Apraxia, or Motor Planning

Using a scooter board is great for strengthening both the arms and the trunk / core.  Sometimes just being on the scooter board is fun all by itself, but other times you need to provide kids with a purpose and motivation to move the scooter board from one place to another. Here is a short… [Continue Reading]

This was kind of a spontaneous activity. I had pool noodles, and I had pipe cleaners that I was planning to use to thread the letter beads onto, so I stuck the pipe cleaners into the pool noodles to make a tree. The tree worked beautifully to thread the beads onto, and the pipe cleaners… [Continue Reading]

Throwing bean bags into a container is great for visual motor control, and even better when you have to aim at a specific target, such as toss across or similar game. I ran across these angry birds dog toys at walmart, and they are the perfect size for throwing at a target. I made a… [Continue Reading]

I have a new activity for my bouncy balls to participate in. I stuck five golf tees into a piece of rigid Styrofoam, and then had kids balance the bouncy balls onto the tees. You can increase the challenge by holding multiple balls in one hand, and putting the balls on the tee at the… [Continue Reading]

Balloon Volleyball is such a simple game to play that is fun for young and old. It can be played standing up or sitting down, although when sitting down, someone will need to retrieve the balloon when it is out reach. I don’t think I need to say this, but will, just in case. The… [Continue Reading]

I saw this cute little creature on Pinterest, but it originally came from a blog called The Preschool Experiment.  He was so easy to make, and adds some fun to placing objects into a container.  He is made out of a clean parmesan cheese container, and all he needs is pom pom eyes with googly… [Continue Reading]

I saw these Big Mouth Critters on a blog called Whimsical Publishing, and thought that they were so cute, and that it would be a great activity for some of my students to do. Some kids need the challenge of following the folding directions and trying to make the creature themselves, but others have trouble… [Continue Reading]

This can be a wild bouncy ball activity. Be prepared to chase balls everywhere. You stand at one end of a table with the client at the other end. You then roll Bouncy Balls one at a time across the table, and the client has to catch them in a cup as they roll off… [Continue Reading]

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… [Continue Reading]

Spring is here and bugs are fun. I found these bug boxes at the dollar spot at Target, and they had packages of bugs too. I put the bugs into a pop up tunnel, and had the students crawl in, get a bug with tongs or pinch clips, and bring it out to put it… [Continue Reading]

I have been working with several kids who have visual perceptual problems, and they have a hard time with some of the simple tasks. I am working on getting back to basics with them so that we can build on it. I wanted to have them put together shapes to make objects, and I made… [Continue Reading]

When working on buttoning skills, there is a progression of skill mastery. Pushing buttons or coins into a container is the first step. Putting coins into a piggy bank slot is the easiest, and then pushing buttons or coins into a recycled butter tub is the next. One reason using the butter container is good… [Continue Reading]

When learning to button, it is easier to button large buttons on fabric that you are holding rather than fabric that is on your body. In order to practice this skill, I made a “button snake”. It is a very simple activity of squares of fabric with button holes in the center. I then stitched… [Continue Reading]

I have seen these cake pops around the internet, and they look so cute.  I thought that it would be fun to have a holiday party and decorate cake pops.  Instead of a cookie party, we would do cake pops.  As I was making them, I was thinking about the therapy involved.  You could only… [Continue Reading]

Young pre-school kids love playing with cars. Follow the road. Find the ice-cream store. Let’s go to the lake. Following the roads on the car mat is a pre-cursor to tracing and writing letters. Looking for the right building and place on the mat develops visual-perceptual skills. Materials: Car mat Cars Skills: Pre-writing Arm movement/… [Continue Reading]

When the weather is warm, it is always fun to play in the water. Here is a fun activity that has water play, with some self-care skills and fine motor skills all mixed into one activity. When washing your hands, you use visual perception and motor planning to see and physically scrub the dirt off… [Continue Reading]

These cardboard bricks are a large motor building toy that creates fun during other activities by incorporating the building and knocking down element. The best part about these bricks is that they are so much fun to knock down. When building with these bricks, a young child has to use both hands because the bricks… [Continue Reading]

Here is a low tech visual perceptual marble maze made out of a cardboard box and some straws. This one is fairly simple, but it can be useful for those who have trouble with motor coordination as well as visual perception. I used a cardboard box and some large “Smoothie Straws”. I glued the straws… [Continue Reading]

