teletherapy Archives

Penguin Emotions Game

June 14, 2021January 10, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Emotions game for social emotional development with a penguin theme

Today, I have a very fun virtual therapy slide deck to share. This emotions game is designed with a penguins theme, and can help kids identify emotions based on facial expressions, specifically the eyes. There is a lot of emotion in the eyes! Kids may or may not pick up on this emotional expression, depending on their development in social emotional learning. I created a penguins gross motor slide deck this week, and got a little carried away with the penguin theme…but how cute are these little guys, right? Use them for helping kids identify feelings and emotions based on expressions, and a few other skills that are addressed in therapy. Let’s break this activity down…

This emotions game has a penguins theme and helps kids learn about identifying emotions and feelings.

Teach Emotions with a Game

Ok, this therapy game is very fun to play, and it will be a huge hit, depending on the testers in my own home. But first, let’s break this down on the various skills that this emotions game addresses:

Identifying emotions
Naming feelings
Identifying facial expressions
Exploring emotional expression in the eyes
Social emotional learning

Then, there are the other skills that are addressed, because of the way that this therapy slide deck is presented and organized:

Visual discrimination
Visual scanning
Visual attention
Visual memory
Form constancy

This game is such a fun way to build skills in a variety of areas. Games for emotions and feelings are sometimes difficult to find, and so this free resource should be a great starting point for helping children with the areas listed above.

Emotion Matching Game

To play this emotional expression game, you’ll just need to load the slide deck onto your Google drive. Then, you can play in virtual therapy sessions with clients, or in home therapy programs, or even as a fun brain break in the distance learning classroom.

Kids can identify emotions and facial expressions in this emotions game using a penguin theme.

Next, ask children to complete the first slide in the deck. You’ll notice that there are text boxes on the slide where kids can identify the feelings or emotions based on the penguin’s expressions. Kids can type them into the box or they can say or write the feelings words.

On the next slides in the deck, kids can find the matching facial expressions for each penguin. Each slide has four penguins with different emotions expressed with their eyes. There are only penguins that match between the two circles.

This slide deck is so useful in helping kids work on visual perceptual skills, too. By visually scanning for the matching penguins, they are using visual discrimination, form constancy, visual attention, and visual memory. All of these skills are important not only in social emotional skills, but handwriting, reading, math, and other learning tasks as well.

Kids can move the ice cube to cover the matching penguins. The ice cube is an interactive piece on the Google slide deck. You will notice that there are two ice cubes. One is over top the other, so once you move the first ice cube to cover one of the penguins, the other ice cube is right below that. Kids can slide both ice cubes to cover the matching penguins.

I love this game for the emotions matching. It’s set up as an “I Spy” game for emotions and facial expressions, and kids will LOVE it!

More Emotional Learning Resources

This activity goes really well with some of the other emotions and feelings tools here on the website. These emotional learning tools can be used together:

Identifying emotions can be hard for kids who are early in social emotional learning development. Try this identifying emotion faces worksheet. It’s another free resource, so you can print it and begin using the printable right away.

2. Kids respond well to the stories in children’s books. Pair social emotional learning with popular kids’ books and hands-on activities. Here is information on how to teach social emotional development with children’s’ books.

3. Emotions and empathy are very closely related. Use this hands-on activity to teach empathy.

4. What is social emotional learning? Here are resources and information to help.

5. Emotional development occurs through play. This blog post includes examples of social emotional development and strategies to help kids develop these essential skills. Check out the comments on that post for strategies that The OT Toolbox community uses to develop social emotional skills.

6. Emotional regulation and executive functioning skills go hand-in-hand. Here is information on executive functioning and emotional development. You’ll find information on these connections, the research involved, and strategies to help.

Emotions Game for Teletherapy

Want to add this emotions game to your therapy toolbox?

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.

