FREE Pre-K Webinar

Handwriting Without Tears will be offering another free one hour webinar on August 21st at 8PM Eastern time.  Learn about the "Top 10 Ways to Prepare Your Children For Kindergarten"!

Go to Get Set For School Webinar Series at www.hwtears.com to register and learn how to help your kiddos get ready for a great school year!

Jen Dermody, OTR/L

Back to School Favs

Back to school sales are in full force in my neck of the woods!  I snapped some pictures of some of my favorite supplies for kiddos...and grown ups who love kiddos, to help you make that shopping trip fun and useful.

First of all, a decent pair or scissors to fit little hands.  My favorite every year are the Fiskars brand scissors and you can find them for $1-$2 during back to school sales.  They fit kiddos fingers and are intended for both righties and lefties.  Bottom line is that they actually CUT!  Please, please, do not buy your little ones the super cheap scissors that won't cut a darn thing.  Cutting is a pretty tricky skill for kiddos to learn and can be frustrating in the best of circumstances---cheap scissors that don't cut make the job oh so much more difficult.  You'll find both blunt and pointed designs.  I've never had an issue with any child using the pointed top scissors and I think it helps them when cutting small pieces.

Markers---kiddos LOVE markers!!  I really like the Crayola Pip-Squeaks for little hands.  Again, these are markers that fit their hands and are easy to manipulate.  They come in lots of colors and motivate kids to draw and create!  There are also "Pip-Squeaks Skinnies" that are obviously... SKINNY :-)   I've had students use both regular and skinny and both worked out just fine.

HIGHLIGHTERS!  Kiddos LOVE these too!  They are super cheap during back to school sales and are an excellent tool for practicing letter and number formation.  I'm not a fan of giving kids dotted lines to trace letters because it's just a lot to look at and there are dots everywhere that look choppy and disjointed.  You can print letters using a highlighter and the child can see exactly what the letter looks like without all of the dots.  It is easier for tracing and helps the student be more fluent.  On top of it, who isn't motivated by fun, bright colors?! For kids who have difficulty with line orientation (keeping letters on the line when writing), a simple highlighted line provides a visual boundary and you'll be amazed at how much more legible handwriting can be when letters actually sit on a line instead of running all over the page.

 
Mechanical pencils are great for helping students learn "appropriate pressure" for writing.  Kids who push so hard that it nearly puts holes in the paper can use a mechanical pencil to learn to use less pressure because the tip can break off quite easily.  I've found that it gives kiddos a good reference for how much is too much when pushing the pencil to the paper.  In addition, my students always consider it a treat to use a mechanical pencil because it's like a "grown up" pencil.

Elmers has some fun new glue sticks with GLITTER!  OK, they're a little more expensive than regular glue sticks, but oh my goodness, children LOVE GLITTER!  Other than the glitter, it makes things stick like regular glue but I'm a big believer in making the cutting, glueing, and writing as motivating as possible.  I can promise you my students will be excited to practice cutting and glueing in style!

These little dudes are called Stetro pencil grips.  I've had lots of parents and teachers put this their students' pencils when the child has a funky grasp.  The secret is that these won't do much of anything to help if you don't take the time to correct the grasp.  For example, have you had a student who wraps their thumb tightly around the pencil? It seems that the Stetro grip would fix that right up, however, the student simply wraps his thumb tightly around the Stetro grip around the pencil.  It would be MORE beneficial to re-train the grasp---use small pieces of crayon and pencil to get a tripod grasp; practice on a vertical surface, etc.
the soft grips below are popular too and the only thing these do is make the pencil softer.  There's nothing wrong with that!  Just don't expect that it is useful in correcting a poor grasp.  

So what the heck are these things you might ask?!   They are intended to be stretchy long erasers.  I saw them and thought "fidgets".  For $.79, you've got a socially appropriate, inexpensive classroom fidget for some of your kiddos who need a little something extra to hold on to to help them focus.  I found these at Target but I've seen them at Walmart, Walgreens, and the grocery store.

These are just a few of the things that popped out to me when I was shopping for my own kids last week.  Some of these items might  not be listed on the "required" list but can help make fine motor FUN!  Check out your local sales and get shopping!

Jen Dermody, OTR/L

Shaggies!

Oh my word, it has been WEEKS since I've posted on my blog!  The end of the school year nearly took me down with so many new evaluations, re-evaluations, IEP's, and PAPERWORK and there simply weren't enough hours in the day to fit in a new post.  When I finally had some time to post, I had computer issues and wasn't able to access my own blog :(    Everything is back on course now!

Wouldn't you know, the 4th of July was just a few days ago and yet I'm sitting here with a pile of BACK TO SCHOOL newspaper ads!  Goodness, I've still got piles of schoolwork to get organized from the year I just finished but I just cannot resist a good back to school shopping trip.  I found a new product today and had to share.  They're called "Shaggies" pencil grips.  For about $2.40, there are 5 of them in a package in different colors.