Here is a post submitted by a reader: This is a good activity for drawing circles, handwriting, and cutting, as well as pattern recognition.  I created a “caterpillar head” print out and have the kids each color and cut out the head. Then, they choose three colors of construction paper to use to make the… [Continue Reading]

Mature and refined grasp patterns, as well as in hand manipulation, require use of the small finger muscles. Similar movements are used with chopsticks as are used in writing with a mature dynamic grasp. Many therapists recommend using tongs or tweezers to work on fine motor skills, and this is good if the person is… [Continue Reading]

  The ultimate Occupational Therapist stand-by, pinching clothespins. Man can that be boring. How about playing a card game along with pinching?   The clothespins hold the cards, so you have to pinch high, pinch low, pinch left, pinch right. Don’t have too much fun playing the game that you forget to make them use… [Continue Reading]

For this activity, we are incorporating very simple coloring and cutting of easy shapes. Then you can put those shapes together to make a pretty picture to take home. Two simple designs to choose from are a flower or a butterfly. With the flower, you have a circle for the center and ovals for the… [Continue Reading]

Confetti eggs are one of the most fun and best selling games at the fall festival at my kids’ school. The confetti eggs are regular raw eggs that are emptied, filled with confetti, and the hole is covered with tissue, and then painted. The kids buy the eggs and then break them over each others’… [Continue Reading]

I had heard years ago about using straws and connectors, and I think that someone had mentioned using regular straws and the connectors for drip tubing from home depot. Well I tried the drip tubing connectors, and they don’t work with regular straws. They are too small for regular straws, and they are very hard… [Continue Reading]

Any square piece of paper can be made into a Cootie Catcher. Fold two corners together and crease firmly. unfold.  Then fold the other two corners together and crease again. Fold each corner point into the center. flip it over and fold all four of these corners into the center. Under the inside flaps, you… [Continue Reading]

Cutting with a knife and fork is more difficult than many people realize.  It requires good knife grip and positioning, which involves motor planning.  You must also exert the right amount of pressure on the knife, which involves sensory perception. Good toys for working on cutting with a knife are those Wooden Cutting food toys… [Continue Reading]

When playing dominos in therapy, we don’t usually play the game of dominos . Instead we line them up to knock them over. Lining the dominos up on end requires fine motor precision in getting them to stay in place. It also takes eye hand coordination and visual perceptual skills to get the dominos lined… [Continue Reading]

The blog at Pediastaff was looking for some therapy games that have a connection to Hanukkah, and I have been making a bunch of games lately. My son was thrilled to help me create a board game using a dreidel to determine the spaces you move. I made a game board that would fit with… [Continue Reading]

This week as I was driving to work, I came up with a way to make the clothespin frame for the games using much more accessible supplies. I had thought of this one before, but thought that it might not work, and might be too difficult, but I was wrong. It works well, and it… [Continue Reading]

I really love the activities that they come up with at the adaptions 4 kidz blog.  Here is another one.  It is for a vertical puzzle board.  Basically, you put flannel over a piece of foam core, and small pieces of velcro on the back of puzzle pieces.  That way you can put the puzzle… [Continue Reading]

I have seen this activity in several places, and decided to try it. It is a tennis ball with a mouth cut into it. You squeeze the ball to open the mouth, and feed objects into the mouth. First, you take a new, clean tennis ball and make a slit in it using an exacto… [Continue Reading]

Here is a fun little Christmas activity of decorating a Christmas tree with felt ornaments. I got a styrofoam cone from the craft store and wrapped green felt around it. I then cut out some ornament shapes from different colored felt. You could glue the green felt onto the cone, but it actually stays well… [Continue Reading]

I have a client that needs to work on buttoning skills, and I found that I do not have many buttoning activities that are appropriate and fun for older kids. When I heard another therapist mention that the pepperoni pizza buttoning activity is her favorite, I searched the internet and came up blank. I therefore… [Continue Reading]

Valentines is almost here, and I made an activity to make a paper flower bouquet. I created some flower templates, but my daughter said that they were too hard, so I simplified them, and these ones are much easier. You could print the template one time onto card stock and then have the student trace… [Continue Reading]

This craft is to make a pencil case out of a sheet of craft foam and duct tape. It is very quick and easy to do, and it is not messy. It does take some skill to put the duct tape in the right places. We used colored duct tape from Michael’s to make it… [Continue Reading]

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… [Continue Reading]

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… [Continue Reading]

When I used to work in an outpatient clinic environment, I used to have the kids make these gingerbread type of houses out of graham crackers.  It was a fun, christmasy activity that was good therapy at the same time.  It was also out of the ordinary, and the kids loved it.  You use graham… [Continue Reading]

