If you're happy and you know it clap you hands!! Or in the case of these super fun body gross motor dice... twist your hips, bend your elbow or shake your head! My preschooler loved this fun gross motor game and it was a great way to get her moving on a cold winter day!

When you enter into the world of Early Childhood Education it’s no doubt just about play and teaching! Educator’s alike would agree that observing and documenting children’s learn…

Are you looking for a simple yet effective tool for your child’s early literacy development? Our alphabet flashcards are just what you’ll need to help your little one take their first steps into the world of learning. Each alphabet flashcard depicts a letter, steps to write it, and examples

Contraption 1: The Boomwhacker String- he most wow-worthy Boomwhacker lesson plan and contraption I've ever come up with. Your kids will be playing Boomwhackers like never before!

It is always fun to see the reaction of children when I pull out a plunger to play with. Even at a very young age, children acquire a sense of place – and plungers belong in the toilet, cert…

Tick-tock, it's time for fun learning! Dive into engaging ways to make teaching time a blast for your students!

This 7 minute animal themed HIIT workout for kids improves emotional regulation and reduces meltdowns. Loved by OTs, teachers, and parents alike!

Gross motor literacy activities that get kids moving. Combining literacy and movement together is a great way for kids to have fun while learning.

It’s my first day of school! I love this time of year, all fresh starts and possiblities! Team builder games are one of my favorite things to do in the classroom during the first few weeks …

Lack of body awareness, Difficulties with balance, frequent falls are some signs of gross motor delays. Early intervention by parents and therapists helps.

Kinesthetic Learning Ideas - over 20 ideas!

Teaching yoga to kids can be hard but it is so good for them. Learn some fun ways to teach kids yoga and get them active and moving.

We are an occupational therapy Los Angeles facility for children. We have 20+ years of experience! Contact us today 323.522.6071 for Occupational Therapy solutions that will work for your child.

Well... back to school after spring break.. sort of. I've been out for 3 months, back for 2 weeks just half days and surgery again next Thursday- hopefully a minor one, this time! What a crazy school year! As promised, here are some of the center ideas I've been working on... These are a set of cards you can download, print, cut out and use to work on "musical math" or create a game where students work in groups and time themselves to see how quickly they can figure out the correct answer! Could also be used as a whole class competition; divide class in half and see how quickly students can get the correct answer. Play using "hangman" and see which group wins. Let me know how you use it!

My first grader has a spelling list of 10 words each week that she has to learn. As a teacher, I was always on the giving end of these ...

Engaging your kids in simple activities, like the ones on these DIY Activity Dice, will help them develop the skills they need for everyday actions!

Looking for sensory integration activities for autism to develop your child's motor skills? Check out our collection of fun vestibular system exercises!

