Sensory Camp 2016 Day 2

What a truly incredible morning we had this past Monday! Painting sticks, mud pies, tire towers, nature balancing on trees, yummy organic treats, animal yoga, lions breaths and playground play. These kids are just awesome and not short on smiles by any means! Special thanks this week to Donna Bonang, Eva Morrow, Niki Olesky and Abigail Schmidt - this camp wouldn't be possible without all of the help and support that I have received. 
















We started our morning at our fire pit area built by lbstonework.com, drawing on the stones with chalk and reviewing our day. Next, we painted the sticks that we found during our nature walk in the woods last week. Fine motor, visual motor, bilateral skills and the tactile system were targeted with this activity. Next week, we will complete our nature instruments and have a musical parade with them around the yard (auditory love). Children with sound sensitivities will be able to choose a quieter
way to make their instrument too. The kids had so much fun painting the sticks, and themselves!  Some children even tolerated waiting to have their hands washed until all of our tactile activities were completed, which was awesome to see. It's amazing to watch these kids grow and show improved sensory integration after just 2 camp sessions! My job could not be better, right?!

 












Next up, mud pies, OH MY! We paired mud pie making with tire tower climbing. This way, if children became a little over stimulated or wanted to avoid the messy activity, they had another option! The tire tower is a great activity for building strength, working on balance along with improving proprioceptive and vestibular 
awareness as well. It was also a big hit! 





Well, by this time of the morning the kids were starving.... Off to the fire pit area for some yummy snack! Snack this week included: 'Like a Bowl of Oatmeal' Muffins and Lemon Hibiscus Tea "Juice". I have to give all props for today's snack to my dear friend, PT, Ayurveda trained, Yogi, Nutritionist and health nut (in a good way), Rebecca Davis! Thanks for your ideas, always!

Here are the recipes:
Oat Muffins - made before your oven is even pre-heated! 

• 3c oats
• 2c oat flour - you can just grind the oats in a coffe grinder, Vitamix or I use the cup attachment to my Ninja blender.
• 1 tsp. baking soda or baking powder (I have found them interchangeable altering the taste only slightly)
• 1 egg - to make vegan just substitute in a flax egg (mix 1 tbsp. ground flax seeds with 3 tbsp. water)
• 2/3c maple syrup
• 2/3c coconut oil melted
• 1/4-1/2c chocolate chips, raisins, or currants

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients together while your coconut oil is melting. Then, add in the egg, maple syrup and coconut oil. Fold in raisins (or whatever addition you choose) Mix well. Spoon into mini muffin tins (make sure that you are using pans that are free of PTFE and PFOA).

Mini-muffins - Bake @ 350 degrees for 13 minutes

Regular muffins - Bake @ 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes

Lemon Hibiscus Tea

Boil Hibiscus Tea leaves and let steep for at least 10 minutes. There are many theories on steeping your tea, but I tend to let mine steep hoping for the most benefits of the leaves! Strain the tea into a large mason jar (avoid plastic), add in honey or maple syrup, and squeeze in lemons. Once cooled to room temperature, allow tea to cool in the fridge. It's a healthy delicious "juice" without any of the refined sugars found in all juices on the market, even organic. 

The kids gobbled up everything again this week and loved the tea too. Healthy treats for active campers. I whole heartedly believe that we could avoid many of the sensory, behavioral, developmental and learning challenges seen in many youth today by changing their diets, avoiding wheat, sugar, processed foods and eating a whole foods diet. Snack has been an important part of sensory camp, and again, the kids have gobbled it up the past 2 weeks! You are what you eat!

Off to our Yoga safari in the grass it was - the kids had a blast pretending to be frogs, giraffes, trees for the giraffes to eat, cobras, downward dogs, twice, and more! After yoga we came together for some deep breathing (smelling the flowers and blowing out the candles) and camper requested, lions breath! Yoga is so amazing in a zillion ways, and teaching kids how to access self-regulating tools young, can be key to their lives! 

We have ended each camp session with nice, child-directed free play at the playground. This week, we also had our nature balance trees all set-up. These are so awesome and the campers had a blast walking, balancing and exploring. The playground is also set-up to build strength and allow kids to move their bodies about. Many children chose the monkey bars this week too - love it! Kids need to move and these campers never stopped! 

Thank you, parents, for sharing your little campers with us. 
We can't wait for next Monday! 

Pediatric Play is always available for consultation related to your child's development, sensory needs, lifestyle assessment and basic nutrition. Please feel free to contact Michelle with any of your questions and/or concerns. 