Here is an easy bingo game for some Valentine’s Day fine motor fun.  This activity was submitted by Barbara Bailey.  Make the dice by fastening corresponding colors to a wooden or foam cube. To play the game, pour candy hearts into a paper plate.   Each player roles the dice and uses either a pickle picker,… [Continue Reading]

A hammock swing is wonderful for strengthening in many different ways.  My favorite position in a hammock swing is prone with just the head and arms sticking out.  This position forces weight bearing on the arms, and works on full upper body strengthening as well as core strengthening.  I usually place things around under the… [Continue Reading]

I spy bags are fabric bags with a vinyl see-through window in them. They are then filled with a filler such as plastic pellets, and small objects are placed inside and sealed up. A child then has to move around the inside pieces to find see all of the objects inside through the little window…. [Continue Reading]

One of the Kindergarten classes that I visited today was making Christmas Trees out of ice cream cones. First you get a sugar cone, the kind with the pointy tip. Then you spread green frosting all over the cone. You can use red licorice strings as garland, and sprinkle it with colored sugar sprinkles. This… [Continue Reading]

It is no secret that I have an affinity for using chopsticks to work on developing high level fine motor control, and I figured out a way to use them with the iPad. I was playing a game on the iPad that requires pinching your fingers together, and my finger nails were too long, so… [Continue Reading]

This activity evolved from another activity, and the child who was doing it thought it was so much fun. We had been playing with plastic bugs, so I got out the butterfly nets, but it was too hard to catch the bugs or the balls in the nets when they were thrown, so we had… [Continue Reading]

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… [Continue Reading]

I was sent this K-BEU Mom Pillow and baby to try out and see how it works for the clients that I see.  I have the Kbeu dad available here, and use it for some higher level kids that need a challenge.  I also got a baby when I got the Kbeu dad, and the… [Continue Reading]

The Kid-O Bilibo is a toy that is the shape of a turtle shell. It reminds me of one of the large pieces of equipment that I use in therapy to balance on, but on a much smaller scale. It couldn’t be used exactly the same, but it has its own uses, and imagination can… [Continue Reading]

My son just bought the Lego Game Ramses Pyramid game with his birthday money and we played it for the first time. You have to build the pyramid, which is the game board, before you can play the game. It is a very typical Lego building project during this part of the process. It requires following the… [Continue Reading]

I did this activity on Monday.  I used the christmas tree cutting template that I made.  We cut out the shapes and glued them in place on one side of a piece of paper.  On the other side of the paper, I made lines to write on.  My client colored her tree first, but I… [Continue Reading]

For a fun valentine craft this year, I had the kids color hearts, cut them out, and make butterflies out of them.  I think that they made adorable little love bugs.  Maybe next I will create different bugs to be cut out, but for now it is butterflies. I had the kids glue their butterflies… [Continue Reading]

Keep in mind that marbles are a choking hazard so you have to watch little ones around them. That said, little ones love watching the marbles go down the ramp. There are some ramps with larger balls that are safe for the younger set. There are multiple levels of therapeutic value with a Marble Maze. Starting… [Continue Reading]

We made some men out of marshmallows and toothpicks, and they were delicious.  We used multiple sizes of marshmallows for the different parts, and connected the parts with toothpicks. Some of these men were looking very funny, but they all tasted good in the end.  This is a fun food play activity to combine food… [Continue Reading]

I saw these little Monster Marbles at Walmart, and had to know what they were. They are little monster characters with a marble on the bottom so that the figures roll across the table. They just come with the little monsters only, and I decided they were perfect to use in a game, so I… [Continue Reading]

A fun activity that we did at a Zaner Bloser workshop that I went to while at the OTAC spring fling, were these pages with paths on them. You place a metal piece on the path (I used a metal nut) with a magnet underneath. Then you move the magnet to make your piece follow… [Continue Reading]

I’m a married spud, I’m a married spud. Sorry, quote from Toy Story. Mr. Potato Head has many levels of therapy. It helps a child learn body parts. Visual Perception and motor control are worked on when trying to get the pieces into the holes. Strength in hands and arms are worked on when pulling his… [Continue Reading]

I have been working on a fairly complex (for me to create) clothespin game, and am getting burned out on it, so I took a (long) break from working on it and made a quicker and easier clothespin game. This one consists of game boards similar to the Monster Bowling boards, and Ocean animals that… [Continue Reading]

