Skill: Sensory Processing

How the brain organizes information from the senses, like touch, sound, and movement. Good processing helps a child feel calm, focus in a busy room, and react appropriately to their environment.

Fingerprint Turkey

For this activity, you will need washable tempera paint or finger paint in 4 colors (e.g. yellow, red, pink, and brown).

Ask the child to dip the tip of the thumb into the brown color and press the thumb onto the paper twice. Thumbprints should be one next to the other. This will be the body of the turkey.

Ask the child to dip the tip of the index finger into the pink color and add a row of pink fingerprints above the brown ones. This will be the feathers.

Ask the child to add more rows of fingerprints (feathers) in yellow and red colors.

Glue the wiggle eyes to the brown turkey body. Add feet using the markers or crayons.

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.

Roll, Crawl, and Jump

Rolling cropped

Place the apples (or any other objects) on one end of the room.

Instruct the child to pick up one apple and lay flat on the ground or on a blanket.

Ask the child to roll 5 times, crawl through the tunnel, and jump 10 times on the trampoline, then put the apple in the basket.

Support your child by monitoring his arousal level, as vestibular input can be alerting. Start slow, take breaks as needed, ask the child if he wants to continue or stop and if needed add proprioception input.

Modifications

If you don’t have a tunnel, you can have your child crawl under the table or just on the ground.

If you don’t have a trampoline, ask the child to jump over a pillow or just jump in place.

Paper Chain

Setup: On several different colors of construction paper, use a thick marker to draw straight lines spaced about 1 to 1.5 inches apart across the width of the paper.

Steps:

  1. Practice Scissor Grasp: Hand your child child-safe scissors. Encourage them to hold the scissors with their “thumb up” toward the ceiling.

  2. Cut the Strips: Ask your child to cut along the thick marker lines you drew. Remind them to hold the paper steady with their “helper hand” while their cutting hand moves the scissors.

  3. Make the First Loop: Take one cut strip. Show your child how to place a small dot or swipe of glue on one end of the strip. Curl the strip around to meet the glued end, pressing firmly to create your first circle.

  4. Connect the Chain: Take a new strip of a different color. Thread this new strip through the center of your first completed circle loop.

  5. Glue and Repeat: Once the new strip is threaded through, glue its ends together to lock it into the chain. Continue this process—thread, then glue—until all the strips are used!

Playdough Therapy Treasure

OTPlanDough Unicorn kit

For this activity, you can use pegs, beans, beads, coins, and small toys.

Hide the small objects in the play-dough and ask the child to dig his fingers in and search for the hidden treasure.

Encourage the child to stretch the play-dough and work his fingers in.

When the child finds the treasure, ask him to take the object out using his thumb and pointer to promote pincer grasp.

If using pegs, you can use the pegboard and have the child design a picture on the board or you can ask him to draw lines, shapes, or letters.

If you choose to use beads you can have the child lace them on a string and make a necklace.