Grant Money Available From Collective Brands

Collective Brands Foundation is offering grant money to non profit organization with programs that involve children's physical activity and fitness or improving the lives of children and youth in need.  They also consider sponsorship requests if you live in certain areas (NYC and greater Boston area are two locations along with others).  Grants can be awarded up to $30,000.  You must submit the grant by Feb. 13, 2012.  You can get more information at the Collective Brands Foundation website.  

Handwriting Summit

News report from the Handwriting Summit in Washington DC yesterday. Just hit the play button to start the video.

Dr. Karin James Discusses the Importance of Handwriting in Child Development: MyFoxDC.com

Need handwriting activities? Check out YourTherapySource website.

Fine Motor Match Up

After seeing this picture on Pinterest, I knew I had to try this activity. Just match up little tags with numbers, letters or shapes to beads using toothpicks. I did not have any Styrofoam so I used some clean, recycled meat trays. This was a real fine motor challenge but a nice twist. You really have to grade the movement along with having coordination to get the small bead onto the toothpick. I did matching letter beads, number of beads and a four in a row vertical game. Just make sure that the beads you are using can fit on toothpicks. If this is too difficult, you could use larger wooden skewers and bigger beads. This is a nice cheap activity that encourage fine motor skills, coordination skills, cognitive skills and grading of movements.

Matching beads and colored toothpicks

Matching letter tags to letter beads

Playing four in a row - you need to get four beads in a row horizontally, vertically or diagonally to win. Here blue won with 4 vertical blue beads in a row. Nice small travel game to stick inside a tin to take on the go.

Have fun!

Physical Activity and Improved Processing in ADHD

A study to be published in the Journal of Attention Disorders indicates that physical activity helped to improve the coordination, motor skills and ability to process information in children with ADHD.

Ten children (9 boys and 1 girl) with ADHD participated in a physical activity training program for 3x/week, 45 minute sessions during lunch, over a 10 week period. The control group was 11 children (10 boys and 1 girl) with ADHD who did not participate in the physical activity program. The sessions consisted of warm ups, aerobic, muscular and motor skill exercises and a cool down. The results indicated the following in the experimental group:

• increase in locomotion and total motor skill scores

• information processing improved

• increased scores in arm muscle strength

• no changes in aerobic fitness and body composition

• higher scores in behavior and attention functions

• improved scores on the social scale

You can view the full article at the Journal Of Attention Disorders.

If you need activity ideas for children with ADHD check out our sensory motor electronic books.

Reference: Verret, C et al. A Physical Activity Program Improves Behavior and Cognitive Functions in Children With ADHD : An Exploratory Study. Journal of Attention Disorders January 2012 vol. 16 no. 1 71-80

Accommodation for Shoe Tying?

I came across a young soccer player wearing this on her indoor soccer sneakers this past weekend. This was a new product to me but I thought it was worth a mention although I have not personally used these. It is worn over the laces to make sure the sneakers stay tied during the game. To me, this seems like the perfect accommodation for a child who just can not tie his/her shoes. Rather than being limited by velcro sneakers, perhaps give this "SweetSpot" a try. They come in many colors (could use school colors or team colors). It is really just a piece of looped heavy duty resistive band. They are latex free.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Another benefit would be for eye foot coordination training. When teaching a young child to drop kick a ball the colorful marking provides a good visual target.

Has anyone used these in their practice? Would love to hear if anyone has had any success with using them as an accommodation.
You can get them at Amazon.

1/22/12 - Follow Up: I stopped into the soccer store so I could buy the Sweet Spot but he was sold out. He stated there are several brands one being Adidas. I found these online as another alternative. I did wonder though could you sew velcro strips onto thick elastic and achieve the same thing? May have to try a sewing project. That way you could create different sizes.

Good Fine Motor Skills = Good Grades

New research that will be published soon in the Journal of Early Childhood Education and Development indicated that children who scored well on fine motor tasks when in pre-K had higher averages in second grade than those who scored lower on fine motor tasks in pre-K. Data was reviewed on 1000 second graders in Florida. The researchers looked at averages in 2nd grade and compared that to fine motor scores in pre-K. The results indicated the following:

2nd graders with an average GPA of 3.02 in math and 2.84 in reading – B averages, had received good grades in fine motor tasks in pre-K

2nd graders with an average GPA of 2.30 in math and 2.12 in Reading – C averages, scored poorly on fine motor tasks in pre-K

on the 2nd grade SAT the students with better fine motor scores in pre-k scored in the 59th percentile for reading and 62nd percentile for math

the students with poorer fine motor scores in pre-K scored in the 38th percentile on the Reading SAT and the 37th percentile for the math SAT

Although there is no cause and effect relationship is does make a good case for occupational therapy in the early years if delays are present.

You can read more about it at Florida International University website.

Reference: J Prenaud. Good handwriting and good grades: FIU researcher finds new link. Retreived from the web on 1/17/11 at http://news.fiu.edu/2012/01/good-handwriting-and-good-grades-fiu-researcher-finds-new-link/34934?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=good-handwriting-and-good-grades-fiu-researcher-finds-new-link

Simple Portable Clothes Line

Here is a simple idea to sneak in some clothes pin work on a portable clothes line. Just empty out a picture frame and hang some string. Make sure the child clips the clothes pins low down or they will flip due to the short line. Here are some suggested uses:

1. Make a puzzle. Cut it up and hang it in the correct order.


2. Hang numbers in order.



3. Hang art work on the wall. Super easy to change often.


Want some more clothes pin activities? Check out out Clothes Pin Collection, Clothing Match Up or our freebie Clothes Line Numbers.