It's Twelve Days to Christmas!

As you finish your Christmas shopping we'd like to share our staff favorites to help expedite your shopping and make you feel good about  your gift giving!

Ms. Amy B. likes the Sneaky Squirrel Game as the tongs work on fine motor skills and it also fosters turn taking and matching.

Ms. Amy M. recommends the Tomy Pic 'n' Pop push toy.  The balls magically pop out and it's fun to pick them up.  It keeps them active and walking.

Ms Chrys believes every toddler needs a tricycle!  As they pedal, they work on bilateral integration, strengthening and motor planning.

Ms Courtney loves  Cat -N- The Hat I Can Do That! It's a great game for following multi-step directions and taking turns and the kids love it!

Ms. Elizabeth says that kids love to carry things around, so she recommends Leap Frog's Shapes and Sharing Picnic Basket.  Functional play skills are developed while kids work on putting in and pretend skills and matching.

Ms. Karen always recommends the Kettler Scooter due to it's durability and stable base.  The scooter is a great means for increasing leg strength, balance and coordination.  It's perfect for those children who are working towards riding a bike.  She also likes the Little Tykes Push and Ride as it is very stable and difficult to tip over.  This toy is great for the pre-walkers or new walkers to build strength ad endurance to prepare them for independent walking.

Ms. Keira thinks that Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head are an ideal gift because so many skills are addressed:  fine motor, body identification and awareness, cognition and language acquisition.  

Ms. Kristin loves the Design and Drill! Your child will challenge his or her visual motor, fine motor and motor planning skills all while feeling like big stuff using a "power tool"!

Ms. Lindsey has been recommending a scooter with a wide board and two wheels in the back. It is great for 2, 3 and 4 year olds, builds strength and the kids love it!

Ms. Lynn loves a jump rope!  Every child should have one to work on bilateral integration and motor planning skills!

Ms. Shelley digs the old-fashioned Duncan yo-yo, butterfly style! Its's simple, fun and you can take it wherever you go!

Ms. Sandi feels Rush Hour is a great game for older children because it makes you think and it's more interactive than something like Checkers or Chess. 

Ms. Michelle finds that all children from the ages of 3 to 8 love the I Can Pound Activity Block.  It fosters fine and visual motor development, bilateral motor coordination and enhances sensory development.

Be Merry!

The colander catch!

I know you are all out shopping for fancy toys for the holidays.  Put those thoughts aside for a moment and consider this simple toss and catch game!  I found these two colanders at the dollar store and paired them with some tactile balls that we had in the clinic for a fun and easy game of toss and catch.  These tactile balls are nicely sized for their little hands.  The colander is large so that it fosters success with catching and it provides a nice large target for the thrower. Small pitchers work nicely, too and I also found those at the dollar store. The kids love the novelty of it, as they think it's quite silly playing with a strainer!

This is a great activity to work on visual attention, oculomotor skills, motor coordination, postural stability and upper body strength.  You may find as she is learning to throw that she will walk towards you.  If she does this provide her with a visual marker to stand on and pretend that her feet are "glued" to it.

If the game of toss and catch is too difficult, set up a laundry basket 2 to 3 feet away and have your child stand on a spot, maybe a taped mark or paper plate.  Encourage her to aim for the basket. Throw some pre-writing in there and have her keep a tally of the shots that she makes.

These are perfect indoor activities for the cold winter months!

No Peeking!

Stereognosis is the ability to identify objects through our sense of touch, only.  Children learn so much through their sense of touch. So, let's tune up those tactile systems with the I Spy Mystery Grab Game! Reach into the hat and find the object that matches your card, without peeking!

This is a great game for children ages 4-8. I found this at Toys R Us for $19.99.

Perfect Present!

Color Matching, Motor Planning, Turn Taking...The Perfect First Game for the youngest ones on your list!  Roll and Play is sort of like a 3-D Simon Says!

Roll the cube, name the color, find the matching card and then follow the directions on the card to perform the action! This is the perfect way to get them moving and thinking and they'll feel like big stuff, too!

I came across this at Learning Express and it is $19.99.  If you receive their catalogs in the mail, there is a coupon on the back!

Pick Pix Mix!

