Colleen Beck OTR/L

Colleen Beck, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist and the owner and author of The OT Toolbox website. She manages all of The OT Toolbox social media accounts and runs the popular newsletter. Read about Colleen's experience and career as an occupational therapist, including how The OT Toolbox began on our About The OT Toolbox page: https://www.theottoolbox.com/about-us/ Colleen created The OT Toolbox in 2011 and since then has written thousands of blog posts designed to support therapy providers, educators, parents, counselors, admin, and caregivers in promoting the healthy development of kids. Check out Colleen's blog posts below:

Pencil I Spy Game

April 10, 2024January 22, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

With online learning, virtual games and activities are the way to go. This virtual I Spy game is a fun way to easily work on visual perceptual skills when in the virtual classroom or virtual therapy format. Use the virtual game to work on skills such as visual attention, visual memory, form constancy and visual discrimination. This one is a free slide deck for teletherapy, and it has a pencil theme, so it’s a nice activity for a fun activity that’s a little different than the normal pencil and paper work.

Pencil I Spy

I love this Pencil I Spy activity to go along with our pencil craft! Use them both together in a therapy session to target a variety of skills.

This is one of our free therapy slides but you can print off the pages from the Google slide deck.

Other I Spy activities we have on the site include:

Virtual I Spy Game

This virtual I Spy game is a Google slide deck. You can enter your email address in the form below to add this slide deck to your Google drive. From there, your students can work through the slides and students can locate the items on the slides. They can then type right onto the slide deck with the number of each item that they find.

Or, you can use the image below and pull this webpage up as a visual for completing this virtual I Spy Game.

If you use this activity in therapy, in the classroom, or at home, you can use it as a warm-up activity. Then, children can work on visual motor skills with the pencil theme:

Ask them to copy the images and draw each shape.
Work on number formation by writing the numbers of each item they find.
Work on handwriting by asking students to write a sentence or word related to each image on the slide deck.

I Spy Jamboard

Now, you can use this slide on Google’s Jamboard white board app. When you enter your email below, you’ll receive an email with a link to access the slide deck, AND a link to access this slide on Jamboard.

Students can “write” right on the Jamboard with their finger or stylus. They can then work on number formation. This is also a great option for students that need visual prompting. Use the highlighter or pen options to mark off images that they’ve already found.

Free I Spy Game for Virtual Therapy

Want to get these resources? Enter your email in the form below.

JOIN THE PENCIL GRASP CHALLENGE!

Want to know how to fix a problem with pencil grasps? Need help knowing where to start when it comes to immature pencil grasps or a child hating to write because their hand hurts? The Pencil Grasp Challenge in open for you! In this free, 5 day email series, you’ll gain information, resources, specific activities designed to promote a functional, efficient pencil grasp.

The pencil grasp challenge is a free, 5 day mini course and challenge. During the course of five days, I’ll be teaching everything you need to know about the skills that make up a functional pencil grasp. You’ll learn what’s going on behind the inefficient and just plain terrible pencil grasps you see everyday in the classroom, clinic, or home. Along with loads of information, you’ll gain quick, daily activities that you can do today with a kiddo you know and love. These are easy activities that use items you probably already have in your home right now.

Besides learning and gaining a handful (pun intended) of fun ideas to make quick wins in pencil grasp work, you’ll gain:

5 days of information related to pencil grasp, so you know how to help kids fix an immature pencil grasp.
Specific activities designed to build a functional pencil grasp.
Free printable handouts that you can use to share with your team or with a parent/fellow teachers.
You’ll get access to printable challenge sheets, and a few other fun surprises.
And, possibly the best of all, you’ll get access to a secret challengers Facebook group, where you can share wins, chat about all things pencil grasp, and join a community of other therapists, parents and teachers working on pencil grasp issues.

Click here to join the Pencil Grasp Challenge.

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.

Breath Control

April 6, 2022January 21, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

In this blog post, you’ll learn about breath control as a coping tool. By consciously breathing using deep breaths and engaging the diaphragm, controlled breathing is a strategy for regulation and helping kids reach a calm and alert state so they can focus. Let’s discuss breath control and deep breathing as a tool for children!

Breath control strategies for children to use deep breathing as a self regulation strategy.

