Motivational PreWriting

I wanted to share a fun activity I've been doing with one of the kiddos I work with.

He's really into cars (as many kindergarten boys are) and he dislikes writing or practicing anything with pencil or paper (as many kindergarten boys do).

So, helping him with visual and fine motor skills for writing was a challenge. However, he loves chalk and pretending.

Chalk and chalkboards are an excellent tool to use for developing fine motor skills for writing. Having to maintain grasp on a small piece of chalk while pushing it across the board takes effort and helps build those little muscles in the fingers and hand. I recommend providing the child with broken pieces of chalk to work on increasing their pincher grasp. This will force them to use their finger tips vs using their fist or other compensatory strategies to avoid the effort of having to use their fingers.

Working on a vertical surface will help build shoulder strength but it may be more difficult for some children. So, do what works for your child or consult an occupational therapist for proper positioning techniques.

Here's the "game":

Start with a large chalkboard, chalkboard painted wall, butcher/poster page etc. Draw a person or animal on the left side of the board (dont judge my stick person).

Then, depending on your child's ability, make a "road" using curves or lines. If you're child is just starting out, draw the lines can be horizontal or vertical. Diagonal, curved and wavy lines are more challenging. The wider the road, the easier it is for the child.  At the end of the "road" draw a destination like a house (again, dont judge the art).

Have your child start on the left and use his chalk as a "car". Drawing inside the road from left to right. Here is an example of a narrative.

"Look, a giraffe! He's lost. Let's help him get back home using the magic road. Grab your chalk car and bring him home. Be careful not to fall off the road and don't go too fast or you could get a speeding ticket!!"

This is a great way to work on fine motor coordination and visual motor skills. Its teaching the child pre-writing movements necessary for letter formation. Its also working on fine motor control in order to keep that chalk car on the road! This will help the child write on the lines when the time comes.
You can also talk about how we start on the left and draw to the right. You can talk about top and bottom as well. These words (top, bottom, left, right) are important for understanding letter formation.

If you don't have a chalk board, try chalk outside on the concrete or crayons on paper. Using a white board isn't as effective because the dry erase markers slide across the board and don't give the same proprioceptive feedback to joints in the fingers as the resistance provided by chalk and crayons. Have fun with this activity, play around with story lines, use stickers in place of drawing if you aren't as "artistic" as I. ;) Enjoy!

Turn your condiment bottles into toys

We all know babies love rattles and there are plenty on the market. However, you can make your own with just a few things laying around your house and I promise your baby or toddler will love these fun noise makers all the same (if not more).  The best condiment bottles to use are the clear plastic ones with lids that can screw on and off. The pop up tops are ok but you want to make sure you're able to super glue it shut. Start by cleaning your empty bottle with warm soapy so that all the food is out. Then soak in warm soapy water for a few hours to soften the label for easier peeling off. Ideally you do not want any paper left on the bottle. Then, you fill each one of your bottles with some kind of small objects that will make noise when shaken. Here are some examples of what we use:

The bottle on the left has blue water beads inside. These are found in the floral department of any craft store. They are very tiny when dry but when you add water they expand so you only need very little or else your bottle will be full. They dont really make noise but visually they are really cool...you could add water to it to watch them swish around. If you add water it can make the bottle heavy for little ones to pick up so do so based on what your child is able to shake.
The middle bottle has dry beans, sparkly puff balls and pipe cleaners. Again, visually stimulating and makes a cool noise. The one on the right is filled with miscellaneous craft buttons. I got a big bag of these from Michaels. Coins, buttons, pebbles, small bells, nails, golf tees, or rice are all other options to add to your DIY rattle noise makers. Have fun making music, learning about cause and effect, working on upper body coordination and visually exploring these cool looking noise makers!

Making ordinary play sensational!