Google Slide Deck TIPS:

Save the PDF file that you receive once you enter your email below, 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.
You will be prompted to make a copy of the slide deck. Before clicking that, be sure that you are logged into your Google account.
Make a copy for each student’s Google Drive. When you share it, make sure you enable edit capabilities for users.
The pieces will be moveable in “edit” mode. If you click “present”, the movable ice cubes won’t work.
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.
To easily start a new game- Once you’ve gone through all of the slides, go to “history” on the top of the Google dashboard. You will be able to revert the slide to it’s original state using the history option, so all of the ice cubes go back to their original place. The history option is located on the top dashboard by clicking the link that says, “last edit was…”. When you click on that, you will see a list of edits made on the right side of your screen. Click on the edit titled, “New Game (Revert slides to their original state)”. This should move all of the movable ice cubes back to their original location on the slide deck. The typed in emotions on the text boxes will disappear as well. Note that you can delete edits from that list, so if several students are using the slides, you can keep the organization simple and delete edit versions that you no longer need.

Enjoy!

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.

Penguin Yoga

April 6, 2022January 7, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Did you ever wonder if a penguin can do yoga? Well, today we’re not talking about penguins doing yoga…we are talking about penguin-themed yoga exercises! These are brain breaks for kids that are a great addition to a penguin theme in the classroom or home. Last week, we had a polar bear therapy slide deck full of yoga and gross motor activities for you. It goes well with this penguin yoga slide deck. Use it in virtual therapy, in home programs, or as a brain break in distance learning or therapy at home!

Penguin Yoga gross motor slide deck for teletherapy or brain breaks.

Penguin Yoga Exercises

This slide deck is a fun way to get the kiddos moving along with the penguins. Like many of our other slide decks, you’ll find the movements include heavy work exercises for proprioceptive input that can be calming and centering.

Other slides are vestibular activities that encourage movement in various planes.

These slides can be part of a sensory diet for scheduled sensory activities throughout the day. Read more on how to start a sensory diet.

Add these slides to brain breaks or other movement activities throughout the virtual classroom or teletherapy day.

Yoga and Balance

This slide deck has two options for each yoga movement. The nice thing about yoga exercises is that each movement can be modified to meet the needs of the individual while challenging abilities and strength at a “just right” level.

You’ll notice that each slide has one penguin on it. As you progress through the slide deck, the penguin does a move, and then it does that same move on an iceberg or piece of ice. This can be a way to challenge kids and work on core strength, coordination, motor planning, and upper or lower body strength depending on the yoga position.

Kids can use an object they have in the home and pretend they are a penguin posing on the slab of ice. Some ideas to use include:

Couch cushion
Folded towel
Washcloth or flat fabric
Paper plate
Hoola hoop
Any object in the home!

Ask the child to complete the yoga move and then complete the yoga exercise concentrating on balance.

This slide deck is not interactive. There are no moveable pieces on this particular slide deck.

Penguin yoga exercises for brain breaks for kids

Winter Activities for Kids

Use the penguin yoga along with these winter activities for whole-body movement and development activities that are effective in building skills in kids:

Winter Fine Motor Kit– Use this printable kit to help kids develop and strengthen fine motor skills. The 100 page kit includes penguin theme activities, polar bears, and other arctic activities, as well as all-things winter.

Indoor winter activities for kids– Try these fun and effective ways to to incorporate movement during the winter months.

Winter Brain Breaks– Just like our penguin brain breaks, these winter theme movement activities will get brains and bodies developing!

Penguin themed snacks– These cute snacks are easy to make and get the kids developing skills in the kitchen.

Get the Penguin Slide Deck for Teletherapy

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. Next, 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.

MORE VIRTUAL LEARNING SLIDE DECKS?

Would you like more therapy slide decks? Grab the others to add to your therapy toolbox!

Try this Polar Bear Gross Motor Slide Deck.

Use this Holiday Cookies Activities to address working memory, visual perception, and direction following.

Here is a Community Helpers Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a Football Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a slide deck for a Social Story for Wearing a Mask.

Here is a Space Theme Therapy Slide Deck.

Here is a Therapy Planning Interactive Slide Deck.

Here is a Back to School Writing Activity Slide Deck.

Here is an Alphabet Exercises Slide Deck.

Here is a Self-Awareness Activities Slide Deck.

