Blue unicorn :) OT kiddo

I love the little corner at the top in this case, it looks like a blue unicorn! Providing the child with some much needed proprioceptive input. 🙂

Spelling words for OT

Today I worked on spelling words with a kid while working on his ocular motor skills. We had a metronome set at 60 bpm. He’d see the word and we’d do it together to the beat, ie b, o, n, e. Then I’d take the card away and he’d repeat it, b, o, n, e without seeing it that time. It’s nice to do ocular motor work with a metronome while also using the academic piece of sight words or spelling words. In this case a teacher showed me this list and I quickly took a snap shot so I could reference it later. I am using my iPhone a lot these days for digital reminders.

Also, for the metronome, I haven’t googled the “evidence” but anecdotally and via mentors I have spoken to, having a metronome on at 60 bpm is very calming and coordinating for the brain, for SOME kids. If you’re a person – or have a kid – where you start the metronome and the kid finds it super annoying, then use it sparingly, just for spelling words or something. But if you have a child who doesn’t really care or pay attention to the metronome, by all means leave it on to play in the background while the child is working.

Morphology Junior: Wednesday Giveaway :)

Today's giveaway is from Morphology Jr, who kindly sent me a free copy to review as well as send one to the winner of my giveaway. Just submit a quick comment and that's it. Winner will be chosen via random number generator, then I'll connect you with the right person to get your copy. 🙂 It lasts one week, so until next Wednesday. I am pretty sure you can decide whether you would want to win Morphology for teens/adults or the junior version. 

Morphology Jr as an Imagination/Flexibility/Creativity Tool for Our Rigid OT kiddos

Just received a free copy of Morphology Junior in the mail, to review. I tried it out today with a child working on flexibility and imagation. This game is for 8+ years old but I have to say it was challenging even for grown-ups to figure out how to do things like make a squirrel (other people have to guess what it is) using very limited supplies such as a few cubes, a string, etc. Actually I was impressed my child came up with balloon using the wooden dowel person, a string, and a white cube. (hard to see, but it’s in the upper part of the picture on the right). I also liked his version of “eating” – he made a little table with blocks, then a green marble thing was the food, and he had the wooden dowel person tilt torwards it.

We didn’t play it exactly as it is supposed to work, but I can tell that in its current state it’s too hard for most of my kids considering it was hard for us grown ups. HOWEVER, with slight modifications, it’s an awesome concept. I’ll probably provide a few more objects than what is currently provided. I let a special ed teacher borrow it to try with some of her small groups, I encouraged her as well to modify. We played a few rounds together. I see the potential. Not ready to fully review but wanted to share the first day’s insights! Anyone else used this?

Graph paper to promote fine motor control in coloring

This was SUPER tiny graph paper I found at Michael’s on clearance or something. I have no idea what it’s intended for, but when I saw it I knew I wanted it to promote coloring skills, ie just using the fingers and carefully coloring in small squares – it takes a lot of focus as well. We have so many kids that hate coloring and just scribble – I’d rather have a kid fill in about 5 tiny, tiny squares very carefully with his wrist “glued” to the table then scribble all over a piece of paper, at least as a start while improving control. When I was a kid I used to love to color on graph paper, filling in each square carefully with different colors and making patterns. Maybe getting a half piece of graph paper for each of your children and each time they see you, they color in maybe 5 squares very small, with either a pencil (varying degrees of pressure and therefore shading) or colored pencils or other very precise tools, and eventually even if their coloring is normally horrendous, they might end up with a pretty cool work of art. 🙂

Because remember: OUR ARMS ARE NOT WINDSHIELD WIPERS! We do not erase or color with windshield wipers! 🙂

Give-Away: One year subscription to PointScribe (valued at $129)

Cheat sheets even for an OT

I recently started using a locker with a combination again, for the first time since high school. I volunteer as a hospital baby cuddler on the weekend and that’s where our purses go. Anyway, I was in a hurry so I had to google myself a reminder on how to do a combo lock, and then I took a snapshot of the screen (on your iPhone, to take a snapshot of the screen you hold down the Power key on the upper right of your phone, plus press the Home button, simultaneously). So then later instead of having to go back to the Internet I could just pull up the photo.

Also, I’ve read about OTs helping their high school kiddos make bracelets and or key chains that have the code weaved into it, ie lets say its 13 12 10, the child has a key chain that either has a certain amount of beads (13 blue, 12 red, 10 green) or literally beads with numbers on it, etc.

The Lava Paper is in!!

Our lava paper came in! I invented lava/worm/bee paper about a year ago?? and then Tonya of TherapyFunZone used photoshop to make it real, rather than my lame-o version of just drawing it onto kids paper. I typically just print out like 20 sheets at a time at home on my color printer because I do use it on a daily basis, but that is obviously quite expensive. So I used a Groupon I got through Vistaprint to get 1500 copies for I forget how much but under a $100 which is wayyyyyyy cheaper than what I was doing. Plus it’s a nicer quality paper. I use it sparingly, mostly for kids just learning the rules, and/or just cut out strips at a time instead of a whole sheet, and/or sometimes just still draw small amounts on a kid’s paper rather than use this, but since I do use it so often it’s very nice to have it.

For any new readers – I have links to this paper somewhere, lol, try checking out pinterest.com/funkist/ot-ideas and TherapyFunZone.com has it too (which reminds me I need to print out the stuff I bought from her site). But what it is is the rules of handwriting turned into drama. If you go above the sky, bees get your letters. Go too low and the worms get your letters. The lava burns your letters if they go higher than they should, only tall letters can get through the lava. Luckily, YOU are an eraser SUPERHERO so you can use your eraser powers to save the letters!

Makes it easy to cue, too once the kid is familiar. IE if a kid is going too high I can be like “Bees!” or too low “Worms!” or “Lavaaaa!! Owwww!” rather than having to be like “Gosh, Bob, I notice that your H is going a little too high over the top line.”

Lately I’ve been saying that the worms love to eat the tails of the tail letters (y, p, g, j, aka descending letters) and that anything else is poison to them. I have a rubber worm I keep in my storage clipboard and at the end of a sentence or two the worm comes to inspect to see what there is to eat. Hopefully only tails and no poison. Then the worm can do a stretchy happy dance!

One kid doesn’t care so much for the lava mid-line but LOVES the idea of roller coaster ride heights. (You know how you can only go on a rollercoaster if you are tall enough..)

IE the tall letters get to go on the roller coaster, and the short letters have to stay home and cry! As we’re writing we look at the word we’re about to write, let’s say, hmm, “example”….the e, x, a, m are all short letters with nothing too special. The p is a nice worm letter so the worms are happy. The “l” is the ONLY letter that gets to go on the roller coaster.

I read somewhere recently that you can use the non-dominant hand to show how the 3, 5, etc wrap around the finger (to help with reversals). I liked that idea, but I would want to make it more…anthropomorphic so to speak. Something along the lines of keeping the fingernail safe so you need to make sure it always has cover ….

Blue Starfish Ghost Attack!

This child is rather reserved in “real life” but if you let him get into this thing, he runs around shrieking with excitement. It’s essentially a giant spandex pillowcase with slit in back. If you use it you should make sure slit is in front and child can breathe/see…A lot of my OT kids prefer the slit in the back and you can argue it’s a safety issue, but once again I take things on a case by case basis based on their proprioceptive needs, balance, general safety awareness, the environment we are in, level of supervision, etc.

Shelby's Quest: Promo Code Giveaway