Postural and Shoulder Stability

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]

  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]

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]

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.

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]

The sliding glass door that is. With washable markers please. I will not be held responsible for the permanent marker on your walls. Writing on a vertical surface is great practice because it puts the wrist into extension and strengthens the arm muscles. It is hard to work on using just your fingers though when using… [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.

Have you wondered if the Bumbo seat is useful enough to bother getting? I can’t tell you specifically if it is worth it to you, but I can tell you how I have used it in therapy. What it does: It is a little bucket seat that holds a baby’s bottom in a very stable position…. [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]

I have created my permanent clothespin UNO board, and had my daughter help me paint it and put the Velcro on it. I used $1.00 wood craft frames from Michaels so that when pinching the clothespins it will be easy to do because of the hole. Take out all of the frame parts, including the… [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]

An Occupational Therapy clinic can not function without this game. That may be an over statement, but Connect 4 certainly does work on a lot of OT skills. You have to pick up the checker-like pieces and reach up and slide them into the slots at the top of the game. The goal is to get… [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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

When talking about oral-motor skills and eating, you don’t usually think immediately of bouncing on a ball as a treatment technique. Well, think again. Bouncing on a large therapy ball, either supported or unsupported, stimulates muscle co-contractions. These muscle contractions are all over the body to achieve stability while bouncing, so the bouncing on 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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 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]

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]

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]

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]

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 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]

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]

Pool noodles make great bats, and have several factors that make them perfect for the job in therapy. You can cut them to just the right length for the person using them They are soft so if you get hit by it, it won’t hurt you They are fat, which makes it easier to hold… [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 have been working in skilled nursing this summer, and it is very different from the therapy that I do with kids. There are some things that transcend age groups though and that people want to have fun. What is fun for a child is not necessarily fun for an adult, so I have to… [Continue Reading]

This milk jug monster was really easy to make, and can be used many different ways. I used him as a target, and we threw balls into his mouth. We actually used the angry birds dog toys , but balls or bean bags would work perfectly. To make the monster, I took a clean milk… [Continue Reading]

Today we have a guest post submitted by Barbara Bailey.  This is an activity that she has made, and uses in the winter.  Now here it is in her own words (and pictures). This game works on visual memory and can be adapted to include a variety of gross motor challenges such as prone on… [Continue Reading]

Back in October, my son fell when we were ice skating, and he broke his right arm. It started healing wrong and had to be re-broken to set it properly. He was casted in a full arm cast in wrist flexion. His arm was immobilized for more than two months, so when he got his… [Continue Reading]

Once my son was able to get good active wrist extension after his broken arm, I began to think of ways to work on strengthening his wrist extension. He is at an age that he will do repetitive exercises, but I still wanted a game that would give motivation for getting the wrist extended to… [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]

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]