Make a Play Dough Snake to Build Fine Motor Skills

play dough snakes

If you’ve ever played with Play Doh then you may have made a play dough snake. But did you ever stop and think about the various fine motor skills being developed with that simple play dough creature? Here we have a super simple and fun activity using play dough and rocks: Making play dough snakes! When you make a play dough snake so many skills are developed.

play dough snakes are an easy way to work on fine motor skills with kids.

Play Dough Snakes

We are big fans of play dough.  Adding in fun little extras (like making play dough snakes!) is a great way to keep it interesting, and get those fingers moving with fine motor work.  We shared a picture of this activity on Instagram and it was such a hit, that we had to share our play in a blog post!  We used regular play dough this time, but a batch of homemade play dough recipe would be perfect for this activity, too. 

The thing is that Play Doh snakes can be made with any type of play dough, homemade dough, slime, or even kinetic sand.

Simple therapy tools like play dough can support big goal achievement. Similar to these games with paper clips, using play dough to build hand strength and fine motor skills is easy and fun.

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Play Dough Snakes and Fine Motor Skills

Baby Girl loved this!!  I pulled out a few colors of play dough and a basket of  River Rocks.  She got started sorting, picking out her favorites, and pushing them into the play dough. 

I showed her how to roll a play dough snake to really work on those fine motor skills. 

By rolling a snake from playdough, so many fine motor skills are developed:

Pinching those play dough snakes and pressing the stones into the play dough really works the intrinsic muscles of the hand, and upper body strength.  It’s a fun way to practice tripod grasp, too.

How to Make a Play Dough Snake

To roll a play dough snake, all you need is a lump of play dough. Then, follow these directions to support fine motor skill development:

  1. Use both hands to roll play dough on the table surface. Both hands should work symmetrically together (bilateral coordination)
  2. As the play dough is rolled, it gets longer.
  3. Use varying amounts of pressure through the palms of the hands to make sure the play dough snake is even. (Graded pressure)
  4. As the playdough snake gets longer and thinner, use the finger tips to roll with more precision. (Precision skills)

Rolling a snake from play dough is a great way to strengthen the muscles of the hands, lengthen the muscles inside the hand (intrinsics), and work on grasp, and finger isolation.

Here is another way to work on intrinsic strength using play dough.

 I made a play dough snake and pressed rocks along the length.  Baby Girl watched and started making her own. 

More skills with Play Dough Snakes

After you’ve made a few snakes from play dough, you can continue the skill-building.

Freeze the play dough to make a stronger resistance. Freezing play dough for heavy work play is a great opportunity to challenge fine motor skills and add more resistive feedback through the hands.

Cut the Play Dough Snake- After you have a nice long ribbon of playdough created, use scissors to create marks along the length. Cut the play dough snake along those textured marks to work on scissor skills and visual motor skills. The play dough offers great feedback through the hands.

Add rocks to the play dough snake- Pushing the rocks into the play dough is a great fine motor proprioception activity.  This resistive activity really “wakes up” the small muscles in the hands.  What a great way to warm up the hands before a handwriting activity for older kids.  Proprioception activities like this one are a good way to calm and organize your child.  This activity would be a great addition to a Sensory Diet or a Sensory Lifestyle.  

We made our snakes into faces, too. I made a play dough face and Baby Girl was able to copy one to make her own.  We talked about all of the parts of the face.  Such a fun way to play and learn!

  After she made her play dough face, she made them talk to each other…”hi, how are you…” and conversation back and forth.  Language development is fun with play dough!

These cuties were best buds by the time we were done!

Let us know if you do this activity at your home or school. 

 
Create and explore proprioception with kids in this fine motor activity with play dough
 
 
 

More play dough ideas you may like:

 

Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.

Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:

Or, grab one of our themed Fine Motor Kits to target skills with fun themes:

Want access to all of these kits…and more being added each month? Join The OT Toolbox Member’s Club!

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.