Polar Bear Therapy Slide Deck

December 31, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This week, we’re all about the polar bears. You’re going to love this polar bear therapy slide deck, and actually, my kids are loving it, too! The polar bear gross motor activities go well with an arctic animal theme. We’ve been using the gross motor activities as a warm-up for the Winter Fine Motor Kit and all of the winter activities in that resource. You’ll want to grab this therapy slide deck to get your new year off to a great start and get the kids moving with whole-body movements.

Free gross motor therapy slide deck with a polar bear theme. Use in virtual therapy sessions or as a polar bear brain break.

Be sure to grab the free polar bear deep self-regulation activity. It’s a wintery breathing exercise that went up earlier today. You’ll find a bunch of other polar bear activities listed in that blog post, so that your therapy theme for the week is full of movement-based activities that help kids develop skills.

Included are some slides to incorporate propriocepetion and vestibular input as well.

Because incorporating gross motor skills in teletherapy is sometimes a challenge, this gross motor slide deck was designed for teletherapy in a way that instructs kids to copy various positions as they balance and strengthen their core. All of these skills can be addressed with this gross motor slide deck in teletherapy sessions:

Core strength
Stability
Balance and equilibrium skills
Coordination
Range of motion
Flexibility
Motor planning
Crossing midline
Movement patterns
Posture and postural control
Muscle tone
Proprioceptive input
Vestibular input

Polar Bear Resource: DON’T MISS IT:

Grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit, with 100 pages of done-for-you therapy activities, including polar bear themes. Grab it now before January 9th and you get a bonus of 3 fine motor slide deck activities.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE WINTER FINE MOTOR KIT.

Polar Bear Therapy Slide Deck

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.

Reindeer Games Gross Motor Slide Deck

December 15, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

I am so excited to share this gross motor slide deck for teletherapy. It’s a reindeer games theme that allows kids to support gross motor skills in teletherapy, which is sometimes difficult to facilitate via a virtual therapy setting. These reindeer games activities are FUN for kids and they will be excited to see and do the gross motor activity on each slide of the therapy slide deck. Let’s explore reindeer games!

Pair these with our reindeer activities to address other goal areas, and these free fine motor reindeer printables.

Reindeer Games Activities

These reindeer games are fun for kids, and I am excited to use the therapy slide deck with my own kids at home. With colder temperatures and less kids’ sports activities this year, getting the kids active and moving can be tricky.

So, that’s where these reindeer games for kids come in…we’ll use the reindeer games for a Christmas party at home as a way to get the whole family moving with a reindeer theme.

Kids can use these reindeer games in teletherapy gross motor activities.

Christmas Gross Motor Activities

I wanted to use reindeer in the gross motor activities and challenge kids to move in different positioning, much like yoga positions. The gross motor challenges require kids to copy an image and hold that image.

The slides can be graded to each child’s needs. Can they hold the position while reading the reindeer joke on the slide? Can they read just the response to the reindeer joke? Adjust the slide in a way that meets the needs of each child.

The Christmas jokes are a fun way to encourage various positions and movement with themed Christmas gross motor activities.

This Christmas slide deck goes great with our Gingerbread Man Teletherapy Slide Deck, our Decorate a Gingerbread House Teletherapy Slide Deck, and our Holiday Cookies Slide Deck.

Use this gross motor teletherapy slide deck with a reindeer theme for Christmas gross motor activities.

Gross Motor Slide Deck for Teletherapy

Because incorporating gross motor skills in teletherapy is sometimes a challenge (especially to find interesting and new ideas!) this gross motor slide deck was desined for teletherapy in a way that instructs kids to copy various postions as they balance and strengthen their core.

Included are some slides to incorporate propriocepetion and vestibular input as well.

All of these skills can be addressed with this gross motor slide deck in teletherapy sessions:

Core strength
Stability
Balance and equilibrium skills
Coordination
Range of motion
Flexibility
Motor planning
Crossing midline
Movement patterns
Posture and postural control
Muscle tone
Proprioceptive input
Vestibular input

Use these Christmas gross motor activities with a reindeer theme in teletherapy movement activities.