As an occupational therapist working with children, there have been many times that I have told myself to ‘Just Breathe’. It’s always been something that has helped me to center myself and helped me to deal calmly with the situation at hand. Despite gathering a fair amount of experience over the past 20 years I found myself using this phrase more than ever before as we were all thrown into a whole new pandemic world
last year. And it helped me on a number of levels.

I started talking to the children that I work with about breathing and I started incorporating breathing exercises into our therapy sessions. This wasn’t entirely new but somehow it took on a new meaning while facing so many changes and so much uncertainty. And the kids LOVED it. What a simple effective way to help calm and focus children (and adults!) Just breathe!

What is Breath Control?

Before we explored how to breathe I chatted to my young clients about why it is important to breathe. Apart from the obvious (we need to stay alive!) we spoke about how breathing can help you feel calmer, can help you focus and concentrate and can help you prepare for a challenge or new activity.

Breath control uses conscious breathing, or an awareness of using deep breaths as a strategy for regulation. Engaging the diaphragm for full, “belly breaths” allow for controlled breathing and is helpful in allowing children to reach a calm and alert state so they can focus.

Breathing exercises have been shown to activate the parasympathetic nervous system which tones down the bodies fight or flight response to stress. In the therapy setting it is essential for clients to be in a calm-alert state in order for therapy to be effective. Deep breathing, mindful breathing , and deep breathing exercises help to achieve this state.

Breath Control for Kids

I found that clients from the age of five years were able to engage in these conversations about breathing and feeling calm. Therapists, teachers and parents can use this as an opportunity to connect with children and can use breathing exercises to begin to understand how to help children with self-regulation. Read more about additional information on the benefits of breathing in children. For research on the benefits of deep breathing as a self-regulation strategy, check out this Clover Deep Breathing Activity.

How to improve breath control

Once we had covered the importance of breathing we started to look at how we should breathe if we wanted to reap the benefits of this self-regulation tool.

The challenge was to encourage children to slow down when they engaged in this activity! Not an easy task when the majority of my caseload are little bundles of energy who do things at 100 miles an hour.

But we worked on it and practiced together discovering that it was really important to to fill your lungs up when you breathe in and empty them out when you breathe out.

We also practiced breathing in through our nose and out through our mouth.

Breath Control Analogies

It was helpful to give few different analogies and use illustrations while we were developing our breathing technique. Try these strategies for breath control:

Breathe like you are inflating and deflating balloons.

Breathe like you are smelling flowers and blowing dandelions.

Breathe like you are buzzing bees.

Try Take Five Breathing and use your hand as a prompt take five deep breaths.

Pumpkin Deep Breathing Activity

Clover Deep Breathing Exercise

Snowman Deep Breathing Activity

Penguin Deep Breathing Exercise

Polar Bear Deep Breathing Exercise

Football Theme Deep Breathing

Each child seemed to find technique that they were comfortable with and breathing exercises became one of warm up activities at the beginning of each session.

We added this to our breathing exercises toolbox and the box continues to grow as the children make up their own breathing activities or as I come across more breathing resources online.

Breath Control Anywhere

The beauty of breathing exercises is that you can breathe anywhere! No special equipment or apparatus needed.

With practice and encouragement children can incorporate these simple exercises into their everyday lives e.g. before they do homework, before an event they perceive as stressful, before bedtime.

As adults we can model the use of breathing exercises and reap the rewards from them as well.

Tips for Breath Control

Use these tips to teach breath control to help with controlled breathing, full breath intake, and diaphragmic breathing.

Explain why controlled breathing is important.
Breathe slowly.
Fill your lungs up and empty them out.
Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.
Use illustrations and visual cues.
Practice together and encourage children to use the breathing exercises on their own.

I know that if you make breathing exercises part of your child’s daily routine you will see improvements in their focus and attention and improvements in their ability to self-regulate. So go for it and just breathe.

Hole Reinforcement Stickers Snowman Craft

January 19, 2021January 19, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

You know we like to use materials that are on hand to help kids develop fine motor skills. This snowman craft uses hole reinforcement stickers to make a cute craft that works on fine motor skills. We do a TON of Fine Motor activities here! This Fine Motor Snowman art craft was just the thing to work on a little fine motor dexterity while keeping with our wintery freezing theme! We worked on tip to tip grasp, bilateral hand coordination, and intrinsic muscle strength, while creating our snowmen. Read all about it below!