Construction Truck Brain Breaks

Construction Truck Brain Breaks

These construction truck brain breaks are heavy work fun with a truck theme! The gross motor activities that kids can use as a brain break or a heavy work activity to help with attention, focus, and sensory input. The construction truck activities are great for kiddos that love all things trucks! You can access these heavy work activities in a free therapy slide deck and use it in teletherapy sessions or in face-to-face therapy (or at home and in the classroom, too!)

These are perfect for kiddos that love all things garbage trucks, backhoes, excavators, cranes, steam rollers, and more. We’ve got all the construction vehicle activities covered in this therapy set!

Construction truck brain breaks for kids that love all things construction vehicles.

Construction Truck Brain Breaks

I love using brain breaks in themed activities that kids love. The thing is that children are drawn to certain topics or themes, and construction truck themes are no different. There is just something about garbage trucks, dump trucks, backhoes, cement trucks, and excavators that are irresistible to children.

These particular construction truck brain breaks offer an opportunity for kids to gain much-needed heavy work input in the way of proprioception. You can read more about proprioception and brain breaks here.

The truck activities also allow children to move while gaining vestibular input as well. Adding movement in a variety of planes and directions in conjunction with input from the eyes, and heavy work feedback from muscle and joint receptors, is able to contribute to posture, coordination, and appropriate response of the visual system.

Another reason to use heavy work activities like these truck brain breaks, is for the benefit of improving body awareness. Heavy work improves body awareness by incorporating proprioceptive input, with motor planning, attention, and “self-checks” that allow us to know where our body is in space during tasks. This is so important for kiddos facing more and more screen time than ever.

For more heavy work activities, try these heavy work cards that come in a variety of themes.

Free Construction Truck Brain Breaks

You can grab these construction truck activities and use them in teletherapy sessions, in face-to-face therapy sessions, in the classroom, or in the home. They are presented in a Google slide deck, so that they can be easily accessible from different devices and situations, using a Google drive.

Check out all of the free therapy slide decks we have available here on the site.

Want to add this resource to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below.

NOTE: Try to add a personal email address for deliverability, as work emails (who have a strict security wall in place) may block the deliverability of the PDF email.

Construction Truck Brain Breaks (free slide deck)!

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    Heavy work cards

    Use the Heavy Work Activity Cards in play, learning, and brain breaking!

    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.

    Butterfly exercises

    butterfly yoga exercises

    This week’s occupational therapy theme is all about the butterfly activities. And, these butterfly exercises help with coordination, motor panning, coordination, and add heavy work input. You’ll love the butterfly yoga activities that are fun, motivating, and engaging! Add these butterfly gross motor exercises to your Spring occupational therapy activities.

    butterfly yoga exercises

    In this free slide deck, you’ll love the heavy work and gross motor coordination activities with a butterfly theme. Butterfly exercises get those kiddos moving and building coordination skills so they can move, play, and develop skills.

    Butterfly exercises

    Kids will love these gross motor exercises that challenge the following skills in kids:

    • Balance
    • Coordination
    • Motor planning
    • Crossing midline
    • Movement changes
    • Sequencing

    When kids follow along with the visual images in the slides, they can work on planning out gross motor actions, crossing midline, and building core strength that helps with attention, following directions, and getting much needed proprioceptive and vestibular sensory input.

    These are fantastic butterfly gross motor activities for preschool, Pre-K and grade-school kids as a brain break that builds gross motor skills.

    Butterfly yoga

    In the slide deck are butterfly yoga positions to challenge balance and build strength. These exercises use a variety of yoga positions with a butterfly theme. Some of the activities use the butterfly yoga pose and others have visual images of a butterfly net or other images to make the yoga exercises motivating and fun for kids.

    Can they balance on one foot while pretending to catch a butterfly with their net?

    Butterfly gross motor activities

    You’ll also love the deep breathing exercise in the slide deck to encourage deep breathing. Try using this deep breathing exercise while doing the butterfly yoga!

    MORE BUTTERFLY ACTIVITIES

    Use the butterfly life cycle heavy work activities in the Heavy Work Cards to work on calming proprioceptive input.

    Butterfly Exercises Slide Deck

    Want to add these butterfly yoga and butterfly exercises to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below to access this slide deck.