Want this Free Gross Motor Slide Deck?

This slide deck is not interactive. It has no movable parts on the slide deck. Because it is static slides in the activity, you can use the slide deck on any devices, including tablets and phones.

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

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

MORE VIRTUAL LEARNING SLIDE DECKS?

Would you like more therapy slide decks? Grab the others to add to your therapy toolbox!

Kids are loving this Decorate a Gingerbread House slide deck.

Try this Gingerbread Man Slide Deck.

Use this Holiday Cookies Activities to address working memory, visual perception, and direction following.

Here is a Community Helpers Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a Football Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a slide deck for a Social Story for Wearing a Mask.

Here is a Space Theme Therapy Slide Deck.

Here is a Therapy Planning Interactive Slide Deck.

Here is a Back to School Writing Activity Slide Deck.

Here is an Alphabet Exercises Slide Deck.

Here is a Self-Awareness Activities Slide Deck.

Decorate a Gingerbread House

December 9, 2020December 9, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Today, I have a fun occupational therapy teletherapy activity for kids to do this time of year. It’s an interactive therapy slide deck where kids can decorate a gingerbread house! With this digital gingerbread house activity, kids can move the gingerbread decorations onto the house to decorate in any way they wish! This interactive Google slide deck is a fun way to incorporate therapy goals with a fun holiday activity. Pair this Christmas activity with our gingerbread man slide deck for more therapy fun.

Gingerbread activities are fun this time of year, and this one is a fun twist on holiday activities. Add this to your Christmas Occupational Therapy Activities.

Decorate a Gingerbread House

Many kids make a real gingerbread house this time of year. Some lucky kids make a cardboard gingerbread house! But, for virtual therapy sessions, I thought it would be fun to make a FUN activity for therapy in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I know this year has been difficult with virtual learning and learning all that teletherapy requires. It’s been a difficult year for all of us! So, maybe a fun therapy activity is just what the doctor ordered!

Use this virtual gingerbread house activity in several different ways to incorporate occupational therapy goals in a way that kids won’t even realize they are working on specific goal areas.

Gingerbread House Therapy Activity

When kids move the interactive Google slide pieces, they can develop skills such as:

Eye-hand coordination
Visual scanning
Motor planning
Visual discrimination
Figure ground
Form constancy
Visual convergence
Visual attention
Laterality
Visualization
Finger isolation
Computer use/mouse use
Direction-following
Planning, prioritization, working memory, impulse control and other executive functions
Self-confidence

As you can see, a “fun” therapy activity like decorating a gingerbread house can work on so many areas even if it seems like an extra activity or a reward activity!

Use this decorate a gingerbread activity in occupational therapy teletherapy sessions.

Decorate a Gingerbread House Teletherapy Activity

This slide deck includes two different activities: One is a slide where students can move the candy decorations onto the slide deck.

The second slide is a gingerbread house writing prompt. Kids can either type into the text box, or they can write their responses on paper and work on handwriting, letter formation, and other areas they might be addressing in therapy or distance learning.

Tip: to revert the slide to it’s original state, use the history option. This is located on the top dashboard in the link, “last edit was”. When you click on that, you will see a list of edits made on the right side of your screen. Click on the edit titled, “Blank Gingerbread House”. This should move all of the movable candy pieces and decorations back to their original location on the slide deck. Note that you can delete edits from that list, so if several students are using the slides, you can keep the organization simple and delete edit versions that you no longer need.

Another Google Slide ninja tip: 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.

Gingerbread house writing prompts are in this decorate a gingerbread house activity.

Free Decorate a Gingerbread House Slide Deck

Does this looks like a fun way to spend a therapy session while working on skills?

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

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

MORE VIRTUAL LEARNING SLIDE DECKS?

Would you like more therapy slide decks? Grab the others to add to your therapy toolbox!

Try this Gingerbread Man Slide Deck.

Use this Holiday Cookies Activities to address working memory, visual perception, and direction following.

Here is a Community Helpers Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a Football Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a slide deck for a Social Story for Wearing a Mask.

Here is a Space Theme Therapy Slide Deck.

