Bringing Hands Together to Clap

This was a fun way to teach hand clapping. I placed the Senseez vibrating cushion between a 3 year old's hands. He squeezed it hard enough to make it vibrate and could do this independently.

When I took the cushion away he signed more. But when I tried to bring his hands together to clap first, his hands fisted.

His mom says that when he gets more used to me he will clap. We have only worked together 3-4 times, so I look forward to bonding more and seeing some clapping!!

Removing Shapes from Weavable Toys

 

Removing shapes from weaving strips is a great way to introduce children to weaving.

Many typically developing 2-3 year old children can do this. This activity also helps older children with  challenges to:

• use hands together
• strengthen fingers and develop dexterity
• motor planning to move shapes in correct direction to remove them. 
• count the shapes as they are removed
• name colors of shapes removed
• eye-hand coordination to insert shapes into slot
• Shape identification 

My patent pending Weavable Toys: Basic Shapes provides boards with shapes: square, triangle, rectangle and circle. The strips woven through the boards reinforce concepts of shapes:

• circle
• L
• V
• straight line 

The mushroom shape at the ends of the circles and straight lines prevent the shapes from falling off while adding new ones.

This little girl was particularly ready to focus on this fine-motor activity after 20 minutes of trail riding sensory stimulation !!

http://blog.therapro.com/post/2013/09/04/Using-Movement-to-Motivate-and-Develop-Hand-Skills.aspx