Cute fine motor snowman craft using hole reinforcement stickers.

Craft with hole reinforcement stickers

This post contains affiliate links.

Use hole reinforcement stickers to help kids develop fine motor skills with this cute snowman craft.

We started with a sheet of Hole Reinforcement Stickers. These were fun to pull from the sheet and stick onto our blue Construction Paper.

Kids can use hole reinforcement stickers to make a snowman craft and strengthen fine motor skills.

Pulling the reinforcement stickers from the sheet required bilateral hand coordination to manage the page and pull the sticker off with the other hand. Managing two hands together in a coordinated manner is bilateral hand coordination. This skill is very important for self care tasks such as buttoning and zippering clothing, tying shoes, and handwriting.

We placed the stickers into a snowman by placing one sticker above the others. It was starting to look like a snowman party!

Pincer grasp development by peeling and placing small stickers.

Pinching the small stickers from the sheet required precise fine motor dexterity. Using a tip-to-tip grasp to peel the sticker from the sheet was necessary because the stickers were so small. A tip-to-tip grasp occurs when the ends of the pointer finger and thumb are used to pick up very small items. Think about picking up a needle from a table surface. This can be a very difficult and advanced fine motor skill for some!

Paint hole reinforcement stickers to make a snowan.

Once our snowman were placed on the paper, we painted them with blue paint.

While the paint was still wet, we sprinkled clear glitter on our snowmen. This is the same technique used in our homemade glitter glue craft.

Picking up the glitter and sprinkling activates the small muscles of the hands~ the intrinsic muscles. These are the muscles that allow for strength in the arches of the hands and are very important for endurance in coloring and writing with a pencil. The glitter stuck on the paint and made very sparkly snowmen!

To finish the project, peel the reinforcement stickers away and you’ll find a snowman. Be sure to peel away the reinforcement labels away while the paint is still wet, otherwise it will be difficult to pull them away.

Want more ways to boost fine motor skills with a snowman theme or winter theme? The Winter Fine Motor Kit is on sale now!

This print-and-go winter fine motor kit includes no-prep fine motor activities to help kids develop functional grasp, dexterity, strength, and endurance. Use fun, winter-themed, fine motor activities so you can help children develop strong fine motor skills in a digital world.

More than ever, kids need the tools to help them build essential fine motor skills so they develop strong and dexterous hands so they can learn, hold & write with a pencil, and play.

This 100 page no-prep packet includes everything you need to guide fine motor skills in face-to-face AND virtual learning. Includes winter themed activities for hand strength, pinch and grip, dexterity, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, endurance, finger isolation, and more.

Click here to grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit!

Clothespin Snowman

May 7, 2024January 19, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This clothespin snowman is a fine motor craft that is not only the cutest winter craft we’ve seen, but it’s also a powerful tool to strengthen fine motor skills. Kids that fumble with pencil grasp, struggle with clothing fasteners, or are challenged by opening lunch box containers, often times need focused fine motor strengthening. What if we could combine fine motor work with a fun snowman craft? That’s just what we did and we are sharing the how to below! This is a craft that kids can use to really boost fine motor skills…with a super cute snowman clothespin craft!

Read on to find out how to make a snowman craft that uses a few craft supply closet staple items (hello clothespins!) AND works on the fine motor skills like hand strength, precision of grasp, and other skills, too.

ClothesPin Snowman Craft

We used some basic craft materials to make a snowman craft that has been as much fun to make as it is to play with! The fact that this snowman craft is on a clothespin makes it a fine motor power tool. Kids can pinch the clothespin to attach the snowman to anything from a folder, to a book, to a backpack, to a flowerpot! Our snowman craft showed up hanging out on the side of a flowerpot and it is still there!

Fine Motor Skills Craft Idea

The clothespin snowman craft that we made is a spin on the typical painted clothes pin idea. While equally cute, I wanted to come up with a craft idea that builds fine motor skills throughout the process of making the snowman craft AND while using it in play and decoration.

The best thing about this little snowman is that while making him, we powered up on fine motor skills like neat pincer grasp, pincer grasp, bilateral coordination, in-hand manipulation, eye-hand coordination, hand strength, finger isolation.