Here is a Therapy Planning Interactive Slide Deck.

Here is a Back to School Writing Activity Slide Deck.

Here is an Alphabet Exercises Slide Deck.

Here is a Self-Awareness Activities Slide Deck.

Cookies Activities for Therapy

December 3, 2020December 3, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Cookies activities for occupational therapy intervention

I am excited to share another free slide deck for virtual occupational therapy! This cookies activities slide deck includes cookie themed activities for building skills in therapy. The virtual slide deck goes nicely with our recent gingerbread man virtual activity slide deck. It’s a free slide deck that is interactive AND addresses areas such as working memory, eye-hand coordination, visual motor skills, visual attention, and other areas.

Cookie activities for occupational therapy with a virtual therapy slide deck.

Cookies Activities

This is the time of year for holiday baking. Because perhaps this year needs a little more of the comfort that holiday cookies bring, I thought that a Christmas cookies theme would be appropriate.

These cookies activities are meant to be motivating and an encouraging way to work on specific therapy skills.

This year, especially, it’s all about getting creative with motivating strategies to work on the skills kids need support with.

These Cookies Activities are therapy activities that work on the following therapy areas:

Working Memory
Visual Attention
Visual Memory
Visual Perception (visual figure ground, visual discrimination, form constancy, visual spatial relations, form constancy, visual closure)
Visual Efficiency (visual scanning)
Visual Motor Skills
Handwriting

use this holiday cookies activities for therapy planning using a cookie theme in teletherapy.

Cookie Theme for Therapy

This therapy slide deck is an outline of therapy activities for this time of year and addresses different areas that can be worked on in occupational therapy sessions, and even speech therapy!

Cookie activities for working on working memory, visual perception, handwriting and more.

Working Memory Activity with a Cookie Theme

The first several slides include “I Spy” cookies activities, with a direction to locate specific cookies in the kitchen. Students can follow that direction and move the interactive cookie pieces to drag that specific cookie onto the baking sheet.

The directions are text boxes, so that therapists using this slide deck can adjust the directions as needed. You can make the directions more complex or easier, depending on the needs of your client, student, or child. Add 2 or multi-step directions or work on positional terms, too.

The cookies are in the same place on each slide so that children can work on working memory as they look for specific details according to each slide’s directions.

TIP: After your child’s therapy session, click on history at the top of Google slides and reset the slide to it’s original state so that all of the cookies are positioned at the original placement.

Visual Perception Cookie Activities

There are many visual perceptual skills that children can work on with this slide deck:

Visual figure ground– Scanning the image and identifying and locating items hidden in a busy background. This is a skill needed for reading, finding items in a drawer, locating a paper in a homework folder, and other similar tasks.

Visual discrimination– Students can visually scan the kitchen slide deck and identify differences and similarities between the cookies to locate the correct item. Visual discrimination is a skill needed for handwriting, reading, math and other skills.

Form constancy– This visual perceptual skill allows us to recognize similarities and differences between forms and images. This skill is needed for reading, writing, math, and functional tasks.

Visual spatial relations– Understanding positional terms is an important skill. This slide deck works on this area by moving the cookies to different places on the slide. Therapists can make this part of the activity more or less difficult to grade the activity to meet the needs of the child by adding additional directions to the slide to work on positional concepts. Try adding directions that ask the child to move a specific cookie to a different place in the kitchen on the slide.

Form constancy– Students that need more work with this visual perception skill can have several of the cookies duplicated and added to the slide. Then, work on size differences and positional concepts by moving the cookies to different places. You can adjust the directions to ask the child to find all of the same cookie.

Visual closure– Students can work on this visual perception skill by moving some of the cookies to partially hide behind other items on the slide.

Cookie activity for handwriting with kids.

Handwriting Cookie Activity

The next part of the slide deck is handwriting prompts in a write the room style of handwriting practice. Students can copy the word in print or cursive, depending on their needs. They can write a sentence using the word, if writing sentences is something they need to work on. Work on letter formation, legibility, and copying skills.

Use this cookie activity for visual motor skills in kids.

