Simple Mother's Day Card

Here's a simple Mother's Day card that requires only a few supplies and can be graded to meet the needs of children of all skill levels!

Supplies:

• construction paper
• pencil
• scissors
• glue

Directions:

1. Depending on your child's skill level, grade the first step appropriately:

• Child draws and then cuts out shapes
• Child traces and then cuts out shapes
• Child cuts out shapes already drawn on paper

2. Your child can assemble and glue the shapes using a model as an example. This is great for working on executive function skills, like planning, organizing, and sequencing!

3. Add a message to the inside. This is a great way to sneak in some handwriting practice!

• Child can write a message independently
• Child can copy a message from another paper or from farther away
• If you want to work on typing, type a message, print it and glue it to the inside

Skills addressed:

• bilateral coordination
• fine motor dexterity
• eye hand coordination
• scissor skills
• handwriting
• planning
• organizing
• sequencing

 Happy Mother's Day!

Yarn Heart Ornament

Looking for a simple, last minute Valentine's Day craft? I've got you covered. These heart ornaments can be made with a few simple supplies that you probably have laying around your house.

Supplies needed:

• cardboard
• yarn 
• scissors
• hole punch

Directions:

• Cut a heart shape out of cardboard (I did this step for my students)
• Cut small notches around the edge of the heart (I had some of my students do this step themselves - cutting through cardboard is great for increasing hand strength)
• Punch a hole near the top of the heart
• Lace yard around the heart, pulling it tight into the notches
• Continue until you're satisfied with the design you've created
• Lace a loop of yarn through the hole and tie
• Hang the heart and enjoy!

Skills addressed:

• bilateral coordination
• fine motor dexterity
• eye hand coordination

** For an extra challenge, make a sample heart ornament, and then have your child try to make the same design on her cardboard heart. I tried this with one of my students and it is very challenging. It was a good test of frustration tolerance for both of us :-)

Five Friday Features

1. Did you see my guest post for These Broken Vases on Monday? No, then head on over to read my activity suggestions for children with Down syndrome. While you're there, be sure to browse the rest of Ellen's blog and her website, too. I especially love her writing prompts. They are always thought provoking and give a jump start if you're having a bout of writer's block.
2. Looking for some last minute Thanksgiving craft ideas? I love these Gratitude Turkeys from Modern Parents Messy Kids. No Time for Flashcards also has a fun 3D Handprint Turkey Craft.
3. Therapists, are you interested in receiving a free game? Of course you are! Blue Orange Games is giving a free Spot It! game to the first 200 therapists to sign up for their newsletter. This is a great game to work on visual scanning skills. Click here to enter
4. Why listening is so much more than hearing. Interesting article in the New York Times.
5. And on the topic of hearing, what does sensory overload sound like? If you only click on one of my links this week, this should be the one! Thank you NPR for bringing this fantastic video to my attention!

Tactile Turkey

Last week was handprint turkeys; this week it's a tactile turkey!

This comes courtesy of my nephew and I thought it was such a great idea! Great for tactile exploration and for sorting skills. Just gather some dry food and birdseed from around the house and start gluing! Noodles, different colored sprinkles, rice, and birdseed would all work well for this craft.

Handprint Turkeys

It's already November, which means it's turkey time! Last year I shared this simple handprint turkey:

Here's another cute handprint turkey:

I like that this one adds an extra visual motor component by placing a color on the tip of each finger. The handwriting practice is always good, too!

Halloween is right around the corner!

With Halloween coming up, now is a good time to review AOTA's Tip Sheet for Enjoying Halloween with Sensory Challenges. You can also read my Halloween tips here and tips from Sensory Smart Parents by clicking here. Lisa Quinones-Fontanez also shared some great tips on To The Max on Making Halloween Fun For Kids With Autism.

Yahoo Voices has some recommendations for Halloween costumes for sensitive kiddos, using mostly clothing that your child already wears to create a costume. That may make it easier for your child to accept wearing the costume.

Some tasty treats for Halloween:

Simple Pumpkin Cookies from Stephanie at Early Intervention Speech Therapy
And here are a couple of my favorites from last year:
Sweet and Salty Pumpkin Seeds
Dirt and Worms (this recipe helps develop fine motor skills, too!)

