This Spring Write the Room slide deck is one of our many free slides designed to be used in occupational therapy teletherapy activities. The nice thing about write the room activities is that they can be adjusted to meet the needs of each child…and this handwriting activity is no different!

Write the Room

So what exactly is write the room? Write the room is a writing task that has become more and more popular over the last few years. It’s a handwriting activity that this occupational therapist loves because it works on so many different skill areas:

• Handwriting
• Letter formation
• Copying from near and far points
• Visual scanning
• Visual attention
• Visual memory

In the classroom or home, this might look like cards that are posted around the room. It can be a set of cards that are taped in various locations where kids need to visually scan the room and when they find a card, they copy the words onto their paper. Sometimes, Write the Room activities include a special handwriting page with icons for the child to match to the words so they have to write the word in a specific space on the paper. (Great for spatial awareness and visual memory!)

Write the Room is also a fun way to work on visual scanning, copying from different distances, and visual shift in writing. You can focus on copying the words without missing letters and visual perceptual skills needed to locate the different words in varying planes in a room.

Write the Room for Teletherapy

But in the virtual setting, write the room activities still work really well as a handwriting activity that develops skills!

In the free Google slide deck that is featured this week, kids can go through the slides with their therapist and work on “writing the room” (virtual room that is!)

The virtual write the room activity uses a slide to feature all of the words. The child can copy each word and focus on letter formation, sizing, copying skills, spacing, and overall legibility.

There is a visual memory piece to this teletherapy handwriting activity. One slide includes a blank page where kids can copy the words onto the slide deck, either from memory, or by going back and looking at the icons.

Therapists can lead their students to copy the words onto paper on their desk, too. In this way, they are getting the benefits of a visual shift. This helps to strengthen visual memory and visual attention skills when copying from a vertical plane such as from the chalkboard or from a distance. ids can check over their work to make sure they aren’t missing any letters once they complete the writing task.

Draw the Room Slide Deck

The handwriting activity also includes a ‘draw the room’ activity where children are asked to draw Spring forms like simple flowers, birds, leaves, and other Spring icons.

Copying simple to complex forms strengthens the visual motor skills needed for tasks such as handwriting, math, and other eye-hand coordination tasks.

The slide decks all include a space where kids can “write” right on the actual slide. This is because when you access the free slide deck below, you also get a free Jamboard link. There, kids can use the Google dry erase app to write directly on the screen using a stylus, fingertip, or mouse.

If write the room is a handwriting activity that you would like to try in a face-to-face situation, either in the classroom, in the clinic, or in the home for practice, be sure to grab our Colors Handwriting Pack. It includes write the room cards in upper case letters, lowercase letters, and cursive letters, as well as different handwriting paper sheets.

The Colors Handwriting Pack also includes many other handwriting skills worksheets and activities designed to promote letter formation, legibility in writing, pencil control and so much more.

Free Spring Write the Room Slide Deck

Want to access this free slide deck and work on handwriting in teletherapy sessions with your occupational therapy clients? Enter your email address into the form below and you will receive the free Google slide deck as well as a Jamboard. Let’s write the room AND draw the room for better handwriting skills!

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.