All of these fine motor skills are needed for every-day tasks like pencil grasp, management of clothing fasteners, cutting with scissors, manipulating small containers, shoe tying, and so many other areas.

So many of our kids are struggling with fine motor skills…why not sneak them in with a fun winter craft like this clothespin snowman craft?

Craft supplies to make a snowman craft that builds fine motor skills for kids.

You will need a few materials for this clothespin snowman:

Clothespin
White craft pom poms
Small black craft pom poms
Red pipe cleaner (or any color!)
Brown pipe cleaner
Black paint
Craft glue

Craft pom poms are needed to make a snowman craft that helps kids with fine motor skills.

make a clothespin Snowman

This was super easy to make:

Use the craft glue to stick the white craft pom poms onto the clothespin. The bottom of the snowman should be at the end of the clothespin that opens when you pinch it.

2. Glue the small black craft pom poms onto the belly of the snowman.

3. Use the red pipe cleaner as a scarf by cutting a smaller piece. About 4 inches long is perfect, because you can then trim it as short as you would like.

4. Thread the pipe cleaner behind the head of the snowman and bend it around the front. Twist it into a “knot” and bend the pipe cleaner so it stays in place with the ends hanging as you would like them. Trim the excess from both ends of the scarf.

5. Use the brown pipe cleaner to make the arms of the snowman craft. Thread the pipe cleaner behind the snowman’s head. At this point, you can add a bit of glue to the red and brown pipe cleaners to keep them both in place.

6. Use paint to make a face on the snowman craft. We used squeezable gel glue (the kind that is use for window suncatchers) because it really adds a fine motor strengthening component. A sharpie works as well. Other ideas for decorating the snowman’s face might include gluing small googly eyes and a orange pipe cleaner carrot in place. These options may include use of a hot glue gun.

And that’s it! Your snowman craft is ready to hang out AND work those fine motor skills!

This snowman craft helps kids work on fine motor skills.

Fine Motor Skills Used in this Snowman Craft:

We incorporated fine motor skills like the ones listed below right into the process of creating our snowman craft!

Make this snowman craft to work on fine motor skills that kids need for functional tasks.

Use the clothespins to pick up the craft pom poms that you will need for the snowman. One way to do this is to have a sample available. Kids can look at the sample and identify the correct pom poms they need to build a snowman of their own. What an exercise in visual perceptual skills as well as fine motor skills!

Use craft pom poms and clothes pins to work on fine motor skills in kids.

Picking up and moving craft pom poms with the clothespins really strengthens the hands. Here is more information on using clothespins to strengthen the hands, and you can read more about the specific fine motor skills below.

Kids love this fine motor activity that is so easy to set up and strengthen the hands, using just a clothes pin and craft pom pom.

Neat pincer grasp- This fine motor skill is a precision skill that uses the tip of the pointer finger and the tip of the thumb in opposition. Here is more information about neat pincer grasp. We use neat pincer grasp to manipulate very small items. This is a refined fine motor skill. Use the snowman craft to work on this fine motor skill by holding the small craft pom pom with the tips of the fingers while adding craft glue.

Pincer grasp- Pincer grasp is the opposition of the pointer finger to the thumb, but with the pads of the fingers. This is a skill tat develops from a very young age, but is used for so many functional skills! Use the clothes pins to pinch and pick up the craft pom poms like we did.

Bilateral coordination- Using both hands together in a coordinated manner is a skill that is used in almost every activity we do. Work on bilateral coordination by building a fine motor snowman of your own.

In-hand manipulation- This fine motor skill is essential for a functional pencil grasp and manipulating items like clothing fasteners and small objects. Work on in-hand manipulation by managing the craft pom poms when completing this craft.

Eye-hand coordination– Build skills by asking your child or client to work on eye-hand coordination when adding the craft pom poms and details to this snowman craft.

Hand strength- Strong hands allow us to perform fine motor tasks with coordinated movements. Use the clothes pin to strengthen the arches of the hand and the intrinsic muscles by pinching and placing the snowman craft onto various surfaces!

Kids can work on visual perceptual skills and fine motor skills using craft pom poms and clothes pins.

This snowman craft for kids is so cute and helps kids with fine motor skills too!