I came across Pix Mix in a holiday catalog.  Now, I've never played it, but to me it looks like a great way to work on a visual perceptual skill that OTs call figure ground.

Figure ground is the ability to distinguish an object, picture or word from its background.  For instance, a good example of figure ground is opening the refrigerator and finding the white milk located in front of the white background.  Hidden picture activities are another great figure ground activity.  So, this is why Pix Mix seems like the ideal figure ground game!

Individual cards are stacked on top of each other to create a busy mixture of pictures. The player is given 30 seconds to differentiate and identify all six images within each mix.  Look closely, what pictures do you see hidden in the mix above?  I can't think of a better way to sharpen those figure ground skills!

Pix Mix can be found in the MindWare catalog or at www.mindware.com

Michelle Yoder, OTR/L

All I want for Christmas...

The holidays are right around the corner and the children have begun to make their lists!  Every year, we have parents ask us for suggestions for educational and developmentally appropriate toys for their children.  Over the next few weeks, we will be highlighting our favorites.  

Our first game is Squiggly Worms!

I love it because it's simple, doesn't require batteries and it challenges our fine motor and visual motor skills.
The game consists of a bright red apple filled with little green worms that pop up and down!  It has a lever at the bottom of the apple that slides over and the 20 worms begin to squiggle and wiggle! Twenty matching worm cards are also included. The game is intended for children 4 years and older.

In therapy, we use this game several different ways!
To work on fine motor and visual motor skills, the children have to watch which worms pop up and quickly grab one. Then, they quickly look at the bottom of the worm and if the color matches their card, they place it on the card and continue to look for more matches. The first player to find matches to all of their cards wins! This is truly a game of speed and dexterity!

Sometimes we slow things down a bit and work on in-hand manipulation skills, specifically palm to finger translation.  This is a difficult skill for children, but it is important in daily tasks.  For instance, if a child is holding some coins for his penny bank, he has to move a coin from his palm to his fingertips so that he can place it into the bank, while holding onto the other coins.  You can work on that same skill by having your child hold two to three squiggly worms at a time.  Then, the child moves one worm at a time from her palm to her fingertips and then places it into one of the holes in the apple. The cute little worms make learning fun!

Stay tuned over the next few weeks and we'll help you and Santa stuff the stockings and wrap up the magic of Christmas!

Michelle Yoder, OTR/L

Dig into the sensory bin!

Sensory bins are fun for all ages!  I made this corn meal bin for a preschool as a safe option for tactile exploration since some of the children still enjoy exploring with their mouths! Other bins can be made of rice, beans, pasta, beads, balls or cotton balls.  Wet bins are a blast, too.  Use insta-snow, shaving cream or water beads.  Additional contents can be endless and will surely entice the senses!

• Fill it with items for the holidays or seasons.  A bin full of feathers is great this time of year as we celebrate Thanksgiving!
• Numbers or letters can foster learning.  Have her pull out a letter and match it to a card.  When she finds a number she can count out the same number of pasta pieces from the bin.
• Different colored objects can facilitate color identification or matching!  She could find a red object inside the bin to place in the red colored bowl placed outside.
• Last year I made a winter bin with all white items, which promoted a visual perceptual skill that we call figure ground.  The children used a white ice cream scoop to scoop out cotton balls into a white bowl.  Tongs were used to separate snow flakes by size into a sorting dish.

Watch as your child uses all of her senses to explore.  Ask her what it smells like, how it feels, what she hears.  Have her close her eyes and use only her sense of touch to find the items hidden within.

For some children tactile exploration can be very calming.  For other children, it provides just the right input to "rev" her up to improve her level of arousal. If your child is hesitant to touch the contents in your sensory bin, provide tools such as spoons, tongs, ice cream scoops, etc. to make her feel safe while she explores.  Before you know it, she'll be digging right in!

Digging deep with the tools promotes strength and fine motor coordination.

Blowing can help regulate our nervous systems and is a fun way to explore the corn meal.

The corn meal is silky and smooth. I filled the bin with different textured objects and added some visually stimulating items to please their young eyes!

Her smile says it all!

Share your favorite sensory bins with us!
Remember to provide supervision as sensory bins are very pleasing to all of our senses and may tempt our children to explore in ways that could be harmful to them.

Michelle Yoder, OTR/L