Occupational Therapy: Week of April 26-May 2

Crafting with Recycles!

Have your kids used up all your supplies at home? Try using things from your recycle bin to create some fun craft activities. 

1. Use toliet paper rolls or paper towel rolls to make your own creations

a. Rainbow Fish: Use stickers or small pieces of paper cut into circles, glue onto the toilet paper roll. Add some tissue paper cut into strips to the inside. Draw on an eye!

b. Rainbow windsocks: Glue some streamers cut in half or tissue paper inside the roll. Draw a cloud, add a face, then cut it out. Glue it onto the front of your tube. 

b. Fish: Follow the steps as shown. Parents may need to draw the lines on for your student to cut out. Paint or color on your own details at the end! 

2. Make your own marble maze (get creative... you can use any round ball you have around the house!) 

Here's a video of the one that my son and I made with tape, scissors and lots of random things we found around the house and in our recycle bin. Have fun with this! 

2.  Use Egg Cartons for crafts

a. Flowers: Cut out 4 openings in a square. Add a center to your flower, then paint or color the petals. Add a straw, pipe cleaner, or strip of cardboard for a stem! 

a. Bugs: Use this video for some inspiration! It shows you step by step how to complete this process. Don't forget to let your paint dry in between colors if you use more than one! 

GET CREATIVE! What did YOU make? Email me your photos at bissone@westbrookschools.org and I'll post them!

Occupational Therapy Goals targeted: Fine motor skills, scissor skills, following directions, visual perceptual skills

Speech Therapy: BUBBLES! Week of April 26 to May 2

Bubbles!

Bubbles are so much fun!  I like to use bubbles during speech therapy because they are almost magical, and I can use them to address many different goals.  Follow this recipe with your child, then go outside and have fun blowing bubbles!!  With bubbles, there is so much to talk about!

How to Make Homemade Bubbles:

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 cups warm water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup dish soap

Whisk the sugar into the warm water until the sugar dissolves.  Then add the dish soap and whisk together. If you have time let the solution sit for a few hours or even over night so the bubbles work better. 

If you don't already have a bubble wand from other bubbles you will need to make one. You can use a toilet paper tube, cookie cutters, wire, or pipe cleaners formed into a circle.  Dip them in the bubble solution and blow! 

Speech Therapy Goals targeted: Turn-taking, sequencing, describing words, sentence formulation.

Physical Therapy: Week of April 26-May 2

Toss It Tic-Tac-Toe!
Supplies: 10 Bean Bags or Rolled up Socks, Painters tape or Clothesline Rope
1) Make an indoor Tic Tac Toe board (or outdoor with sidewalk chalk and nice weather!)
2) Separate your bean bags or rolled up socks into two piles for the two people playing.  If using socks, you can go with light and dark colors.
3) Toss them from an agreed upon spot to try and beat your opponent with 3 in a row!

SOCIAL WORK Week of April 26th - May 2nd: Feelings Charades

Feelings Charades

Feelings Charades is a fun game to get you familiar with different types of feelings, how they look when other people express those feelings, and how it feels to express those feelings yourself.  It's a guessing game.  

Here's how you play:

• One player picks a feeling (e.g. happy) and acts that feeling out without saying any words.  
• The other person has to guess what feeling you are acting out.  
• Once they guess it, you take turns and then they get to pick a feeling, act it out, and have you guess it.

There's many other ways you can play as well: You can also pick teams (e.g. adults vs. kids; spring and summer birthdays vs. fall and winter birthdays etc.), you can impose time limits (e.g. each team gets 1 minute to guess), you can earn points (e.g. each guess can be worth one point), you can write down a bunch of feelings names and/or pictures and then cut them out individually, fold them and put them in a bowl and each person picks one out randomly.  There are so many different ways to play!  Try whatever seems the most fun!

Are you trying these activities at home? Share your pictures in the comments!

Did you know at the bottom of each post you can click "Comments" and then add your own comment below! We would LOVE to hear from you!!

SOCIAL WORK Week of April 12th - April 18th: "I" Statements and the Three-Part Apology

Using "I" Statements and the Three-Part Apology

Conflict is part of any relationship. Conflict is a fancy word for disagreement. How we deal with conflict with others can make a lot of difference, however. Yelling, hitting, kicking, name calling, and so on can harm our relationships with others and may leave us and others feeling bad. Using our words and helping others to feel better if we have upset them can help our relationships and help us feel better.

