I think that most people who work with kids have discovered that songs are an amazing tool to support play and therapy. We use songs all the time, sometimes they are well known songs and sometimes they are made up songs. I think my favorite part is adding parts to songs that already exist. For […]
Obstacle Course Fun!
Do your kids ever get tired of the same activities during therapy or even while playing? Well one of the ways I’ve tried to spice things up is by adding in obstacle courses. Generally I take the same skills we’ve been working on and put them all together. For the older kids I let them […]
Kids Games – New Twists on Old Favorites!
So we just finished our first Motor Smart Kids group ‘Music and Movement’ and were able to get creative with some of the games we played so I thought I would pass them along. Ten Little Monkeys For this song we had the kids jumping on a trampoline with a crash pad located in the […]
Motor Smart Toys and Tips
I’m always amazed where inspiration comes from these days, although for me its usually on the fly when I need to come up with an idea for a kiddo immediately! And, if any of you have already thought of these ideas than my hats go off to you and I would love to hear more […]
Pretend Climbing
Climbing is a great way for kids to not only develop strength but also to work on motor planning and coordination. Ladders and cargo nets and stairs are all great ways to work on climbing as well as rock climbing walls. If you don’t have these things available to you, have no fear you can […]
Motor Smart Toys and Tips
Building Toys Building toys are great for hand-eye coordination, imagination, visual motor skills, perceptual skills, grasping strength, manipulating shape orientation, sorting colors/shapes and gross motor movements to name a few. You can scatter the pieces around the room so your child has to move around for them. If they are walking they can practice squatting […]
Animals Galore!
So, to go along with my post from last week I was looking at other imaginative ways to encourage play and gross motor skills (oral motor as well if you throw in the animal sounds!). Well, one of my favorite is to pretend to be animals. You can do animal parades, animal races, animal […]
Imagination Play
Do you ever feel like you are in a rut or play the same things over and over with your kids? Or maybe you start to run out of ideas of things to do to help them stay active. Well one solution is to let them come up with ideas. I am always amazed at […]
Screen Time: How Much is Too Much?
With the rise in electronic gadgets and media that is educational, more and more children are spending increased amounts of time in front of the television, or the iphone, or the ipad, or the computer. While it is great that there are educational benefits to the programming that is available, don’t overdo it. The American […]