Activity One: Bear Walks
Having your child walk like a bear works on so many important skills! It helps improve her balance and trunk strength (to keep her tummy off the floor), improves her gross motor coordination and motor planning (to efficiently coordinate her arms and legs), and provides a lot of weight bearing into her arms and legs (which can be very calming). Make it a bit more challenging by having her walk fast, slow, sideways, or backwards for more variety and fun!
Language Concepts:
Following Directions
Vocabulary: Body Parts
Spatial/Directional Concepts: Forward, Backward, Sideway
Qualitative Concepts: Fast, Slow
Motor Concepts:
Balance
Bilateral Coordination
Motor Planning
Sensory Regulation
Strength
Activity Two: Tunnel Crawls
Crawling through a tunnel (if you don’t have one, you can make one by throwing a sheet over your kitchen table!) Having your child crawl through, under, and around obstacles is a fun way to help build his upper body and trunk/core strength. It also will help improve his ability to cross midline and develop his bilateral coordination (which is using both hands together efficiently). Have your child crawl through a tunnel to pick up a requested item and bring it back through. This helps improve his ability to follow directions and sequence steps! The possibilities are endless for some indoor summer fun when it heats up outside ?!!
Motor Concepts:
Core & Trunk Strength
Upper Body Strength
Crossing Midline
Bilateral Coordination
Sequencing
Language Concepts:
Multiple-Step Directions
Vocabulary: Food, food groups, shapes, colors
Spatial/Directional Concepts: through, on top, together, apart, beside/next to, under, between, inside
Qualitative Concepts: fast, slow, hot, cold, bumpy, round, square, long, striped
Written by: Amy Elgin, MSOL, OTR/L, BCP
Occupational Therapist
Board Certified in Pediatrics
Clinical Director – Tri-County Therapy