Visual Motor Cookie Activity

The last part of the cookie activity slide deck includes figure copying tasks. The slides include basic cookie forms that students can copy while working on visual motor skills. This is a nice activity to help children with the visual motor skills needed for forming letters and numbers.

This cookie slide deck should be a motivating a fun way to work on so many areas!

Free Cookie theme Slide Deck for therapy

Want to add this cookie slide deck to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below and a PDF will be sent to your inbox. Save that PDF, because you can use this slide deck each year to work on therapy goals with a holiday cookie theme.

When you click the link in the PDF, you will be prompted to make a copy of the slide deck onto your Google drive. Make a copy for each student on your caseload so they have their own slide deck and you can adjust the slides according to their needs.

Enjoy!

Want more VIRTUAL LEARNING SLIDE DECKS?

Don’t miss this Gingerbread Man Slide Deck.

Here is a Community Helpers Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a Football Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a slide deck for a Social Story for Wearing a Mask.

Here is a Space Theme Therapy Slide Deck.

Here is a Therapy Planning Interactive Slide Deck.

Here is a Back to School Writing Activity Slide Deck.

Here is an Alphabet Exercises Slide Deck.

Here is a Self-Awareness Activities Slide Deck.

Here is a Strait Line Letters Slide Deck.

Here is a “Scribble theme” Handwriting Slide Deck.

Teach Letters with an interactive Letter Formation Slide Deck.

Here is a Community Helpers Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a Football Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a slide deck for a Social Story for Wearing a Mask.

Here is a Space Theme Therapy Slide Deck.

Here is a Therapy Planning Interactive Slide Deck.

Here is a Back to School Writing Activity Slide Deck.

Here is an Alphabet Exercises Slide Deck.

Here is a Self-Awareness Activities Slide Deck.

Here is a Strait Line Letters Slide Deck.

Here is a “Scribble theme” Handwriting Slide Deck.

Teach Letters with an interactive Letter Formation Slide Deck.

Gingerbread Man Virtual Activity

December 12, 2022November 29, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This gingerbread man virtual activity is perfect for occupational therapy teletherapy activities, and just one more teletherapy activity that we’ve got lined up for you here on The OT Toolbox. Add this Christmas activity to your therapy plans, along with some gingerbread man activities and maybe making a little gingerbread salt dough for holiday fun with gingerbread themed development and learning!

This is a fun addition to our weekly therapy themes for themed occupational therapy sessions.

Gingerbread Man Virtual Activity

This slide deck covers various areas with a gingerbread theme:

Mindfulness
Fine Motor Skills
Handwriting
Gross Motor
Self-Regulation Check In

Use this list and the gingerbread man activities on this slide deck to help kids develop certain skills in virtual therapy sessions.

CGingerbread man Therapy SLIDE DECK

If you’ve been following The OT Toolbox, then you may have seen a few of our other interactive slide decks. Therapists are LOVING these therapy slide decks for their themed activities that help kids build skills, while in virtual or hybrid environments.

This gingerbread man therapy activity can be adjusted to meet the needs of your clients or students. Use it as an outline and add prompts, or adjust the activities as you need.

Gingerbread Themed Mindfulness Activity

Students can use the gingerbread man image with deep breathing activity to work on deep breaths in and deep breaths out as a mindfulness activity with a gingerbread man theme.

Gingerbread Man Writing Prompts

Included in this therapy slide deck are gingerbread words writing prompts. These are set up as a copying activity for students. Work on letter formation, legibility, and copying skills. Kids can use this to work on printed or cursive writing, based on their specific needs.

Gingerbread man Visual Perception Activity

Children will love the gingerbread man visual perception activity as they visually scan to count the number of each cookie. Kids can type right into the Google slide deck when they find the correct number of each gingerbread man.

Gingerbread Man Fine Motor Activity

The no-prep gingerbread man fine motor activity asks children to work on fine motor skills such as finger isolation, dexterity, motor planning, and eye-hand coordination as they spell the word “gingerbread man” in sign language.