One way you can provide some tactile input (touch sense) is to incorporate textures into everyday play experiences. Tactile stimulation is important for developing awareness and helps our bodies (hands in particular) discriminate differences in the way things feel. This is a foundation for more advanced fine motor skills to come. It starts in the womb when baby feels the umbilical cord or find their mouth with their thumb. Babies learn through touch...not only through their hands but their mouths. Their mouths send lots of information to their brains about the properties of objects. It also feels good to chew and suck which helps calm the nervous system. If you have a baby, offer lots of toys appropriate for chewing and toys with a variety of textures. Don't forget to play with temperatures too. We like to warm up a aromatherapy rice bear and cuddle with it. We also like to play with ice in bags or sealed cups. Allowing baby to self-feed or "play" with their food is so important. YES ITS A MESS. But, they are learning so much through touch, taste and smell.

This is my daughter at 6 months. She did not have teeth yet but I gave her a really cold carrot to suck and mouth on. She got to experience the taste and it helped relieve sore gums. If your baby has teeth and is this young you may want to try one of those mesh teethers to prevent choking on a hard cold carrot. She also painted with pea mash in this picture :)

This is finger painting with yogurt and a drop of food coloring. This was taken at 8 months and this is also when we discovered she had a dairy allergy. (minutes after this picture was taken she was covered in hives boo). We now use coconut milk blueberry and vanilla yogurt for food painting.

As you baby gets older and understands when you tell them not to put something in their mouth, you can start to introduce other objects. When my daughter was 11 months we pulled out the dried pasta and pinto beans. This was done under constant supervision and she did try to taste a few times but she quickly understood these things were for playing not eating. (i still watch her like a hawk). A fun way to encourage play is to present these things with familiar toys and containers.

If you do have a little one who likes to mouth a lot, I suggest giving them things they can chew on while playing. A pacifier or in my daughter's case, her beloved keys. We place the beans/rice in shallow plastic container and put a vinyl table cloth underneath which makes clean up so much easier. Give baby lots of containers and shovels.

Older kids like this as much as the younger ones but to step it up with them you can incorporate games into tactile play. For example, instead of just sitting to do a puzzle you could hide puzzle pieces in a box or bag or rice. Have them reach in to find a piece before putting it on the board. Here is an example of how we played the game Perfection with shapes hidden in a container of Flax seed. (would recommend rubbing hands with baby powder before this one because the seeds stick to sweaty hands)

Other things you can use in your tactile boxes: cotton balls, rice, beans, flax, water beads, pebbles, bird seed, flour, corn starch, oatmeal, pudding, wet pasta, dry pasta, and corn kernels. Really, anything you can think of!! Feel free to share your ideas here! :) or check out the Facebook page and share a picture of your little ones playing with their tactile boxes

Costco has great free toys!

I've learned the best toys are often the simplest. We can spend so much money on kid toys, especially these days with all the fancy electronics. Marketing has made us feel our kids will miss out or will learn more if we buy them the best technology has to offer. But, research has shown simple (non-battery operated) open ended toys that encourage imagination really are the best way to help those young brains develop. Many of these toys can be made with a trip to Costco using THE CARDBOARD BOXES!!! My daughter has had more fun playing with the crates and boxes we find at Costco than any other store bought toy. Not only do these boxes encourage her to develop gross motor skills but they also spark imagination and will continue to do so as she gets older. Here are some of the ways we use our cardboard:

Open up cardboard boxes, duct tape them together and use a knife to cut out a window. Its a tunnel or fort.

Cut holes on the top and place near a window for the light to shine through.

Hi Mom! Surprise toys can be lowered into the box from the "sun roof". (no we dont typically let her play with cords)

As long as your little ones aren't too heavy you can cover those half size crates with a blanket and make your baby a little "stage" we put ours against the wall and it turns into a little step. This is great for working on motor skills and a fun place for baby to go and sit.

These light weight boxes are great for carrying, sitting on or in, climbing on, pushing, putting toys into and out of...the possibilities are endless. Please supervise if you have little ones because before you know they will be doing something like this----->

What fun creations can you make with recycled boxes?!