GF Playdough Recipe for you!

I love playdough but not so much the "non-toxic" play-doh! I've toyed with recipes in the past and they have all been okay, but this is now our favorite. It's already a gluten free recipe, so you don't need to figure out substitutions (that don't always pan out) like in other recipes!

Playdough is an awesome tool for children and works well in our family because my 2 and almost 4 and 6-year olds love it just the same! Making it before playing with the playdough makes it extra special and gives the kids special ownership of their activity! I also use playdough as an OT because it works on fine motor skills, bilateral coordination, the tactile system, creativity and pretend play skills, sharing and turn-taking. I've blogged about the fun and benefits of playdough in the past as well!

So, here is a link to the recipe! Thank you Wellness Mama - you always deliver! If you have never been to Wellness Mama before, after you get your playdough recipe, with tips for natural coloring, you should look around. The site is pretty amazing. Her deodorant recipe is a favorite of mine too!

http://wellnessmama.com/118943/homemade-playdough/

#OTMonth #HolisticOT

Homemade Binoculars & Bear Hunt // Fine Motor, Visual Motor, Bilateral & Play Skills

This morning, my boys were obsessed with going on a bear hunt around the house. I'm not sure why, but bears have been a hot topic around the house this winter! So, to make this activity more interesting, we decided that we needed binoculars before going on our hunt. I rounded up some toilet paper and paper towel rolls out of the recycling bin (happy environment :), and our activity began! I did the cutting of the paper towel roll for this one, but if your kids are older than mine, I would let them cut the paper towel roll in half with adult scissors (works on fine motor, visual motor & bilateral skills). The rolls are a nice resistance to help increase hand strength as well. Next, and the rest of the steps the boys did mostly on their own (they are almost 4 and almost 2), we glued 2 rolls together and let them dry (fine motor skills/strengthening & bilateral skills). I also had the boys blow on the glue, incorporating oral motor skills, to help it dry faster, as patience is limited with my youngsters, but something we work on improving. 

**Now, this is a complete side note from the activity, but looking at the picture above, there is a lot going on, to say the least. When I took the photo, I honestly didn't pay enough attention to the snowsuit drying on the chair in the background, the empty fruit bowl, and the different placemats on the table. Although you can get the gist of the activity from the photo above, a child with any visual challenges may have a hard time deciphering what this photo is showing, as it is visually overstimulating. They may get lost in the chaos of the picture, and making this point is exactly why I kept the picture on this blogpost. This is important to remember when working with kids, especially kids that are showing challenges related to visual perception or visual motor integration. A note teachers and parents, keep worksheets "easy on the eyes," and when setting up activities, have workspaces clean and organized. In other words, simply limit visual chaos when you can, allowing kids to be more successful and be able to focus better on the task at hand!** 

Once we were done blowing on the glue, we got our paint ready. The only colors that we had left in the house this morning were the primaries, which ended up working out great to teach Henry about mixing colors. Right now, his favorite color is purple so we took some blue and red, blended, and Voila, purple! To Lukey, everything is blue right now, so he just had fun painting!

After mixing, the painting followed. First, painting hands (tactile system targeted), then, painting the binoculars in the making. In the photo below, you can see Henry holding the rolls with one hand and painting with the other (bilateral skills), he is also working on his fine motor and pre-writing skills, along with incorporating visual motor integration deciding where to paint while remaining on the rolls. His proprioceptive system is also playing a role here, letting Henry know how much force to use during   the activity!

 Binoculars painted and drying. Again, working on patience, and teaching the boys that satisfaction is not always immediate. Developmentally, they don't have the capacity to comprehend waiting forever for things. However, I feel that children nowadays get immediate gratification with everything, mainly due to technology. Teaching them to wait from time to time, is a great life lesson starting young, and will help hopefully help my boys as they get older because gratification shouldn't be immediate, if it's worth it at all!

 Now that the binoculars were dry, it was time to poke holes in the side and make our holder. I used the sharp part of the scissors to poke a hole through simply because I didn't have a one hole punch available. If you do, allowing the kids to use the hold punch is great for working on fine motor skills, improving intrinsic hand strength along with bilateral skills. I let the boys string the string through the holes (fine motor, visual motor, bilateral skills) putting on the finishing touch, and then it was time to hunt (play skills).

Henry was a bear himself getting mad at me for the final photos, so this is the happiest face that I could get! But once we started playing and pretending, it was all smiles from that point on!

