Stringing Shapes

 

Stringing these flat plastic pieces with large holes and using thick cord teaches the stringing concepts that prepare children to string beads. The flat plastic won't roll away and its easy to grasp as you teach the child the motor planning sequence, I attached the bottom of the cord to a small bag I knit and clipped that onto the tack handle to use during the riding sessions. I like to stop on the trail especially on a beautiful sunny day like today and offer a fine-motor activity.  This girl was about 20 minutes into the session, so had a lot of great sensory input that helped her to focus and persist on a challenging task. 

Squeaky Toy to Promote Hand Use

This is a pillow with two attached  dog toys that squeak when pressed. First I put each toy inside a sock and then I sewed the sock onto the pillow. I created this to encourage weight bearing, especially with kids who don't want to touch anything. But today it came in very handy when working with a two year old blind little girl. She loved hearing the sounds while I helped her to press. She also loved the basketball hoop that makes sounds when pressed or a ball is inserted.This weight bearing toy is especially successful when going uphill with the child facing backwards since gravity then helps them to bear weight on hands. You can vary the textures for fun.

1 comments:


Corn Fed in IA (Peter D.) said...

awesome idea! I have been looking for a way to adapt puzzles when seeing kiddos on horses! I love the change of visual focus aspect and makes it managable during the session and for storage! Bravo!!

Peter,
I am glad to hear that you like my idea!
Barbara
HorseOT.com

You might also enjoy ideas on my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Recycling-Occupational-Therapist/113805848640610?ref=ts

A good article on the healing power of pets:
http://occupational-therapy.advanceweb.com/Features/Articles/The-Healing-Power-of-Pets.aspx

A very good language day

Although I am an OT, I spend a lot of time working on speech, taking advantage of all the sensory stim. Today a little guy with autism who has never spoken to me (he uses a few words with his family) said "bye baby" when I had him velcro a small animal picture onto a large animal picture. He has finally figured out that when the horse stops and I ask him to say go, he needs to make some type of sound, any sound at all and he was pretty good at patting his hand on the mouth going wha wha wha.
A little girl with a neuromuscular disorder has increased her tolerance in only 3 weeks to sitting upright the full session. I realize that her head control is pretty good facing forwards and sideways but really a struggle while facing backwards, even with the pilllow to bear weight on. That gravity is really a challenge. I am going to avoid having her face backwards until I see her head control improve or maybe try stacking 2 boppy pillows in front of her.   

Two types of Ring Stacks

I make many different types of ring staqacks to use with young children to work on various objectives and make them more interesting. The candy cane shaped ring stack takes a bit more visual perceptual skills to orient the ring and the PCV pipe ring stack develops motor planning skills as the children manipulate plastic pieces to go down.