DIY Sensory Board

I'm so excited to share with everyone how we made our sensory board. What is a sensory board you might ask?? It is basically a board in which you attach objects to be explored by ones own senses(typically the tactile or touch sense). You can make it as simple or complex as you wish. There is no right or wrong way to do it. You can tailor them to infants or curious older toddlers depending on what you place on the board. We started our sensory board when my daughter was around 6months. She was sitting up and really into touching soft things and LOVED ribbon! She is now 14 months and I've added a few things. I decided to use zipties so that I can change or remove things as needed. I didn't want to use tools and wanted to be as economical as possible. Here is what I used:

A peg board. This is 2ftx4ft and bought at Homedepot

Then, its up to your creativity for adding stuff. Since I wanted to do this as cheap as possible, I made a trip to our local Dollar Store. I also stopped at the Carpet Store to pick up free scraps of carpet.

In this picture we have a green car washing sponge, round adhesive mirror, carpet squares with super glued glass gems making a border, a white duster with the handle removed, a purple scrubbing sponge for dishes, a wooden xylophone with wand attached to the board by pipe cleaner.

In this picture I have pony beads laced on pipe cleaners. The pony beads can be moved up and down the pipe cleaner. I also hot glue gunned three mesh drain covers. These are fun to feel and can be squeezed by little fingers. I glued some fake grass from the carpet store and attached a twistable fake flower. I also attached a silk flower to compare textures. The round circular thing is a plastic lid I found laying around the house. I glued googly eyes on it for color recognition and to add a bumpy texture. I also added some fun beads to pull and feel. They make a cool noise when rubbed together.

In this part, I added a purple tambourine (which I should take off a ziptie so that it is easier to generate noise from). Blue square carpet in two color tones. A LED touch light (bought at Target around $5-my most expensive item). The orange adhesive feet are for the bottom of your bathtub...they are textured...kind rough/scratchy. I added three ropes which were very curly at first, I have hopes of teaching my daughter how to braid or tie a knot using these ;). We cant forget the CURLY RIBBON!! Lastly, three hooks which are attached with an adhesive backing. We use the hooks to hang various treasures on. I'm going to walk you through how to attach objects to your board:

You need zipties and an object. This is a recycled container from baby puff snacks. Perfect size for the board and easy to attach with zipties. I also have a fun feather duster I'm going to place in the container. My 14month old loves to put things into and out of containers lately.

First, come at the board from the back and lace the ziptie through one of the holes. If your container or object is large (as is the case with this) you will have to attached two zipties together in order for it to be secure.

Secure your object to the board using the ziptie. Connect and tighten from the back of the board

Make sure you pull the ziptie tight enough so that the object will not be pulled out by grabby hands (toddlers are freakishly strong). I like to trim the excess off the tie so the board lays flat against the wall or floor.

The above picture is of a recycled yogurt cup. Since it is wide, I poked two holes in the side and laced my ziptie through it that way. This is a fun little container for toddlers to place "treasures" inside.

Or, you can hide little treasures for your toddler to discover. Today I hid little plastic shapes inside. You can place a corresponding shape sorter next to your board and invite some shape sorting to happen :) I place my board next to a full length mirror and like to hang little things like sunglasses, bead necklaces, bangle bracelets, hats and puppets on the hooks for dress up and pretend play as well. SAFETY NOTE: infants and toddlers PULL so the best thing to do is to secure this to your wall or wedge a piece of furniture on either side to prevent it from falling down on top of them. Always use this with supervision. You can also play with this flat on the floor but your containers might get smashed if you have a walker or adventurous crawler.
HAVE FUN!!!

Sorry my close up photos are not facing the correct way...my computer is having some kind of glitch and wont save the rotated photos correctly :(

A year of doodles

So, it hit me when my daughter turned 12 months. She's not a baby anymore :( tear. I want to cherish these few years of toddler-hood because I am utterly amazed at watching the smallest accomplishments she makes. One fun way to do this is through art. So, on the 17th (give or take a day) of every month I decided to set out crayons and paper and sit back to watch. Here is her art at 12 months

She was more interested in how the crayons tasted than in what they could do. The dark horizontal line was my attempt to show her. She held a few crayons and made a few accidental scribbles and then crawled away. Here is her work at 13 months

Now she is much more deliberate. However, she was very interested in pulling the crayons out of the box and watching them roll on the floor. She did understand what scribbling was and imitated me doing it on my paper. Here is her work at 14 months!

