Holiday Craft Ideas/Techniques

A couple of Christmas craft ideas (after the fact, I know...) that the kids loved and that turned out so cute!

These craft techniques/ideas can be used for any holiday- bubble wrap print or glue torn painted paper on a heart for Valentine's Day, a shamrock for St. Patrick's Day, an Easter egg for Easter, etc. It's a fun way for kids to be creative, and no two turn out the same! At the same time, they are working on fine and visual motor skills, bilateral skills, motor planning, organization, getting tactile feedback, etc.

Painted Paper Tearing/Cutting:

tempera paint

glitter

construction paper

aluminum

glue

scissors

The kids chose their tempera paint colors, and painted a sheet of white construction paper. Some chose to also sprinkle glitter on it while still wet. We let them dry, and in a 2nd session, did a project with the painted paper. 

Some did paper tearing and glued the pieces into an ornament shape. For the other activity, the kids cut strips of different lengths of the painted paper and arranged them by length to make a Christmas tree. We added an aluminum foil star for the top of the tree or a square for the ornament top.

Bubble Wrap Printing:

tempera paint

bubble wrap 

poster board/construction paper

scissors

The kids chose their tempera paint colors, painted on bubble wrap, and pressed the painted bubble wrap onto a triangle Christmas tree shape that they cut out of construction paper. 

I did have some students who had a hard time with painting on the bubble wrap, as they wanted to pop the bubbles vs. paint on them! 

Earth Day!

So important to encourage kids to take care of our planet! Check out some of the resources and links below to help commemorate Earth Day with your kids/students!

You can find the above q-tip painting free printable here: Natasha's Crafts- Crafty Teacher Link

Earth Day Sensory Bin Ideas from Fun-A-Day: 

Sensory Bin- literacy

Sensory Bin-Math

Lots of free Earth Day activities from Teachers Pay Teachers to browse:

TPT Free Earth Day Activities

Spring Outdoor Activities

It's been a year since my last post????? I have really been a slacker... spring is finally here (sort of), and so I thought I'd post a little bit about doing some fun outside activities. These types of activities can address a number of skills: fine and visual motor skills, motor planning, tactile and visual sensory input, direction following, etc., all while having fun outdoors!

• bucket of water and some paint brushes- paint with the water on the side walk or brick building, practice numbers and letters, draw
• paint sidewalks with homemade chalk paint- use in spray bottles, squirt with a condiment bottle, paint with a brush Chalk Paint Recipe
• sidewalk chalk- buy some or make your own (see link below for recipe and activities from Fun-A-Day)

• blow bubbles, play with a bubble gun or bubble machine  Make your own bubble solution:

2 cups warm water

1/3 cup dish soap

1/4 cup corn syrup

• hula hoop, jump rope, ankle skip ball, Chinese jump rope
• make pinwheels and take outside in the wind DIY pinwheels
• side walk chalk: hop scotch, maze, activity/sensory path

• scavenger hunt/I spy: give everyone a clip board- circle the items found on a worksheet, print the word of the item once found 
• fly a kite- DIY link: DIY Garbage Bag kite

Fun-A-Day has a lot of activity ideas for side walk chalk and paint use, recipes, etc. that you can access here: Fun-A-Day Chalk Activities

OT Summer Bucket List

The OT Toolbox has a free "100 Things To Do" this summer list that is available for download-  

The activities on this list:

• inspire active play
• add heavy work for proprioceptive input
• have movement for vestibular input 
• have tactile input
• can be calming or alerting
• are sensory-based movement activities

Check it out here: https://www.theottoolbox.com//100-things-to-do-this-summer/

Tactile Play- Dry and Messy

I have posted on this topic before, but I recently received an email from Fun A Day blog (I'm a subscriber), and I thought I'd share. My team recently has had some interesting responses from students with tactile sensory defensiveness in regards to not wanting to touch anything messy. The issues came up while working on daily living skills tasks that included making a simple snack using peanut butter- one student in particular was so distressed about getting peanut butter on his fingers that he refused to pick up the snack to take a bite, but rather brought his mouth to the edge of the plate to take a bite. With a situation like this, I would start with dry tactile input intervention/exposure, progress to tolerance of wet (but not sticky) tactile input, and finally to messy/sticky input. Fun A Day has the following blog posts that have some great tactile activity ideas, and you can find them here-

Dry:

https://fun-a-day.com/dry-messy-play-ideas/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=%F0%9F%99%8C%F0%9F%8F%BC+Tons+of+Messy+Play+Ideas&utm_campaign=Tons+of+messy+play&vgo_ee=AEHVg7LvQ%2FsMgUmgQVgRplBNjIl2q6kUcKeCvmCOYDQ%3D

Messy:

https://fun-a-day.com/messy-play-recipes/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=%F0%9F%99%8C%F0%9F%8F%BC+Tons+of+Messy+Play+Ideas&utm_campaign=Tons+of+messy+play&vgo_ee=AEHVg7LvQ%2FsMgUmgQVgRplBNjIl2q6kUcKeCvmCOYDQ%3D

Mother's Day Art Activity

Here's a cute, quick Mother's Day activity to try- You need:

• paper
• black marker
• tempera paint

Draw a line for a stem with lines extending from the top. I had my students imitate me drawing. Have the students dip their finger in tempera paint and make small dots along the lines. Simple! Simple and yet, some of my students had difficulty with grading the amount of pressure to use to make the dots, some of them did not like to get their hands messy, and some of them had a hard time motor planning where and how to place the dots along the lines. We had fun making them!

My example is on the right

Earth Day Activities

I love Earth Day Activities because I can re use or recycle things to use in my projects with kids- here are 30 Earth Day activity ideas from Crafts on Sea that you can use for your Earth Day lesson planning:

https://www.craftsonsea.co.uk/recycling-activities-for-kids/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=recycling_crafts_kids_can_make&utm_term=2022-04-20

Get your kids and students on board by having an Earth Day Scavenger Hunt- check out this free printable from Life Over C's:

 https://lifeovercs.com/earth-day-scavenger-hunt-for-kids-free-printable/?vgo_ee=AEHVg7LvQ%2FsMgUmgQVgRplBNjIl2q6kUcKeCvmCOYDQ%3D

Pepsico Recycling Recycling Resources for Classrooms and Families- this is an awesome website that I just became aware of. You can search by role, grade, subject and resources and there is a ton of information here!

And as an adult in general, I have been trying to do more things myself to reduce the amount of plastic waste that I am contributing to...here are a few of my favorite things that I have recently started using at my own home: 

Blueland Zero waste cleaning tablets in reusable, refillable packaging- I have replaced almost all of my cleaning products with this brand.

Earth Breeze Eco friendly zero waste laundry detergent sheets- zero plastic packaging, and it is free of all kinds of stuff we don't want in our products. Check it out!

Some fun sustainable products that I love:

Rothy's  Shoes made from made from recycled single-use plastic water bottles and marine plastic- and they are washable! 

RAREFORM Bags made from recycled billboard signs- ever wonder what they do with those things?? No 2 are the same, and they come in a variety of sizes.