    Note that if you are using a school system’s email address, the PDF delivery may be blocked by your institution or workplace as a result of your system’s security measures. A personal email address may be better used.

    Butterfly Exercises Slide Deck!

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      Spring Fine Motor Kit

      Score Fine Motor Tools and resources and help kids build the skills they need to thrive!

      Developing hand strength, dexterity, dexterity, precision skills, and eye-hand coordination skills that kids need for holding and writing with a pencil, coloring, and manipulating small objects in every day task doesn’t need to be difficult. The Spring Fine Motor Kit includes 100 pages of fine motor activities, worksheets, crafts, and more:

      Spring fine motor kit set of printable fine motor skills worksheets for kids.
      • Lacing cards
      • Sensory bin cards
      • Hole punch activities
      • Pencil control worksheets
      • Play dough mats
      • Write the Room cards
      • Modified paper
      • Sticker activities
      • MUCH MORE

      Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

      Spring Fine Motor Kit
      Spring Fine Motor Kit: TONS of resources and tools to build stronger hands.

      Grab your copy of the Spring Fine Motor Kit and build coordination, strength, and endurance in fun and creative activities. Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

      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.

      Flower Balance Activities

      Flower balance activities

      Want to help kids with balance, coordination, strength, and mobility? Need some core strengthening and stability activities to help with balance and vestibular integration? These flower balance activities are fun ways to help kids work on these very areas so they are able to move, play, learn, and function in day to day tasks. And, it’s all packaged up in a free Google slide deck so you can use these balance exercises in therapy sessions, at home, in the classroom, or clinic. These are Spring gross motor activities that really build skills!

      Balance activities slide deck with a flower theme to use in teletherapy sessions.

      Balance Activities

      You’ll find a lot of balance activities and exercises here on The OT Toolbox. We’ve shared balance beams, obstacle courses, brain breaks, prone extension activities, movement activities, and vestibular activities before. you may have even seen this DIY wobble disk made from ice. All of these activities are so great to help kids develop strength, coordination, movement pattern skills, and get them moving through play.

      Core strengthening is just one benefit of these balance activities kids can copy. We’ve talked before about core strength and it’s relationship to handwriting and other functional tasks.

      Flower balance activities for kids

      The free slide deck that I have available today, adds just one more balance tool into your therapy toolbox. It’s a fun way to challenge kids to move while copying visual images of body positioning. These exercises integrate visual processing to see the image and copy the positioning as well as motor skills as kids coordinate their body to move their arms or legs into the correct positioning.

      I’ve tried to use both sides of the body in this flower balance activity, so they can work on left-right discrimination as well.

      Flower balance activities

      When kids incorporate one leg stance, and holding a body position in a squat or lunge, they are adding proprioceptive input, so they gain the calming regulatory benefits, too.

      Flower balance exercises

      And, the therapy slide decks use a flower icon in various positions on each slide. So the user can copy the form by placing a pillow, stuffed animal, roll of socks, or bean bag into different places while maintaining balance. This can be a real challenge for some children!

      Flower deep breathing exercise

      There is a fun flower deep breathing exercise in the slide deck as well.

      Free Balance Exercise Slide Deck

      Want to use this free slide deck in teletherapy, in home programs, or in the classroom as a brain break? Just enter your email address into the form below.

      NOTE- Due to an increase in security measures, many readers utilizing a work or school district email address have had difficulty accessing free resources from the delivery email. Consider using a personal email address and forwarding the delivery email to your work account.

      Flower Balance Activities Slide Deck!

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        Spring Fine Motor Kit

        Score Fine Motor Tools and resources and help kids build the skills they need to thrive!

        Developing hand strength, dexterity, dexterity, precision skills, and eye-hand coordination skills that kids need for holding and writing with a pencil, coloring, and manipulating small objects in every day task doesn’t need to be difficult. The Spring Fine Motor Kit includes 100 pages of fine motor activities, worksheets, crafts, and more:

        Spring fine motor kit set of printable fine motor skills worksheets for kids.
        • Lacing cards
        • Sensory bin cards
        • Hole punch activities
        • Pencil control worksheets
        • Play dough mats
        • Write the Room cards
        • Modified paper
        • Sticker activities
        • MUCH MORE

        Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

        Spring Fine Motor Kit
        Spring Fine Motor Kit: TONS of resources and tools to build stronger hands.

