Children's Therapy Connection

Quality, comprehensive and family-centered pediatric therapy services

Ashley Alexander

Snow Much Fun Family Activities!!

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Just because it is chilly outside doesn’t mean you can’t have fun inside! Try a few or all of these family activities and you will have “snow” much fun. Here are our favorite winter activities to keep your kiddos energized, active and engaged.

Snack Time

Brownie Trees: Make a tray of brownies from a mix or scratch.  Cut them into triangles, and have your child decorate with green icing and insert a candy cane “trunk”.

Snowman Donuts:  Using small powdered donuts, have your child insert a baby carrot or a Cheeto puff for a nose.  Use black squeeze-tube icing for the eyes and mouth.

Pancake Snowmen: Give your child three pancakes of different sizes. Help your child arrange them in the shape of a snowman. Add powdered sugar, chocolate ships, raisins or other fruit.

Snowman Face Snack: Give your child a rice cake. Let him/her frost it with either cream cheese or frosting. Add raisins, chocolate chips, or olives for facial features . Add baby carrot for a nose.

Marshmallow Snowmen: Use frosting and a skewer to attach each marshmallow piece.  Add a fruit roll up scarf and mouth. Use raisins for eyes and buttons and finish with a candy corn nose. Use two stick pretzels for arms and top with a Hershey Kiss hat.

Movement Activities

Winter Word Hop: Cut out pictures of winter-related words. Laminate the pictures if desired. Place the pictures on the floor and ask your child to hop from one picture to another.

Indoor Toddler Hopscotch! It’s time to have fun with playing hopscotch in your living room or kitchen. Take some masking tape (or even the painter’s blue masking tape) and create a hopscotch on your rug/floor. Your child can toss a small toy at the squares. Walk/jump over the squares to get to the toy and pick it up. As she is jumping on each square be sure to call out the number. Then have her bring the toy back to you and now you take your turn! This is a great way to get some exercise and learn your numbers, even if it’s a cold wintery day!

Snowball Walk and Toss: Give your child a paper plate with three cotton ball “snowballs”. Place a basket on the other side of the room. Your child can balance the snowballs on the plate while walking carefully over to the basket. Let your child toss the snowballs into the basket before returning for more.

Cotton ball Snowstorm: Make a “Cotton Ball Snowstorm” with your child. Place a handful of cotton balls on the floor. Join your child on the floor as you blow the cotton ball “snow” all around. Can you make your snowstorm wild and windy? How about gentle and breezy?

Sensory Activities

Driving On Ice: Fill three jellyroll pans with water and freeze the day before you plan to play. Gather small match-box cars, spoons, salt and sand. Have children try to drive the cars over the ice. What Happens? Spoon salt over one sheet of ice and sand over another. What happens when the children try to drive the cars over these surfaces? Kids love this activity!

Great Balls of Snow: Fill a tub with cotton balls. Add plastic containers and cups. Encourage your child to play with the cotton balls.  Talk about the soft textures. Provide tongs and tweezers to encourage fine motor skills.

Fluffy Snowmen: Gather the needed supplies: glue, shaving cream, paper. Mix glue and shaving cream together.  Give your child a piece of dark construction paper.  Place the shaving cream mixture on the plate and encourage your child to “draw” in the mixture with his/her fingers. Let dry. The mixture will look fluffy and textured

Winter Books

“The Snowy Day” by Ezra Jack Keats

“Emmett’s Snowball” by Ned Miller

“Under my Hood I Have a Hat” by Karla Kuskin

“Pearl’s New Skates” by Holly Keller

“Snowballs” by Lois Ehlert

“Hello Snow” by Hope Vestergaard

“Winter is for Snowflakes” by Michelle Knudsen

At our clinic, we have already started some of our own Christmas festivities. Joan Goldfarb, OT, has been organizing our very own gingerbread village. Here are some photos of our gingerbread houses. Be on the look out for more photos of our growing Gingerbread Village!

Social-Emotional Development

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Many parents pay careful attention to their child’s major physical and language milestones, like first tooth, first steps, first words. But do you know the less obvious social and emotional milestones that can also help you determine if your child is on the right track?

What is Social-Emotional Development?

Social-Emotional skills are those skills that allow people to interact appropriately with others.  In young children, these skills include things like making eye contact, communicating their feelings with adults, and even starting to share toys and objects with other people.

What should I look for?

-Even before children begin to speak, they should be socially engaged with the people around them.  Look for the behaviors listed below to make sure your child is appropriately engaged.

