Activities
Homemade Bubble Wands
I was going to take a selfie showing off my homemade bubble wands and it turns out that I’m incapable of blowing bubbles, keeping my eyes open, AND not looking mean or worried. Pipe cleaners/chenille […]
Indoor Play
At Home
Playground in the House
We have an outdoor toddler climbing frame/play set in our house. It was outdoors for the first 6 months or so of us living here. Then it became apparent that the extended period of cold […]
At School
How the Feelings Connect to the Actions
It can be really tricky to teach children how to understand the emotions inside of their bodies. It feels obvious after you already know all the emotion words — maybe, depending on how in tune […]
At School
What Roles the Team Has
One thing that’s really challenging for adults in all contexts—parenting, or professional contexts—is balancing between how much autonomy and how much protection to provide to their child. That’s why when I was writing this reminder […]
At School
What Sensory Self-Regulation Is
The transcription of the whiteboard can be found at my intro post for this series: What the Therapy Gym Is. When I set out to write this as a helpful reminder for the adults who […]
Activities
Tracing Flight Trails
A fine motor, pre-writing activity offer in my therapy gym today: dot-to-dots to make the “flight paths” of different airplanes, rocketships, and helicopters. You can customize this whichever way matches the child’s level of drawing/tracing […]
Activities
Dino Drawings
One of my favorite tools for building a whole bunch of skills— hand strengthening, finger strengthening, hand-eye coordination, and then copying from a visual model, and occupationally meaningful writing— are these toys which I originally […]
Activities
BIG Word Search
With the big kids in my action room who still have handwriting or letter formation goals, one of the activities I set out is a big huge grid on the floor drawn on butcher paper, […]
Activities
The Allure of a Clipboard
Child’s favorite activity: searching for something hidden somewhere in the room My goal for child: that they would not feel completely threatened by the concept of writing/drawing/touching a pencil, but begin to see ways in […]
Activities
Games That Don’t Require Moving
Listen, the parental exhaustion is real. I know this. AND, simultaneously, the children need to be in constant motion, like, 22 hours out of the day. I also know this. Meeting opposing sensory needs is […]