        Grab your copy of the Spring Fine Motor Kit and build coordination, strength, and endurance in fun and creative activities. Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

        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.

        Free Heavy Work Activities Cards

        Heavy work activity cards Spring themed gross motor tasks

        Today’s free resource in the Spring Week tools are these free Heavy Work activities in printable card version, with a Spring theme! These are just the thing to get kids moving and adding much-needed gross motor movement into the classroom, home, or occupational therapy session. I modeled these printable exercise cards off our heavy work teletherapy activities freebie, so these are the perfect addition to your therapy toolbox.

        Heavy work activities with a Spring theme to add gross motor exercise and brain breaks as well as sensory processing input.

        Heavy Work Activities

        Heavy work activities help kids to incorporate balance, endurance, and motor planning into functional activities. By integrating the proprioceptive sense and vestibular sense, or balance, equilibrium, position in space, and movement, kids are able to better move their body with awareness of how their body moves. This body awareness is needed for most every activity.

        Adding resistance, or heavy work activates the muscles and joints in the body and “wakes them up”. Proprioception and calming vestibular work can have an organizing effect on kids. This enables a ready state for completing tasks.

        Getting kids to incorporate the whole-body movements that they need to regulate and develop strong, healthy bodies isn’t always easier, now more than ever. That’s where the Spring Gross Motor activities come into play. These are whole body activity, Spring-themed activities that make fun brain breaks.

        Functional Heavy Work

        Many heavy work activities can be incorporated right into the daily tasks. Things like pushing a vacuum, moving furniture, carrying a laundry basket are day-to-day chores that add a ton of heavy work input.

        Other heavy work tasks can integrate these senses as well.

        Tasks like using a moldable eraser, coloring with crayons vs. markers, or pulling on socks offer heavy work just as well, on a smaller scale.

        These are all strategies that play into a sensory lifestyle, or a sensory diet that is well ingrained into the day-to-day tasks. You can learn more about creating a sensory lifestyle into every day activities in my book, The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook.

        Heavy Work and Gross Motor Skills

        There’s more about heavy work than just sensory processing benefits.

        Heavy work tasks improve balance, core strength, motor planning, equilibrium needed for movement changes, stability, coordination, and movement patterns. All of these skills require equilibrium of the vestibular system for movement and changes in planes. They also require position in space changes. Heavy work has so many benefits!

        There’s more: Heavy work input also incorporates areas such as range of motion, flexibility, motor planning, crossing midline, muscle tone, and core stability.

        Free Heavy Work Activity Cards

        Would you like to get your hands on a set of free heavy work printable activities? This is a free resource that you can print off and use in therapy sessions, in home programs, as classroom brain breaks, and to just get those kids moving.

        To grab this free resource, enter your email address into the form below.

        FREE Spring Heavy Work Cards

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          More heavy work brain breaks and Spring activities

          You can find more Spring brain breaks and heavy work activities in the Spring Occupational Therapy Activities Pack. Right now, it’s a BONUS add-on to our newly released Spring Fine Motor Kit!

          Spring Fine Motor Kit

          Score Fine Motor Tools and resources and help kids build the skills they need to thrive!

          Developing hand strength, dexterity, dexterity, precision skills, and eye-hand coordination skills that kids need for holding and writing with a pencil, coloring, and manipulating small objects in every day task doesn’t need to be difficult. The Spring Fine Motor Kit includes 100 pages of fine motor activities, worksheets, crafts, and more:

          Spring fine motor kit set of printable fine motor skills worksheets for kids.
          • Lacing cards
          • Sensory bin cards
          • Hole punch activities
          • Pencil control worksheets
          • Play dough mats
          • Write the Room cards
          • Modified paper
          • Sticker activities
          • MUCH MORE

          Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

          Spring Fine Motor Kit
          Spring Fine Motor Kit: TONS of resources and tools to build stronger hands.

