Sensory Activities for the Home -
These are activities that can help calm a child across environments. Check with your occupational therapist for more specific calming strategies for your child.
These are activities that can help calm a child across environments. Check with your occupational therapist for more specific calming strategies for your child.
- -Squishes (Joint Compressions) Squeeze the arms, legs and hands
- - Pushing a weighted carriage or wagon
- - Tug of war with another peer or adult, by holding hands
- - Rolling a therapy ball over your body while he is lying down or squishing under the bean bag chair/ couch cushions
- -Hard/Crunchy/ Chewy foods to provide input in the oral cavity
- -Sucking movements to provide input to the oral cavity (i.e. sucking water through a straw) Make smoothies using yogurt and milk!
- - Animal Walking is a fun way to move about the house or playground! (bear walking, wheelbarrow walking, jump like a bunny, slither like a snake, walk like a crab, hop like a kangaroo)
- - Pulling child across the floor in a blanket
- - Swimming
- - Chasing games, play Red Light, Green Light!
- - Bouncing a ball
- - Using the equipment at the playground (sliding on the slide, swinging on the swing, bouncing on the seesaw, climbing the play structures)
- - Dancing - play the stop and freeze game, when the music is on you dance, when the music stops, you freeze!
- - Hide objects to find in the sand or bury yourself in the sand. Also hide objects in shaving cream, playdoh, bucket of beans,
- - Use food colored vanilla pudding to finger paint
- - Use squirt bottles to make pictures on the driveway, street, or side of the house
- - Color a picture with sand paper placed under the paper
- - Make cookies or some other gooey food
A great website that offers information, understanding, handouts, and tools about the complex world of sensory integration!
Looking for great ideas for gifts for those sensory seeking kids! Check out this website for a list of great ideas.
Glitter Jar
Help your body calm down
(watch the video to help calm your body down)
Help your body calm down
(watch the video to help calm your body down)
- Fill your bottle about 1/8 to 1/3 full with glue. The more glue you add, the longer it will take for the glitter to settle after shaking.
- Add glitter, start with a tablespoon or so. Take a deep breath as you watch your child pour glitter everywhere but inside the bottle. PS: a slightly damp paper towel wipes up fine glitter pretty well. A vacuum works even better.
- Fill the bottle the rest of the way with warm water. At this step, before filling the bottle all the way, you can leave a little less than an inch of space at the top of the bottle, cap it, and shake it to see if you want to add more glitter, more glue, or just more water.
- When the bottle is full up to the neck with water, glitter, and glue, cap it. I recommend using a hot glue gun to seal the cap closed. I did this by applying a single ring of glue all around the top threading and then screwing the cap on. *(recipe copied from HeartMindKids)
Bored at home? Try making your own sensory path like this one!
www.cosmickids.com/Cosmic Kids Yoga - Great interactive videos that combine yoga with a story!
Kids work out at Home videos with
The Body Coach TV
The Body Coach TV