about marble runs:

Building them requires planning
Bimanual hand use when building
Fine motor control when building, and when placing the marble in place
Very visually stimulating to watch the marble go down the run
Great problem solving activity
Visual perception to place the marble on the track

This marble run is light, and easy to put together and take apart. It lends itself well to traveling with me. It comes with lots of different pieces that do different things. There are straight slides, bumpy slides, gears, levers, etc.

iPad App: Rollercoaster Builder

Tonya — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 08:00:00 +0000

I primarily use my iPad as a productivity tool, and type reports on it. It is very rare that I use it during direct treatment, although I do use it as a reward at the end of a session. One app that I absolutely love for direct treatment is called Rollercoaster Builder Travel.

This app is a great visual perceptual tool. In the game, you draw the missing roller coaster track, and then send the coaster cars over the tracks. If you did not draw the tracks to line up correctly, then the coaster will crash. You then have to go back and try to fix it so that it does not crash.

The game gives immediate and motivating feedback on the placement of your lines. It also requires visual perceptual problem solving. The Rollercoaster Builder app is one that I have used the most within a therapy session, and I highly recommend it. It doesn’t hurt that it is free too. Sometimes the kids will try to make the coaster crash on purpose, but eventually will try to do it the right way (with encouragement),