I wanted to put together a resource that lists our heavy work opportunities in classroom jobs. So often, we as school-based occupational therapy providers, are the go-to resource in the school to support teachers with heavy work needs of the students. We have a large article on heavy work that explains more about this proprioceptive input, and we have several articles on sensory needs in the classroom environment. But one thing that I’m seeing come up more and more is the request from teachers and school administrators for heavy work opportunities in the classroom.
You’ll also want to check out our resource on calm down strategies for school because we cover a lot of good information there, too.
Ways to Use Classroom Heavy Work
I thought I would break this down by area because you can use these heavy work classroom ideas in different ways.
- Classroom heavy work for individual students
- A whole-classroom brain break
- Heavy work during learning
- Heavy work classroom jobs
- Sensory diets
Let’s start with a list of heavy work options for individual students because we can pull from this list to find ways to incorporate learning or to add a classroom-wide heavy work strategy if that is needed.
List of Heavy Work Ideas for the Classroom
- Carrying library books
- Using moldable wall putty to hang artwork
- Using a moldable eraser
- Putting chairs on desks
- Taking down chairs from desks
- Folding large construction paper into sections for math graphs or charts
- Pressing down firmly on stamps to create patterns for art or math-related activities
- Carrying the lunch, milk, or snack crate
- Pushing the breakfast cart
- Rearranging desks/chairs
- Wiping down tables
- Erasing marker boards
- Punching paper with a 3-hole punch
- Putting paper into binders
- Sharpening pencils
- Helping in the cafeteria
- Cutting cardboard for project displays or model making
- Carrying books or a stack of worksheets to other students as part of a classroom reading circle
- Rolling out large pieces of paper for group projects or murals
- Tearing paper or cardboard for collages and art projects
- Using hole punchers to prepare materials for binders or classroom displays
- Rolling or kneading dough for classroom science experiments or cooking lessons
- Holding the door open
- Hanging up backpacks and coats
- Making deliveries in the school
- Stapling packets
- Pushing or pulling a library cart
- Carrying a tote bag with materials for music or art class
- Carrying and moving gym equipment like mats or totes of balls
- Moving reams of paper from shelves
- Watering plants with a squirt bottle
- Tearing old papers to put into the recycle bin
- Removing staples from bulletin boards
- Using a handheld pencil sharpener
- Working at a center where paper is taped to the wall for vertical plane work
- Classroom messenger: delivering messages/books from the teacher to the office or other teachers
- Taking attendance or lunch count on a paper with a hole punch (or other hole punch activities for tallying)
- Desk push-ups
- Chair squats
- Wall push-ups
- Carrying materials for a new lesson
- Organizing and stacking books
- Rolling and unrolling floor mats or rugs
- Cleaning windows or mirrors
- Rearranging floor mats
- Cross-lateral body exercises (touching opposite toes)
- Marching in place
- Jumping jacks
- Chair sit-and-stands
- Morning check-in with movement like a classroom handshake
- Yoga poses like tree pose or downward dog
- Brain break videos (e.g., GoNoodle)
- Carrying supplies to other classrooms
- Tearing and crumbling paper for math manipulatives
- Sorting classroom supplies (e.g., art materials, books)
- Carrying bins of supplies for a project
- Passing out or collecting clipboards or papers
- Filling or moving water bottles for the class
- Moving crates of musical instruments to the music room
- Rolling playdough or clay
- Carrying books between school libraries
- Stacking and unstacking chairs for activities
- Cleaning paint brushes after an art class
- Rearranging classroom decorations
- Cleaning chalkboards or desks with a squirt bottle
- Wiping down classroom surfaces after snacks or lunch
- Moving and organizing gym balls or equipment
- Helping load or unload materials for special projects
- Shredding old papers with a supervised paper shredder
- Rolling up posters or large materials
- Sweeping the classroom or outdoor areas
- Carrying recycling bins to the collection area
- Walking laps around the schoolyard as a class
- Rearranging manipulatives or toys
- Carrying heavy bags of sports equipment
- Sorting and stacking lunch trays or utensils
- Wiping down whiteboards
- Placing chairs back on the floor after cleaning
- Unpacking supplies from boxes
- Sorting papers into folders or bins
- Playing tug-of-war games during recess
- Folding and organizing towels or materials for crafts
- Walking with a weighted backpack for a short time
- Putting away or stacking exercise mats
- Carrying a bucket of water for a cleaning task
- Collecting supplies from different parts of the school
- Stretching with resistance bands
- Sweeping the floor
- Running in place with high knees for movement breaks
- Sorting through classroom craft supplies like beads or blocks
- Use different types of flexible seating options
Many of the activities that we do in OT sessions can easily be transferred into the classroom in a way that’s not intrusive to learning and is either incorporated into classroom tasks or it’s even used as a whole classroom activity. Would you add anything to this list?
