Fidgeting During Homework

fidgeting during homework

Ooooh, those wiggles.  The wiggles start and then they become so distracting.  It’s hard to concentrate on homework when the fingers are messing with the pencil sharpener, the feet are kicking, and the bottoms are sliding all over the chair.  Mom gets frustrated, the kiddo gets upset, and the homework battle continues. Does this sound familiar?  

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Fidgeting during homework

Struggles with concentrating on homework can be far more than just the math facts that need practicing.  Sometimes, the urge to fidget and move and fall out of the chair is just too overwhelming.  

It may be that your child has a sensory need, or it may just be a long day followed by an overstimulating bus ride home…and then having to sit down for more writing, math, spelling, and vocabulary.  Trying to get the homework done with the fidgets is just not easy for any kid.  

Today, I’ve got tips for doing homework when kids just can’t stop fidgeting.  This post is part of our 31 Days of Occupational Therapy  with free (or mostly free) materials.  We’re hoping this resource is helpful for the fidgets!

 

Tips and tools for kids who fidget during homework and classroom activities.
 

 

 
This post contains affiliate links.  


Tips for helping with Fidgeting during homework

So why do kids fidget?  Fidgeting during work stimulates the brain, allowing a child to complete school work or homework.  Fidgeting is mindless play or touching fingers, pencils, hands…anything that allows a person to focus on the task at hand.  

Kids that are fidgeting are seeking calm, and focus so that their brain can complete a task.  The problem is when the brain’s urge to fidget distracts a child from school tasks.  

They might be so wiggly and moving that they just can not sit still and focus in a functional manner.  Fidgeting can be managed with less distracting techniques which can allow the child to accomplish the homework, and move on to other things.


Solutions for Fidgeting During Homework

Try some of these techniques to help with the fidgeting.  These are certainly methods that can be adapted to classrooms, but I wanted to focus on the kiddos that come home from a long day at school and just need strategies for success in homework.  

A DIY fidget toy can be just the tool that helps.

  • Brain Breaks: Do jumping jacks as you spell words with your child, toss a ball as you practice math facts, or do a quick jog around the house between math papers.
  • Forget the dining room table.  Do homework on a bean bag or a pile of pillows using a clipboard.  Kids with sensory needs often times, crave proprioceptive input and an upright chair can be overly distracting, especially after sitting in a desk at school.
  • Or, forget sitting down all together!  Try completing homework while standing up.
  • Tie a bungee cord around the chair’s legs so that your child can kick and stretch their feet.  
  • Partially blow up a beach ball. Place this on the chair’s seat.  Kids can sit on the beach ball to get needed movement during homework.
  • Provide a small bit of play dough.
  • Squeeze balls
  • Wrap Wikki Sticks around a pencil.
  • Pipe cleaners wrapped in a loose ball.
  • A small bouncy ball and a cup.
  • Rubber bands on a ruler
  • A strand of paper clips
  • Pop beads
  • Bubble Wrap
  • Paper binder clip
  • Provide a chewy snack at the same time as homework.  This might include gum, raisins, celery, carrots, fruit leather or fruit roll-ups, or licorice sticks.  You could also try therapy rubber tubing. 
  • Another snack idea is a thick smoothie in a straw.  Try one of these recipes, with added ice for a thicker smoothie. 
  • Drink water from a “squeeze bottle” or sports bottle.
  • Chair push-ups:  Show the child how to push up from their chair, by placing their hands on the seat alongside each leg. Slowly, they should push their upper body up and off the chair.  Do a set of 10 chair push-ups before returning to homework tasks.
  • Roll a tennis ball under their foot.  They can roll the ball back and forth under their feet as they work.
 
Other modifications to homework time that may help with sensory needs causing fidgeting:
  • Eliminate distractions (as much as possible in a busy family’s home.)
  • Begin homework at the same time each day.  Keep routines consistent.
  • Set up a homework station and do homework in the same place each day.

 

Tips and tools for kids who fidget during homework and classroom activities.
 
 
 
 
 
Classroom and homework fidget toys to help with concentration and fidgeting in sensory processing disorder SPD, Autism, Asperger's, and typical sensory needs.
 


Toys and Tools to Help with Fidgeting

There are many items on the market that are designed to help kids with the fidgeting.  There are apparently A LOT of kids out there who fidget.  
 
