Jan Olsen of Handwriting without Tears in Costco Connection

I love Costco and their Costco Connection and it was super cool to see Jan Olsen, Occupational Therapist of Handwriting Without Tears fame in their magazine. 🙂 Rock on with your handwriting bad self! I may have missed it, but I know AOTA is pretty good about mentioning PR and I never saw any mention of it anywhere…

Scratch-off coupons for hand strengthening

Scratch-off coupons…I got a pile at Kohl’s one day with permission. I give my OT kids one and a coin and show them how they can use it to scratch off the silver stuff and tell me how much my coupon is for so I can go buy some clothes!!! I like it for a hand strengthening activity because they have to use quite a bit of pressure. I just noticed in this picture that my kid’s thumb is kind of hyperextended which is not ideal so I need to watch for that.

I saw somewhere on pinterest once where you can make your own scratch-off things and it looked cool but also like something that was too much work for me most of the time! I’d rather visit Kohl’s every once in a while, lol.

Karen

My boring stick people need hula-hoops: lefts and rights

Meet my boring stick people. They are SO SUPER boring, that the only way to make them fun is to give them hula hoops. 🙂

Materials: “Bobbins” racks from Michael’s or other sewing or craft stores + some white plastic rings that had something to do with sewing as well.

Activity: Put “hula hoops” on stick people via my directions, ie “Row 2, left…..Row 3, middle left…Row 1, right….”

Working on: lefts/rights, following directions, etc. I mostly put this together to work on lefts/rights. 🙂

Note: I put a L and R on my hands with marker ALMOST every day (and often on my kids hands)…The other day I asked a kid to show me his left hand during an evaluation. He had trouble with it. A few minutes later I did something and he spotted the L and R on my hands and was like “You’re cheating!!!!” ahahahahaa

Zinkies: fine motor that translates over to handwriting

I  knew about Squinkies (which they sell in a 3-pack at Costco right now), but I hadn’t heard of Zinkies, which are mini Squinkies, until recently when Tonya of TherapyFunZone.com mentioned them. When I saw them at Michaels and had a 50% off coupon, I was thrilled! So I got the $13 set for like $6. Yes, it’s kind of a lot for random tiny figurines, but they are soo cute and the tweezers are awesome too. 🙂 Great for hand strengthening, encouraging open webspace, working on instrinsic hand muscles, etc…fine motor skills that translate over to developing the muscles that help you hold your pencil correctly. 🙂 

Lava paper and Super Mario and Kindergartener Awesomeness :)

At the beginning of this year, this kid’s handwriting had um, well, a good reason to be in OT….But only a few months later, look at this beautiful writing. I had trouble telling what was adult writing and what was his writing! (He was copying words from a sight word game). A KINDERGARTENER! 🙂  He really likes the lava paper. 🙂 And those tubes are from a thing of Super Mario stickers I got at Party City. Those Mario stickers are VERY popular.

Classroom Seating Solutions: Foot fidget

http://classroomseatingsolutions.com/

I got this foot fidget for free last year to blog about at a conference. I’ve mentioned it before but it was out the other day so I snapped a photo. I like it a lot, but it’s currently (my fault) at kind of an awkward height. I really want it as a standing desk so I need to get the leg extenders, but to measure that requires tools etc. Kids who have used it (while seated) really like it though. It’s pretty sturdy!  Wish I could more easily adjust it, but that’s the price you pay for sturdiness. 🙂

I don't know a good title for this :)

The pencil grip is not ideal, but I LOVE this picture of Davy Jones 🙂 I asked for him to draw me a picture of himself during my OT evaluation but he asked to draw Davy Jones instead so I said yes and I am glad I did because the picture cracks me up!

Blue Ghost Waiting…

My little guy who LOVES! The blue ghost (proprioceptive body sock) had to wear it in the (empty) hallway outside the room so he wouldn’t distract a few kids still working. I encouraged him to pretend to wait for the elevator so I could take a shot, we both thought it was amusing… 🙂

OT sticker shedder :)

Sick

Still sick. Been in bed since Thursday night and now it's Tuesday. Definitely going to work tomorrow as I have several meetings I can't miss. Feeling really insecure and low today! I was previously all like “Miss Awesomeness is going to take over the world!” and now I am like “Everybody else does everything better than me, why even bother”…boo. Maybe it's just an artifact of feeling sick! Things are being posted left and right to my blog I know, because I have them scheduled from being previously written, but I haven't actually written anything in a while (minus this post). One of these days I'll sit down and figure out how to fix this blog up to make it more feel like the very cool successful OT blogs out there. 🙂