Fine Motor:
Keyboarding:
- Feed the Tennis Ball (Materials Required: Tennis Ball and pennies/small objects. *Using an exacto knife or other sharp blade, adults should carefully cut a slice in the tennis ball to represent a mouth. Smaller mouths have more resistance and require more hand strength. Adjust the mouth size for the desired level of difficulty. Glue googly eyes or use a marker to create a face.) First have your child pick up the pennies one at a time using the thumb and index finger of their dominant hand then transfer the pennies into their palm using only that hand. They should hold the pennies in their palm with their middle, ring, and little fingers. They should repeat this process until there are 3 pennies in their palm. Next they should use the thumb of their dominant hand to transfer one penny from their palm to the tips of the index finger and thumb of their dominant hand. Your child should use their other hand to squeeze the sides of the mouth of the tennis ball then place the pennies in the mouth one at a time with their dominant hand. Have your child start by picking up only 3 pennies per turn and gradually increase the number of pennies with each turn until the task becomes too difficult. Have them continue to pick up the number of pennies that was challenging, but not too difficult, for the remaining turns until all of the pennies are inside the tennis ball. To remove the pennies from the tennis ball have your child squeeze the ends of the mouth, turn the tennis ball upside down and shake until all of the pennies fall out. They may need to insert their finger in the mouth and sweep the pennies if they become stuck.
- Have your child practice forming letters, words, and/or sentences with sandpaper or other textured surface under their paper. Be sure your child is forming their letters the correct way (starting and stopping in the correct place).
- Create an outdoor sensory path using chalk. Use chalk to draw squares to jump in, pretend logs to jump over, wavy lines to walk along, infinity sign to walk along, lily pads to jump on, hand marks to do mountain climbers or push-ups or downward dog...be creative! There is no right or wrong way to do it. Get your child involved in making it and just have fun!
Keyboarding:
- Continue practicing at typing.com or Typing Agent.
- Continue to practice shoe tying, buttoning, and/or zipping.
- Continue to perform the Chore of the Day/Week.
- Continue to identify your zone and use strategies to adjust as needed.
- Continue to focus on identifying characters in movies, TV shows and/or books who are in the Yellow Zone. Help your child identify why they are in the Yellow Zone: i.e what they are doing, how they are behaving, how they are feeling or other non-verbal characteristics.