Halloween crafts:

Handprint Spider from Housing a Forest
Fall leaf fine motor craft 
4 Halloween Fine Motor Activities from MamaOT
Fine motor pumpkin from Embrace Your Chaos
Clothespin Spiders

Get messy:

Pumpkin spice playdough

Visit Growing a Jeweled Rose to learn how to make pumpkin scented paint or pumpkin scented cloud dough.
If your little ones aren't quite ready to get messy, Miss Mancy has a great Touch, Feel, and Sort Halloween activity, which also works on fine motor skills. Gotta love that!

Get up and move:

Ghost bowling from No Time for Flashcards (works on fine motor skills, too!)
Miss Mancy has a fun spider maze to work on lots of OT skills.
Take those pumpkins outside and do some chuckin' pumpkin painting. I love this idea from Childhood Beckons!

Read:

Sensory Smart Parent recommends reading the book, Go Away Big Green Monster, with your child prior to Halloween, to address fears and how to manage them.



Pam Dahm, of Chit Chat and Small Talk, shared a Trick or Treating Social Story. Social stories are another great way to help prepare your child for Halloween.


What are you doing to prepare your child for Halloween?

Last minute 4th of July craft

Looking for a simple idea for a 4th of July craft? Look no further than the red and blue scraps around your house! Just gather some tissue paper, scraps of fabric and ribbon, stickers, glitter, and whatever else you can find.

Then turn this...

...into this...

...while working on all of these skills:

• using both hands to peel stickers off the sheet
• strengthening little hands to squeeze glitter glue
• developing scissor skills while snipping ribbon
• using both hands to tear tissue paper into smaller pieces
• in hand manipulation skills to roll and squish tissue paper into smaller pieces
• strengthen and use both hands to open a glue stick
• visual motor skills to put glue on paper and then shake glitter on the glue
• and more!

You don't need fancy supplies to do a craft project. Just look around your house for scraps that your little one can turn into a piece of art!

Jello Painting

Looking for simple activity that smells good too? Just add a little water to jello powder, stir it up, and you have a sticky, gooey, and aromatic "paint"!

I like to immerse my selective eaters in activities relating to food, and this is a great one to encourage smelling, which is often one of the first steps when I introduce a new food.

Here's our completed project!

 When it dries, it has a grainy texture and it smells delicious too!

April Showers

It's been nearly 90 degrees this week, but believe it or not, it was raining here in the desert last week. We don't get much rain here, so I jumped on the opportunity to create some raindrops to develop fine motor skills.

Tearing tissue paper is a good standby to develop fine motor skills and bilateral coordination, and it can be applied to any season or holiday (think green shamrocks, pink hearts, orange pumpkins, yellow sun, rainbows, the list goes on...).

Just cut some tissue paper (or construction paper for more of a challenge) into strips and then have fun tearing into small pieces!

Then work those hands to crumple the paper and glue onto the paper.

What is your favorite craft to make with tissue paper?

Handprint Valentine's Day Card

I can't believe it's February already! This Valentine's Day card is courtesy of my nephew. It looks like he dipped the sides of his little fingers in red paint and then pressed them into a heart shape. Cute idea for Valentine's Day!

Shaving Cream Snowman

This is a simple winter activity involving tactile sensory exploration and body awareness. 
Use shaving cream paint (see recipe below) to make a snowman on construction paper and then add body parts (cut out of colored paper). When the snowman dries, it will feel puffy!

The child who made this snowman didn't mind getting messy, but remember to offer a paintbrush, Q-tip, sponge or other tool for your more sensitive kids.


Recipe for Shaving Cream Paint:

• Mix equal parts of shaving cream and glue
• Use a paintbrush or hands to paint
• Shaving cream paint will be puffy when it dries
• Optional: add a drop or two of food coloring (I like to add red to make pink hearts for Valentine's Day)

Scissor Skills Snowflakes

This is a fun activity using coffee filters or cupcake liners to create snowflakes. Not only does this work on scissor skills, it also works on motor planning, visual motor skills, and bilateral coordination.


First, flatten the coffee filter.

Then, fold the coffee filter in half.

And keep folding in half.

I drew lines for the student to cut.

Cut on the lines.

And now you have a snowflake, like this one.

Tactile Winter Scene

I spotted this cute winter scene in a classroom I was visiting this week. I get some of my best inspiration from creative teachers and classroom aides! I love that this incorporates fine motor skills (squeezing a hole punch to make snow, pinching and gluing), as well as tactile experiences (glue, cotton balls, pom-poms, shredded wax paper).

