Meaningful Movement OT

05/03/2023

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I am an experienced occupational therapist who uses creative methods focused on evidence-based practice to improve access to meaningful occupations whether for a child, young adult, or professional through 1:1 therapy.

10/31/2022

Wicked witch of the west. Make 10 vertical lines across the width of a paper. Color them for the hair, legs, arms, and broomstick. Make two circles one large and one medium. Color the medium sized one the same color as the arms and legs for the face. Make a triangle and a smaller and wider rectangle for the hat. Make shoes by drawing 2 ovals with a small square on one side. Color the large circle for the clothes, hat, and shoes the same color. Draw a face onto the medium circle. Cut out all shapes. Cut thin snips at one end of the broom. Use dots of glue to put together. You can glue the witch down onto a paper or leave the body parts dangling. Work on fine motor skills, visual-perception, cutting shapes, and shape recognition.

08/15/2022

Need a quick and easy activity to entertain your child and work on great skills? Grab a can and a stack of rubber bands. Have your child use a pincer grasp (thumb and pointer finger) with both hands to stretch and pull a rubber band over the can. They can use their other fingers to hold the can steady if needed like shown in the picture. Grade up: use a smaller or thicker rubber band for more resistance. Grade down: use looser and thinner rubber bands, smaller cans, narrow bottles. Bilateral coordination, pincer grasp, intrinsic hand strength, grading force, visual motor skills, thenar muscle strength ~Meaningful Movement OT

08/08/2022

Working on cutting, broad stroke coloring, and letter formation? Make a sun. Using white paper have your child draw a half circle or full circle if they have a long name, and draw a triangle for each letter of their name. Use broad stroked side to side to color in the white space. Write/copy/trace the letters of their name into each triangle. Cut out the shapes, tape or glue together around the circle making sure to have correct name spelling, formation, and directionality. Grade up: have the letters out of order and have the child sequence the spelling of their name. Grade down: have the shapes pre-drawn and use colored paper to only work on cutting skills. Fine Motor Skills, Visual Motor Skills, Handwriting, Cutting, Sequencing, Bilateral Coordination - Meaningful Movement OT

08/03/2022

Toilet paper roll puppet characters. Utilizing basic tools create your own puppets. The final design shown is the graded down activity. Color the background of a white paper, practice measuring paper against the tube, cutting straight lines, using a tape dispenser properly, and wrapping the tube in the paper. Draw and color in simple shapes to make your characters features such as circles, ovals, squares, rectangles, triangles, zig zags, or free-form designs. To grade up this activity, draw shapes on different papers (to color in or start with colored paper), cut out the shapes, glue them on in their appropriate spots. Make any of these characters or others, imagination is the limit. Work on fine motor skills, visual motor skills, attention to detail, and bilateral coordination.