Mixing straw drinking fun with fine motor fun

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How could you get any more OT than mixing an oral motor, ADL, and fine motor activity into one.  I found these build your own straws called Pipeline at Bed Bath and Beyond, and just had to try them.  They seem to be the same thing as the Strawz that I found on Amazon too.

They come in a pack with clear plastic straw sections and the colored rubber connectors.  They are also dishwasher safe, which is very important to me, because I would not want to clean all of the little pieces independently.

This would be best for a child who already knows how to drink from a straw, and just needs to work on strengthening his sucking ability.  Depending on the thickness of the liquid sucked up, this straw pipeline could get some serious oral strength work in.

I think it would be a fun activity to do even without the oral motor drinking component.  I plan on having some kids build it and then we will use eye droppers to put colored liquid down the straws and watch the juice make its way down to the bowl at the bottom.  It can be a bit of a challenge taking the pieces apart as well.

Materials:

• Pipeline build your own straws
• liquid

Skills:

• Fine motor
• bimanual
• oral motor
• adl (feeding)
• straw drinking