Shaggies are made of that soft, rubbery, "Koosh" type product that can be squished and stretched.  I thought this would make an excellent FIDGET for kids of all ages!  You just slide these on a pen or pencil like any other pencil gripper.  While they are intended to be a "gripper", you can also move it up further to act only as a fidget.  I already know that if I give one to my students, ALL of the kids in the class will want one!  I like them myself and my own kids broke them open right away.  Sometimes the fidgets I give to students can be distracting in class because they might fall to the floor or other kiddos want to pull on them too.  Shaggies are small enough to help a student keep it in his own space and are readily accessible on his own pencil.

I included a picture of the back of the package so you can see this is a latex free product for anyone who needs to keep an eye on that.  So I've officially started my newest pile of school supplies for when we return to school in August.  Until then, I'm going to savor every minute of summer!

Jen Dermody, OTR/L

The Great Bike Giveaway!

The nice folks at PediaStaff shared the great news about the ‘Great Bike Giveaway.’ Friendship Circle of Michigan has partnered with adaptive bicycle companies to give 14 children with special needs a free adaptive bicycle for winning this contest!

How does my kiddo win? Starting April 16th through May 10th, submit a creative photo or photo of a child (yours or your therapy client) along with 250 characters describing why he/she needs an adaptive bike.

Share! From May 13th through the 18th share your submission with as many friends and family members as possible. Ask them to vote for your submission and to share with their friends and family.

WIN!!!! The 14 submissions with the most votes will win 1 of the 14 adaptive bikes!!

Adaptive bikes are AMAZING and would mean the world to that special kiddo in your life. VOTE TODAY!
Jen Dermody, OTR/L

Follow Me on PINTEREST!

If you haven't been completely sucked into the world of Pinterest, you've got to give it a try!  I checked it out a few months ago and can officially add it to my list of addictions!    Just in case you haven't seen Pinterest and don't know how it works, it's basically a virtual bulletin board.  You set up "boards" that you can label any way you want and then you "pin" interesting pictures and ideas to your board.  There are literally thousands of pictures with just about everything from recipes to wedding dresses to cleaning ideas to pets to vacation spots.  Seriously, I'm talking about thousands of pictures!  When you see something of "interest" you simply "pin" to your board and you have a built in resource you can refer to anytime anywhere.  The really great part is that when you click on the picture you've pinned, it takes you directly to the website where it was found and you get all of the details you need!

         While it's easy to be distracted by so many pretty pictures and lots of  different topics, I've been most excited about the WEALTH of information that is available relating to Occupational Therapy and kids!  I LOVE IT!!!!  Oh how I wish that Pinterest had been around when I was in OT school or working as a new grad.  The ideas are ENDLESS!  This one little website (OK, it's not so little I suppose) has sparked a new excitement in me about OT and I'm more anxious every week to try out some new ideas with my kiddos. 

I've been having such a fun time creating boards on lots of different topics for my own personal interests.  Several "Jen's OT For Kids" readers have emailed and asked me to add a link to my Pinterest page.  I've hesitated on adding the link since I didn't intend to connect my page with my blog and had not really organized the page to be "only" OT related.  With a few more recent inquiries from readers, I've decided to add the link and you are welcome to follow along!  The page is actually set up as "Jennifer Darnell Dermody" and you should be able to get to it through the "Follow Me on Pinterest" button at the top of this page.  There is a specific "Jen's OT For Kids" board along with "Preschool Fun", "School Day Fun", "Visual Motor", and  "Sensory Motor".  You can choose to follow individual boards or the whole page.  I will try to keep adding lots of OT ideas for kids and hope you will find something helpful for your kiddos!  Pin It!

Jen Dermody, OTR/L

3-D Collage

Well it's been nearly a month since I've posted something new.....for any of you who work in schools, you know that life gets crazy by this time of year with new referrals, re-evaluations, and IEP's.  Some how, it all gets finished, right?!

In the mean time, I wanted to share another fun fine motor task that preschool teacher Miss Angela set up for her little darlin's.  She calls it "3-D Collages" and the kiddos LOVED it!   Each child had a paper plate and were offered a variety of "things" to decorate the plate for an original 3-D collage. 

You could use just about anything you want to recycle or re-use for this project. Here we have some toilet paper rolls cut up into smaller pieces, strips of sand paper, mini-muffin cups in bright colors, small styrofoam balls, colorful streamers, and some coated wire. Let me tell you, it is not easy to poke a small wire through a paper plate but when you're a little person who really wants that wire in there, you find a way!   Some great skills are required to tape, glue, poke wire through stryrofoam, tearing paper streamers, and getting everything to STICK!  

Some designers had a theme (can you tell we had a dusting of snow that day?)

Some opted for a simple design....

and others couldn't walk away from adding more "beauty" to the design!

This was a very simple and inexpensive project that encouraged creativity and worked lots of fine motor skills.  There is no "right or wrong" and everyone walked away with an original piece of art!

Give it a try today!

Jen Dermody, OTR/L