Do you know how simple and incredibly cheap it can be to create your own fun around the house for your kid(s)? If you have kids that are sensory prone, these activities will be especially fun for them! Sensory issues are not all the same and vary from person to person. Below, we list and explain a few simple ways to have some sensory fun this summer, all on a budget. Neither of these take much time to set up and are all child friendly.
First, we start with “Water Sensory Play“. This is very simple and extremely cheap, if you must be reminded. Start off with a plastic bin; fill it with water and add a few drops of blue food coloring for an ocean blue (or whichever your child prefers/is a favorite color). Next, add boats to the mix for some splashing fun. Once that has played out, you can add some bubbles to make a boat bubble bath. This also makes for clean soapy fun. If that isn’t fun enough, here’s another simple addition. Get some ice cubes, put a couple drops of different coloring on them and let your child put them in the water one by one. This can be a fun lesson as you explain primary and secondary colors while the water changes colors (adding a red cube to the blue water makes purple and so forth). Fun and learning at the same time! If he/she isn’t too distracted to listen as the color changes.
Another fun, but a little more messy, sensory safe Summer project is “Ice Cube Coloring“. This method of fun is much easier. Take an empty ice-cube tray and fill it with water. About 30 minutes of freezing, or when still soft enough for penetration, add popsicle sticks in the middle and let them harden up. Once completely frozen, add different food coloring to a few different ones. Let them sit out for a few minutes to thaw. Once they are ready, allow your child to use the popsicle sticks as a grip. Give him/her some paper and let the colorful ice cube fun begin. Eventually the cubes will fall off, but the ice cubes may still be useable to color and have some messy fun with. After all, it’s food coloring. No stains, or hard chemicals to worry about.
Option 3: Edible sand & Rainbow! These 2 combined might be a favorite! They are both super easy to do and there is nothing to worry about if either are ingested. First, for the sand all you need is a blender and crackers. Or you can use something else that is easy to smash, like peanuts or cereal. Get out a bin, some toy trucks or cars and you have a sandbox with sand that is safe to eat! You can also add some milk or water if your child desires it to be more firm and clumpy. Now for the edible rainbow it requires a little more due diligence. For this, get some bread, food coloring, milk and a food processor. If you don’t have a food processor you can use Tupperware to shake and mix. Next, bake/toast the bread to make it a little crispy and then tear it up/blend it to make little pieces. Pause, add small amounts of food coloring and milk to the blender full of bread crumbs and mix again. Not too much or it’ll be overly soggy. Once done, with multiple colors, bake it in the oven to harden all the crumb colors. If you want, you can bag all the colors separately and let your kid make his own colorful rainbow. Wallah! That simple for quick and easy around the house fun.
Do you have any ideas we can share to our followers on social media?!
We all have it and typically deal with it in our day to day lives. What is it? Stress and or anxiety. These two emotions/feelings can often determine the entire outcome of our day before it even starts. This is common, but there is a solution, says Kristen Arquette. Journaling can have quite the impact. She is a marriage and family therapist at New Vision Counseling in Washington state. In the article, which covers anxiety and stress, different therapists and counselors describe how writing down your feelings and thoughts can dramatically have an impact on your body (read the full article here: Is your child showing signs of stress or anxiety? ). Daily Journaling lets all those emotions, feelings, stressful and nervous thoughts escape onto paper, thus freeing your mind! Give it a try, test it out and let us know if you see a difference.
“Children do not always know how to talk about what they’re feeling. Sometimes they are unsure of what they’re feeling, especially in the wake of trauma, when things are unclear and don’t make much sense,” says Jacqui Blue, a hypnotherapist in California who specializes in trauma. Sometimes we all want to curl up into a ball and keep it inside, but that is not the solution to the problem. It will only make things worse in the long run. Let it flow, uncensored and unscripted. There are no drugs or antibiotics on the market that can cure grief or pain.
First and foremost, by no means is journaling a substitute to seeking out treatment or asking for help. It’s an easily accessible means to to letting out what you feel inside without acting out verbally or physically. That alone can go a long way in helping kids, teens or adults externalize their emotions and feelings in an unnecessary way. Something as simple as taking the time to jot down what you feel, think or want to do can also change the way you go about the rest of your day. Don’t bash it before you try it. See if it can help you deal with things you may internalizing and need to get them out.