This cute little snowman craft has been moving all around our house these last few days!

clothespin snowman craft- Fine Motor Activity

We actually have a video that shows different ways you can use a clothes pin, like the snowman clothespin that we made, as a hand strengthening tool:

Clothespins are a powerful way to strengthen hands. In this video, we walk through different grasp patterns that we can target with clothes pin activities.

Want more ways to boost fine motor skills with a snowman theme or winter theme? The Winter Fine Motor Kit is on sale now!

More than ever, kids need the tools to help them build essential fine motor skills so they develop strong and dexterous hands so they can learn, hold & write with a pencil, and play.

Click here to grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit!

Glitter Paint Snowman

October 10, 2023January 18, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

We used homemade glitter paint to make this snowman painting that is the prefect addition to a snowman theme! The nice thing about this snowman craft is that it uses paint and glitter so that the process is a little messy, but super sensory. The way that we painted our glitter paint snowmen was very fun and a great sensory experience for the toddlers. Add this to your creative art ideas for more fun!

This, along with our how to paint snow activity are fun winter OT ideas

How to make Glitter Paint

This post contains affiliate links.

To make the glitter paint, we started with some white paint in a bowl and a new shower scrub. You can get a pack of these at the dollar store.

At this point, you could mix white or iridescent glitter right into the paint and mix it up. We chose to sprinkle the glitter onto the paint, however, for the fine motor benefits of sprinkling.

Next, you are ready to make the snowman craft!

Glitter Paint Snowman

Press a new shower scrubber into the white paint. Then, gently press it onto blue construction paper. You can “build” a snowman by adding three puffs of white paint.

RELATED: To build a snowman with less sensory input or via virtual therapy, try this build a snowman therapy slide deck.

The shower puff was the perfect stamper for our snowman’s body and a great painting tool for toddlers. The Toddlers could grab the shower pouf with a gross hand grasp and smash it right down on the construction paper.

Toddler craft idea using a shower puff to paint.

Big Sister helped out with this craft and was the “teacher”.

Toddlers can paint with a shower puff for fine motor and sensory crafts.

Sprinkle glitter into paint for homemade glitter paint, great for a snowman craft.

While the paint was still wet, we sprinkled **generous amounts** of clear glitter right onto the paint. By sprinkling the glitter with your fingertips, kids develop intrinsic hand strength and arch development. It is a similar motor plan and muscle use required for rolling small balls of play dough. You can explore more on intrinsic hand strengthening here.

We used the same technique recently when we made our Fine Motor Snowman Craft.

The glitter stuck right in the glue and the excess was shook off. Our snowmen were starting to look pretty snowy!

Use a bottle of squeeze glue to help kids develop fine motor skills.

The next step involved Big Sister coming to the aid with her “teacher” duties. She squirted dots of glue for eyes, noses, scarves, hats, and buttons.

Next, you will need squeeze glue from a bottle. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I love the use of a squeeze glue bottle over a glue stick for so many reasons. By using a squeeze glue bottle, kids are building refined use of skill areas:

Refined grasp
Hand strength
Eye-hand coordination
Arch strength
Open thumb web-space
Visual motor skills

You can focus on certain areas with use of a squeeze glue bottle by asking kids to place glue onto specific spots. Just use a marker to dot throughout the shape. Kids can then place glue dots on those specific spots.

If working with glue bottles is a helpful activity for the children you serve, you will love the Glue Spots Exercises in the Winter Fine Motor Kit.

All of these were one at a time and because we were doing four kid’s worth of snowmen, she was pretty busy with her little glue assembly line!

Fine motor snowman craft with glitter paint.

Little Nephew was much more sure of himself when it came to squashing the black pony beads into the glue dots. This was a great fine motor activity for little hands. I love those little wrinkly knuckles!

Work on fine motor skills with this glitter paint snowman craft.

Big Sister helped to keep everyone on task with the steps.

Fine motor snowman craft with homemade glitter paint.

I cut little pieces of orange felt into carrots for the snowmen noses and tiny felt hats from felt sheets. The eyes were googly eyes and the scarves were just strips of red felt. Once everything was glued on, we used a brown marker to draw stick arms.

Cute glitter snowman crafts for preschool and toddlers.