Now we have some very deliberate scribbles. She actually watched what she was doing and seemed interested in different colors. As an OT, I noticed her grasp is becoming more and more mature and for the most part she can manage the crayons with her fingers instead of her fist. (which is jaw dropping for me to see). We busted out some good old Crayola Twistables the other day. I love these because you can twist them down when not being used so curious toddlers will not leave any surprises on the walls when you're not looking.

Now, before you think my child has some crazy long attention span, I'll have you know these activities last all but a few minutes (less than 3 usually). But, I find that in these little chunks of time when we sit back and watch...we can see how each month they are learning, growing, developing skills. Its absolutely stunning to me. These small opportunities we give our toddlers to explore and play with art is such a gift of learning for them. I cherish each months "scribble" page because to me, its much more than scribble...Its a small piece of her development that I will never get back.

What newest development have you observed in your infant or toddler lately?

How We Do Cloth Diapers

I'm writing this post because many of my friends are having babies or plan to in the near future. Many people have misconceptions about cloth diapers and envision the old bulky cloth with pins holding it together and an ugly plastic cover which leaks. Today, cloth diapering has made serious upgrades!! There are so many different options (which can seem overwhelming). I wanted to share some info and pictures about the supplies I have and how the set up works for us. With a newborn, I highly recommend a diaper service if you're a first time cloth user. Newborns go potty a lot and it can be pretty overwhelming (at least it was for me). I used  Blessed Bums Diaper Service They helped me get set up with the basics and walked me through how to do everything. They dropped off clean diapers every week and picked up the dirties. No work for me other than changing baby's diaper.
After 2 months I started to wash my own diapers. This is a new ball game. I recommend the following supplies to make your life easier The Spray Pal and Bum Genius Diaper Sprayer. These two items have made clean up of the poo diapers so easy peasy. Here is a picture of them in our bathroom.

If you click the link to spray pal you will see exactly how we utilize this little gem for cleaning those poos! :) Many people ask how many diapers do you need? Well, you will come to find out it depends on a few things. The big one is how often do you want to do laundry (suggested NO MORE than every 4 days max)? How many babies do you plan on diapering? Can you stop yourself from buying?! There are so many cute prints and colors it can become addicting. I decided 24 was a good number for one baby. We use "pocket diapers". These are adjustable using snaps typically for sizes 8-35lbs. My favorite is the BumGenius 4.0 brand. This is how we store the clean ones for use

This large basket was purchased from Pottery Barn and sits on the floor next to our changer. When I need to change baby I just grab a diaper and put it on just like a disposable. I really like this video as it shows the changing process and how to clean them.Mama Natural Cloth Diapering How To!
 I pretty much do exactly what is done in the video. Except I use the spray pal so I dont have to touch the diaper at all!! (SCORE). I also soak my diapers over night in a utility sink prior to washing them because I have an HE machine which doesn't use enough water so a good soak is crucial to getting those bad boys stink free! I also use RockinGreen Laundry Deteregent. I love their stuff! I typically skip the dryer and hang dry in the sun because this saves on electricity and the sun is a natural bleach/sanitizer. Another thing I do, is use cloth wipes. I made my own using fleece cotton fabric. My mother in law helped me cut them into 8x8in squares and sew two pieces together. I have about 40 of them. I still use disposable wipes for messy diapers but majority of the time we use the clothes. These just go right in the diaper pale and are washed with all the diapers. Saves so much money on buying wipes and my babies bottom is happy. We make our own Wipe Solution. This solution is stored in a spray bottle and we just spray as much as we need each time.

So, in summary you need the following: approximately 24 diapers, a diaper pale (which is a plastic trash bin with lid), a diaper pale liner,, a wet bag for when you are out in public with a dirty diaper (this is a mini version of the diaper pale liner), and cloth diaper specific laundry detergent. Really nice to have but not a must would be cloth wipes, homemade wipe solution/bottle, diaper sprayer and the Spray Pal. Links are found above! Everyone does it a little bit different but this works for us!