This week’s free therapy slide deck has a groundhog theme. Use this as a teletherapy groundhog’s day activity to help kids develop motor skills in virtual therapy sessions. So, if you’re looking for a fun Groundhog’s day idea to do with the kids in a virtual setting, this free Google slide deck is for you! Use this activity along with a groundhog craft for some therapy fun!
Groundhog’s Day Activity
This occupational therapy teletherapy activity is designed to help kids with a variety of skill areas: deep breathing/mindful breathing to warm-up and settle into the session, followed by handwriting tasks, visual perceptual activities, and finally a groundhog fine motor activity.
You can get this free Google slide deck and start using right away, making it a no-prep therapy activity, that requires no other materials other than the child and some paper!
Start the therapy session with some mindful breathing. Kids can follow the directions of the therapy slide and breathe deeply in and out along with the image on the slide.
Groundhog’s Day Handwriting Activity
This handwriting activity is designed as a “write the room” activity for teletherapy sessions. Kids can copy the word or the sentence on the screen (or both) and work on their handwriting goals: letter formation, line awareness, spacing, copying skills, writing speed, and legibility.
If you use the Jamboard option, kids can write right on the screen to trace the large letters to spell “groundhog”.
Groundhog’s Day Fine Vision Activity
The next slide in this therapy deck is perfect for this time of year. Kids can match the groundhog images with their matching shadows. It’s a nice eye-hand coordination activity on the interactive slide deck, and can be used as a matching activity to work on line use for younger users if used on the Jamboard option.
Matching the images to their shadow is an exercise in visual discrimination, form constancy, visual scanning, and visual memory.
Groundhog’s Day Fine Motor Activity
The next series of slides asks students to spell out “groundhogs day” using sign language. Kids can make the ASL signs for each letter of the word and work on finger isolation, motor planning, dexterity, separation of the sides of the hand, eye-hand coordination, and more.
Groundhog’s Day Self-Regulation Activity
The therapy slide deck ends with a self-regulation check-in. Students can move the groundhog to the matching color coded check-in system. This pairs well with the Zones of Regulation systems’ color coding, so students can carry through with previously used regulation strategies. This is also a nice time for therapists to work on coping tools as needed for after the therapy session ends and the child carries on with their day.
Free Therapy Slide Deck
Want to grab a copy of this free Google slide deck? Just enter your email address in the form below. You should be logged into your Google account before openeing the attachment that arrives to your inbox. Then, you can make a copy right onto your Google drive.
You’ll also access a link to copy this deck onto your Google Jamboard, so you can use the apps whiteboard feature to write directly on the slides during therapy sessions.
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.