Our sparkly snowman family looks pretty cute. This was such a fun craft for multiple ages. I love how their personalities come out in each snowman, too…with the different sized eyes, the smash of the paint, the sizes of the arms…Big fun!

Looking for more winter activities designed to build fine motor skills? The Winter Fine Motor Kit is on sale now!

Snowman Theme Bilateral Coordination

January 15, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Snowman Bilateral Coordination Slide Deck

I have something super cute to share with you today. This snowman theme bilateral coordination activity might be one of my favorites of recent resources. If working on bilateral coordination, crossing midline, and motor planning is something you’ve been working on with kids, then this free therapy slide deck is for you. It’s meant as a fun, play-based direction-following therapy slide deck. Use it as a warm-up to occupational therapy interventions, or a brain break, with a snowman theme!

You can use this snowman gross motor activity alongside this snowman deep breathing activity for winter therapy fun!

Snowman theme bilateral coordination activity

This therapy slide deck is designed so therapy practitioners need no other materials or items to run a virtual session. The free slide deck can be uploaded to Google slides and then used within a virtual session or distance learning classroom.

There are so many benefits to working on bilateral coordination skills, and motor planning with a fun theme like this snowman activity.

Read here about crossing midline activities and the benefits of this essential skill in handwriting, learning, and functional tasks. This skill integrates with bilateral coordination, or a coordinated use of both sides of the body so that functional use of both hemispheres in everyday tasks are possible.

Be sure to read more on this link about bilateral coordination, because you’ll see that there are three components of bilateral coordination:
Symmetrical movements
Alternating movements
Dominant hand/supporting hand movements

Each of these areas play a role in functional tasks like play, self-care, learning, school-day tasks, and things each of us do all day long.

Motor planning is another important motor skill that impacts everyday functional tasks. Here is more information about motor planning.

There is a connection between creating a plan for movement, following a visual representation of a body positioning, and then sequencing movements using both sides of the body.

This snowman gross motor activity does just that!

You can scroll back and forth between the slides to really challenge kids with these motor plans. It’s like a “Simon Says” game with snowmen.

Work on all of these areas:

Bilateral coordination
Motor planning
Crossing midline
Core strength
Stability
Balance and equilibrium skills
Range of motion
Flexibility
Movement patterns
Posture and postural control
Muscle tone

Snowman bilateral coordination activities for virtual therapy

Free Snowman Gross Motor Therapy Slide Deck

To get your hands on this free snowman slide deck, you’ll need to enter your email address into the form below.

Use this polar bear theme therapy slide deck in virtual therapy sessions or as a brain break.

Be sure to make a copy of this slide deck and not change the url to indicate “edit” at the end. When you make a copy of the slide deck onto your Google drive, you will end up with your own version that you are free to adjust in order to meet your student’s needs. By changing the url to “edit”, you can potentially mess up the original version that many other therapists and The OT Toolbox users are given.

You can grab a copy of this Google slide deck and use it to work on specific skills.

Enter your email address below and you will receive a PDF containing a link to copy the slide deck onto your Google drive. Save that PDF file, because you can come back to it again and again and send it to the kids on your caseload (or classroom) so they can make their own copy on their Google drive.

Please use the copy of the slide deck and do not change the url.

Physical Exercise and Wellbeing

January 12, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Evidence tells us that physical exercise is a strong influence on wellbeing. Here, we’re breaking down the evidence and identifying aspects of exercise wellbeing and overall wellness. Therapists who struggle with burnout in the industry know that self-care and intentional focus on wellbeing makes an impact on day to day tasks. But taking what we know as professionals and applying it to our own lives can sometimes be difficult! Let’s take a look at what science says about the benefits of exercise on wellness.

You’ll also find my top tips for using physical exercise to promote self-care as a busy therapist.

physical exercise and wellbeing go hand in hand in battling burnout in therapists.

Physical activity

Physical activity can mean different things to different people. The World Health Organization has a fact sheet on physical activity, including recommendations for physical activity levels for different ages.

Beyond the obvious physical health benefits, participation in physical activity benefits areas such as:

Physical health benefits
Physical activity reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety
Physical activity enhances cognitive functioning, including thinking, learning, and judgment skills
Physical activity ensures healthy growth and development
Physical activity improves overall well-being

We can break down physical activity into physical activity that includes a structured and repetitive, and has as an objective. This might include planning to and following through with a walk around the block every morning, or doing 20 crunches 3 times a week, or running a mile at the track. Physical exercise can come in many forms!