Are your students having difficulties focusing on their work and paying attention during your lessons?  Are they off-task, disruptive, distracted, fidgety, or impulsive? Do you need ideas to help manage these behaviors?  Energize your classroom with this engaging and versatile Brain Break Exercise resource designed to enhance focus, attention, and on-task behavior. Ideal for various settings, including classrooms, indoor recess, PE lessons, and occupational or physical therapy activities, these gross motor movement breaks offer an effective way to manage behaviors and promote social-emotional learning. Use gross motor games as a movement or brain break in the classroom to get your students moving to improve focus. Enhance your students' social-emotional learning skills with self-regulation activities. These games and activities can be great classroom management tools to get back to teaching. I love brain breaks! This one was special because the students could do it when they needed it by rolling the dice! Brain breaks are so important in the learning day but not everyone needs them at the same time and some need them more often".-"Sonia H. "This is a great resource to use in my class when the students need a body break. I love that students can use this independently or as a whole class."-Buyer When is a Good Time to Use This Resource? Classroom Brain Breaks: Integrate into the daily routine to improve focus and attention. Indoor Recess: Keep students active and engaged during indoor playtime. PE Lessons: Use as a fun and interactive component of physical education classes. Occupational Therapy Activities: Incorporate into therapy sessions for gross motor skill development. Physical Therapy: Utilize as part of physical therapy sessions for movement and coordination. What is Included in the PDF? Variety of Game Boards: Different styles suitable for elementary, middle, and high school-aged students. Print and Go Format: No prep required; easy-to-use brain break activity. Laminatable Boards: Print and laminate for durability, allowing for repeated use. Dice Options: Accommodates number and traditional dice for varied exercise options. Use large dice,poppers, or digital dice to add some fun. What Skills are Students Working On? Gross Motor Skills: Enhance coordination, balance, and large muscle movements. Self-Regulation: Promote self-control and attention through movement breaks. Social-Emotional Learning: Develop emotional regulation and cooperative behavior. Focus and Attention: Improve classroom engagement and on-task behavior. Key Features: Versatile Application: Suitable for various age groups and educational settings. User Testimonials: Positive feedback from educators highlighting the effectiveness of the resource. Independence and Whole Class Use: Can be used independently or as a whole class activity. Adaptability: Multiple game board styles and dice options for customized use. No Prep, Print and Go: Instantly implementable without the need for extensive preparation. Amount of Prep Needed: No Prep Required: Ready-to-use resource; simply print and go. Laminate for Durability: Optional lamination for extended usability. Dice Requirement: Use any style of 6 sided die. Check Out the Preview: Educators and therapists are encouraged to explore the preview for a closer look at the various game board styles and features included in this brain break exercise resource. Download now to introduce an effective and enjoyable way to incorporate movement breaks into the learning day! Click the star to follow my Creative COTA store. You will receive emails about new resources. Purchase new resources within the first 48 hours of upload and receive 50% off! Thank you. Please consider rating all downloaded resources. Providing a rating for paid resources will earn you TpT credits. Credits can be used toward your future purchases on TpT. Your ratings are helpful when creating new products and I can also update any current product based on your feedback. I hope that you are extremely satisfied and feel you can give the product a 5-star rating. If not, please send me a question/comment if there is something I can do to improve your downloaded purchase. Go to your My Purchases page now to provide a review of resources you have purchased. Sales, ratings, and new followers make my day. Thank you in advance for your time. About the author: As an occupational therapy assistant, I create resources to help students develop essential fine motor, visual perceptual, gross motor, and social-emotional skills, especially in today's challenging times. My goal is to support students in building the foundation they need for success in the classroom. [email protected]

These creative writing practice ideas support letter formation and automaticity in written work. OT ideas for working on writing skills.

Retained Spinal Galant Reflex causes Poor concentration and attention problems, bedwetting, chronic digestion problems, fidgety kid and hip rotation problems. Share on FacebookTweetFollow us

A fun and simple musical theory and rhythm game to teach the difference between finding the beat and the rhythm of a song to kids.

Music is organized sound. I like to give students opportunities to organize sound and icons for sounds before we work with organizing notation. One of the ways I do that is to create sound songs. We take a basic grid and brainstorms sounds we can make with our bodies (APPROPRIATE sounds *giggle*) and then draw shapes and simple picture to represent them. We draw them into the grid so that they are organized and then perform them for each other. FUN! Another thing I like to do is work with ready icons for body percussion. I introduce this in Kindergarten, but we review it in 1st and 2nd grades and add a composing element to it. Until recently I used a pretty old set of body percussion clip art to create a slide show. Here's what the new version looks like: I used this with some classes this week and they loved it! We talked about one sound to the beat means a quarter note and one picture in each square. After we add barred eighth notes or two sounds on one beat we'll take some time to compose our own. I'll print out little copies of all the body percussion actions and they will place them on the squares in the grid and perform. When we finish or as we begin to use this activity just to review or as a warm-up I'll add some body percussion worksheets to the end of class or to workstations. I'll be using these: Quick enough to do in the last ten minutes of class or at a workstation, I really like making connections to reading and writing AND music. Check out the Body Percussion set HERE.

DIY Song Cubes to help children learn music "old favorites" and practice finding and keeping the beat; for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten.

Sharing activity inspired by Should I Share My Ice Cream by Mo Willems! Perfect for homeschool, classrooms, or family fun. Includes a free printable!

Play UNO as an indoor recess gross motor movement game for kids!