In this video you will learn:

• How to use "I" statements to let others know how they made you feel and
• How to use a three-part apology to help repair relationships if we've done something to upset others.

Physical Therapy: Week of April 12-18

Deck of Cards - Movement Exercises
The surprise factor of not knowing what you will pick makes it more fun!

Pick a card and do that exercise!

For example:

7 of Hearts could mean...

Touch Toes and Reach up 7x!

Jacks, Queens and Kings are worth 10 reps each.  Aces are 1x.

Some ideas of what to assign to your different suits:

Run in place
Wall sit
Touch toes and reach up
Arm Circles
Jumping jacks
Cross Crawls

Change it up and have fun!

Occupational Therapy: Week of April 13 to April 18

Pre-Writing Exercises

Try these simple exercises with a pencil to get your hands ready for writing! 

1. The Catapillar ~ Walk your fingers from one end of your pencil to the other. Try walking back! 

2. The Woodpecker ~ Move your fingers in and out to make your pencil go closer and further away from your other hand. Try to keep both hands still (only move your fingers!). 

3. The Helicopter ~ Spin the pencil around in a circle like a helicopter. Try to reverse direction. 

Here are the video demonstrations of all the exercises if you want to watch first! 

https://youtu.be/w0sL_5Mzx-Q
https://youtu.be/ylA5OF9JWJ8 
https://youtu.be/f3xUNNE_fEw 

Want more finger exercises or "pre-writing" exercises to try? Try these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VpARNgbb8c 

Occupational Therapy Goals targeted: Fine motor skills, motor coordination, manual dexterity

Speech Therapy "What" I-Spy Game: April 12-18

What do you do with that?

(WH questions)

Can you find these various items around the house?  You need to answer the questions to identify the item.  Look at the pictures if you need a clue.  You can play the purple game one day and the green game another!  Remember, these tasks should be quick, fun and easy to complete.  (In therapy I would call these WH- or What questions.). Have FUN!

Speech Therapy Goals targeted: answering "what" questions, naming items, category naming, describing words, sentence formulation, sustained attention.

Occupational Therapy: Week of April 5 to April 11

Visual Perceptual Fun!

Try to find as many things as you can in this hidden picture. 

Now Try Your Own "Hidden Picture" Games at Home: 

1. Gather items from around your house and place on a tray. 

2. Ask your student to find a specific object. Make it more challenging by asking them to find something that starts with a certain letter or rhymes with a certain word. ie. Find something that rhymes with "hen." Find something that starts with the letter "c."
3. Have your student look away and take something from the tray. Ask them what is missing! 

Occupational Therapy Goals targeted: Visual perceptual skills, visual discrimination, following multi-step directions

Physical Therapy: Week of April 5th - April 11th

This week's focus is HOPSCOTCH!

You can do this indoors or outdoors, depending on the weather!

You can make your own hopscotch on your driveway with sidewalk chalk!










Or you can set up a hopscotch game in your house, in a hallway or some open space.  This could also serve as a reminder for a movement break, when you walk down the hallway, maybe you could add a hop-jump-hop!

I hope you are doing well and finding ways to add some exercise into your days!

SOCIAL WORK Week of April 5th through April 11th: 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Exercise/Game

The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Game

Here is a fun game/exercise that uses all of your senses!  This is a great exercise to use if your mind is moving too fast, if it is in the yellow zone, or if it is running away with worries.  It helps you to bring your mind back to right here, right now in the green zone using your senses because your body and your senses are always right here, right now.

The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Exercise

• Name five things you are seeing right now
• Name four things you are touching right now
• Name three things you are hearing right now
• Name two things you are smelling right now
• Name one thing you are tasting right now

Give it a try!  It's a fun game to use even if your mind is not moving too fast.  One of the great things about this game is that you can do it anywhere at any time because you always bring your senses with you!

Speech Therapy Scavenger Hunt: April 5 to 11

    Scavenger Hunt   

It's always fun to be outside!  Get a breath of fresh air, and see new things.  Use this list to either go outside to find these items, or simply look out the window from inside your home. 

Talk about the items that you find: What colors are they?  Where did you find them?  Is it something that is alive? Can you find something that is not on this list?  Can you find 6 items that each have a different color from the rainbow? (red, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple).  

• Can you name 3 flowers you see?  
• Can you name 3 different types of birds?
• Can you name 3 different bugs?
• Can you name 5 colors that you see?
• Can you name 3 things that are smooth or bumpy?

Speech Therapy Goals targeted: naming items, category naming, describing words, sentence formulation.