This week we are playing games! Our OT, PT, and SLP have come up with a variety of things to do. So break out the board games, gather everyone up, and have a fun family game night!

 

 

 

 

 

 

SENSORY

Here are two fun sensory based versions of games to play with your kids!

We often put a hidden picture at the bottom of our sensory boxes. The students have to push the contents of the box to see the picture. You can easily adapt this to an I-Spy game at home using magazine or old calendar pictures. Look for a picture with lots of different things to find and tape it to the bottom of your container (cookie sheet, roasting pan, casserole dish, storage box etc) and then add sand, rice, or oatmeal. See how many details they can “spy” as they move the contents around.

 

One of my favorite games to play with my students is What’s in Ned’s Head. Students reach into “Ned’s Head” and try to identify an object before they pull it out OR pull the object out and match it to a picture. You could make your own variation of the game and play Bingo by putting a variety of toys in a drawstring bag. Pick toys with different textures, shapes, sizes ex. balls, hand fidgets, cars, action figures etc. Make simple Bingo boards with names of the different objects. Have your child act as the “caller” and pull out one object at a time.

 

 

 

 

GROSS MOTOR

Over the past few weeks, I have talked about a lot of different games you could play with your kids to incorporate gross motor skills, so this week I thought a fun activity would be to make your own board game and incorporate various gross motor activities into it.  This could be done indoors or outdoors using a variety of materials that you have at home, as well as, for students with different ability levels.

Use painters tape, chalk, paper plates, construction paper, large boxes, etc. to make a path for your child to follow.  Make lines straight, curvy, or zig zag for your child to walk, jump, or crawl on.  A hop scotch path could be fun to incorporate into your path too.

Incorporate challenges for them along the way using pool noodles to step over or walk on (if they are cut in half), cones to weave through, streamers to crawl under/step over, hula hoops to step through or walk around, couch cushions to walk on to challenge their balance.  You could incorporate different textures to such a bubble wrap, sand paper, carpet, tile, grass, sand, etc. and play bare footed for extra fun.

You could incorporate a targeting game that they have to master before they can continue to move along the path.  For example, a ring/bean bag/ball toss to a basket/bucket/box.  You could also include targeting skills focusing on kicking a ball into a box/basket/between 2 cones, throwing a ball to a target on the wall, or rolling a ball to a target (think bowling).

You could also incorporate a movement activity along the path.  For example, jumping jacks, wall pushups, etc.  Also, use various ways to move along the path (for example, bear crawl, frog jump, etc.).

Use a dice, number cards from a deck or cards, numbered strips of paper in a cup/bag to draw from to determine how many spaces to move forward (if you want to work on numbers).  You could also work on colors or letters if you wanted to instead of numbers using colored pieces of paper or alphabet cards, as long as, colors or letters are incorporated into your path/game board.

Use the above ideas, ideas from previous posts, or create your own ideas to make your own floor or outdoor area board game.  The most important thing is to get everyone involved and have fun!  Have a good week.

 

 

 

FINE MOTOR

We are lucky enough to have things like an All Turn It spinner to adapt games at school, but there are still ways to simply adapt things at home.

Here are some ways to adapt board games for easier access:

 

Put dice into small snack containers. Let your child throw the container or knock it off their tray when it is their turn to roll.

Use a section of a pool noodle with a slit on the top to hold playing cards.

If picking up small cards (ex. Candy Land) is difficult, tape colored paper to match game pieces to the sides of a small box. Let your child throw or drop the container—the color on top is their card.

Limit the amount or which cards are used, for example with Memory use fewer cards or in Uno remove all the reverse/skip/etc cards to simplify the game to simple color matching.

Tape a small photo of your child to their playing piece to make it easily identifiable.

To exchange a small playing piece for a larger one that is easier to grasp, you can use an empty medicine bottle or spice jar. Adding some coins or play dough inside will make it more stable.

 

 

 

 

LANGUAGE

Here is a fun and engaging game that your child and you can play while working on the common core words GO and STOP.  Here are the symbols that you can use: Red Light Green Light

You can take turns being the person in control of the “light”.  Hold up the symbol for GO and for STOP whenever you are saying the words.  You can also use the color symbols.  It’s always fun to be able to control things that are happening so your kiddos should have a good time controlling the movement of people 🙂

For this game, you can either use either a Memory board game or these pictures: Memory game

Turn all the cards over face down and take turns choosing 2 cards at a time.  Talk about if they look the SAME or if they look DIFFERENT.

 

 

 

 

 

 

LITERACY

We suggest this book from November 2018: Let’s Play Candy Land

We also suggest this book from September 2016: what-video-game-should-we-play

 

Join us again next time for more fun and home learning—-Group by Group!

 

 

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