          Grab your copy of the Spring Fine Motor Kit and build coordination, strength, and endurance in fun and creative activities. Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

          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.

          Heavy Work in Teletherapy Slide Deck

          Spring heavy work activities for teletherapy

          Offering sensory, heavy work in teletherapy doesn’t need to be difficult. Wondering how to support sensory kids virtually? Need ideas to help with attention or focus in the classroom? This free teletherapy slide deck covers an area that is much needed for many children. We know that kids today need to move more. But did you know the part that heavy work plays into development and self-regulation strategies in kids?

          We see it all the time: kids in teletherapy or in the virtual classroom that just can’t sit still or pay attention. And there’s a lot going on when screens are involved. The research on screen time is telling. But other times, kids are just being kids and movement is needed! Brain breaks and movement breaks are as necessary as hydration and eating healthy meals when it comes to learning.

          What is Heavy Work?

          Heavy work is a sensory strategy that helps children regulate so they are at a calm-ready state of learning and participation in tasks. For kids, heavy work helps them know where their body is in space by using the proprioceptive sensory system.

          When deep heavy input is offered, the child challenges their proprioceptive system. Input in the child’s muscles and joints lets their brain know about body position, weight, pressure, stretch, movement and changes in position in space.  Then, the body is able to grade and coordinate movements based on the way muscles move, stretch, and contract. In this way, the proprioceptive system allows us to apply more or less pressure and force in a task.

          Proprioception and that heavy work input occurs when we lift, jump, pull, carry, hug, snuggle, crash, climb, push, etc. All of these movements incorporate the muscles and joints and offer “heavy work” input.
          Kids who may benefit from heavy work input might do some of these things:

          • Appear clumsy
          • Fidget when asked to sit quietly.
          • Show an increased activity level or arousal level.
          • Seek intense proprioceptive input by “crashing and bashing” into anything.
          • Slap their feet when walking.
          • Flap hands.
          • Use too much or too little force on pencils, scissors, objects, and people.
          • “No fear” when jumping or walking down stairs.
          • Or, are overly fearful of walking down steps/jumping.
          • Look at their body parts (hands/feet) when completing simple tasks.
          • Sit down too hard or miss chairs when sitting.
          • Fall out of their seat.
          • Fluctuates between over-reacting and under-reacting in response to stimulation.
          • Constantly on the move.

          Heavy work is a huge part of sensory diets that are created to help kids organize their sensory systems and regulate those sensory needs.

          Occupational therapists recommend heavy work to calm and help kids pay attention. And, if there were any time that heavy work was more needed, it might be during virtual learning.

          For more heavy work ideas that cover a variety of themes, grab a copy of the Heavy Work Movement cards.

          Spring activities that offer heavy work sensor input

          Heavy Work Teletherapy Activity

          So how do you incorporate heavy work and all the benefits of proprioceptive sensory input into a teletherapy or virtual learning environment?

          That’s where this heavy work virtual therapy slide deck comes into play. I created this slide deck as part of our free slides here on the site, as a support for therapists working with kids in virtual environments. We know that kids need movement to support learning and development of motor skills. They need to move and get that heavy work feedback so they can pay attention, focus, and learn.

          This heavy work activity does just that.

          Therapists (or teachers, or parents) can use this heavy work activity to help kids get the deep resistive input that they need.

          Kids can go through the slide deck and complete each activity. The slides use Spring images and concepts to incorporate proprioception and to offer FUN ways to add heavy work and help kids calm or regulate their sensory needs.

          Spring heavy work activities for teletherapy include crawling like a bear that is waking up from hibernation.

          Spring heavy work activities in the slide include:

          • Digging in dirt
          • Pushing a wheelbarrow
          • Crawling like a bear coming out of hibernation (Pair the activity with others from our collection of hibernation activities!)
          • Waddling like a duckling
          • MORE!

          Users can act out each heavy work activity on the slides and work on motor planning, coordination, bilateral coordination, gross motor skills, AND gain the benefits of heavy work input!

          Free heavy work slide deck

          Want this slide deck in your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below to access this free slide on your Google drive.

          Heavy Work Activities Slide Deck!

            We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.