-Young children typically use eye contact when they babble, even if the words or sounds they are making don’t have clear meaning.  When your child becomes sad, he or she should look at someone to show this sadness.  If something funny happens, your child should also look at whoever is nearby while laughing.  They should want to share their feelings with the people nearby.

-Children should also point out things they see (like an airplane flying overheard or a dog down the street), not just things they want (like a cup of milk or a cookie). Your child should want you to experience the things they experience and notice the things they notice.

-Typically developing children often hand things to adults and then smile and wait for the adult to hand the object back.  The child isn’t giving you the object because he or she wants you to do something with it. He/she is giving the object because it is an easy way to interact.  As children get older, they may offer you a turn with a toy or a sip out of their cup as a way to show their interest in interacting with you.

What about tantrums?

Temper tantrums, although exhausting, are a typical stage of development.  Children learn that they have their own opinions and that they can express those to get what they want.  They also may have tantrums because they struggle to handle disappointment appropriately.  It is important for parents to remain calm during tantrums and help children learn the right way to ask for things or to express their feelings.  If your child has tantrums that lead to injuries (of self or others) or that damage property, it may be time to seek the help of an expert.

If you are worried that your child isn’t on track with his or her social-emotional skills, it may be time to get some help. Contact our office if you are concerned about the social-emotional development of your child.

You can learn more with the online resources below for more information:

http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/resources/family.html

https://www.zerotothree.org/espanol/social-and-emotional-development

https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/30-from-feelings-to-friendships-nurturing-healthy-social-emotional-development-in-the-early-years

http://www.urbanchildinstitute.org/resources/publications/good-start/social-and-emotional-development

Teaching Children to Be Grateful

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When Do Kids Get It?

Toddlers are by definition completely egocentric. Still, children as young as 15 to 18 months can begin to grasp concepts that lead to gratitude, says Lewis. “They start to understand that they are dependent; that Mom and Dad do things for them,” she says. In other words, toddlers comprehend that they are separate human beings from their parents, and that Mom and Dad often perform actions to make them happy (from playing peekaboo to handing out cookies) — even if kids that age can’t articulate their appreciation.

By age 2 or 3, children can talk about being thankful for specific objects, pets, and people, says Ryan. “When my daughter Annie was 2, our family would go around the dinner table each night and say one thing we were thankful for,” she says. “Annie wasn’t particularly verbal, but when it was her turn, she would point her finger at every person — she was grateful for us!”  By age 4, children can understand being thankful not only for material things like toys, but for acts of kindness, love, and caring.

 

How to Teach It 

Children model their parents in every way, so make sure you use “please” and “thank you” when you talk to them. (“Thanks for that hug — it made me feel great!”) Insist on their using the words, too. After all, “good manners and gratitude overlap,” says New York City etiquette consultant Melissa Leonard, a mother of two young daughters.

  • Work gratitude into your daily conversation.

    Lately, we’ve been trying to weave appreciation for mundane things into our everyday talk — with A.J., his big sister, Mathilda, 10, and especially with our 2-year-old, Mary Elena. (“We’re so lucky to have a good cat like Sam!” “Aren’t the colors in the sunset amazing?” “I’m so happy when you listen!”) When you reinforce an idea frequently, it’s more likely to stick. One way to turn up the gratitude in your house is to pick a “thanking” part of the day. Two old-fashioned, tried-and-true ideas: Make saying what good things happened today part of the dinnertime conversation or make bedtime prayers part of your nightly routine.

  • Have kids help.

    It happens to all of us: You give your child a chore, but it’s too agonizing watching him a) take forever to clear the table or b) make a huge mess mixing the pancake batter. The temptation is always to step in and do it yourself. But the more you do for them, the less they appreciate your efforts. (Don’t you feel more empathy for people who work outside on cold days when you’ve just been out shoveling snow yourself?) By participating in simple household chores like feeding the dog or stacking dirty dishes on the counter, kids realize that all these things take effort.

  • Find a goodwill project.

    That doesn’t mean you need to drag your toddler off to a soup kitchen every week, says Lewis. Instead, figure out some way he can actively participate in helping someone else, even if it’s as simple as making cupcakes for a sick neighbor. “As you’re stirring the batter or adding sprinkles,” she says, “talk about how you’re making them for a special person, and how happy the recipient will be.”

  • Encourage generosity.

    “We frequently donate toys and clothes to less fortunate kids,” says Hulya Migliorino, of Bloomingdale, New Jersey. “When my daughters see me giving to others, it inspires them to go through their own closets and give something special to those in need, as well.”

