We had a birthday in our house this week. I have a new five year old and when you are five, parties mean balloons. I made this super simple balloon garland for the birthday girl’s special day. Making a balloon party garland is perfect for busy moms because they come together so quickly. With four kids and MANY parties under my belt, I love easy party decor.
Make this balloon garland for a photo backdrop, a draping across a doorway, or a tablescape feature.
Balloon Party Garland
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You’ll need just a few items for this DIY garland:
Use the Balloon Hand Pump to blow up the balloons. Tie the balloons off with a knot. Use the tape to tape the balloon knot down over the yarn. Position the balloons close together on the yarn. Make the garland as long as you need for your party decor.
Tape the garland to a wall for an easy photo backdrop like we did for this birthday girl!
Looking for more birthday party inspiration? You’ll love these:
Kids can use arts and crafts as a therapy tool. From the relaxation and calming sensations that crafts inspire to the fine motor skills and therapeutic motor movements that cutting, building, and creating provide, crafts have long been a therapy tool for every diagnosis.
Using what you’ve got in the house or therapy clinic is one of the best ways to encourage creativity. When you’ve got the materials on hand, creating is as easy as pulling out the glue. Today, I’m sharing a collection of creative and fun crafts that use felt scraps.
Use Felt Scraps in Therapy to Boost Fine Motor Skills
Try these activities as a therapeutic craft to boost fine motor skills, visual motor integration, problem solving, imagination, upper body range of motion, posture, endurance, participation, and social emotional skills.
Felt Mosaic Votive Holders from Mom and Crafters are a great way to encourage scissor skills and eye-hand coordination.
Rainbow Cork Penguin Ornaments from Red Ted Art can boost fine motor skills including pincer grasp and bilateral coordination.
Nature Owls from Messy Little Monster encourage scissor skills, bilateral coordination, pincer grasp, and eye-hand coordination.
Felt Owls from Hattifant may provide neat pincer grasp, bilateral coordination, pinch and grip strength, and eye-hand coordination.
Kandinsky Inspired Felt Trees from Mum in the Mad House provide an opportunity for developing scissor skills, bilateral coordination, and visual perceptual skills.
Felt Coasters from Zing Zing Tree encourage a development of bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, pinch and grip strength, and in-hand manipulation.
A DIY Woodland Play Mat from Adventure in a Box builds imagination and pretend play, encouraged language and self-confidence and can help with social emotional skills.
Felt Scraps Fairy Wands provide a fine motor activity while encouraging range of motion, pinch strength, and eye-hand coordination.
Affiliate links are included in this post:
Felt Fantastic book shares 25 felt crafts that are perfect for building fine motor skills in every age range.
Kids Crafternoon Felting Projects is perfect for boosting problem solving skills through arts and crafts with a fine motor component.
Felted Friends are great for developing eye hand coordination and bilateral coordination.
How would you use felt scraps to build fine motor skills in your therapy clinic or home activities?
You might have seen this month’s sensory calendar. October is all about harvest, leaves, and pumpkins and those harvest themes are very sensory experiences! Being that October is Sensory Awareness month, this small series is perfect for sharing. Try the activities below to add a bit of Proprioception Sensory activities with a Fall Harvest theme!
If you are looking for more fall or harvest themed sensory play ideas, grab your October Sensory calendar. Join us in the sensory challenge as we encourage sensory experiences every day this month.
Fall and Harvest Themed Proprioception Sensory Activities
1.Move Pumpkins- Pumpkins are everywhere. Use pumpkins to address proprioceptive needs by having kids pick up and move pumpkins from place to place. Kids can pick their own pumpkin at a farm, carry their pumpkin to provide upper body proprioception input, strengthening, and addressing balance and coordination needs. Heavy work is organizing and moving pumpkins can address sensory needs simply by picking up and carrying pumpkins. Try these heavy work activities: Place pumpkins in a line, move them in the yard, place them in bucket or wagon, and pull them in a pumpkin parade. Decorate pumpkins with stickers or paints and then carry them to deliver to friends or neighbors.
2.Leaf Rake- Raking leaves is a great proprioception activity. Use a child-size rake for better coordination. Work on balance and gross motor skills by asking your child to rake on a slope. Use a small pile of leaves and try to rake them into a bucket or laundry basket lying on it’s side. Try timed games like speed raking with several kids. See who can rake their pile the fastest or across the lawn. When you’ve got a pile big enough, jump in it!
3.Hike up hills at a farm- Walking up and down hills addresses balance and coordination of the large muscles of the body. An added benefit of hiking is the proprioceptive input with hiking up and down hills. A sloped farm or hike through a park are a great way to sneak in this sensory activity. Make it a nature hunt to address visual scanning while looking for acorns, pine cones, and colorful leaves. Kids can place their fall treasures into a basket to save for crafts and sensory activities.
4.Pumpkin Rocks- Collect rocks of all sizes and weights. Use them to create pumpkin rocks by painting them orange and then painting on jack-o-lantern faces. Painting rocks is a very tactile sensory experience, using both hands together in a coordinated manner. What makes this activity perfect for heavy work and addressing proprioception needs is playing with the painted pumpkin rocks after they are dry. Stack them, sort them, build with them, create small world sets, and decorate the front stoop with them.
