Occupational Therapy

Just wanted to let everyone know that OT has started this week. Students may be coming home with a little note from me or a note in their agenda books to let parents know they saw me during their school day. Please let me know if there is anything new with your child or contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Hi Everyone. Just wanted to say Welcome Back. I have missed all of you and can’t want to hear about your fabulous summer vacations. I will be coming around to everyone’s classrooms in the next few days to check in and see how everyone is making out in their new rooms. I will also be working on a new OT schedule and looking forward to beginning to work with you all soon.
Mrs. Yoder

Colonial School District
Occupational Therapy Department

Parents: Below is a short list of some suggested activities you can do with your child over the summer to help further develop their fine-motor and visual-motor skills while still having fun. Hope you all have a wonderful summer!

Summer Fun Activities

“Painting” the House or Sidewalk/Driveway
- Use a bucket of water and some clean paintbrushes. Have your child “paint” the house or driveway/sidewalk
- Work on making shapes, letters, numbers while “painting”

Clothesline Fun
- Use some old socks or cut up an old t-shirt or rag into pieces. Use a permanent marker to put letters, sight words, numbers etc on the socks or pieces of cloth. Have your child use a clothespin to place the letters on the line. They can work on spelling their names, identify the letters or say the letter sound. You could have them make sentences with their sight words or you could have them clip the same number of clothespins on the line as the number written on the cloth.

Sand Activities
- Digging and playing in the sand is great for developing fine-motor strength.
- You can have you child write letters, numbers, shapes or words in the sand.
- You can burry objects in the sand and have your child find them

Sidewalk Chalk
- Great for fun writing and pre-writing activities

Playground Activities
- Any climbing activities are great for building arm/hand strength which can then help with fine-motor skills

Swimming
- Swimming is a great upper body exercise. Kids can also draw letters, numbers and shapes in the water using their hands/arms or try it with their legs/feet

Bilateral Coordination and Crossing the Midline

What is bilateral coordination and crossing the midline?
Bilateral coordination is the ability to use both sides of the body at the same time. This can mean using the two sides for the same action (like using a rolling pin) or using alternating movements (like climbing stairs). Bilateral coordination can also refer to using each side of your body for a different action, such as stabilizing a paper with one hand while writing with the other.
Crossing the midline, which relies on good bilateral coordination, means using part of one side of the body in the space of the other part. Some examples of crossing the midline include sitting cross-legged on the floor or drawing a horizontal line from one side of the paper to the other without switching the pencil to the other hand.

Why is bilateral coordination and crossing midline important?
Having efficient bilateral coordination enables both feet or both hands to work together. This allows you to play and work with fluid body movements. Bilateral coordination and crossing the body’s midline also support a child’s development of fine motor skills, ability to use tools, and ability to visually track a moving object.

How can I promote the development of these skills in my child?
Here are some suggested activities that you can try:
o Play Simon Says (touch your left elbow)
o Kick a soccer ball (balance on one foot and kick with the other)
o Blow bubbles and reach with both hands to pop them
o Pull cotton balls apart (can glue onto a picture, make a project, etc.)
o String beads to make a necklace
o Spread peanut butter on toast or frosting on cookies (and open jar first)

Kids aren’t able to write well until they have developed good fine-motor skills. Fortunately, these skills improve easily with lots of practice.

Use the following activities to help your young child develop the precision, balance, and hand-eye coordination that are needed to perform the fine-motor skills used in handwriting:

1. Give your child clay or play-dough to play with to strengthen the major muscles used in handwriting.
2. Encourage him/her to play with Legos, miniature cars, small blocks, action figures, and other small toys.
3. Do puzzles with your child.
4. Provide creative art projects that involve using crayons, marking pens, scissors, and finger paints, as well as tearing paper.
5. Play games with your child that involve the handling of cards and small game pieces.
6. Ask your child to sort collections of loose coins into stacks of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.
7. Help your child learn to manage such everyday skills as tying and lacing his/her shoes and buttoning his clothes.

Remember, every child has a different timetable in acquiring the fine-motor skills needed for handwriting. The more your child uses his/her fingers in activities, the sooner he/she will acquire these skills.