Get kids moving with these printable gross motor movement for kids activity cards. Great for classroom brain breaks or PE, at home or school.

Energetic activities are important for gross motor skills development in any child, and even more so for kids with high energy! Try one today.

Do you need an activity that will get the kids up and moving?These gross-motor action dice are a great boredom buster for long (cold!) winter days

It's always more fun to learn with friends! Library time, music class, and a free "eye spy" game printable.

A simple hands-on grand staff music theory activity for kids using mirrors and glass stones

Over 80 amazing, simple proprioceptive activities for kids. Learn benefits of proprioceptive input to calm, focus, and alert.

Straw Maze Activity

This resource covers how to help kids become independent with self-dressing and self-care skills so they can complete everyday tasks.

If you haven't done a found sound lesson in this distance learning scenario, are you even a real music teacher?!? Just kidding, but seriously, found sound is a natural topic that's perfect to do at home. No need to save your own recycling for months, collect donations, or ask students to bring things in. And no matter what their home situation may be, they're sure to have something they can use to make music, even if it's just the floor or a stick! Here are some of my favorite lessons using found sound. Online Teaching There are so many amazing videos out there that are perfect for inspiring students and showing them the endless possibilities with found sound. Here are two favorites, but you can see several more in this playlist (I've shared this playlist with my students when I've done these lessons). I also like demonstrating some different found sound ideas in my own video, just showing them how to find random objects around the house, whether it's a can of corn or a cardboard box or a spoon, and make lots of different sounds with those items. In my experience students have an easy time coming up with objects to use, but have a harder time thinking past the obvious to come up with different ways to use those objects. Once they have some ideas for how to create music with found objects around their home, there are lots of ways to frame it in a lesson! Exploration Honestly my favorite assignment to do with found sound is just to encourage them to come up with a song, any song. No rules except they can't use any actual musical instruments or their singing voice. Depending on the platform you're using and your district's regulations, it's ideal if they can submit a video through something like Flipgrid or Seesaw. But they could also upload/ email an audio recording or simply describe what they used to make sounds and how, and even give their song a title. Soundscapes One of my favorite ways to get students of all ages composing without notating is through soundscapes. Ask students to create the image of a particular scene, like a beach, or even a feeling like sadness, using found sounds. Another similar idea is to show them a picture- I grabbed an abstract painting from the internet- and ask them to create a piece that goes with the picture. You can read more details about how I use soundscapes in the regular classroom in this post for more ideas. No Tech / Packets If you're sending home packets of assignments rather than using an online platform, a lot of the lesson ideas for online learning will still work- students can still create their own songs or soundscapes using found sounds- they just won't be able to submit any recordings and you won't be able to directly share the videos with them unless you give them the directions to find them. Of course my favorite idea for take home packets is a choice board! Here is a choice board for found sound that you are welcome to copy and share with your students: Virtual Group Playing In addition to the online options mentioned above, with live virtual music class sessions you could also use found sound to have students echo back patterns or take turns improvising 4-8 beat patterns. With the sound lag they won't be able to play things together as an ensemble, but anything where individuals take turns will work, and since you can see them in real time you can help encourage them to come up with new ways to make sounds using the same item as well! Books One of my favorite ways to use found sound, especially with younger students, is to add sound effects to stories! Since there's no reason the timing has to line up perfectly, this is a great way to do something together as a class over live video. Assign individual students to different sounds in the story, and have them make their sound using whatever items they find as you read their part of the book. There are a million books that are great for this, but if you want to see some of my favorites here are some ideas: I hope this gives you some ideas to use with your students in this confusing and difficult time! If you've come up with more great ideas using found sound through distance learning, please share them in the comments below. Don't forget, I'm compiling all of my posts for school closures into one page for easy access- head to that page for more ideas:

CREATE GIANT KID SIZE SPIROGRAPH DRAWINGS

"Swat It" is a high energy fly swatter game that kids ask to play again and again. Whatever you want to practice with your child, be it number recognition, number sense, math facts, letters, sight words, or reading skills you can do it with this game. All you need is a fly swatter and some

Mix movement and learning with a super simple, low-prep noun or verb gross motor game. It's easy to make and play for preschoolers!