The holidays always provide great ways to introduce new activities your child won’t even recognize as OT homework. Here are a few activities that can easily be adapted to help your child meet his OT goals:

1. Carving pumpkins:
What better way to work on sensory processing and hand strengthening than carving a pumpkin? Allowing your child to scoop out the pumpkin goo is a great way to work on decreasing tactile defensiveness (sensitivity to touch) and improve overall toleration to a variety of sensory input. If touching the pumpkin guts is too much for your child, you can modify the activity by having your child touch the pumpkin insides with gloves, or asking her to grab only the seeds from the pumpkin guts. Grabbing the seeds with salad tongs or tweezers is another iteration of pumpkin carving that can strengthen the muscles of the hand for carryover with handwriting and other fine motor tasks.

2. Making a construction paper spider:
The true therapeutic aspect of this craft is in the making of the spider legs. Folding the paper back and forth to create the accordion legs requires and facilitates a child’s ability to use both hands together (bilateral coordination) as well as fine motor precision.

3. Spider web obstacle course:
Now that you’ve made your spider, it’s time for the spider web! In a hallway, tape one continuous string of yarn at various angles across the length of the hallway. Instruct the child try to go from one end of the hallway to the other without touching the yarn. This activity will help develop and facilitate your child’s postural stability, balance, spatial awareness and motor planning. If this activity is not enough of a challenge, have your child complete various “levels” of the game while holding a bean bag in his neck or under her arm, etc.

4. Make a straw skeleton:
Using black paper with a head drawn in, glue straws cut at various lengths to form a skeleton. This is a great way to work on spatial awareness and visual perceptual skills. Depending on your child’s developmental level, you can either offer a black piece of paper with cut up straws and allow your child to independently create the skeleton, or you can provide a sample your child can replicate.

5. Monster slime:
This is another great activity for sensory input. Simply combine 1/4 cup of liquid starch with 1/4 cup of white glue in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix 1 tablespoon of water with 1 tablespoon of washable paint. Combine the 2 solutions and mix until the slime forms, sometimes it is helpful to knead the slime. Add small objects into the slime for your child to retrieve and it can also be a great activity for hand strengthening.

Oak Hill Academy is currently developing an extraordinary project right in their own backyard. They plan to develop a multi-sensory learning garden in their current learning garden location. At SPOTS, we feel extremely honored to have been asked to consult on this project and believe that this is an extremely unique and innovative design that has incorporated all of the sensory systems!

The garden will consist of a walking trail, chicken coop, raised planter beads, an outdoor pavilion, greenhouse, tool shed, outdoor classroom, play tunnel and earth mound, xylophones, butterfly garden, art board, musical play tubes, extensive landscaping and 4 stations for sensory integration based activities. The school will also integrate several different levels of entrepreneurial learning opportunities into their curriculum using the garden.

The garden will incorporate all of the sensory systems so that the students can reorganize and refresh during their school day. The visual system will be stimulated by richly colored plants, butterfly garden and garden art. Auditory components include a xylophone station, musical play tubes, and the sounds of nature. Fresh herbs and grass will give the olfactory system aromas that will be both stimulating and calming. For example, peppermint plants will help some students energize for the day ahead, while lavender will help other students calm and re-organize. The garden will also yield edible plants, fresh eggs, and herbs for the gustatory system. Tactile components include differently textured plants and walking trail materials.

While most people are familiar with these 5 sensory systems, many are not as aware with the other two extremely important sensory systems that will also be incorporated into the Oak Hill multi-sensory learning garden- the vestibular system and the proprioceptive system. The vestibular system is housed in the inner ear and registers information about movement and gravity. It lets us know where we are in relation to gravity and how we are moving through space. The proprioceptive system gives us feedback from our muscles, joints, tendons and ligaments about where our body is in space. It can be thought of as body awareness. Proprioceptive input is very calming and organizing to our nervous systems. When we become stressed, we tend to look for ways to get input into this system, such as folding our arms, clenching our fists, or chewing on pencils.

These sensory systems, along with the tactile system, are at the base of all motor development and input into these systems helps students to re-group and re-organize. Also, we need to know where we are in space, how we are moving through space and what information is coming in through our skin receptors in order to make efficient and effective motor responses. The right amount of input into these systems leads to functional movement patterns, better focus and maximized learning potential.

The Oak Hill Learning Garden will address these sensory systems through various components. The play tunnel and earth mound will allow students get vestibular and proprioceptive input by rolling down the hill and moving through the underground tunnel. The musical play tube and xylophones will also stimulate the proprioceptive system. There will also be rotating sensory integrative activities at the 4 stations that will address motor planning, bilateral coordination, postural control, reflex integration, eye-hand coordination, and balance just to name a few.