            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.

            heavy work cards for regulation, attention, and themed brain breaks
            Heavy Work Movement Activity Cards

            Friendship Skills- Personal Space

            friendship skills for personal space and body awareness with a free therapy slide deck for teletherapy

            Part of building friendship skills is teaching kids to have an awareness of personal space with those around them. Body awareness is a big part of this, especially when social distancing is something to consider. Friendship skills involve a variety of pieces of the bigger social emotional skills picture and a component of that is personal space, or a personal bubble of comfort space. Read more about the part that personal space plays in friendship skills, including personal space/body awareness activities. You’ll also find a free therapy slide deck to help children with the friendship skill of personal space and body awareness. If strategies to address friendship skills is needed for your clients, also try this writing about friendship slide deck.

            Friendship skills for personal space and body awareness using gross motor activities in a free therapy slide deck.

            Children who struggle with social and emotional development, and those with specific sensory preferences may show personal space issues that could be related to body awareness needs. For these needs, occupational therapists can offer several suggestions and interventions.

            Occupational therapists have the ability to play a role in social skills training in children. Included in this support is activities designed to improve social and emotional skills.

            One study indicated that children who participated in a friendship skills group in occupational therapy. The researchers found that children receiving the social skills training group showed improved friendship skills and quality of friendship as reported by the children’s parents.

            Personal Space and Body Awareness

            Some strategies to address personal space and body awareness can include:

            • Develop strategies specific to the child to address the individual’s preferences
            • Offer strategies for self-regulation
            • Offer strategies for controlling inhibitions
            • Focusing on spatial relations
            • Teach self-regulation techniques, such as progressive muscle relaxation, self-awareness, and mindfulness, to decrease anxiety while improving body awareness
            • Incorporate play into spatial concepts such as over, under, around, and through
            • Body drawing activities
            • Body part naming activities
            • Obstacle courses
            • Proprioceptive activities
            • Coach the child to state their preferences for personal space in a given situation
            • Map activities for teaching spatial concepts
            • Set up a small social skills group for a low-stress social gathering
            • Offer instruction in sensory tactics that can help to calm or regulate sensory needs such as deep breathing exercises, heavy work input, or deep pressure
            • Sensory integration occupational therapy interventions
            • Practice social skills interactions that may come up in a given situation
            • Work on working memory so the individual can pull from past successful situations
            • Work on foresight so the individual can think ahead of tools they might need in a given situation
            • Incorporate dance and music
            • Body awareness games and activities such as Simon Says, Twister, and the Hokey Pokey. Use these printable Simon Says commands.
            • Body awareness positioning activities

            Because of the need many children have with developing an awareness of personal space, and the part that plays into friendship skills, I wanted to create a free Google slide deck to work on these skills.

            You’ll see that the therapy slide deck pairs friendship with body awareness activities so that kids can practice various gross motor body positioning challenges.

            These free slides offer movement activities to incorporate proprioceptive and vestibular input, as well as motor planning challenges. All of these activities challenge movement changes and body awareness.

            Friendship skills gross motor activity for body awareness and personal space awareness.

            Users can go through the slides and visually track from left to right as they complete each gross motor activity. There is an interactive portion of the slide deck when used in “edit mode” in Google slides. Kids can slide the round dot along the arrow to complete each gross motor activity in sequence.

            This motor planning activity challenges body awareness needed for personal space awareness as a friendship skill. Kids can challenge themselves in movement, motor planning, bilateral coordination, core strength, and movement changes for addressing personal space considerations as they learn how their body moves through space.

            Free Body Awareness Slide Deck

            Want to get a free Google slide deck to help kids with personal space and body awareness? This friendship theme activity deck is a fun way to get kids moving and gaining an awareness of their body and how it moves through space.

            Enter your email into the form below. You will be emailed a PDF so you can access this slide deck at any time.

            Before clicking the button on your PDF, be sure you are logged into your Google account. Make a copy and share the slide deck with anyone on your therapy caseload.

            FREE Friendship Skills Body Awareness Activities Slide Deck

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              MORE SOCIAL Skills RESOURCES

              Want to help kids explore social and emotional learning through play? Exploring Books Through Play inspires social and emotional development though play based on children’s books. The specifically chosen books explore concepts such as differences, acceptance, empathy, and friendship.