Physical exercise and wellbeing

Adding physical exercise has benefits in many aspects of wellbeing. Take a look at the wellness wheel.

Physical exercise impacts mood. Research tells us that mood and physical health are related. And, mood is a predictor of well-being in many ways, including self-esteem. Self-esteem includes how positive a person feels about themselves. That aspect of emotional skills impact mental health in areas of an individual’s thoughts, emotions, values, and goals. And, a positive level of self-esteem carries over to having a positive attitude about themselves and the world around them.

Other components of mood include a growth mindset, mindfulness, contentment, positivity, motivation, happiness or emotional regulation, and curiosity. These are the components of emotional well-being. These components allow us to meet the demands of everyday life.

Many studies show that physical exercise impacts emotional well-being.

All of this plays a role in burnout in the workplace.

Physical exercise tips for getting started to promote wellbeing.

Tips for Physical Exercise and Wellbeing

Incorporating physical exercise into a lifestyle doesn’t need to be difficult. Below are some tips and strategies to integrate physical exercise into the day-to-day.

When a physical routine involves your interests, that makes it easier to stick with it.

Make it personal– Personally, my favorite physical exercise involves running and walking. When weather is bad or it’s too cold outdoors, I turn to my treadmill. I love to run along to music, podcasts, and even Netflix when running on the treadmill. What motivates you?

Make achievable goals– Adding physical exercise doesn’t mean you need to sign up for a 5K race. Just 5 or 10 minutes on the treadmill makes a big difference in mood and emotional well-being.

Plan it out– Schedule physical exercise into your day. When it’s written down, it becomes more real.

Start slow– Take a walk around the block. Begin with low intensity physical exercise. On the treadmill, begin with an achievable goal using the programing options. A low intensity routine might include a fast walk or slow run at 1% or 2% incline.

If you are looking for exercise equipment to add to your physical exercise toolbox, check out Horizon Fitness for equipment and accessories at all levels.

Affiliate links are included in this post, but I only recommend products that I own, and love!

Courneya, K.S., Friedenreich, C.M. Physical exercise and quality of life following cancer diagnosis: A literature review. ann. behav. med. 21, 171 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02908298

Gilani, S., & Feizabad, A. K. (2019). The effects of aerobic exercise training on mental health and self-esteem of type 2 diabetes mellitus patients. Health psychology research, 7(1), 6576. https://doi.org/10.4081/hpr.2019.6576

Penguin Snacks

January 12, 2021January 12, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

We’ve been on a penguins activities kick around here lately. These penguin snacks are cute little homemade penguin crackers that can easily be added to a penguin preschool theme. The bonus to kids making these are the many benefits of cooking with kids in developing fine motor skills, executive functioning, and other learning opportunities.

Be sure to check out the other penguin activities here on the website, and then add these penguin snacks to your line-up for building motor skills in kids. You’ll love the penguin yoga, the penguin themed social emotional skills game, and the penguin deep breathing exercise.

Penguin Snacks

These Penguin snacks were just the thing we needed one day when the temps were sooooo cold outside that we felt like penguins at preschool pick-up! Our penguin snacks were the perfect ending to a frigidly cold day. And, slightly owl-like, I think they would make a great owl treat too 😉

Penguin Themed Snacks

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Start with a little melted milk chocolate (I just used a chocolate bar broken up into pieces) and melted white candy melts, in two separate bowls.

Dip round crackers 3/4 of the way in the melted white chocolate. Let this harden in the fridge. Or just put it outside on the porch like I did in the single-digit temps. The chocolate will harden in a flash!

You’ll need to make sure the white chocolate is hardened before you dip the crackers again in the ilk chocolate. Otherwise, you’ll get a mix of the two chocolates. Once the white chocolate is hardened, dip each side and the very top of the penguins in milk chocolate.

Pour out a handful of sprinkles and admire their prettiness. Pull out a few of the orange ones. You’ll need them for the Penguin’s feet and beaks. This is a great fine motor activity for kids.