  • Insist on thank-you notes.

    Paula Goodnight, of Maineville, Ohio, always makes her girls (Rachel, 10, Amelia, 6, and Isabella, 3) write thank-yous for gifts. “When they were toddlers, the cards were just scribbles with my own thank-you attached,” she says. “As they grew, they became drawings, then longer letters.” Younger children can even dictate the letter while you write, says Lewis. “Just the act of saying out loud why he loved the gift will make him feel more grateful,” she says.

  • Practice saying no.

    Of course kids ask for toys, video games, and candy — sometimes on an hourly basis. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to feel grateful when your every whim is granted. Saying no a lot makes saying yes that much sweeter.

  • Be patient.

    You can’t expect gratitude to develop overnight — it requires weeks, months, even years of reinforcement. But trust me, you will be rewarded. Four years after the robotic dog fiasco, I can now report that A.J. is a grateful, cheerful boy who delights in making other people happy. Sure, he asked for lots of gifts this Christmas , but he was just as excited about requesting gifts for his sisters. “They’ve both been good girls and deserve something special,” he wrote in his letter to Santa. Now I’m the one feeling grateful.

  -Originally published in American Baby magazine, November 2005.

 

By Charlotte Latvala

 

 

 

 

November Family Activities

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November is the start of more family gatherings and activities! Here we have compiled a list of our favorite family activities for the month of November. Try a few or all of these activities to keep the kiddos engaged and entertained!

 

Fine Motor

Set the table!   Food is fun!  Gather pretend foods and tableware and set the table for Thanksgiving!  Target quantity and spatial concepts while asking your child to follow directions (e.g., Put the cup above the spoon, Put the smallest plate on the left side of the bowl, Fold the napkin in half and place the fork on top, Place two spoons in the soup pan, Give each person the same amount of bread).  To target fine motor skills, cut out pictures from the ad section of the newspaper, use a piece of paper as your place mat, and follow directions while gluing.

Arts & Crafts

Fall Leaves Artwork – Tape together five q-tips to make a bundle of leaves. Dip the q-tip into fall colored paints to create fall leaves on a tree or an entire fall scene.

Handprint and Footprint Turkey! Who doesn’t love making handprint and footprint crafts with their kids? They are instant heart melters. This craft is adorable to hang up or for the kids to give to people in their life that they are thankful for (like grandma and grandpa).

Motor Activities

Turkey Feather Hunt! Kids love searching for things! Games like this not only work on concentration; it also naturally leads to counting, color recognition and sorting.

Turkey Tag – Glue some large feathers to clothespins.  The kids get one or two clothespins pinned on to the back of their shirt or coat.  Then the person in charge yells “Run, Turkey, Run!”  The kids run and try to get clothespins off of the others’ shirts. After a minute or so, the person in charge yells “Stop, Turkey, Stop!”  Everyone has to freeze where they are. Then continue on like that. The first to get all of the clothespins wins!

Sensory Activities

Jump in the pile. Nature has provided you with your very own “ball pit” so take advantage of it. Jump into the pile of leaves. Throw them up in the air. Let the sensation of the leaves envelope you.

Go on a nature scavenger hunt. Get some kitchen tongs or tweezers out and let your little one explore the world outside. They’ll have fun searching for small items to pick up while working on their grip strength.

 

 

Reading Together

I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie by Alison Jackson.  This silly Thanksgiving themed book provides lots of opportunities to work on vocabulary, sequencing, predicting, expanding sentences, and answering questions.  The website http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/OldLadyStoryRetelling.htm has materials for creating a fun story retelling activity.  Children enjoy feeding the old lady as the story progresses!

Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper.  This is a fantastic book for elementary age children.  It targets all of the crucial language skills (sequencing, predicting, answering questions, etc.) but also targets social skills including friendship, emotions, and teamwork.  One of my favorites!

Music

The Gray Squirrel Song

Gray squirrel, gray squirrel, shake your bushy tail!

Gray squirrel, gray squirrel, shake your bushy tail!

Wrinkle up your little nose.

Hold a nut between your toes.

Gray squirrel, gray squirrel, shake your bushy tail!

Turkey Song

The turkey is a silly bird.  His head goes wobble wobble.

The only thing the turkey says is “Gobble, gobble, gobble”.

If You’re Thankful and You Know It

If you’re thankful and you know it

clap your hands (stomp your feet, shout I am, do all three)

If you’re thankful and you know it

clap your hands (stomp your feet, shout I am, do all three)

If you’re thankful and you know it

Then your face will surely show it