The learning garden is also a great area for motor lab opportunities. A motor lab is a series of specifically planned sensory and motor activities that help to build the student’s developmental foundation and help them organize their nervous systems. The students at Oak Hill can arrive to school and naturally begin their day with sensory inputs that will set them up for success so that they can achieve their full learning potential. The Occupational and Physical therapists at SPOTS will provide ongoing consultation and collaboration with the school to provide this opportunity to all students at Oak Hill.

This is such an exciting project, which is projected to be complete by the end of summer 2015. The students of Oak Hill are being given a truly unique experience, which will help them get the most out of their school day. Please consider contributing to this project and asking your friends or family to donate as well. You can do this by clicking on the following link. Your help is all that is needed to grow this project and the bodies and minds of the students at Oak Hill Academy.

https://oakhilla.ejoinme.org/MyEvents/AbouttheLearningGardenProject/ClickHeretoDonate/tabid/529263/Default.aspx

Jennifer Suggs, MOTR, SIPT certified

The rainy weather is heading our way, which means more inside the house play time for everyone. Hurray! Precious family time that is remembered for years to come in the making! These are the days of those “Remember when it rained all weekend and we ….” that you have from your childhood. I remember my kids favorite rain day activity was to turn the living room into Neverland. We had Wendy, Tiger Lily, Peter Pan, and Tinkerbell climbing, tunneling, creating, and imagining all kinds of adventures. Truly I miss those days, maybe not the mess we all pitched in to clean up, but definitely the wonder of childhood and family that we all got to explore. I even got some handwriting work in with the signs we made. All in great fun so no one realized they were actually doing some “work”. We created “treasure maps” every time and someone got to hide the treasure for everyone else to find. Oh yes! Those were the days. As those days are approaching now for the Spring of 2015, here are a couple of ideas for you and your family to consider as you head off on your own indoor adventure.
1. How about holding a “mini Olympics”. Each of you pick a country to represent and come up with an “olympic event” for everyone’s participation. Event ideas could be walk across the room balancing a book on your head, standing on one leg as long as possible, stuffed animal toss into a paper bag, or pile up pillows and blankets and judge each person’s twist/spins/jumps into the pillows. This type of activity will allow everyone to get the input (vestibular and proprioceptive) they would typically get from playing outside.
2. A “scavenger hunt” would be fantastic. Pick objects from around the house and have each person hide a couple of them. This way everyone gets to hide and everyone gets to hunt. See who can find the most objects. Don’t give the spots where you hide yours away! This type activity will keep kids active, moving, and focused on a task while helping facilitate reading skills (visual scanning, figure-ground, and discrimination).
3. Go “green”, make recyclable sculptures. Grab some “trash/disposable” supplies from around the house (i.e. cardboard, twist ties, tin foil, old schoolwork papers, plastic bottles, etc.) Grab anything that sparks yours or your child’s imagination. See what can be created! You can get ideas for your creations off the internet but try to keep your supplies to recyclable or repurposed stuff rather than buying already crafted kits. This activity facilitates creativity, self-generation, and fine motor skills.
4. Play “table” tennis or “balloon” volleyball. Sports are always fun! Table tennis supplies needed are popsicle sticks, paper plate, and a balloon. The popsicle stick and plate are glued together for a paddle. The balloon is the ball for the game. This can be adapted for balloon volleyball by stringing string or jump rope across the room for a net, or you can simply make a “net wall” with a few chairs. These “sports” games help develop motor planning, bilateral coordination and spatial awareness skills.
5. Who wouldn’t like to have “spy training?” String yarn back and forth in a hallway or up/down a stairway to form fake laser beams. Have the kids make their way through the space without touching the “laser beams” or they’ll be caught! This activity is great for motor planning and helping learn to control muscles and movement patterns.

Try some of these ideas and come up with some of your own! Either way, rainy/cold days don’t need to equate to television/video game days. Keeping kids active and engaged rain or shine is vital not only for healthy motor development, but also for kid’s moods and emotional well being.

Ideas and strategies to help your child remain calm during a plane and/or car ride.

Before the plane/car ride:

Wear an Underarmor or compression shirt

Running

Jumping

Pushing or pulling heavy objects (such as a suitcase)

During the plane/car ride:

Eat crunchy and chewy snacks (fruit leather, fruit snacks, granola, crackers, etc.)

Wear a weighted blanket or a blanket that you can wrap your child up snuggly in

Use a weighted shoulder snake

Use a lap pad

Use a camping pillow to blow up and sit on to get his “wiggles” out

Take different textured fabrics to manipulate in his hands (cotton, silk, corduroy, felt)

iPad

Magnadoodle

DVD player

Favorite stuffed animal

Crayons and activity books

Good luck on your summer travels from SPOTS!

Written by:

Savannah Thompson, MOTR

SPOTS accepts several major insurance plans on an in-network basis. We will call to verify your benefits.

Jennifer Suggs is the director and owner of SPOTS. Contact her at jennifersuggs@spotstx.com

Functional tasks such as play, social interactions, self-help skills, and school performance.

Sensory Motor Evaluations, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, and much more!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!