In need of a gift idea? Here are a few that will also work on your child’s fine motor skills.

1.) Desk Accessories

A favorite one is a tin can pencil holder.
Here’s what to do: Clean a tin can (those with the pop-top lids are good choices – some Campbell’s soup cans are like that now – or use a can opener that leaves a smooth edge to avoid injury) and allow to dry. Then, cover the outside of the can. You can either make a cover for it out of paper and draw a design on it, or you can take thick twine, cording, yarn or string and wind it tightly around the can. Top off the gift with a few new pens and pencils and a note on the bottom of the can with the name of the creator and the year.

2.) Ornaments
Another favorite is the CD ornament.
Here’s how: Use a free CD that came in the mail and cut a circle out of a piece of paper smaller than the CD. Draw a holiday scene on it and glue it to the CD. To make a hanger, hot-glued a bent paperclip to the back. Another idea is to glue family pictures to the front of the CD. The mirrored surface of the CD looks wonderful on a tree, reflecting the lights.

Another easy ornament is a popsicle stick snowflake.
Take three popsicle sticks and glue their centers together, fanning them into a snowflake. Paint them white and sprinkle them with glitter. The glitter also makes a good reflection of the lights on a tree.

3.) Plant markers. If someone in the family is an avid gardener, make them to mark their garden in the new year. Take seed packets that you planned on giving as part of their gift and scan them into the computer and print them out on heavy card stock. Take them to a local office supply store and have them laminated. Then, use rubber cement (under supervision) and glue them to large craft sticks. Line them in a flower pot with the actual seed packets, a hand shovel and some work gloves, all picked up at our local dollar store. The entire gift cost us under $6.

4.) Jewelry
If you have a child who loves beads, this is a great way to teach him or her how to turn something they enjoy into a gift for someone else. They can make something simple such as a bracelet or necklace, or they can create a beaded bookmark. Place knots about 8 inches apart on a piece of nylon string to keep the beads at either end so that the mark will sit easily in between the pages of a book. Give the bookmark along with a book for a unique and thoughtful gift.

5.) Photo frames. What parent or grandparent doesn’t love a picture? Find a favorite snapshot. The options for creating a frame for the photo are endless. Make a frame out of either of construction paper or heavy posterboard. Then, the possibilities open up from there. Cover the frame in fabric pieces, shells, twigs, stickers, torn construction paper for a mosaic look. colored sand, even glitter. Complement the photo with the colors and medium chosen.

6.)Decorative trivets. Go to your local hardware or home improvement store and purchase some simple, white tiles. Paint handprints on the tiles, and use a paint pen to place the name and date of the child. We even added phrases like Grandma’s Little Helper’s and Aunt Lynn’s Best Buddy to ours. While they are not washable, they make a great keepsake and decoration for the kitchen.

Handwriting is a very complex skill with many components including: visual motor skills, visual perception skills, fine motor skills, trunk control, shoulder stability and behavioral-emotional components. If one of these skills is compromised then handwriting often suffers.

Visual Motor Skills:
Visual Motor Skills refers to ability to use vision to direct motor output. Visual Motor Skills are required to catch, kick or hit a ball, use the computer and copy letters. This term describes a child’s ability to copy shapes, letters or numbers. Basic visual motor skills for the preschooler entails drawing a line to join objects. More advanced examples of this skill involves copying cursive letters accurately.

Visual Perception Skills:
Visual Perception refers to the ability to recognize, recall and discriminate shapes, including the 26 letters of the alphabet, how to form letters and discriminate between similar letters (i.e. d and b and q and g) This term describes a child’s ability to use visual information to make meaning of what he sees.

Fine Motor Skills:
Fine Motor Skills refers to the ability to manipulate small objects with the fingers and the thumb. Children who have difficulty with fine motor skills often have difficulty manipulating fasteners, stringing beads and maintaining a functional grasp on a writing tool.