              Exploring Books Through Play: 50 Activities Based on Books About Friendship, Acceptance and Empathy is filled with hands-on activities rooted in interactive, hands-on, sensory play that focus on creating a well-rounded early childhood education supporting growth in literacy, mathematics, science, emotional and social development, artistic expression, sensory exploration, gross motor development and fine motor skills. Kids can explore books while building specific skills in therapy sessions, as part of home programs, or in the home.

              Click here to explore acceptance, empathy, and friendship through play.

              social emotional activities for kids

              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.

              Sensory Backpack

              What is a sensory backpack

              Today, we are starting off our Christmas in July celebration with a giveaway on a Sensory Backpack! Sensory backpacks are a powerful calming tool for children of many needs. There are weighted backpacks, compression packs, and book bag fidget tools out there. Here, you’ll find out some information on these sensory resources AND, can enter for a chance to win a Relax Pack Sensory Backpack of your own!

              What is a sensory backpack?

              What are Sensory Backpacks?

              Have you heard of the term “sensory backpack”?

              Most kids you know probably have a backpack that weighs way too much for their age or size. But for some children, the added weight of a backpack is calming. It’s proprioceptive input that has an organizing effect on kids.

              Sensory diet bags are tools that help to support a child’s sensory needs, while on the go, at school, or in the community. Understanding your child’s Sensory Needs is just part of the puzzle.

              A sensory kit can be used to meet the needs of a child and can look like many things: Sensory kits like a weighted backpack offers calming sensory input that can be used to both calm and stimulate a child’s sensory system.

              Typically, it is portable and easy to maneuver as a way to make the tools accessible at all times to the child or children in need. Since all children have sensory needs, a sensory backpack can be a way to provide sensory input in a discreet and engaging way.

              Sensory backpacks offer proprioceptive input in the way of pressure and weight.

              They offer a means for the child to fidget and move their hands.

              Many times, there are chewable items for the child to gain calming, heavy work through the mouth.

              By using all of these items on a sensory backpack, kids can gain calming, heavy work input that allows them to focus, pay attention, remain safe in group settings, and help to organize the child during community settings or outings.

              Calming Sensory Input

              Children with sensory problems often are either at high alert hyper-reactive or unresponsive (hypo-reactive) to the input from their environment. They become overly distracted by outside stimuli, or they may seek out additional sensory input from the world around them. Over responsiveness or under-responsiveness can mean difficulty with paying attention or focusing.

              The proprioceptive system receives input from the muscles and joints about body position, weight, pressure, stretch, movement and changes in position in space.  Our bodies are able to grade and coordinate movements based on the way muscles move, stretch, and contract. Proprioception allows us to apply more or less pressure and force in a task. But, the sensory system allows us to accept input too, in a way that is calming and organizing, so that we can self-regulate input from the world around us.

              Self-regulation is an issue in sensory integration disorders and other diagnoses…as well as in children without a specific diagnosis. Children with self-regulation problems usually demonstrate unusual sleeping patterns, eating difficulties and self-calming issues. They struggle to cope with sensory input and need coping strategies.

              Sensory input in the way of deep pressure, weight through the muscles or joints, chewing on resistive surfaces, or bear hugs are some coping tools that can have a grounding effect on kids with sensory issues.

              Sensory Backpack Calming STRATEGY

              That’s why a sensory backpack offers such a calming and organizing input for kids.

              It’s a powerful way to help kids feel safe, pay attention, focus on walking in the hallway, or on the bus.

              This year, children may return to school with an even higher level of anxiety or worries. Things are different this year and the school schedule may be different. Maybe kids are not in school at all.

              A sensory backpack can offer a routine for schooling at home and allow them to self-sooth using proprioceptive input so they can complete distance learning tasks.

              Christmas Proprioception Activities

              This time of year, the hustle and bustle of the season can make all of us feel a little out of sorts.  For the child with sensory issues, the holiday season can be a real challenge!  Try adding Christmas Proprioception Activities into your child’s day for calming strategies to meet sensory needs.  
              For more ideas, grab this December Occupational Therapy calendar.
               
