Activities for Home
Try the following at home to promote...
Hand Strength and Fine Motor Skills
- Thinking Putty (Crazy Aaron Enterprises, Inc.) and Silly Putty (Crayola Properties, Inc.)- have child hide and look for small items like buttons and coins in the putty. Squishing, rolling, pulling and poking are great too.
- Trigger spray bottles filled with water
- Construction toys like Legos (Lego Juris A/S), and K’NEX (K’NEX Limited partnership group)
- Tear and crumple paper for art projects
- Crafts that involve tracing, coloring, cutting and glueing
- Hole punch designs in paper and for various art projects
- Tweezer games like Operation (Hasbro, Inc.) and Bed bugs (Hasbro, Inc.)
- String beads
- Oragami
Visual Motor Skills
- Thematic mazes with varied path widths and lengths
- Connect the dots; incorporate letter and number sequences
- Coloring books
- Step-by-Step drawing books
- Tracing designs and pictures using tracing paper
- Cross-word puzzles
- Scratch Art
Visual Perceptual Skills
- Puzzles
- Word Finds
- Hidden Pictures
- Tangrams
- Concentration/Memory
- Oragami
- Craft projects that require spatial organization/integration of parts
Trunk Strength/Control
- Catch and throw various sized balls in different positions (sitting, kneeling)
- Crab soccer and obstacle courses- have child sit on the floor, then raise bottom up and crawl around while playing soccer or moving through challenging obstacles
- Twister (Hasbro)
- Climbing on playground structures
- Swinging
- Martial arts
- Dancing
- Swimming
- Horseback
- Yoga
Regulation of Activity Level and Attention
- Provide a comfortable workspace without distractions (or as little as possible)
- Try white noise, nature sounds, or soothing background music
- Provide a preferred hand fidget item; at first these can distract or appear to distract, but can be helpful once the novelty runs out.
- Air seat cushions provide a dynamic sitting posture which can help busy bodies stay seated and focused longer
- Opportunities to move to alert and to get “sillies” out: brisk walk/run, jumping jacks, bike ride, playground, swinging, trampoline
- Heavy work for calming/organizing: carrying/moving heavy but manageable items, climbing stairs/playground structures, hanging from and crossing cross-bars, tug-of-war
- Deep pressure for calming:have child wrap themselves in a sheet or give themselves a long hug, massage to back/arms/hands/legs, Sit in a large bean-bag chair, pillows, heavy blankets