What have you learned from other school staff this year? As school based occupational and physical therapists, we can learn so much from teachers, teacher assistants, administrators, school nurses, school counselors and other staff members. We may know lots of information on fine motor skills, gross motor skills, visual perceptual skills, sensory processing and coordination […]
Don’t you love activities that require little prep and include more than one domain of development? I do for sure so I created this Summer Match Up board that you can download for free below from the Summer Sensory Motor Packet. This activity incorporates fine motor skills, hand strengthening, visual discrimination skills and working memory […]
A day on the life of a traveling school based therapist goes something like this. Pack up a bag at home of equipment and tools (i.e. toys, games, paper and activities) that you will need for your therapy sessions. Some of the equipment may not be easy to carry since many therapy sessions incorporate gross […]
The May Issue of the digital magazine for pediatric OTs and PTs has been posted. It includes the following articles: CHILDREN’S HIGHER PHYSICAL ACTIVITY LEVELS ASSOCIATED WITH DECREASED DEPRESSION 5 REASONS TO USE A THERAPY PLANNER ASD: COMMUNICATION DEFICITS AND MOTOR SKILLS 3 STEPS TO HELP CHILDREN IMPROVE SELF CONTROL AND FOCUS MOTOR SKILLS IN […]
Need some Spring cut and paste practice for your students? This scissor cutting practice freebie is ready to go! You can download it for free at the bottom of the post. This freebie is from the complete Color, Cut, and Glue Packet. It includes 55 black and white printable activity pages encourage children to practice […]
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, kids ages 8-18 now spend, on average, 7.5 hours in front of a screen for entertainment each day, 4.5 of which are spent watching TV. That figure doesn’t even include the time they spend on the computer at school for educational purposes or at home for homework. With the […]
As pediatric therapists, we are well aware that children need to have stable and strong proximal muscles of the trunk and shoulder girdle in order to use the distal muscles in the fingers and hands. When we observe in classrooms, we frequently see positioning of children that could use modification. Perhaps you modify the […]
As a mother of 6 children, I happen to LOVE homemade Mother’s Day crafts. I also love anything that has a child’s fingerprints, hand prints or a drawing on it. I created the Wishing You a Happy Mother’s Day Fingerprint Craft template so the children can simply press their finger prints on to the paper […]
What is a growth mindset? It was developed by psychologist Carol Dweck who explains mindset as a self-perception or “self-theory” that people hold about themselves. For example, it is believing that you are smart or not smart, good athlete or bad athlete, good at knitting or stink at knitting. This type of mindset can have a […]
The Teacher Education and Special Education journal published a review of the literature on creating and managing effective classroom rules and behavior. Teachers report that verbal disruptions, noncompliance, and being off-task are the most frequently observed challenging behaviors. Ineffective classroom management changes the overall classroom environment, affecting students’ social and academic outcomes and teachers’ self-efficacy, attrition, and burnout. Teachers […]