In my quest to paint with tiny objects, I had some kids paint with tiny cut up sponges. I cut the sponges into tiny pieces so that the kids would have to use a fine precise grasp. It worked well, but I used regular kitchen sponges, which squished down too easily between the fingers when… [Continue Reading]

I like to work on many skills within the same activity, and these folded flowers definitely do that.  I discovered these via pinterest, and they are originally on Whimsical World of Laura Bird.  I often have kids that need to work on writing small enough to fit into a specified space, such as writing answers… [Continue Reading]

A simple activity that I did a few weeks ago is making a paper rainbow mosaic. I drew the rainbow template and cut it out. I then had my student trace around the curved rainbow lines and cut them out of colored construction paper. We then glued the rainbow onto a sheet of white paper,… [Continue Reading]

I ran across a blog that posts projects that they have done using only recycled toilet paper and paper towel rolls.  It is called TPcraft.com.  They have a post where they made a magnetic marble run using paper towel rolls.  It looks really cool.  Here is a picture of their finished product.  Go check it… [Continue Reading]

With higher level kids, I look for activities that will challenge them mentally as well as physically.  Paper folding can be challenging visual-perceptually as well as the difficulty with fine motor and manipulating the paper in the right way.  A cute website that has different toy patterns to print, cut, and fold out of paper… [Continue Reading]

I had heard good things about the Perplexus maze game, so I got one to use for therapy. If you haven’t seen one before, it is a large clear ball that has a three dimensional platform maze inside of it, and you have to rotate the large ball to move a small steel ball through… [Continue Reading]

Spreading can be a challenge for many kids, so here is a fun activity that helps practice. You use a pine cone and attach a wire or string to the top of it so that you can hang it once it is finished. You then spread peanut butter all over the pine cone. It can… [Continue Reading]

This game uses a floor road map that I made, and writing out and following the directions to get to different houses on the map. I made this huge road map on a new fabric shower curtain that I had lying around (don’t ask why I had a bunch of fabric shower curtains – that… [Continue Reading]

Of course, playdoh is a great toy for strengthening, but if you add candles, it can be good for in hand manipulation too. Make a cake out of playdoh, model magic, or any clay of your choice. Put some candles in the cake. They can be real or fake. Toothpicks would work in place of… [Continue Reading]

I saw these pool noodles at the grocery store, and they had extra large holes in the middle. I just knew that they would work for an activity. I made a frame out of four pvc pipes, using duct tape to hold them together at the top. I then attached regular pool noodles to the… [Continue Reading]

When working on visual motor skills, you can work on building accuracy with being able to hit a target. I used a pool noodle that I duct taped together into a circle. Then I hung it from a command hook over an archway. We then used a pool noodle cut in half as a javelin…. [Continue Reading]

I had a lot of pool noodles lying around, so I made a visual tracking ring to use with a marble. To make the ring, I bent a regular pool noodle into a circle and duct taped the ends together. Then I took scissors (but an x-acto knife would work better) and I sliced out… [Continue Reading]

I was inspired by making the buttoning pizza to make more food that requires buttoning. I see a whole line of fun button food in my future. Here is an oreo cookie that I made. It is very similar to the button snake, but looks like an oreo. One difference from the button snake is… [Continue Reading]

I was inspired by making the buttoning pizza to make more food that requires buttoning. I see a whole line of fun button food in my future. Here is a sandwich that I made. It is very similar to the button snake and button oreo that I made, but it has more layers like a… [Continue Reading]

Occupational Therapists create stuff. It’s what we do. I am thrilled to share products that have been conceived and created by other OTs. Today’s product is Loopers Laces, which was created specifically to help with working on learning to tie shoes. The Loopers Shoelace tying system comes with 2 little mini practice shes that are… [Continue Reading]

The therapy ball is great for therapy. Don’t you love the obvious. You can turn work on the therapy ball into fun play. Have the client lay on his stomach and you stand by their feet. You roll the ball forward until their hands touch the floor. Keep rolling forward and have them walk their hands… [Continue Reading]

Squeezing sponges is a great activity for hand strengthening, so I came up with a game to play that incorporates the squeezing of the sponges. This game will need to be played outside because it can get very wet. I wanted the kids to be able to squeeze the sponges on something that was upright,… [Continue Reading]

I have posted about Q-tip painting before, but another therapist has a different twist on it.  She has made some templates to do the q-tip painting, which requires more precision in the painting. This is a guest post by a therapist,  Tova Stulberger, who made some templates to use when Q-tip painting. Instructions: Kids dip… [Continue Reading]

Use Necklaces to simulate getting a shirt over your head, and bracelets to simulate getting a sock on toes.

