theinspiredtreehouse.

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summertime
THERAPY FUN!
Happy summer everyone! It's been such a great school year
and we've loved having your child in therapy. We wanted to be sure to
send you home with some fun fine motor, gross motor, and sensory
activities you can do with your child to ensure that he or she doesn't
lose any of those hard-earned skills over the summer!
Have a great break and we'll see you in the fall!
 Practice with scissors!
Cut on each of the lines. See if you can keep the
car on the road by keeping your scissors on the
lines!
Now, cut out the shapes! Keep the train on the track
by keeping your scissors on the lines!
Write your name in the box. Then, try rainbow writing! Trace
over your name with every color in your box of crayons or
markers!
Too easy? Try rainbow writing other letters or sight words!
 Hand Strengthening

Stickers or Tape – Pulling tape and stickers off of the roll and/or pulling
them off of various surfaces (walls, tables, floors) is a great hand
strengthener for kids.

Lego or Duplo blocks – Both awesome for developing grasp strength!

Smaller Lego bricks are great for older kids with more advanced skills,
while the larger Duplo version is best for the younger crowd.

Cooking with kids is a fun way to promote good grasping skills by

practicing on cooking tools and utensils.

Crawling – Try relay races, obstacle courses, and other games.

Donkey kicks – Have the child bend forward to place his hands on the
floor and then kick his legs up behind them like a donkey.

Wheelbarrow walks – Have the child place her hands on the floor while
you or another child holds her feet. See how far she can walk on her
hands. Try a wheelbarrow relay!

Climbing – Climbing on just about anything is awesome for building hand

strength in kids. Think ropes, ladders, trees, jungle gyms, any
playground equipment, and more!

Tearing paper – Two little hands working together to tear through paper
is a simple and fun way to target hand strength.

Playing with play dough, putty, or clay – Squishing, pinching, rolling,

squeezing, smushing – all great for building muscles in the hands!

Scissors – Try cutting against resistance: thicker paper or cardstock, play

dough or clay – great for visual motor skills and hand strength!
 Pencil Grasp Tricks

If your child struggles with holding a pencil efficiently,

there are lots of easy little tricks we OTs like to use to
promote stronger, more effective grasp patterns on writing
utensils.

If your child struggles with holding the pencil

either too far away or too close to the tip, try
placing a small sticker or wrap a stripe of colored
electrical tape around the pencil at the
appropriate height.

Try having your child write with shorter pencils

(like the ones used on the golf course) or broken
crayons. This is a favorite trick of OTs and
preschool teachers because kids naturally
gravitate toward a tripod grasp at the correct
height when using smaller writing utensils.

Another great pencil grasping trick is to have

kids tuck a small object (e.g. craft pompom,
marble) into their ring and pinky fingers, holding
it there while they grasp the pencil and writing
with their thumb, index finger, and middle finger.
 Strengthening for Kids

Kids build strength through unstructured, spontaneous PLAY! And, the

more diverse and varied their play is, the better they can achieve the
strengthening they need to be successful with everyday gross motor skills.

The problem? These days, kids are doing less and less of this kind of
unstructured gross motor play. Research shows how little time children
spend engaging in open-ended whole body movement experiences and how
much time they spend playing video games, watching television, and
sitting still (or not-so-still) in their desks at school.

Even children who play organized sports aren’t really getting the benefits
of the type of unstructured gross motor activity described above, as they
tend to engage in repetitions of very similar movements and drills during
practices and games.

So what’s the answer? It’s simple, really. Get out there and play!

Take your child to the playground, help your child learn how to swim, teach
him how to ride a bike, and then…sit back and relax. The kids will take
over and do what they were meant to do – run and jump and splash and
climb and race around like crazy – building tons of strength and
coordination as they go!
 Core Strength
Core strength is so important for everything else the body does. It’s difficult to
balance, perform coordinated movements, sit up straight in a chair, hold a
pencil, control scissors, or jump if you don’t have a strong core.

There are lots of easy ways to strengthen the core through simple play at home.
Try some of these this summer!

–Picking up objects from the floor. Do you know that you can’t squat down to
retrieve an object from the floor without engaging your core muscles? Yep, it’s
true. Whether kids are competing in a relay race where they have to retrieve an
object from the ground and return it to a container…or just cleaning up toys in
the living room, they’re strengthening their core!

–Climbing up a slide. Climbing up the slide is great for so many areas of motor
and sensory development, including helping to form a strong middle!

–Rolling down a hill. Or any rolling at all! This is just plain old kid fun! And,
really, you adults should try it too!