These toys and tools are items that may help your child in the classroom and at home during homework.  
 
While the tools detailed below are certainly not free (based on our 31 days of free or inexpensive OT tips), they are items that may be of use to your child or classroom.  These might be items that are a great gift idea if you are looking for more resources for your fidgety kiddo.
 


Amazon affiliate links below:

The Tangle Jr. Original Fidget Toy (affiliate link) will keep fingers and hands busy so kids can concentrate on homework or school work. 


 A ball of play dough or this Pull and Stretch Bounce Ball (affiliate link)
is a good way to keep kids’ hand occupied as they move with the small motor proprioceptive input. This heavy work for the hands can allow kids to concentrate as they write. 



 The DESK BUDDY (affiliate link) is great for kids who are doing homework as it can sit on a table surface or it can be a hand-held sensory fidget toy. 


 A pencil topper like these Pencil Tops Fidget (affiliate link) can help kids while they write, and can be fidgeted with on or off the pencil. 


 Try writing with a vibrating pen like this Squiggle Wiggle Writer (affiliate link) for proprioceptive input before a writing homework assignment. 


 

THE ULTIMATE FIDGET (affiliate link) is a quiet fidget toy that kids can keep in their pocket. 


 Something as simple as nuts, bolts, and washers (affiliate link) can make a great fidget toy for kids. 


 A few Wikki Stix (affiliate link) can give a child just the fidget toy they need to concentrate. Kids can bend them into a ball, and work the bendable strings as they work. 


 
Grip Pop Beads (affiliate link) are one of my favorite fidget toys for kids. They work on the small muscles of their hands as they build the pop beads and have a fidget once they have a strand of beads.

Are you looking for more information on Sensory Processing or any of the body’s sensory systems and how they affect functional skills and behavior?  

This book, The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook, will explain it all.  Activities and Resources are included.  Get it today and never struggle to understand or explain Sensory Integration again.

What are your favorite fidget toys and tools?

Tips and tools to help with kids who fidget during classroom and homework activities.
 

Sensory Gardening with Kids

It is that time of year when we start to dig up the dirt and grow our garden…all with the kids!  Digging in dirt and kids go hand in hand so when we started our garden for the first time last year, the kids were all over it.  They were my biggest helpers when it came to planting, weeding, and of course, taste-testing!  This post includes pictures from last year’s garden, and we can’t wait to get started on our garden again this year!


Gardening with kids.  Make these small adjustments to your garden to make it a sensory sanctuary in your own backyard!



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Sensory Fun Gardening with Kids


You know we LOVE sensory play, right?  Gardening is the ultimate sensory activity when it comes to kids.  There are so many of the senses addressed when a child is outside in the dirt.  There is the calming and relaxing environment of quiet outdoors, soft dirt, cool colors, and the warm sun.  Digging and turning dirt is a wonderful proprioception activity for kids (and adults) who need to address movement and grading of muscle use in activities throughout their day.  The resistance of weeks that need pulling will provide feedback to muscles and joints.  Kids can taste, see, feel, and smell so many textures, tastes, colors, patterns, and olfactory experiences depending on the fruits, vegetables, flowers, and herbs that are planted.

Kids can explore all of the senses in a relaxing and calming sensory garden!  Sight, smell, touch, sound, taste, proprioception, and vestibular senses are addressed with gardening!

Make a Sensory Garden for Kids


Gardening is already such an amazing wealth of input to the senses.  How can you make it even more of a sensory haven for kids to calm, relax, or provide stimulation?
Sight:  Plant brightly colored flowers.
Plant flowers in a pattern order.
Use brightly colored garden markers.
Add flowers or bushes that attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Garden Hanging Butterfly Feeder
or hummingbird feeders can easlily be added to gardens by hanging to branches or walls.
Add textures to borders.
Add height and depth to gardening surfaces by using wall hangers, raised potted plants, or tables. A Vertical wall planter
encouraged overhead reach and visual attraction to different planes.

Sound:  Add bird feeders or wind chimes
to the garden.
Add water features to the garden. A solar powered water feature
can be easily added to a garden space.
Plant ornamental grasses or taller plants that will add a soft sound in the breeze.

Taste: Plant a variety of sweet, bitter, tart vegetables and fruits.  
Add edible flowers to borders.
Encourage cooking with kids using the produce from the garden.

