Toy Recommendation Guide 2013

Here it is… The ultimate toy recommendation list… Now if only I could afford 1 of each of them…

Check it out:

http://intelligentnest.com/2013/10/20/the-toy-recommendation-guide-2013/

Worms and Minnows!

Today’s fine motor Friday is dedicated to an activity we did at handwriting camp! In order for kids to learn good handwriting habits, handwriting has to be fun. How do you make handwriting fun, you ask? You add some dirt, worms, and minnows! Making an obstacle, have the kids reach in, grab a worm or minnow, run to another bucket, and drop it in… No dropping in between allowed! You will hear squeals, screams, and giggles as the slimy and squirmy critters wiggle in their hands! If they are unwilling or do not want to touch the critters, you can provide a net so they can still participate! Once they get to the drop bucket, have them write a descriptive word on the sidewalk with chalk! You can provide some examples or help with spelling as needed! Talk about fun!

Handwriting Camp: Sensory Walk

This week, a coworker and I have led the very first Handwriting Camp in Abilene! We have 10 campers and numerous volunteers helping us with our camp! It has been so fun to see the kids learn the letters and have fun doing it! For one of our activities, we did a sensory walk! first the kids walked on bubble wrap, then stepped into a bucket of paint, from the paint they stepped onto butcher paper, after walking a few steps, they stepped into water and then onto towels. Here are a few pictures from our sensory walk:

Everyone participated and had a blast! One of our campers who has difficulty touching various wet and slimy textures stated, “I love this!” What a great thing to hear at handwriting camp!

Musical bells

A co-worker of mine donated a broken switch toy to our job. It was an awesome bell toy that looked like a sideways Ferris wheel! However, the part that strikes the bells to make the sound was broken. After several attempts to find some way to fix it, I decided just to take it apart and use the bells! I made a small mallet, wrote up some music, and voila, new functional toy! The kids have loved it, and we’re even getting them to help write more songs! It’s also been fun to see them try to guess which song they are playing and learn to keep the rhythm! Trash to treasure!

Fine Motor Friday: Sonic Tot Tongs

Aren’t these the cutest?! Love that Sonic is giving them away as a prize! They are originally supposed to pick up tater tots, however, OTs may use them to pick up puff balls, plastic color bears, cotton balls, or any other small light weight item we could find! 😉 Great for strengthening and coordination, you could have some fun with one too for only 0.99!

Bubber and Moon Dough

A coworker of mine recently attended to AOTA national conference in San Diego. She came back with tons of goodies, but this stuff is awesome!! It’s a unique sensory experience…not sticky, but not too dry; soft, but hard enough to make into a ball. It’s super easy to clean up and never dries out. An added bonus, it’s perfect for working on pressure grading. If you squeeze too hard, it falls apart. You can also find it at Walmart where it is known as moon dough! Fun!

Lacing

I have been brainstorming a way to help my kids understand the concept of lacing. A coworker and I came up with this idea: green for go, red for stop, with a green line to follow with the lace. Starting at the star, push the lace through the green hole, pull it through until it stops, and follow the green line to the next green hole. I haven used it with several kids and it is helping! I plan on making one with only green holes to remove some of the visual cues. Has anyone else tried something fun to help with lacing?

Gertie Ball

Love these. Period.

Big Foam Dice

Not just dice, dice that are 5 inches big! How fun! The ideas to use these are endless!!!! Use for obstacle courses, number of depictions for exercises, play a bingo game, matching and counting numbers, stacking, and so much more! How have you used dice?

Fun With Paper Clips

Came up with this cheap and easy task at work this week to work on the skills for putting on a paper clip. Purchased these paper clips (actually book marks) at Mardel and used an old Pringles can from food school. 🙂 The kids loved it, which means I can add it to the blog! What else have you done with paper clips?