Use Heavy Work Activities in Classroom Transitions
Now, let’s take that list of heavy work ideas and break id down into types of activities. First, we’ll talk about transition activities.
Anyone that works in the school settings knows what I mean when I say that sometimes the whole classroom needs a transition activity.
Basically, this means that the group is “wound up” and needs to calm down as a collective group in order to get back to a learning task or the next lesson.
This might happen after the class comes back from lunch or gym. Or, it might be that the chaos of walking down a hallway and back to the classroom just gets everyone in a certain state. All of the sensory input from that hallway was overstimulating with the sights, sounds, and movement.
This might look like a transition activity or a brain break that the whole classroom does together. For example, I like to give teachers the option to use a calming brain break as a transition activity when the students come back into the classroom after lunch or recess.
Sometimes, they might be really wound up and excited and moving their chairs to another spot under their desk can really help to add heavy work that calms them and centers them a little bit.
Here are five activities that can be done as transition activities. These are heavy work tasks that you might want to use as a whole class brain break and it’s part of the transition.
Moving Chairs- My favorite idea for the whole class to do together is rearranging their desk or the chairs. You can do this as a group because you want to set up centers or small groups for the next lesson. Or, you can just have them move their chairs so that their desk is ready to go for the next learning task.
Passing out materials- Another idea for a whole class brain break is movement activities. You can have one small group of students work together to pass out papers or supplies for the next lesson. This lets them get up and move around a little bit. The repetitive motion of walking around the classroom moving around desk and handing out materials and that can add proprioceptive input. Give each small group of students different jobs. One row can pass out books. Another row can pass out papers. Another row can hand out other materials. And so on.
Classroom Callback Chant or Clap- Another way to get the whole class involved is using a classroom callback, in the form of a chant or a clap. This can look like having the students come back to the classroom and then they start the next lesson or the next part of the day with a classroom clap with their hands. Or maybe the teacher calls out certain phrase and the class has a response routine. For example, the teacher claps out of rhythm and then the students respond back by clapping it in response or they had movement like standing up and sitting back down in a rhythm. This really builds a sense of community for the whole classroom, but the real benefit is that it provides gross motor movement.
Circle Time Movements- Another trick up my OT sleeve is to use circle time and transitions as heavy work input. This is something that the students can do and they don’t really even realize that they are doing as a self regulation strategy. If you have your class come to one location in the room like a carpet, you can incorporate a routine where they need to get down on the floor and then back up again, and you can even add specific motions, like pushing off the floor with their arms for extra proprioceptive input. Or you can have them sit cross legged, and then transition into a knee position, and then back to a standing position. That really allows them to do a variety of motions and engage the body in movement while adding heavy work.
Desk Push-Ups or Chair Push-Ups- For this one, you might have them come into the classroom select one of those options and then do it for 30 seconds. This really helps the whole classroom to re-set after lunch or recess when they’re wound up. It can be just part of the classroom routine.
Brain breaks- We can also use a brain break in the form of an exercise routine where you have arm circles and deep breathing exercises, or shoulder shrugs. When the whole class does it together, it’s part of routine and it’s a nice activity to transition between task or when the kids just seem to need a little break. We have a lot of brain break ideas in The OT Toolbox Membership.
Yoga- Some teachers that I know also like to use yoga or stretching activities as a simple break. You can do yoga poses that are smaller motions so that you don’t have to run into desks or move furniture around. Or, if you want to involve tasks like tree pose or child pose and you need more room, then you can have the students put their chairs on their desktop. That actually adds more heavy work so it’s another way to make space in the room, but also you’re adding that extra heavy work input. Here are some partner yoga exercises that you can do with small groups.
