We are constantly looking for ways to keep things fresh for some of the kids we see here so we were excited when Your Therapy Source did a post on Beach Ball Ther-Ex Games. Our therapists took that idea and came up with Boot Camp Ball. There are a few ways you can use it, as there are numbers, shapes and colors involved but we kept it simple and just used the numbers.
First, they came up with a list of activities that were numbered (see photo).
Next, the kiddo would pick which hand would be the ‘magic’ hand
Then, they would catch the ball (in standing for this kiddo because we were working on standing balance and bilateral hand use). Whatever number was under the ‘magic’ hand is the activity that they would do based on the corresponding number on the activity list.
Then they would repeat.
By calling it boot camp we were able to keep the pace moving and they thought it was great when there were activities like sit-ups on the list.
There are lots of ways to modify this depending on what you are working on with your kids. For instance:
- You could have them point to a number on the ball and touch it with one finger if you are working on finger isolation
- you could use shape/color combinations for kids that are working on recognizing them, or to provide more combinations
- By doing the shapes, numbers and colors you could make a really fun flow chart that would mean they would have to match up which variables were present to find out their activity
- You could do catching sitting down if standing up was too challenging, or standing on one foot if it wasn’t challenging enough
The big thing is, its another opportunity to make doing the same activities over and over again FUN!
How have you used this idea, or an idea similar to it?
