I knew that my little clients would love this ....they were so tuned into valentines and hearts. I cut the large white circular piece (from a large container that held protein powder) to function like a belt. In fact the two ends buckle together and it can be placed on the head, around the waist, on arms or used on the ring stack pole. Cut up different sized containers to get different sized "belts" to weave onto. There seems to be a thin line between stringing and weaving but i will call this "weaving" because I was teaching them to insert the end through the 2 notches in the hearts and then push them down. This is easy to simplify by asking them to only insert through 1 notch or complete the 2nd notch after the first one is already inserted for them. Removing them also took some nice motor planning and hand strength.
These valentines manipulation activities are made out of detergent and dishwasher bottles ... keep a lookout for red plastic...
The red valentine functions as a stencil to color around with dry erase markers. The markers I found at a craft's store have erasers on the ends. You can make designs with the erasers as shown or completely erase the colors. You will need to wash them with water to complete remove any color and reuse for another coloring activity.
I had difficulty finding resources for really nice long strips to weave into the rectangular shape. But you get the idea from the picture. Children can weave thinner strips through the notches and then weave the thicker pieces just as they would on a paper weaving board. The finished product is vibrant and waterproof. It may also be further decorated with dry erase markers.
During my trip to Florida I approached a couple of children with moms who were interested in trying out my "weavable toy" prototypes. They gave me a few ideas for improvements. Here is the video and a revised rectangle with larger and fewer notches- definitely easier and I think appropriate for a preschool/kindergarten aged child.
A discussion arose at one of my OT seminars on how to teach children to close a zipper. Many children learn the motion to pull the tab upward but its a challenge to teach a child how to connect the tip of one side into the other before pulling the zipper upward.
Some strategies might include:
1. using extra large zippers
2.using a zipper that has 2 different color sides
3. Use zipping boards as well as zipping large clothing and bags
4. Pull a pipe cleaner downward through the zipper slot to practice that motion.
There is a picture of the last one on this page: http://www.therapystreetforkids.com/r-buttons.html
I made the following practice activity out of a baby wipe container. The edges have a curve to them. The white sides shown below are cut from the box's edges. The 2 pieces are cut from 2 sides and connected by overlapping them. I covered the inside with black contact paper to make it easier to discriminate. The ends also have blue tape attached to make it easier to see where they are.
The colorful strip is a piece of plastic with covered with a fruit design contact paper. I punched a hole near one end and attached a small clip that I found, but any small object that is easy to pull can be attached.
Now show the child how to insert the colorful plastic piece and pull upward until it comes out. Its not the same as actually zipping but a nice way to introduce the motion involved in pulling the tab upward.
I came up with the idea of plastic weaving letters, numbers, shapes and objects while writing my Kindle book "The Almost Complete Plastic Bottle Activity Book". I have "patent pending" status for my "weavable toys" and am currently looking for a manufacturer or business that wants to have these manufactured and then pay me royalties.
Weaving shapes reinforces letter and number formation concepts while strengthening fingers. There is a lot of motor planning involved in pushing the pieces in and out through the notches. These are a lot of work to make out of detergent bottles and I am hoping that they will soon be available for purchase. However, I am happy to share here for those Do It Yourself-ers.....
The sizes of the shapes and number/sizes of the notches determine how challenging these will be to connect. You have the option of creating a single shape such as the 2 to weave or create 2 shapes to put together like in the two round shapes that form the 3.
Obviously weaving the straight line in the 1 is easier than weaving the round shapes....
Younger children may be given 1 single shape to weave into the larger notched shape.
But older children may be given 2 or more shapes (such as the 2 and 0 in the photo) and pieces to match up before weaving. This works on visual discrimination skills, its sort of like putting a puzzle together....
The last photo shows the 2 shapes positioned upside down with the detergent labels showing. Tell the children that only the plain color sides should be showing and then the correct side will be facing upwards.