Trunk Control and Shoulder Stability:
A child who has a weak trunk and poor shoulder stability will have difficulty with handwriting tasks. A strong base of support is needed in order to manipulate a pencil. To understand the importance of a strong and stable trunk, just think about a fishing rod. Imagine a rod made of rubber. Try casting a line – it simply wouldn’t work. With a floppy rod your control of the line and hook would be non-existent. Look out! A child’s trunk is like the fishing rod. A strong and steady trunk provides the base of support needed for delicate fine motor tasks like writing.

How do I know if a child has poor trunk control?
Observe the child during a ten-minute coloring or writing task. Does he lean his arms or body on the table? Does he rest his head on his hands? These are signs of weakness with trunk control.

Try the following activities:
1. Animal walks such as crab (sit on the floor, put your hands on the floor behind you and then lift your bottom up) or bear (put hands and feet on the floor) walks.
2. Encourage child to perform activities on his tummy on the floor. Try coloring, drawing, playing with lego or blocks. Do not allow him to rest head on hands. This is a great way to strengthen back muscles!

Many muscles around the shoulder work together to hold this joint stable. When writing, we use very slow, well-controlled shoulder movements. If a child has poor shoulder stability, then he cannot hold this joint stable. If this joint is loose, then fine motor control needed for writing is impossible to achieve. Clearly, writing skills suffer.

A child has problems with shoulder stability if he cannot hold himself in a hands and knees position or locks the elbow joint in this position. He may brace his arm against his side when engaged in a fine motor activity.

Try these activities to improve shoulder stability:
1. Stand at a vertical surface such as a chalkboard to write, draw or color on paper positioned on a vertical surface (such as standing at the chalkboard).
2. Encourage child to play with games in the quadruped (hands and knees) position. Try setting up dominoes or play Jenga.

Social-Emotional Components:
A child who has difficulty sitting still during school or who has difficulty following directions will have difficulty with handwriting.

What is the web space?
*The web space refers to the circle that forms with the tip of the index finger and the thumb touching.

Why is the web space important?
*It is important to maintain this space for holding a pencil or crayon correctly. This allows for greater precision and stability on the writing utensil, and therefore more accurate handwriting. When you write with the correct grasp and keep an open web space, your hand will not tire as easily. Also, you need an open web space for grasping and pinching objects.

How can I promote development of the web space?
*For working on this fine motor skill and encouraging good handwriting, the following activities are suggested:
o Roll pieces of tissue paper into balls and glue onto paper to make pictures
o Pop plastic packing bubbles
o Play with wind-up toys that have a knob
o Write with a broken pencil or crayon
o Open/close zip lock bags
o Spin tops
o Use tweezers to pick up small objects
o String beads onto a pipe cleaner or string
o Make pictures by mixing food coloring with water. Pinch an eye dropper with thumb, index and middle fingers and drip the colored water onto paper towels

Seven Ways to Help with Handwriting

Kids aren’t able to write well until they have developed good fine-motor skills. Fortunately, these skills improve easily with lots of practice. Use the following activities to help your young child develop the precision, balance, and hand-eye coordination that are needed to perform the fine-motor skills used in handwriting:

1. Give your child clay or play-dough to play with to strengthen the major muscles used in handwriting.
2. Encourage him/her to play with Legos, miniature cars, small blocks, action figures, and other small toys.
3. Do puzzles with your child.
4. Provide creative art projects that involve using crayons, marking pens, scissors, and finger paints, as well as tearing paper.
5. Play games with your child that involve the handling of cards and small game pieces.
6. Ask your child to sort collections of loose coins into stacks of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.
7. Help your child learn to manage such everyday skills as tying and lacing his shoes and buttoning his clothes.

Remember, every child has a different timetable in acquiring the fine-motor skills needed for handwriting. The more your child uses her fingers in activities, the sooner she will acquire these skills.

It is hard to believe we are back at school already.  I am excited to meet all of my new students and can’t wait to see the students I had last year.  Hope you all had a fun, relaxing summer.  I will be coming around to each classroom in the next few days to meet all of you and to start trying to schedule your OT treatment time.  This year I will be at Wrangle Hill 3 days a week and Colwyck 2 days a week.   See you soon.

Mrs. Yoder