5.Pumpkin Wagon Pull- Load a wagon full of leaves, sticks, corn husks, pumpkins, and even your pumpkin rocks to build a heavy work wagon pull activity. Kids can pull the wagon over the lawn for heavy work through the whole body. Pull the wagon on flat sidewalks or driveways for less heavy work. Go on a family walk with your collections or set up an impromptu Halloween parade with kids in the neighborhood.
6.Leaf Pull- If your lawn is covered with leaves, this is a great proprioception activity for the whole family. Lay an old sheet or tarp out on the grass. Rake it high with leaves. Kids can then grab each of the four corners and pull the leaves around the yard. Try making a smaller version with beach towels for younger kids. Set up an obstacle course in the yard to address visual motor integration needs. Add a vestibular component by taking kids for rides in the “leaf cocoon”.
Looking for more ways to explore all things sensory this month?
Are you looking for more information on Sensory Processing and Proprioception (or any of the sensory systems and how they affect functional skills, behavior, and the body’s sensory systems? This book, Sensory Processing 101, will explain it all. Activities and Resources are included. Get it today and never struggle to understand or explain Sensory Integration again. Shop HERE.
Until October 10, we’ll be spreading some sensory love with this amazing deal:
The ebook will remain on sale for $9.99 for the rest of October, but the bundle will only be available until October 10 – so be sure to grab yours ASAP!
This month’s Occupational Therapy calendar explores the season’s finest with a Harvest theme. If you’ve missed this years’ series of calendars, you can check out last month’s calendar for activities that will keep your child occupied with sensory play and experiences well into this month.
Each month, I’ve been sharing creative and seasonal sensory experiences that address sensory needs based on each of the senses. I try to come up with activities that can be modified to address multiple developmental areas such as fine motor skills, visual motor integration, gross motor coordination and balance, and functional skills.
This month’s calendar is perfect for Sensory Awareness month!
October brings with it all things falling leaves and pumpkin spice everything, and it is definitely a sensory-filled month! This month’s activity calendar is full of sensory activities that will challenge the senses. You will find activities based on all seven senses and are fun ways to involve the whole family in indoor and outdoor play. Print out your free calendar, read through the activities and get ready to play!
For more info on the activities below, grab your Harvest Sensory Booklet (It’s a freebie, too! Scroll below to grab your copy.)
Use these harvest themed ideas in sensory diets to address sensory needs. These are creative ways to experience all that Fall has to offer with the whole family.
Take the challenge. Encourage and experience sensory play every day this month.
Print your Fall Sensory Activities workbook and calendar and join us in daily sensory play.
October Occupational Therapy Calendar Sensory Activities
Grab your Fall Sensory Activities booklet to build Fall harvest themed activities into your child’s sensory diet with activities the whole family can enjoy.
Get yours!
This is a great way to challenge the senses and take part in our Sensory Processing Month sensory challenge!
Simply add one sensory activity to every day. These can be simple ideas that the whole family can do. Need ideas? Grab your sensory activity booklet.
What’s in the Fall Sensory Activities booklet?
Fall Proprioception Sensory Activities
6 creative proprioception activities!
Fall Vestibular Sensory Activities
4 creative vestibular ideas for indoor or outdoor!
Fall Tactile Sensory Activities
4 tactile sensory experiences!
Fall Visual Sensory Activities
4 ways to incorporate the sense of sight into fall play!
Fall Auditory Sensory Activities
4 Fall auditory processing ideas!
Fall Olfactory Sensory Activities
5 ways to encourage and use scent in sensory processing!
Fall Gustatory Sensory Activities
4 Fall taste activities!
Are you excited to take the sensory challenge this October? Join us with the activities in your Fall Sensory Activities book today!
Looking for more ways to explore all things sensory this month?
How to incorporate sensory play into playing outside in the fall
It’s a fact that kids are spending less time playing outdoors. From after-school schedules to two working parents, to unsafe conditions, to increased digital screen time, to less outdoor recess time…kids just get less natural play in the outdoors. Therapists have connected the dots between less outdoor play and increased sensory struggles and attention difficulties in learning.
Knowing this, it can be powerful to have a list of outdoor sensory diet activities that can be recommended as therapy home programing and family activities that meet underlying needs.
That’s where the Outdoor Sensory Diet Cards and Sensory Challenge Cards come into play.
They are a printable resource that encourages sensory diet strategies in the outdoors. In the printable packet, there are 90 outdoor sensory diet activities, 60 outdoor recess sensory diet activities, 30 blank sensory diet cards, and 6 sensory challenge cards. They can be used based on preference and interest of the child, encouraging motivation and carryover, all while providing much-needed sensory input.
30 blank sensory diet cards, and 6 sensory challenge cards
They can be used based on preference and interest of the child, encouraging motivation and carryover, all while providing much-needed sensory input.
Research tells us that outdoor play improves attention and provides an ideal environment for a calm and alert state, perfect for integration of sensory input.
Outdoor play provides input from all the senses, allows for movement in all planes, and provides a variety of strengthening components including eccentric, concentric, and isometric muscle contractions.
Great tool for parents, teachers, AND therapists!
Be sure to grab the Outdoor Sensory Diet Cards and use them with a child (or adult) with sensory processing needs!