Gingerbread man Gross Motor Activity

Next, kids can work on core strength, gross motor skills, balance, and motor planning with a gingerbread man gross motor activity. This activity asks children to move the movable slide pieces into the correct order. They can then act out the images and work on gross motor skills as well as sequencing.

Gingerbread Man Self-Regulation Activity

The final activity in this interactive slide deck is the self-regulation activity where children can move the gingerbread man to identify and match their body’s feelings. Work on self-regulation strategies and coping tools as needed.

Does this looks like a fun way to spend a therapy session while working on skills?

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

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

MORE VIRTUAL LEARNING SLIDE DECKS?

Would you like more therapy slide decks? Grab the others to add to your therapy toolbox!

Here is a Community Helpers Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a Football Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a slide deck for a Social Story for Wearing a Mask.

Here is a Space Theme Therapy Slide Deck.

Here is a Therapy Planning Interactive Slide Deck.

Here is a Back to School Writing Activity Slide Deck.

Here is an Alphabet Exercises Slide Deck.

Here is a Self-Awareness Activities Slide Deck.

Disguise the Turkey Digital Activity

November 18, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Disguise the Turkey free digital slide deck for teletherapy

This Disguise the Turkey digital activity is an interactive Thanksgiving activity that kids can use to as a disguise the turkey project for this year. In a year when teletherapy and distance learning is the new way, digital activities are the way to go. Recently, I shared a free turkey theme slide deck for virtual therapy sessions. It was a HUGE hit. One thing that readers asked for was an interactive portion on one of the slides. On that slide, you’ll find a turkey with clothing items that students can write about. Today, I’m sharing this free occupational therapy slide deck for a disguise the turkey project in 2020.

Another free slide deck you’ll love is this teaching gratitude therapy slide deck that targets fine and gross motor skills, mindfulness, and more.

Disguise the Turkey

So, what is disguise the turkey? This is a fun Thanksgiving activity that all of my kids have done each year in their elementary years. They typically come home with a turkey template and instructions to put on their thinking caps and use materials they find around the home to disguise the turkey, so that he can hide from becoming Thanksgiving dinner.

Students are instructed to use materials in the home, recycled materials, paints, crayons, and other items to glue onto the turkey.

Disguise the turkey usually involves children turning their turkey pal into another character such as Santa Clause, an army guy, a cowboy, fairy, or any topic a child can imagine! One of my own kiddos even dressed his disguise a turkey project into a fidget spinner a few years back. Another of my kids turned their turkey into the Chick-Fil-A cow, and another disguised their turkey into a disco ball. The point is to think outside of the box and make a fun and creative project.

Normally, these disguised turkeys are hung in the school hallway or somewhere in the classroom for all to see the creative turkey fun.

This year is a little different, however.

To add some fun and creativity, I made this digital disguise the turkey slide deck.

Disguise the Turkey interactive slide deck is a free slide deck for teletherapy, digital learning, or virtual classrooms. Use this as a fun family activity based on the typical disguise the turkey projects for Thanksgiving.

Disguise the turkey project

Take the disguise the turkey project a bit further. After students move the interactive pieces onto the slide, they can work on other areas of learning and development so that this turkey project adds to the learning curriculum.

If you are feeling like many parents out there right now, children are spending way too much time on screens. There is a motivating factor and a need for screen-based activities during this time, however.

This disguise the turkey project includes an interactive slide deck to decorate the turkey with costumes, and a writing prompt to use in therapy or learning activities.

That’s why this disguise the turkey project hits the ball out of the park. It’s a fun activity for kids. They will be engaged in disguising their digital turkey with the movable slide pieces. And, if they’ve done a disguise the turkey project in years past, there is a bit of nostalgia that they might experience.

Disguise the Turkey Extension Ideas:

However, you can then extend this project in a way that works for the individual child’s needs in therapy, or in the classroom (or home classroom).

Ask students to write out the items that they used on their turkey project.
Ask students to write a story about their turkey.
Use the prompts on the next slide and they can name their turkey, and fill in the blank about why their turkey is safe in the disguise they designed.
Use this slide to work on sentence composure and creative writing.
Work on typing skills as students type into the interactive text boxes on the slide.
Work on handwriting. Kids can write their responses on paper. This is a fun writing prompt for kids and they can work on letter formation, line use, spacing, letter sizing, and legibility.