Touch:  Plants can provide a variety of textures.  Some leaves are soft and fuzzy, and others are sharp and prickly.  
Pulling weeds in different soil experiences is a great sensory activity.  Pull weeds from dry soil and wet soil.
Add rocks, pebbles, bricks, and gravel for texture.
Play in mud puddles.
Walk barefoot in the grass and dirt.

Scent:  Dirt is such great scent!  Add novel scents like mint, lavender, tomato plants, basil.

Proprioception:  Add plants that require a bit of “oomp” to pick or harvest, like radishes, potatoes, carrots.  
Have children dig!  Moving soil provides heavy input to upper and lower extremities.  
Push wheelbarrows with varrying weights of dirt. (I love the sze of this Kids’ Wheelbarrow!)
Lift and carry buckets of water.
Pull the hose from the hose hook-up.
And wind it back up when done!
Use gardening tools like a hoe, garden rake, scoops, shovels. Kids can use adult sized tools but a child sized rake, spade, hoe, shovel set. would be great too.

Vestibular:  Encourage children to get down on the ground to garden.  
Jump in mud puddles.

How to incorporate sensory play into playing gardening with kids

Sensory diet activities can be specific to sensory system like these vestibular sensory diet activities. Sensory activities can be prescribed according to need along with environment in order to maximize sensory input within a child’s day such as within the school day. Using authentic sensory input within the child’s environment plays into the whole child that we must understand when focusing on any goal toward improved functional independence. 

Many sensory diet activities can naturally be found outdoors. In fact, outdoor sensory diet activities are a fun way to encourage sensory input in a child’s environment and without fancy therapy equipment or tools. 

It’s a fact that kids are spending less time playing outdoors. From after-school schedules to two working parents, to unsafe conditions, to increased digital screen time, to less outdoor recess time…kids just get less natural play in the outdoors. 

Knowing this, it can be powerful to have a list of outdoor sensory diet activities that can be recommended as therapy home programing and family activities that meet underlying needs.

That’s where the Outdoor Sensory Diet Cards and Sensory Challenge Cards come into play.

They are a FREE printable resource that encourages sensory diet strategies in the outdoors. In the printable packet, there are 90 outdoor sensory diet activities, 60 outdoor recess sensory diet activities, 30 blank sensory diet cards, and 6 sensory challenge cards. They can be used based on preference and interest of the child, encouraging motivation and carryover, all while providing much-needed sensory input.

Here’s a little more information about the Outdoor Sensory Diet Cards
  • 90 outdoor sensory diet activities
  • 60 outdoor recess sensory diet activities
  • 30 blank sensory diet cards, and 6 sensory challenge cards
  • They can be used based on preference and interest of the child, encouraging motivation and carryover, all while providing much-needed sensory input. 
  • Research tells us that outdoor play improves attention and provides an ideal environment for a calm and alert state, perfect for integration of sensory input.
  • Outdoor play provides input from all the senses, allows for movement in all planes, and provides a variety of strengthening components including eccentric, concentric, and isometric muscle contractions. 
  • Great tool for parents, teachers, AND therapists!


Be sure to grab the Outdoor Sensory Diet Cards and use them with a child (or adult) with sensory processing needs!

Outdoor sensory diet activity cards for parents, teachers, and therapists of children with sensory processing needs.

Kids can explore all of the senses in a relaxing and calming sensory garden!  Sight, smell, touch, sound, taste, proprioception, and vestibular senses are addressed with gardening!

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Kids can explore all of the senses in a relaxing and calming sensory garden!  Sight, smell, touch, sound, taste, proprioception, and vestibular senses are addressed with gardening!

Kids can explore all of the senses in a relaxing and calming sensory garden!  Sight, smell, touch, sound, taste, proprioception, and vestibular senses are addressed with gardening!

Kids can explore all of the senses in a relaxing and calming sensory garden!  Sight, smell, touch, sound, taste, proprioception, and vestibular senses are addressed with gardening!

Kids can explore all of the senses in a relaxing and calming sensory garden!  Sight, smell, touch, sound, taste, proprioception, and vestibular senses are addressed with gardening!
Kids can explore all of the senses in a relaxing and calming sensory garden!  Sight, smell, touch, sound, taste, proprioception, and vestibular senses are addressed with gardening!
How to grow a sensory garden

Get the things you’ll need: 

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