Fine Motor Christmas Tree

I was inspired by one of the amazing teachers I work with to try this Christmas tree craft. I love how many skills can be addressed with this craft: hand strengthening, scissor skills, motor planning, visual motor skills, tactile exploration, etc.


All you need is some construction paper, scissors, glue, a hole punch and red yarn. 

• Make segments of a tree by cutting a large green triangle into three or four pieces. You can vary this step by drawing wavy or zig zag lines for the child to cut depending on the child's skill level.
• Glue the segments on a paper. Younger children may benefit from having a completed Christmas tree to use as a visual model.
• Use a hole punch to make colored dots. Decorate the tree by gluing the dots on your tree.
• Squeeze glue between the tree segments. Some children may benefit from having a line to trace with the glue.
• Glue a piece of yarn between the tree segments. (I didn't have any yarn on hand, so I used a pipe cleaner in the picture above. I would not recommend using a pipe cleaner, as it doesn't stick very well!)

I did this with a preschool age child, and as you can probably tell from the photo, she lost interest a little early. She loved the cutting and gluing part at the beginning, but using the hole punch and manipulating the tiny dots to decorate the tree turned out to be a little too challenging for this particular child. I recommend this for kindergarten age or up. Might be a fun activity for preschoolers with good fine motor skills (but I generally don't see those kiddos :)

Fine Motor Christmas Craft

Remember those foam shapes I found at Target about a month ago? Well, I've finally put them to use this week with some of my kiddos. We've been decorating them with glitter glue to work on hand strengthening and visual motor skills. Check out the finished products below!

This student wrote his name at the top and then squeezed dots of glitter glue on top of black dots that I drew.

This student decorated the tree by squeezing glitter glue on dots that I drew.

Squeezing and tracing.

Finished product!

Handprint Turkey

Another fun activity for Thanksgiving!














Dip the child's hand in paint to make a handprint, then draw the legs and face. For children who aren't as excited about dipping their hands into paint, it also works well to paint the child's hand with a paintbrush. Just remember, don't ever force a child to touch a texture that they don't want to touch. Encourage the child to participate in the activity in a different way, such as tracing the child's hand and then having the child paint their handprint with a paintbrush.

ENJOY!

Fine Motor Turkey

It's almost Thanksgiving, which means it's turkey time!

To make a turkey like this one, all you need is a pinecone and some pipe cleaners.

Just twist the pipe cleaners to make feathers

And then stick the 'feathers' in the pinecone

This is a great Thanksgiving activity to work on fine motor skills!

Check back later this week for more turkey activities!

Look what I found!

I was at Target this weekend, and of course, I couldn't walk past the dollar spot without taking a peak. I think it's a little early for stores to have Christmas stuff everywhere, but I did find these great foam shapes.

These will be great for some fun fine motor holiday crafts. Maybe squeezing fabric paint to decorate the tree while working on fine motor and visual motor skills? Or gluing cotton balls and writing the child's name on the stocking?

What fun crafts would you do with these foam shapes?

Clothespin Spiders

Happy Halloween!

There's no denying it...pediatric OTs love clothespins! Here's a fun fine motor idea for Halloween.
I got this great idea from a happy wanderer (please check out her blog for more great ideas).
These are the super-cute and creative spiders that she made:

And this is how I adapted the activity for my students:

1. Color a paper plate (my student quickly pointed out that it would be easier to paint the plate). A flat paper plate or black card stock would probably work better, but I was using what I had on hand.
2. Cut out shapes (I used orange circles and squares and white ovals for the eyes).
3. Glue the orange shapes to the plate (four on each side)
4. Color the eyes and glue them to the plate
5. I drew shapes on the clothespins and on the orange shapes and then had the student match the shapes to make the legs.

What are your favorite clothespin activities?

Fall Leaf Fine Motor Craft

This is one of my favorite fall crafts, promoting fine motor skills and the coordination of both hands. It can also be used to work on scissor skills, if you have the child cut out the leaf and tissue paper.


What you'll need:
Tissue paper cut into 1 1/2"-2" squares
Leaf template (like this one)

 Step 1: Fold a square of tissue paper over the end of a pencil

Step 2: Put a little glue on the tissue paper

Step 3: Press the tissue paper onto the leaf

Final Product! Great for decorating a classroom or therapy clinic!