10 Ideas for Oral Sensory Seekers in the Classroom

10 Ideas for Oral Sensory Seekers in the Classroom

Do you see students chewing the tops off of pencils, mouthing their fingers, chewing their t-shirt or making excessive mouth noises?  Maybe these oral habits increase during stressful times in the classroom.  Some children seek oral input to help with self regulation and attention span.  Providing children with appropriate oral input may also help to calm the body.  Other children may dislike or avoid certain foods and textures in the mouth.  It is important to determine a child’s sensory preferences before providing the following suggestions.  Consult with a pediatric Occupational Therapist if you have questions.

Here are 10 ideas for oral sensory seekers in the classroom:

1. Chew gum
2. Drink from a water bottle
3. Use a chewy tube specifically for children who seek oral input
4. Eat crunchy snacks i.e pretzels, carrots, etc
5. Eat sour foods i.e. lemon or lime flavored lollipop
6. Eat chewy foods i.e. bagels, fruit leathers
7. Drink thick liquids through a straw
8. Deep breathing exercises
9. Blow a cotton ball on the desk
10. Vibrating toothbrush around the mouth

Remember, check with your Occupational Therapist to determine the best recommendations for your children or students.  Oral input requires adult supervision.  When you introduce new oral input, try only one at a time.  Observe if the oral input helps the child.  If it does not, try a different type of oral input.  This will help determine which suggestions is benefitting the child.  If possible, collect data to track a pattern of change in self-regulation, attention, behavior or emotional state following the oral input.  You can use the Sensory Tools in the Classroom packet to help jump start your data collection.

All students can benefits from breathing breaks to provide oral input, mindfulness and a calm body.

Breathing Breaks: This digital download is a collection of 16 deep breathing exercises and 3 tip sheets. Deep breathing exercises can help to decrease stress, reduce anxiety, remain calm, strengthen sustained attention, sharpen the ability to learn and more! This packet includes 16 full page breathing exercises and 3 tips sheets in color or black and white. In addition, the breathing exercises are provided 4 to a page to make smaller cards or booklets.  FIND OUT MORE INFORMATION.

The post 10 Ideas for Oral Sensory Seekers in the Classroom appeared first on Your Therapy Source.

10 Finger Games to Play

Are you ever looking for finger games to play with just your hands?  All pediatric therapists love a good game that requires no equipment right? They are great to play to practice finger isolation, timing and dexterity.  Try using the games as a warm up activity for handwriting tasks or fine motor skill practice.  Here are 10 finger games to play that require no equipment or preparation:

ORIGINAL ROCK PAPER SCISSORS – So we all know the usual rules – Rock smashes Scissors – Scissors Cut Paper – Paper covers Rock. On the count of three, you put on your hand as a rock (fist), scissors (two fingers open) or paper (hand flat) and then determine a winner. It can be one and done or best out of 3 trials.

ROCK PAPER SCISSORS BET – Try making a game out of it. If you lose, you have to perform some physical activity. Maybe the loser has to do 10 jumping jacks, push ups or climb the stairs. Or maybe you can agree that the loser has to do you a favor within reason.

ELEPHANT CAT MICE – Try changing up the characters. Elephants stomp on cats, cats chase mice and mice scare elephants. On the count of three, either place both hands forward in a fist like elephant feet, fingers like they are scratching like a cat or wiggle your finger for a mouse tail.

ODD AND EVENS – Face each other about one foot apart.  Place one chair, piece of tape or any object 10 feet behind each player.  One player is odds, the other player is evens.  Players put their hands behind their back.  They say once, twice, three shoot and bring their hands around front showing either one finger or two fingers.  Add the fingers up of both players.  If it is an even number, the player who is evens stays in place.  The odd player takes one step back.  Repeat the game.  The first player that steps 10 feet back to the chair is the loser.

SHADOW PUPPETS – Take a light to shine on the wall or go back a window where the sun is coming in.  Practice making shadow puppets on the wall using just your hands.

HAND CLAPPING GAMES – Hand clapping games are awesome for finger dexterity, timing and motor planning.  Teach a child Miss Mary Mack or check out some You Tube videos to learn some new hand clapping games.

FINGERPLAY SONGS – Practice the Itsy Bitsy Spider, Five Little Monkeys, Little Bunny Foo Foo or check out the Fantastic Fingers Fine Motor Program for many fingerplay songs and games.

FIVE FUN FACTS – Hold up your thumb, and squeeze it with your other hand and state a fun fact about yourself (or another person can state a fun fact or compliment about you).  Hold out only your index finger, squeeze it with your other hand and state fact #2.  And so on moving through and squeezing each finger.

FIVE WORDS – Pick a word.  Start on your thumb, squeeze it and state a word associated with the main word.  Move on to your index finger and so on.  Similar to a game of Categories but using your fingers.

FINGER MEMORY – Player one starts and show one move with his/her fingers i.e. thumbs up.  Player two repeats thumbs up and adds his/her own move i.e. fist.  Player one now repeats – thumbs up, fist and adds a move.  Continue play until someone doesn’t remember a move.

If you need more activities to play with no equipment check out 25 Instant Sensory Motor Group Activities and Imagination Action Journeys.

The post 10 Finger Games to Play appeared first on Your Therapy Source.