You can use this as parents, therapists, and educators to work on all aspects of creative writing, typing, or handwriting.

Free digital slide deck to disguise the turkey!

Free Digital Disguise the Turkey Activity

Enter your email address below to access this free Google slide deck. Enter your email address in the form below and you will get a PDF delivered to your inbox. Click the button and you will be prompted to make a copy onto your Google Drive. Then, use that slide deck to teach gratitude to kids using movement and activities. Have fun!

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Teaching Gratitude Slide Deck

October 26, 2022November 15, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

teaching gratitude free occupational therapy slide deck

Today, I have another occupational therapy teletherapy slide deck to share and it’s all about teaching gratitude, just in time for Thanksgiving. If you’ve been hanging around this site since about March of 2020, then you have probably seen quite a few teletherapy activities in the way of free slide decks. This one is perfect for helping kids understand gratitude and especially in hands-on, practical ways that they can learn gratitude and all that that means. Let me tell you about what all is in this free slide deck and then you can get your copy at the bottom of this blog post.

Plus, use these thankful turkey templates for hands-on activities.

Teaching Gratitude

When it comes to teaching gratitude, there is nothing like being immersed in a sense of thankfulness. This gratitude activity helps kids better define what they are thankful for so they can show and express gratitude for the things they are thankful for, both to themselves in the way they understand gratitude, and as an expression to others.

I created these slide decks to help kids identify exactly what it is that they are thankful for, and in a way that helps them use their whole body through gross motor activities, and through fine motor work, as well as handwriting and verbal communication.

In this thankfulness activity, I broke down gratitude into different activities that builds on areas they might be working on in occupational therapy interventions.

Related: Here is another gratitude activity for kids.

Teaching gratitude to children is fun with this gratitude mindfulness activity.

Teaching Gratitude with Mindfulness

The slide deck includes several activities, one of them being a warm-up activity that encourages mindfulness and deep breathing.

Children can use whole-body movements with big deep breaths in and deep breaths out as they pretend to place imaginary items into a basket. This is a fun way to incorporate deep breathing concepts of mindfulness along with gross motor actions, core strengthening and expanded lung capacity with gratitude as children imagine and think of the things they are thankful for.

Related: Here is a Thanksgiving mindfulness activity that you can pair with this slide deck.

Teach gratitude with a fine motor activity kids will love.

Teaching Gratitude with Fine Motor

The next slide in this free slide deck asks children to draw and cut out paper leaves. This is a nice teletherapy activity using only paper, a pencil, and scissors.

Children can draw, cut, and then curl the edges of their paper leaves, working on fine motor skills such as hand strength, bilateral coordination, pincer grasp, eye-hand coordination, precision, and visual motor skills, as well.

Related: Here is a way to extend the activity and teach gratitude using the leaf craft.

Teaching kids to be grateful helps with writing it out. Use this gratitude writing activity for kids.

Teaching Gratitude with Handwriting

Children can then write out the things, people, and places that they have gratitude for. This action of writing down gratitude can be a way to make concepts real.

Adding in the handwriting piece makes this a great teletherapy activity for occupational therapy sessions.

Love this gratitude scavenger hunt as a gross motor activity to teach gratitude to kids.

Teaching Gratitude with Gross Motor

The next part of this free slide deck is a movement scavenger hunt. Children can go through the slides and find people, items, or things that they are thankful for, by moving around their home.

This is also a good way to work on visual perceptual skills such as visual attention, visual discrimination, and visual figure ground skills.

Want to get this free slide deck to teach gratitude?

Enter your email address in the form below and you will get a PDF delivered to your inbox. Click the button and you will be prompted to make a copy onto your Google Drive. Then, use that slide deck to teach gratitude to kids using movement and activities. Have fun!

Need more free therapy slide decks?

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Disguise the Turkey Extension Ideas:

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Want to get this free slide deck to teach gratitude?

Teach Gratitude with this FREE slide deck!

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