Wonders of Winter Activities

 

The cold weather is upon us along with shorter days so it is time to spit our motor activites between inside and outside.  Dont let the lack of warm weather turn you and your child into couch potatoes! There are still lots of activies that you can use to help keep the mind and body focused and fueled.

 

Life Skills:

-Shoveling or sweeping snow is a wonderful way to improve core muscle strength, bilateral coordination, hand eye coordination and shoulder/hand strength. Students need a strong, stable core base to sit upright in a chair at a desk for fine motor activities such as handwriting.

-Make cookies or other simple recipes with your child.  They will learn organizational skills from following a sequence, math skills from measuring, fine motor skills from stirring, sifting and sooping up dough. Children always have a sense of pride when they have created something special such as cookies, muffins or pancakes.

 

Fine Motor/Hand-eye coordination:

-Get out the balloons for some safe, indoor fun.  Work on hand eye coordination by playing volleyball or math skills by counting how many times they hit it.  To make the game more difficult, try hitting the balloon with an empty wrapping paper tube or paper towel tube.  Another variation is to have your child get down in a crab position and play crab soccer by kicking the ball.  This will not only help eye-foot coordination but by weightbearing on the arms, your child will be working on upper body strength as well.

-Practice a multi sensory approach to handwriting by practice letters or spelling words in a tray, jelly roll pan or plastic placemat.   Try using different materials such as shaving cream, pudding, dried rice or by flattening out play dough in your tray.  use a pop cycle stick or thier finger to write the letters or words.  Important: make sure your child uses the correct directionality (top to bottom, left to right) when forming letters and numbers.

 

Typing Skills:

-Go on Milltown's website or my website for key boarding games.  It is important for your child to have a good idea of where the keys are on the key board so they can speed up their typing skills.

-Ask your child to provide lists for you in wriitng: present lists, type your grocery list, for older students- a reason why they should get whatever they are asking you for