Put stickers on the client’s forearms to encourage supination when finding the stickers to take them off.

This ribbon Christmas tree activity is the most awesome therapy activity ever. It incorporates practicing tying into a nice craft that looks beautiful when it is done. The kids all loved it, and they were all very proud of what they had accomplished. Most of the kids started the activity by saying that they didn’t… [Continue Reading]

Salt painting gives an interesting twist to regular painting, and it makes good use of a glue bottle for hand strengthening. Before you get to the painting part, you squeeze glue onto the paper in the pattern that you want the paint to be in. You can either put the glue on free hand, or… [Continue Reading]

I have created more scissor cutting designs.  Have the client color it in, cut out the shapes and glue it all together.  Here is a car design. Here is the link to the PDF finished sample. here is the PDF for the cut out template.

This week I had some of my students make some pizza. I made a template for the shapes needed to make the pizza, and they traced the shapes, cut them out and glued them on to their paper. I printed one sheet in color that I made as an example for them to follow.  Here… [Continue Reading]

Cutting with scissors is a skill that works on bimanual skills, motor planning, fine motor, etc. I have created some templates to practice cutting, coloring, and then paste them together to create the picture. Since Thanksgiving is right around the corner, here is a Turkey template to work on with your kids in therapy. You… [Continue Reading]

Here is a Christmas tree template for coloring, cutting and putting together.  First the finished product. Next, the template.  I have the template both plain white, and in colors. Here is the PDF file for the colored template.  And here is the PDF file for the white template.

I have been working on some new printables to cut out with scissors and paste together.  It is time to get into the winter and holiday spirit, so here is my gingerbread man.  First is the finished product. Here is the template to color and cut. Here is the PDF file to print out.

Here is a snow man template to color and cut.  The client has to draw the face and add any extra accessories. Here is a picture of the template. Here is a PDF file for the snow man template.

When Scooter board fishing, your hands are the paddles and you have to move your boat around the ocean to catch all of the fish. The fish can be anything that you can put on the floor for the fisherman to collect. I used paper fish that I laminated with a paper clip as the… [Continue Reading]

Wheeee!! Scooterboards can be such fun, but they are a lot of work. There is some serious upper extremity strengthening going on. Using the rope is good for kids who can’t quite propel themselves on the scooterboard yet. Knots tied in the rope make it easier for the kids to hold on. The easiest is… [Continue Reading]

Screwball scramble is a game where you have to get a ball through an obstacle course.  To play it, you push buttons, turn dials, and slide levers in order to get the ball to move through the course. I have used this game in therapy with kids of all abilities.  It is difficult to get… [Continue Reading]

I have been doing this sentence memory activity periodically with a small group of kids. I decided to do it again and add the challenge of chopsticks along with the sentences. To summarize, I have the sentences typed on a piece of paper, and the words on pieces of foam with magnets on the back…. [Continue Reading]

A toy shopping cart is a very necessary piece of equipment when working with pediatrics. It can be used for many things during imaginative play, and makes the child forget that they are working. When you go shopping, you can work on walking with the cart assisting. You will have to squat to pick up… [Continue Reading]

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… [Continue Reading]

I have talked about using a scooterboard for activities, and often suggest just using a skateboard if you can’t get a scooterboard.  Here is a family that has done that. Check out the full post about using a skateboard.

I recently was doing an evaluation, and the student was just snipping at the paper as fast and furiously as she could.  When I tried to help her position the paper or the scissors better, she just pushed me away and kept snipping.  She gave no attempt to follow the lines that she was supposed… [Continue Reading]

I saw this cute little snow man mentioned on a teacher’s site, and I thought it would be perfect to use in therapy.  I do not know the original source of the picture, so if you do, let me know so I can link to it. There is a plain white picture to color and… [Continue Reading]

Cutting out snowflakes is a winter tradition. Some clients will be able to cut them out with just a demonstration of how to fold and cut the shapes, but for younger clients, you can draw the shapes onto the paper and have them cut out the shapes. These work best when the paper is folded… [Continue Reading]

Another activity that I had my son do while working on strengthening his hand and forearm after his broken arm, is flipping bean bags with a spatula. I did not have any bean bags, so I put some beans in a baggie and taped it closed. To make the game interesting, I taped some pictures… [Continue Reading]