I hope that this helps give you an activity idea to do with your kiddos at home or with your clients in OT! Something so fun for the kids, is again, developmentally so beneficial on numerous accounts. It's also an activity that can be graded for different ages, I briefly discuss grading activities in a previous post Saturday Morning OT..In the Comfort of your own Home?!

Happy Hunting!

What's in my boys Easter baskets?

With Easter around the corner, I figured that I would share what an OT puts in her kids Easter baskets. Henry will be three and Luke will be one, both at the end of April. I am not against sugar every once in a blue moon, but a basket filled with sugar is a disaster for any kid. Here is what is on the Easter Bunnies agenda in our house this Sunday.

Henry's Basket:

• ZOOSTICKS - Great for building fine motor strength and coordination.

• VELCRO CATCH BALL SET - Works on eye/hand coordination, bilateral skills, strength pulling the ball off of the velcro, turn taking.

• BUBBLES - Strengthens oral motor skills and is a great visual tracking activity. Also works on bilateral coordination (one hand holds bubbles while the other hand holds the wand) and fine motor skills (holding the wand) along with eye hand coordination. Have your child chase the bubbles, jump, squat and clap them and you have just added gross motor skills to this simple, wonderful activity of BUBBLES!

• SOCKS - He just needs them! However, beginning by age 2, your children can be independent in putting on their own socks. This activity that needs to be done daily is such an amazing therapy task. It takes postural control, balance, bilateral coordination (using 2 sides of the body together in a coordinated manner), eye hand coordination, fine motor strength and control of how much force to use. So, you don't have to go buy socks for your kids Easter basket, but make them independent in putting them on!

• EASTER GRASS - That we made by cutting small strips of construction paper. Cutting works on fine motor, visual motor and bilateral skills. 

• Annie's fruit snack mix

• Organic gummy bears

• One small chocolate carrot & Reece's peanut butter bunny (I couldn't resist!)

Lukey's Basket: *Remember, he's not even 1!

• A Small Ball - A great activity for infants. Works on bilateral skills, visual motor integration, visual tracking and turn taking

• Bubbles - It's never too young to start and I love watching the boys interact when Henry blows bubbles to Luke as he chases them, visually tracks them and laughs!

That's it for Lukey! 

Happy Easter!

Over the Rainbow to me Pot o' Gold

Just in case you were wondering what to do with all of those toilet paper rolls, here is a great idea! With St. Patrick's Day at your door, use the TP rolls, (which if you're not using for crafts, I hope you are at least recycling - happy environment :) to make a rainbow headed toward a pot of gold. Here's what you need:

1. A wire hanger
2. Toilet paper rolls
3. Tape
4. Paint

Start with your wire hanger -  pull it apart and then make it into an arc. 

Next, line your table with newspapers for your child/student, get an old egg carton and put a dollop of each color separately in it's own egg space - happy environment :) recycling 2 on this project! 

Have your child paint each toilet paper roll a color of the rainbow, set them aside on the newspapers you have laid out to dry.

Once they are dry, have your child help you string them onto the wire hanger. Use tape on the inside of the rolls to help them stay closer together.

To make your pot of gold, follow this link http://www.makeandtakes.com/make-your-own-pot-of-gold. What you will need is:

1. A small terracotta pot or black pot that you may already have (you can use a larger one than shown on this link to fit the entire wire hanger rainbow)
2. Easter Grass - Instead of buying Easter grass, cut up thin strips of green construction paper that you already have at home - happy environment :)
3. This link calls for gold foil wrapped candies; however, instead of candies (since sugar is awful for our children) I used mixed nuts. You can also use jewels or gemstones to look like gold or fake gold.

From an OT perspective, what are you working on?

• Fine motor skills - Even if your child is young, encourage a more mature grasp on the paint brush (instead of a thumbs down grasp or a fisted grasp), as shown above. If your child is older, encourage an even more mature grasp by having them hold with just the pad of their thumb and pointer finger with the paint brush resting on the knuckle of their middle finger
• Visual-Motor skills - Eye hand coordination while painting and stringing the tp rolls
• Bilateral skills - holding the toilet paper roll with one hand and painting with the other; stringing the tp rolls onto the hanger, cutting the green strips of construction paper holding with one hand and cutting with the other
• Cutting - Again, even if you have a toddler at home, encourage a "thumbs up dude" grasp on the scissors
• Color Recognition/Naming - Have fun naming and working on learning colors while painting the rainbow
• Ethics! - Teach your kids about recycling and why it is important! happy environment :)

Happy St. Patty's Day Everyone!