               
               

              Christmas Proprioception Activities

              Christmas proprioception activities for children with sensory needs
               
               

              Christmas Sensory Diet  

               
              Occupational Therapists can add these proprioception activities to sensory diet plans or to make home programs this time of year. Ad these heavy work ideas to your therapy plans this month. They are great Christmas activities for sending home to parents for a home program over the holiday break. 
               
              Parents and teachers can use these activities as part of an individualized plan that meets the child’s needs. 
               
              The calendar’s activities are outlined in an easy to follow therapy plan, however as parents and therapists know, a day that involves children does not always go as planned.  The activities can be shifted around to suit the needs of the child and the family. 
              An activity can be completed on a different day or used in combination with another day’s therapeutic activities. 
               
              Try adding these activities into the child’s day to challenge sensory issues or as a way to help kids focus during overstimulating times that the holidays bring.
               

              Christmas Heavy Work Ideas


              1. Shovel activity- Use a small child’s sized snow shovel or sand shovel to scoop couch
              cushions.

              2. Mitten Toss- Fill a plastic sandwich bag with dry beans.  Push the filled bag into a mitten.  Close the opening of the mitten by rolling the top over on itself like you would roll socks together.  Use the mitten as a DIY bean bag in tossing target games.
               

              3. Gift Push- Load cardboard boxes with heavy objects like books.  Ask the child to push the boxes across a room.  For less resistance, do this activity on a carpeted floor.  For more
              heavy work, do this activity outside on the driveway or sidewalk.
               

              4. Reindeer Kick- Promote proprioceptive input through the upper body with wheel barrow
              race type movements.
                Kids can also stand on their arms and legs in a quadruped position and kick their legs up. 

              5. Sleigh Push- Load a wheelbarrow, sled, or wagon with objects.  (Try the weighted boxes from number three activity listed above.) Ask kids to push, pull, and tug on the “sleigh” through the yard. 

              6. Peppermint Candy Stick Oral Motor Activity- Did you know you can make a peppermint candy stick into a straw?  It’s a great oral motor activity for kids. Cut an orange
              in half and then stick the peppermint stick into the orange.
                Next, suck the peppermint stick.  The juices from the orange will begin to work their way up through the peppermint stick. 

              7. Cocoa Temperature Taste- Make a batch of hot cocoa. Pour it into an ice cube tray and
              let it freeze.
               Next, make another batch of hot cocoa. Divide it out into several mugs. Add a cocoa ice cube to the first mug, two ice cubes to the second mug, and so on. Mix the mugs up on a table.  Place a straw into each mug.  Children can position the mugs in order of
              coolest to hottest or vice versa.
                If doing this activity with several children, use small paper cups so that each child gets their own set of cups. 

              8. Christmas Chewy and Crunchy Food Breaks- A calming sensory snack can be just the thing that children need to organize their sensory system during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. 

              Calming Sensory Foods for Christmas

              Adding chewy or crunchy foods to a sensory diet has a calming effect. These types of food provide heavy work through the jaw and mouth.

              Try these calming Christmas foods: 

              • Peppermint snack mix with peppermint chocolate candies mixed with dry cereal and raisins
              • Toffee
              • Rice Crispy Wreath cookies
              • Pretzel sticks
              • Homemade fruit leather
               
               
              Christmas proprioception activities for kids with sensory needs
               
               

              Christmas Sensory Writing

              Looking for modified paper to help kids with handwriting issues?  Try this modified Christmas paper packet!
               
              Use this modified paper Christmas Handwriting Pack to work on legibility and handwriting struggles with kids.
               
              Use these modified paper with a Christmas theme to work on handwriting this time of year. Add a sensory component with proprioceptive feedback to add heavy work through the hands. Here are some ideas for adding adding proprioception to sensory writing activities:
               
              • Write over a sheet of sandpaper.
              • Tape the Christmas paper to a wall or easel and write on a vertical surface. 
              • Use a grease pencil to add proprioceptive input resistance.