I have seen this Marble Maze where you have to manipulate the marble through a path, and I made my own. I used duct tap, a zip-lock bag, some dish soap, and a marble. First I folded a strip of duct tape on itself, topsides together, so that I had a strip of sticky on both… [Continue Reading]

I work with a child that needs to improve her fine motor skills, but she puts everything in her mouth. She enjoys the marble run, but I am nervous about using it with her. I decided to try stringing cheerios as a good edible fine motor activity. My client is not ready to string the… [Continue Reading]

I have been seeing kids this summer for an early intervention program, and have been playing with sidewalk chalk and water.  Some younger kids will have trouble with squirt guns, so we are going to try a regular spray bottle. I broke all of the brand spankin’ new sidewalk chalk into smaller pieces.  There was… [Continue Reading]

Scooterboards are great strengthening tools, as are doing supermans. Supermans are an exercise position where you lay on your stomach, put your arms out in front of you and then lift your legs straight up off of the mat, and lift your arms and upper chest off of the mat. This works your core muscles… [Continue Reading]

A tea party is fun for both young and old.  It is even more fun when you use a nice china tea set and fancy linens.  More motivation is real food and real drink.  Preparation and clean-up is of course a big part of the activity.  You can work on cutting food, pouring, opening containers and packages,… [Continue Reading]

Tinkertoys are a construction toy that uses sticks and wheels. The wheels have holes in them for the sticks to go into. There are multiple holes for multiple sticks and positions. It is almost like doing pegs with a purpose, except that with tinkertoys you use both hands to put the pieces together rather than… [Continue Reading]

Toss Across is a tic tac toe game that is played by throwing bean bags at the squares which turns them over to reveal X’s and O’s. You throw the bean bags, and if they hit the square on one side an X would be turned over, but if you hit it on the other side,… [Continue Reading]

It is the time of year to cut out and make turkeys.  I did a few turkeys last week, and will be doing more this week. Check out last year’s post on these Turkeys to get the templates.

Twister is a good game to work on motor planning and gross motor skills. My nephew is autistic and he is very motivated by words and writing so we incorporated words into a game of twister to work on his motor planning skills. Put a strip of packing tape on each color on the twister… [Continue Reading]

I have a little girl that I work with who needs to work on her fine motor precision and visual perception.  The perfect toy for her to play with and work on these is a marble ramp, but she puts things in her mouth, and I am afraid that one time I might not be… [Continue Reading]

I had recently used water guns to fill up a cup with water and make a ping pong ball rise. I was trying to think of other activities that use water guns because they can really work on hand strengthening. I had the guns, and I had the balls, so I had a group of… [Continue Reading]

Playing with sidewalk chalk can work on and use a lot of different skills during therapy, and is a good activity. Using short pieces of chalk forces the fingers to use a tripod grasp, by using the index, second finger, and thumb. Writing on the sidewalk is also good for range of motion because the… [Continue Reading]

When pulling up pants or getting your shirt aligned, or trying to get your socks on, sometimes it is just hard to reach some spots. I am not sure why, but stickers are a big motivator for kids. Some children with tactile hypersensitivity do not like having stickers put on their skin, which of course… [Continue Reading]

I happened across this wall marble maze in my internet surfing, and had to get it. I have seen many home made wall marble mazes in the world of the internet, but if I made one, it wouldn’t be reusable, and it would get crushed in my bag of toys as I was traveling from… [Continue Reading]

The wheelbarrow walk is a great upper extremity strengthening activity. You can make it easier or harder depending on where you put your hands that are holding their legs. Holding at the hips is the easiest position for the client, and at the ankles is the hardest. You can then hold anywhere in between to… [Continue Reading]

Wikki Stix, in case you haven’t heard of them, are string that are covered in colored wax. They are bendable, sticky, but easily pulled apart, and can bring hours of entertainment. In fact, I am not sure what category they fit in because they are a handwriting activity, but they are also a craft, and… [Continue Reading]

Many of the kids that I see for therapy have trouble with handwriting. Handwriting trouble stems from other problems such as fine motor problems, hand weakness, visual motor/visual perceptual problems, in-hand manipulation, and motor planning problems. One small thing that can help with handwriting is to get the hand in the right position to write… [Continue Reading]

This is a cool blog by a family with special needs kids, and this painting activity that they did looks really fun.  Go check it out. Here they painted with a squishy yo yo ball, and it looks like a lot of fun.  I will be going back to that site frequently.