–Lifting something heavy. Kids can help bring groceries in from the car or take
out the garbage – or make it even more fun – can they use a sheet to make a
swing with two friends (two to hold the ends and one friend in the middle)?

–Pushing and pulling activities. Pushing a chair out of the way to sweep after
dinner, pulling a heavy laundry basket across the room to move it out of the
way, pushing a sibling or friend (or stuffed animal!) in a stroller or pulling them
in a wagon.

–Being on all fours. Give your child a section of the floor to scrub squeaky clean!
They will love the responsibility and they will get a hefty dose of core work.
Playing in an all fours position also works – try doing a puzzle or playing a
board game in this position.

–Doing somersaults! So. much.fun!

–Climbing the stairs on all fours.

–Sweeping or mopping floors, raking leaves, or shoveling snow —great ideas to

keep your child helping around the house while strengthening their core!
 Gross Motor Fun!
Ball Skills
Stack up tennis balls to make a pyramid (a square of several balls on the
bottom, and then layering the balls upward to the top point). Have your child
throw another tennis ball, roll a tennis ball, or kick a playground ball to
knock down the target!

Jumping
Place something on the ground and encourage them to jump over it. A taped line,
a favorite small toy, anything! Motivation is key here — DON’T SQUASH IT!

Make a target. Tape a piece of paper or stick a sticker to the ground a few inches
in front of your child. On the count of 3, say JUMP! See if they can land on it.

Model jumping for them. Stand next to your child, encourage them to watch you,
squat down and jump!

Jump to pop bubbles! Blow bubbles low to the ground for your child and see if he
can jump up and pop them.

Stairs
Practice stepping onto and off of a small step stool or stack of books. Have your
child go up with one foot leading and then step off the other side with the opposite
foot first.

Have your child practice going up and down the stairs while carrying objects. Start
light and move toward heavier (like the weight of a few books or a backpack).

Use two different kinds of stickers, placing them on each step where your child’s
foot should go, alternating stickers. Try to space them right where your child
would actually step. Having the visual cue of the alternating stickers helps the
child learn how to step on each stair with an alternating foot.
 Mess-Free Sensory Play!
Making a mess with your hands is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to
sensory play. We therapists love a good healthy dose of messy tactile play. But the
sense of touch is only one of the avenues we can use to target overall sensory
development in kids. In addition to the tactile system, kids also need exposure to
play that appeals to the vestibular, proprioceptive, auditory, olfactory, oral
sensory, and visual systems.

Here are some of our favorite no-mess sensory play activities for kids!

-Rolling, Tumbling, and Somersaulting – We love laying out our tumbling mat and
letting kids go wild, showing off their favorite acrobatic moves! Or, take it outside!
The only mess in sight will be a few grass stains from rolling around in the yard!

-Rough House Play – Get kids upside down, spun around, and rolled around with
some fun rough house play! Great fun and great for the vestibular system!

-Playing Music That Gets Kids Moving – Kids songs are great for encouraging kids
to listen to and follow directions and to work on processing, timing, and
sequencing.

-Scratch n Sniff Stickers – There’s no need for a lot of fancy materials when this
tried and true classic does the trick! Kids love smelly stickers – try some fun
sticker activities using these smelly little gems!

-Making Funny Faces: Play with making silly faces in a mirror or imitating each
other’s funny faces: open your mouth wide, stick your tongue out, smile, frown, or
fill your cheeks up with air!

-Drinking from a water bottle with a straw or drinking through silly straws

-Blowing Up Balloons

-Playing With Flashlights

-Playing Matching, Sorting and Categorizing Games – Sort or match by color,

shape, size, or any other visual attribute!

-Playing I Spy – Play the old fashioned way, or try this fun twist on the game!

-You can still use shaving cream, finger paint, and other messy materials without
making a huge mess. Simply seal the messy material inside a large sealable bag
and let kids squish away!
Draw a picture in the box. Write a
sentence about your picture!
Draw a picture in the box. Write a
sentence about your picture!
Draw a picture in the box. Write a
sentence about your picture!
For more writing practice for kids, be sure to check out The
Pen Pal Project at theinspiredtreehouse.com!

http://theinspiredtreehouse.com/writing-prompts-for-kids-
the-pen-pal-project/

Each week, we'll be adding a new free printable writing

prompt for kids to print out and use to write a letter to a pen
pal!

Need a pen pal? We can help! Send us an email at

[email protected] and we will do our best to
match your child with a friend who he can exchange letters
with all summer long!