Skill: Proprioception

Proprioception is how your body knows what position it is in. It is the sense that enables us to know where the different parts of our body are, how they are moving, and how much strength our muscles need to use. Our muscles, joints, and skin all contain sensory receptors that contribute to proprioceptive input.

Therapy Mat Sensory Burrito

TherapyMatSensoryBuritto-front

For this activity, you can use a blanket or a yoga mat that is flexible enough to fold and roll the child inside it.

Ask the child to lay on the blanket, leaving their head out of the blanket/mat boundaries, and roll them inside to provide both proprioceptive and vestibular input.

To make the activity engaging and playful, pretend the child is a burrito or a hot dog, and roll them in and out every time you put another “ingredient” into your warp/bun.

Variation:

Do this activity in a group, and ask the kids to wrap each other like a burrito/hot dog. This will provide the child that is rolling with proprioception input as well.

Fall Crunchy Art

Gather dry leaves.

Use both hands to crunch the dry leaves into smaller pieces. This helps promote bilateral hand use, tactile perception, and auditory input.

On a piece of construction paper, use glue to create a shape or drawing. We choose the heart shape but you can use a smiley face, a house shape, letters, numbers, etc. Working on grading the force on the glue bottle addresses the proprioceptive system.

Transfer the crunched dry leaves pieces onto the construction paper covering the wet glue shape.

Let dry for a few minutes and shake off the leaves that remained unglued.

Use markers to decorate.

Wheelbarrow Walking

Place a bucket, plastic container, basket, or any other container that could fit a few bean bags in it at the center of the room.

Place bean bags in different corners of the room.

Clear the area for a clear path to all bean bags.

Hold the child’s feet and ask the child to walk on his/her hands (a.k.a wheelbarrow walking).

Help the child to reach the bean bags by wheelbarrow walking towards the bean bags.

When the child reaches a bean bag, ask the child to place the bean bag on the back of the neck (resting between the shoulder blades).

Ask the child to wheelbarrow walk towards the container and drop the bean bag inside.

Repeat these steps until all the bean bags are in the container.

A Day at the Beach Obstacle Course

Obstacle Course

Place towels, sunscreen, hat, ball, bucket, and pail & shovel at one end of the room, or play area.

Place the beach bag/basket on the other end.

Using the tape, mark a trail from the items to the beach bag.

Place the chair, step stool, and pillows (covered with the blanket) along the trail you marked.

Ask the child to transfer one item at a time and place it in the beach bag, following the trail, by crawling under the chair, walking up and down the step-stool (you can also put more than one and have the child go up and down several times), and walking on the blanket-covered pillows.

 

Easter Eggs Match

Cut the construction paper or regular piece of white paper into 6 or more rectangles/cards.

On each card, draw an oval (egg shape) with a line in the middle, to represent the top part of the egg and the bottom part.

Using crayons and marker that match the color of the Easter eggs you are using, color the eggs on the cards, using one color at the top part and a different color at the bottom part.

Present the cards and the “cracked” easter eggs to the child and instruct the child to put the eggs together by matching the colors as shown on the cards.

If using an egg carton, you can ask the child to arrange the matched eggs in the same order the cards are laid on the table.