“Every child has some spontaneous mutations,” explains Iossifov. “But in some unlucky children these mutations severely affect the functioning of a particular gene. Autism affects so many children in today’s world and the numbers are only increasing; at an alarming rate if you are unaware. In a 2 year span, the diagnosis has jumped 15%, from 1 in 68 children, to 1 in 59. Boys are affected far more than girls, at about a rate of 4 to 1. Unfortunately we don’t know what has caused or continues to cause this uneven ratio. “Some of the change in prevalence is said to be caused by improved autism identification which is important, because children identified early with autism and connected to services are more likely to reach their fullest potential.” (read more here). So you ask, where does it come from? How does our child have a developmental delay if neither of us do? How is one child on the spectrum and not the other(s)? Autism genetics expert Ivan Iossifov explains it simply as “spontaneous mutations”, generating from how the sperm and egg interact in the mothers womb. Read the full article and watch the short “Unified Theory of Autism” video below.
You will not know immediately if your child is showing symptoms of Autism, but detecting this at an early age can be very beneficial in their life. At a young age, some of the most prevalent and indefinable symptoms are listed below to help you determine if you may need to have your child evaluated for autism. Behavior Frontiers uses an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Training Program with an Autism Specialization to explain the symptoms. The 3 key problems they specify are identifying 6 or more problems in socializing, communicating, and repetitive and inflexible behaviors. In the video link, they display and explain in-depth scenarios of each situation to help you identify prevalent autistic symptoms.
April has come and pass, but it brought warmer weather…and MAY! Finally!! For many reasons, April AND May are always very special to TherapyWorks. We celebrate these months in clinic for reasons that are dearest to our hearts.
Reason 1: April, honors and celebrates Autism Awareness throughout and on a specific day as well; April 2nd marked the 11th annual “World Autism Awareness Day“. Autism does not end in April and it certainly does not become less important after the 2nd day of the month. Join us in celebrating autism awareness month throughout the month of April by finding ways to support the community and foundation. Autism prevalence is now one in every 59 children in America. Show your support for people with autism by wearing the Autism Awareness Puzzle Ribbon or simply adding the ribbon to your FB profile photo, not just in April, but throughout the year! A simple gesture can go a long way sometimes. Learn more about the diagnosis and what you can do to help the cause by visiting “www.autism-society.org” and/or visiting their Facebook page: “facebook.com/AutismSociety“.
Reason 2: “Occupational Therapy Month” is apart of April as well! We sure do love our O.T’s. here at TherapyWorks. Without these wonderful therapists, we wonder where the treatment would come from. O.T.’s treat so many children and adults with challenges such as Autism, DHD, Brachial Plexus, Sensory Processing, Fine Motor Skills and Sensory Developmental Delays. We would be lost without them as they have helped so many of our kids overcome challenges an surpass expectations. Just like Speech and Physical therapy, Occupational Therapy is very important to our growth and development in this world. Occupational therapy has been around for 101 years, starting back in the WWI era as ‘reconstruction aides’ in 1917. Helping our soldiers is an amazing way for a segment of an industry to begin! To all the O.T.’s here at TherapyWorks and the other hundreds of thousands across the globe, keep working wonders and healing hearts! You make this world a better place! THANK YOU! 💙.
Reason 3: “Better Speech & Hearing Month” means we celebrate all the SLPs out there doing their part to help everyone enjoy everyday sounds! We have a special spot for them as well as our OT’s & PT’s. Speech, language, and swallowing disorders result from a variety of causes, such as a stroke, brain injury, hearing loss, developmental delay, Parkinson’s disease, a cleft palate, or autism. This is where those special therapists come. With a Masters in hand, just like Occupational Therapists, they play a huge role in helping to strengthen the critical motor skills needed to live a happier life. There is a misconception out there about SLPs. Speech-language pathology is not simply restricted to adjusting a speaker’s speech sound articulation to meet the expected normal pronunciation, but also to help with speech fluency, language development, working with augmentative communication devices, Apraxia, literacy, voice difficulties and feeding/swallowing problems. So when you think about it, they do so much more than help with pronunciation and fluency. They’re our everyday heroes! So THANK your SLP when you get a chance, they deserve a lot of praise. MAY IS THEIR MONTH!