Sensory Stations- My personal favorite is using movement pathways or sensory stations. We have so many sensory pathway options with different themes here on the website and we love to see these used in the classroom or in the hallways. We also have teachers that use them in sensory calm down corners or a sensory cubby area. You can hang it right on the wall and then the sensory station printable have different activities. You can set it up in a line so that the student has to go down the line one by one and do the whole routine, or you can have them select just one option out of the packet. We have:
- Spring Sensory Walk Stations
- Summer Sensory Walk Stations
- Fall Sensory Walk Stations
- Winter Sensory Walk Stations
- Christmas Sensory Walk Stations
We also have this nice woodland animal sensory stations that you can incorporate movement into learning too.
Heavy Work Classroom Jobs
A nice way to add heavy work in the classroom is by using classroom jobs. This can really add movement and proprioceptive input while doing the jobs that need done in the classroom. This takes the benefit of chores and incorporates it into the classroom.
Examples of heavy work classroom jobs include:
- holding the door open
- hanging up backpacks carrying library books
- carrying the lunch or milk
- crate to the cafeteria and then to the recess area and then back to the classroom stapling packets of papers
- tearing paper to add it to a recycling bin
- pushing totes with materials to art class or gym class
- helping in the cafeteria
- delivering items to the other areas in the class in the school
- taking attendance with the hole punch
- removing staples from bulletin board
- passing out papers or supplies
- cleaning dry erase boards or windows
- clean desks with spray bottles and rag
- stacking and organizing books
- opening curtains or blinds in the morning
- wash art supplies
- sharpen pencils with a handheld pencil sharpener
- there’s just so many ideas!
Heavy work learning activities
It’s also important to offer ideas to teachers that they can do while learning is happening. These heavy work learning activities or ideas that you can implement while the students are doing lessons. I really like this because it encourages integration of heavy work movement into the functional task of the school day.
This is what it’s all about- teaching kids how to use these strategies when they need them and during the actual tasks.
Some ideas for heavy work strategies while learning include:
Using materials- You can have students carry materials for the next lesson. They might go to a cupboard and grab a bin or grab stacks of books and use those in the next lesson. This helps with proprioceptive input and it also helps with self regulation and focus and it gives students a physical outlet too. You could have every student do this or you can have one student or a small group of students that are in charge of getting these materials for the next activity or lesson.
Writing on the vertical plane- Another idea for learning is using the vertical plane as a writing activity. I really like this idea. You can hang a paper on the wall with tape or with wall putty and the student can write right on the paper hanging on the wall with their paper on the vertical plane. Another idea is to use a slanted surface like a slant board writing area. Or you can use a bulletin board or dry erase board.
If you’re using a bulletin board, students can staple the paper into the bulletin board and then when they’re done using a staple remover to take the paper off. That adds an extra heavy work input strategy.
If you’re using a dry erase board, you can have students use magnets to hang their paper.
If you are using just a wall, you might want to use paper putty because students can manipulate that and get heavy work through their fingers. Or you can use tape and have students peel off pieces of tape and that adds heavy work input through the fingers and hands.
When you have students writing on the vertical plane you are supporting core strength and stability, core control, shoulder strength/stability and wrist stability. All of this adds heavy work through the joints and muscles and is a benefit. It helps with handwriting because it helps with pencil grasp and motor control in the writing tasks.
Heavy Work in the Classroom Coloring Page
So I hope this list of heavy work activities for the classroom has been helpful. We do have strategies inside of the OT toolbox membership. We have a principal coloring page which has options for all some of these ideas for heavy work and I like to use this hand out in a calm down corner or in therapy lessons where we’re talking about heavy work strategies.
It has a bunch of different options where students can color in the different activities and you can have them actually pick activities as part of a calm down strategy, or you can have them organize the activity ideas by lesson using them in learning activity lessons or as whole body brain break sessions or strategies that are part of the routine in the classroom. You can get that inside the membership club, along with other heavy work activities and cards. If you’re not a member, find out more information by clicking this link, or if you are a member login and then head to self regulation strategies and you’ll find it there.
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