I found these candy eyeballs on clearance after Halloween and knew they would come in handy. Stick the orange sprinkles and candy eyes onto the penguins with a bit of the left over melted chocolate.

Cooking with preschoolers involves a lot of the prep-work, and this is one cooking task that is great for young children. They can sort and count the number of items needed for the recipe. It’s an easy way to add fine motor work as well.

Cute penguin snacks that kids can make for a penguin theme in preschool or older grades.

Pulling out the correct amount of orange sprinkles and eyes was a great job for Big Sister and Little Guy. They made sure we had enough for each penguin. And only snuck a few. 😉

Your penguins/owls are done!

For more penguin theme activities, (and fine motor work), grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit, with 100 pages of done-for-you therapy activities, including penguin themes. There are sensory bin materials, crafts, and activities designed to boost fine motor skills. These would be great additions to a penguin theme in therapy sessions.

Play Dough City

July 15, 2022January 11, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This fine motor play dough mat is a fun one. It’s a play dough city mat that allows kids to work on hand strength and fine motor skills using a city themed play dough mat. Playdough mats like this one can be used along with other city activities like books, travel, or discovering information about geography and our world. We’ve talked before about using play dough for fine motor skills development and this city play dough mat is a great way to do that!

This City Play Dough Mat is a supplement that can help with more skills than just adding to a city learning theme, all in a fun play dough activity! This free play dough mat boosts fine motor skills specifically hand strength, and the intrinsic muscles of the hands. Print off this city playdough mat and start playing and learning WHILE boosting those skills that kids need!

Kids can use this play dough city theme fine motor activity to increase hand strength for fine motor skills like handwriting and pencil grasp all with play dough activities kids love!

City Play Dough Mat

I love adding hands-on components to learning themes. It adds a special twist that really helps with recall when motor components are added. This city play dough mat is a great accompaniment to any community or geography theme.

Kids can fill in the circles in the city skyline while building the fine motor skills they need for tasks such as endurance with writing or coloring, pencil control when forming letters, functional pencil grasp, management of buttons/zippers/other clothing fasteners, opening and closing of food containers, and so many other fine motor tasks!

For the child who struggles with fine motor skills or has a fine motor delay, this city play dough mat can be a fun way to build those skills.

In fact, there are so many fine motor skills needed in school and in home learning environments whether it occurs in the classroom, virtual learning, or the homeschool dining room. Building fine motor skills can make an impactful difference in learning and functional tasks!

How to increase hand strength with a play dough mat

Play dough mats are a big hit with kids. They can come in any theme, making them fun for specific interests. This astronaut play dough mat is one of our favorites. The thing is, though that just the act of playing with play dough on a play dough mat is a really power tool in strengthening little hands!

In fact, there are so many ways to use a play dough mat to strengthen the skills kids need for fine motor tasks. One of the ways we have been focusing on here on The OT Toolbox with our recent play dough mat series is working the intrinsic muscles of the hands by rolling small balls of play dough in various sizes.

Using the finger tips and thumb of one hand at a time to roll a play dough ball is an intrinsic muscle workout that builds the muscles of the thenar eminence, hypothenar eminence, the interossei, and the lumbricals. All of these muscle groups make up the intrinsic hand muscles which are those located within the hands.

The intrinsic muscles are those responsible for nice, defined arches of the hands, the ability to separate the two sides of the hand, and to have nice, bulky muscle tone in the mass that makes up the base of the thumb and the side of the pinkie finger. These muscle groups help with dexterity, endurance, coordination, and controlled manipulation of small items and all things fine motor!

Free Play Dough Mat

Grab a copy of this free playdough mat by entering your email in the form below.

You will receive the printable play dough mat in your email where you can print it and use it over and over again in your therapy toolbox.

Want to check out the other play dough mats we’ve shared recently? They are all designed to promote strengthening of the intrinsics and hand strength in kids.

Free Astronaut Play Dough Mat

Free Space Play Dough Mat

Free Ice Cream Play Dough Mat

Free Bird Theme Play Dough Mat

Be sure to grab the city play dough mat and use it for increasing hand strength in fun ways!

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How to increase hand strength with a play dough mat

Free Play Dough Mat

Grab this FREE printable City Themed play dough mat to help kids strengthen the intrinsic muscles of the hands!