elementary school age Archives - Page 2 of 17

Activities, child, elementary school age, equipment, equipment, gross motor, lower extremity strengthening, Motor Planning, motor planning, OT, preschool, PT, sensory motor, teenage, toddler, tween - middle school

Making a Crash Pad

A crash pad is a big foam filled squishy mat that you can fall onto and you land on the squishy foam. Crash pads are great fun for kids who like a lot of movement and body input since they can roll around in the big foam nest. Kids need to always…

ADL, baby, child, elementary school age, OT, preschool, Resources

Things You can do at Home to Help Your Child In School

Being able to function and participate in school will mean different things for different kids. So, it is best to look at your child and see what it is that they will need to work on in school, and then you can support the teacher to help your…

Activities, activity printable, child, Clothespin Activities, elementary school age, fine-motor, Free Printable, games, hand strengthening, Motor Planning, OT, Printable, Reach and grasp, visual perceptual

Flower Garden Fine Motor and Visual Motor Challenge

I was looking for an activity that would give a good challenge to the visual motor system as well as challenge fine motor control. I wanted quite a bit of visual motor reaching and grasping while in prone. In one school that I work in, I have…

Activities, ADL, child, elementary school age, OT

Working on More Button Activities

I have been working on more button activities and I think that my button S'mores are perfect for summer pretend play. I was able to get the marshmallow a little squishy and puffy by layering felt circles. I is a perfect addition to anyone's…

Activities, Animals, bimanual, child, Craft, elementary school age, fine-motor, Free Printable, Motor Planning, OT, Paper, Printable, scissor cutting, Scissor Cutting, visual perceptual

Visual Motor Skills and Cutting With Scissors

Being able to cut with scissors requires many skills, starting with the physical motor ability to sit at a table, the fine motor ability to hold the scissors, and the strength to open and close the scissors. In order to follow lines and shapes…

Activities, ADL, bimanual, buttoning, child, Craft, dressing, elementary school age, felt, fine-motor, Motor Planning, OT

A Fun Summer Buttoning Ice Cream Cone

I have been working on a bunch of different buttoning activities and thought I would share the ones that I made this week. I made some bananas that you can unbutton from the bunch, an ice cream cone to button the scoops on, some pancakes with…

Activities, activity printable, ADL, bimanual, buttoning, child, dressing, elementary school age, favorite toys, fine-motor, Free Printable, games, Motor Planning, OT, Printable

New Button Pizzas and Patterns to Make Your Own

The button pizza, sandwich and oreo are so great for working on fine motor and motor planning skills in a fun way. I ran out of the button food available in the shop quite a while ago, and have found it difficult to find a sewing manufacturer…

Activities, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, Handwriting, OT, Paper, teenage, tween - middle school

A Fun and Motivating Way to Practice Writing

So you have a child that needs to work on writing, but is not really that motivated. He can come up with his own sentences, but avoids writing. How do you make it interesting so that he will participate? For kids that are capable of writing…

Activities, bimanual, child, Crossing Midline, elementary school age, hand strengthening, Motor Planning, OT, sensory motor, tween - middle school, visual perceptual

Developing Visual Skills and the Playground

Annie, don't slide down the slide head first! I could hear a mother yell to her child as the little girl went down the slide on her back head first. I told the mom that it was actually good to slide down this way as it gives her body a new experience…

Activities, bimanual, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, Fun Foam, games, hand strengthening, Handwriting, Motor Planning, Munchy Ball, OT

Practicing Letters and Finger Strengthening

Resistance keeps your muscles strong, and the little muscles in the fingers need to work and get strong along with the rest of the muscles of your body. I love having kids get letters randomly in order to practice writing the letters and words,…

Activities, activity printable, adult, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, Free Printable, OT, pencil template, Printable, teenage, visual perceptual

Game to Practice Erasing and Writing

Hey, John, your letters look really good in that sentence, but I am having trouble seeing what you wrote because you didn't erase the first one you wrote well enough. Have you ever run into this problem? Is it a struggle to get your kids to…

Activities, activity printable, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, Free Printable, Handwriting, OT, Paper, Printable, spring

Flower Pollen Honeycomb Fine Motor

I was working with some kids the other day, and we were coloring flowers, working on holding the pencil in a good grasp, and getting some good strokes of the colored pencils, and one little guy was not able to move his fingers independently…

Activities, ADL, child, dressing, elementary school age, OT

Work on Dressing Skills Through Play Activities

Dressing skills are the bread and butter of the Occupational Therapy profession, but not every setting or session is an appropriate time or place to have your client get dressed or undressed. I used to joke around with a Physical Therapist…

child, elementary school age, Resources

I Love the Balanced and Barefoot Book

I was able to have a talk with Occupational Therapist Angela Hanscom, the author of Balanced and Barefoot, and the creator of the amazing TimberNook program. Her book was a refreshing read, and is inspiring me to think about how I can incorporate…

Activities, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, Handwriting, OT

The Simplest Way to Get a Good Pencil Grasp

You can try every pencil grip available at Amazon, and you may have no success with changing the way a child holds their pencil. Really, the simpler the solution the better, and if it is simple, it makes it more likely that the child, teacher,…

Activities, child, elementary school age, Motor Planning, OT, Therapy techniques, Trunk strengthening, upper extremity strengthening

Ten Games to Play With Wheelbarrow Walking

Wheelbarrow walking is a great upper body and trunk strengthening tool, and it is easy to incorporate it into a game. When wheelbarrow walking, you are strengthening your arms and your trunk since you have to activate a co-contraction through…

Activities, child, elementary school age, featured guest, OT, Sensory

5 Ways to Help Children who Have Tactile Defensiveness

This is a guest post by Kimberly Z Syers OTR/L- BabyOT.com As a Pediatric Occupational Therapist, I work with children with tactile defensiveness on a daily basis. These children are hypersensitive to tactile (touch) stimulation and frequently…

Activities, bimanual, child, Craft, elementary school age, fine-motor, in-hand manipulation, Munchy Ball, OT

Making it Fun With Munchy Ball

I pick up a little girl from her classroom (we'll call her Emily), so that I can do a fine motor evaluation, and this is the first time that she has met me. I tell her who I am and what we will be doing and we head off to do our work. Emily…

q-tip painting templates for fine motor control

Activities, activity printable, child, Craft, Craft, elementary school age, fine-motor, Free Printable, Handwriting, OT, Paper, Printable, visual perceptual

More Q-Tip Painting Templates

When I first gave a student q-tips to paint with, she did a lot of smearing and squishing of the paint on the paper. She was working those fine muscles of the hand, but there was a little something missing from the picture. It was a very…

Activities, activity printable, child, Chopstick activities, elementary school age, fine-motor, Free Printable, Handwriting, OT, Pom Poms or cotton balls, Printable, visual perceptual

Color Pop Game For Fine Motor and Writing

The color pop game is a great game that incorporates quite a few skills within one game. Some of the skills used in the game are fine motor, visual scanning, writing, counting, and finding coordinates on a chart. I use either colored porcupine…

child, elementary school age, fine-motor, Handwriting, OT

Fine Motor Requirements For Handwriting

What exactly are the fine motor movements that are used in writing? In a mature dynamic grasp, the fingers do the majority of the work, but the whole hand is required in order to stabilize and provide strength for the activity. The most important…