14/04/2025
✨️OT Tips✨️
As children prepare to return to structured learning environments after the Easter break, here are several OT-informed strategies to support a smoother transition:
🔄 Reset Daily Routines
Begin reintroducing consistent wake-up, meal, and sleep schedules a few days in advance. Utilize visual schedules and predictable sequences to promote autonomy and reduce transition-related anxiety.
💤 Support Sleep Hygiene & Limit Screens
Re-establish boundaries around evening screen time to support melatonin production and restful sleep. Encourage calming activities before bedtime to assist with emotional regulation.
🤸♀️ Incorporate Movement-Based Regulation
Daily gross motor activities—such as jumping, climbing, or animal walks—can enhance proprioceptive input and prepare the nervous system for learning and focus.
📚 Re-engage Cognitive Routines
Introduce light, play-based cognitive tasks such as puzzles, matching games, or storytelling to reactivate attention, sequencing, and language processing.
🎧 Attend to Sensory Profiles
If your child uses sensory tools (e.g., noise-canceling headphones, fidgets), ensure these are clean, functional, and packed. Communicate any updated sensory preferences to the classroom teacher.
🥪 Practise Lunchbox Skills
Facilitate independence by encouraging children to rehearse opening containers, unwrapping items, and managing their lunch setup during mock breaks at home.
🗣️ Use Visual and Social Narratives
Social stories or visual schedules outlining the return to school can assist children with anxiety, ASD, or executive functioning challenges in anticipating and managing transitions.
🧠 Regulate Before Expecting Attention
Engagement in learning improves when children are regulated. Prioritise sensory input or calming strategies before academic tasks to optimise readiness to learn.
🤝 Collaborate with Educators
Brief teachers on any behavioural, emotional, or developmental observations made over the break. Continued home-school communication enhances consistency and support.
📌 Save for later or share with a parent who could use a few gentle strategies before school starts back!