However, since the Friday tragedy in CT, I was feeling awful about being near all that heartache. Indeed, I felt an air of somberness in the room as I greeted the participants. Adding to the challenges was the fact that my flight had been cancelled, I ended up taking a taxi from Newark to Bristol, CT and I was not able to get my baggage until the next day. This meant that I had no displays, I wore the same clothes twice in a row- including the Keene sneakers I wear when doing hippotherapy. Did I mention that I only had 3 hours of sleep?
How in the world did I end up in Newark, NJ when I live in MA? I simply do not like driving long distances and wanted to avoid giving a 5 hour seminar (which is exciting, fun and exhausting) and then driving 3-4 hours to the next location. I was happy to spend 4-5 hours to fly out to Newark and then connect to Hartford. However, I never anticipated my connection being cancelled due to the weather. My taxi driver was super nice and $340.00 later (all reimbursed of course) I arrived at the hotel, slept 3 hours and woke up surprisingly energized.
Occupational therapists like hands-on activities and displays, especially since this was touted in my seminar brochure....
I woke up and assessed what was available- I had a lot of glossy magazines in my backpack along with my computer and snacks....
I happen to be a television talent show fanatic and was in tears when the cast of The Voice paid tribute to the victims. This experience inspired me to make a paper shrine with candles that I created by ripping paper.
While ripping the letters to spell LOVE, I thought about what a great fine motor activity that is but may be difficult for some children to do- so when I got home I cut out a plastic W, punched holes in hit and attached it to thick folder paper using paper fasteners. It was a bit more labor intensive to make than I had hoped but I found it very easy to grasp the plastic edges and rip- ending up with a very nice paper W.
Other activities included:
Squirting a dab of hotel lotion in the palm then asking the OT's to use only that hand to spread it all over the hand as much as possible. This is a great activity for strengthening the hand muscles and provides tactile stimulation.
Each OT rolled up a sheet of paper to make a tube. They also ripped paper to crunch into a small ball. Then they inserted the paper ball into the tube and blew it into the bag that I held for them. I have to say I heard more laughter then than I had ever at a previous seminar.
I wrapped a large piece of paper around some crunched up paper and taped it in place to create a ball. Then I wrote numbers all over the ball. The numbers were all squares- 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100, 121, 144. Then 2 volunteers ( I can't remember if they truly volunteered or not !) tossed the ball back and forth. I called out a finger such as right index or left thumb and the person would read out the number the finger was closest to. Meanswhile, the other OT's wrote down the square roots, added them up after 6-7 turns and then we compared answers. I think this is a pretty good activity for older students who need to work on: scanning, eye-hand coordination, convergence and divergence. The same activity can be adapted so that the players are calling out letters and then try to make a word out of the named letters. This will help in promoting letter discrimination and form constancy since they will have to identify letters even when viewing them from a rotated perspective.
Special thanks to my program manager (the young lady behind the table who gives out the handbooks when participants arrive). Her job is also to help me be relaxed so that I can give my all at the seminars. She drives me to hotels, pumps the gas, arranges meals, calls taxis when needed, gets photocopies or supplies as needed, sets up the technology and contacts the hotel staff when there is an environmental problem. This must be what its like to be rich and have full-time paid assistants!
The snow man is made of 3 circular pieces- a small one, medium sized and large one so that the child needs to match the corresponding sized circle to the correct snow ball. The snow man was cut out of an orange juice bottle and the weaving shapes can be cut out of detergent, dishwasher soap bottles or container lids. The snowman is just one of the many activities described in my Kindle book: "The Almost Complete Plastic Bottle Activity Book" available on Amazon.
I knew that my little clients would love this ....they were so tuned into valentines and hearts. I cut the large white circular piece (from a large container that held protein powder) to function like a belt. In fact the two ends buckle together and it can be placed on the head, around the waist, on arms or used on the ring stack pole.
Cut up different sized containers to get different sized "belts" to weave onto. There seems to be a thin line between stringing and weaving but i will call this "weaving" because I was teaching them to insert the end through the 2 notches in the hearts and then push them down. This is easy to simplify by asking them to only insert through 1 notch or complete the 2nd notch after the first one is already inserted for them. Removing them also took some nice motor planning and hand strength. 
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