fine motor Archives - Blue Bird Day

Holiday Gift Ideas By Occupational Therapists

Blue Bird Day Therapeutic Preschool & Kindergarten — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 12:07:51 +0000

Help build your child’s fine motor and visual motor skills with these gift ideas by a Blue Bird Day occupational therapist.

Aqua Draw Doddle Mat: Mess free painting! Hang it up on a door to target upper extremity strengthening and wrist extension or lay it on the floor to encourage painting in prone for more tummy time.

Stickers: You can target a variety of motor skills (e.g., pincer grasp, bilateral coordination, visual motor) with sticker play. This book provides activity sheets you can use together. You may need to provide some support with their “helper hand” to hold the sheet while peeling off stickers.

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Tunnels: Crawling is very helpful for fine motor skill development and reflex integration. To support motivation to crawl through the tunnels, I like to set up tunnels when we play chase or tag with peers.

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Snap & Design Monster Trucks: Always a huge hit in the clinic! One of the best “pull back” toy cars that I’ve used. This toy works on motor coordination, and emerging problem-solving to align pieces together properly. It also promotes crawling in our gym space, which is important to support fine motor skill development.

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Easels: Using vertical surfaces (walls, easels, windows) promote wrist extension during drawing, which will help with handwriting and dexterity.

Alpha-Bots and Number Bots: These are little “Transformers” and they make great fidgets, too! They are awesome for fine motor, bilateral coordination, and problem-solving skills.

Puzzles: This is one of my favorite puzzles since it comes with 24 insets/pictures. It is a 16-20 piece puzzle, so it is complex in terms of visual motor skills for the preschool age. However, it is great for fine motor skills and in-hand manipulation skills.

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Marble Run (or Ball Tracks): Great toys to work on bilateral coordination and manipulation.

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Link 2 – A favorite toy with our kindergartners. All of our preschoolers need some support to set this up as it requires problem solving skills, but this toy challenges their bilateral coordination skills and is highly motivating with the cause-and-effect play idea!
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Fine Motor and Craft Tools: If you enjoy completing crafts at home, I’ve listed some tools below that support fine motor skill development and independence during craft activities.

Loop (Easy Squeeze) Scissors Link 1
Pipettes Link 1
Spill Proof Paint Cups Link 1 – Avoid paint spills during crafts, also works on visual motor skills to place paintbrush into cup.
Squigz Link 1 – Preschool loves the sounds the suction cups make when you pull them off the windows.

Visit our Gift Guide page to see our other gift guides, created by our Occupational, Speech, Behavior, Developmental, Physical, Feeding, and Social Work therapy teams!

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Occupational Therapy Holiday Gift Guide

Blue Bird Day Therapeutic Preschool & Kindergarten — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 19:40:40 +0000

‘Tis the season for holiday cheer and gift giving to our loved ones! Follow this occupational therapy gift guide for toy ideas to help facilitate improving your child’s skills in the different areas of OT.

Sensorimotor: The following items help provide sensory seekers with increased inputs by promoting movement and heavy work.

Sensory Regulation: These items are great for kids that need help with calming and regulating their bodies.

Tactile Exploration: We love messy play! These items promote tactile (touch) exploration which improves awareness of the hands as well as sensory processing.

Fine Motor and Visual-Motor: These items promote using the eyes and hands together, as well as increasing hand and finger strength necessary for school skills and self-care tasks.

Reach out to your child’s occupational therapist for more gift ideas or instruction on how to use these items! Happy holidays from your Blue Bird family!

Visit our Gift Guide page to see our other gift guides, created by our Occupational, Speech, Behavior, Developmental, Physical, Feeding, and Social Work therapy teams!

The post Occupational Therapy Holiday Gift Guide appeared first on Blue Bird Day.

Winter Break Survival Guide – Let’s Play a Game!

Blue Bird Day Therapeutic Preschool & Kindergarten — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 14:36:34 +0000

Don’t Break the Ice! This is a favorite for kids of many ages, easily adjusted to a variety of skills levels. It can be a great way to introduce turn-taking and playing games with rules in a fun and silly way.

Areas of Development:

Communication: This can be a great time to work on the concept of “your turn” vs. “my turn,” while engaged in play. Pairing gestural cues with your words can help your child understand the concept and begin to pair the words with that concept. For kids with higher level language, you can ask questions about what is happening in the game as opposed to narrating for them.
Gross Motor: Promote postural control and proximal shoulder stability by encouraging your child to lay on their belly while playing this game. It can be helpful to model this position, laying on your belly while playing as well! Your child may need some additional tactile cues (hand on their back or hips) to help maintain this position for longer intervals. If your child is a mover, you can incorporate movement into each turn, having to “earn” the hammer back by performing a short gross motor task, such as jumping up and down 5 times or rolling across the floor.
Fine Motor: Don’t Break the Ice is a great game to work on fine motor control and gradation of force. Using the small hammer helps promote isolated wrist movement, an important skill for self-feeding and utensil use. Encourage your child to use only one hand at a time to grasp the hammer.
Social Emotional: This is a simple cause-and-effect game with rules and turn-taking. While it may take a few trials, this is a fun way to teach your child to wait for their turn while promoting joint attention through play. Use of high affect and slightly exaggerated reactions can help draw your child in and promote participation.
Cognition: This game is called “Don’t Break the Ice,” although it can be so very fun to break the ice. Understanding the concept of “don’t” and how to win the game is a great way to practice this concept. You can also work on counting how many blocks fall each round, modeling for your child. It can be helpful to line up the blocks to promote counting from left to right to increase accuracy.

Upgrade: Have your child play with another child or sibling. Having three people play means you will need to wait longer for each turn and also have a higher chance of being the one to break the ice if force gradation is a challenge. This can help your child target frustration tolerance, patience, and turn-taking. You can also have your child restack the “ice” blocks into the stand to increase the challenge between each round.

Downgrade: If your child isn’t ready for turn-taking or for gameplay with specific rules, you can adjust the game while still targeting many skills. Start by encouraging your child to hold the hammer and knocking down the blocks. You can then have your child “earn” the hammer back by completing gross motor activities (refer to gross motor section). Work on sustained attention to task, working towards turn-taking and understanding the original rules of the game.

Additional Games:

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