Trace and Color Shapes!
Help your student to trace and color these shapes to practice fine motor, visual motor, and visual perceptual skills.
Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i_9rPK-FdfeT8fc6F2unGcW_t4qCJazh/view
- Have your student sit with her/his feet flat on the floor if you are working at a tabletop
- Remind your student to sit upright
- Remind your student to use her/his helper hand to stabilize the paper
- Encourage your student to keep the crayon touching the paper as s/he traces the shapes (don’t pick up the crayon at the end of each line)
- Encourage your student to color within the lines
Posted in Bilateral Coordination, Handwriting, Helpful Links, Visual Motor, Visual Perceptual by Emily Dandron, OTRL with comments disabled.
Resources from the Michigan Department of Education
The Michigan Department of Education compiled some resources for families to use while students are home due to the school closure. The documents are divided into sections with links to the various resources in each section.
English: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/ExtendedTimeAway_FactSheet_686645_7.pdf
Arabic: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/ExtendedTimeAway_FactSheet_Arabic_687729_7.pdf
Posted in Helpful Links by Emily Dandron, OTRL with comments disabled.
Howe Students, Please Join Ms. Dawn, Ms. Letrisha, and Me for our Group at 2:15 pm Today!
Email me at dandroe@dearbornschools.org if you have any questions.
Posted in Blogs by Emily Dandron, OTRL with comments disabled.
What Are Visual Perceptual Skills?
In OT we talk a lot about Visual Perceptual Skills. Visual perception is essentially how our brains interpret what our eyes see. Many Students who struggle with simple puzzles, handwriting, and neatly coloring have difficulty with their visual perceptual skills. Here is a helpful website that breaks down what visual perceptual skills are, and gives an example of each skill: https://www.visionlearningcenter.com/visual-perceptual-skills/
Posted in Handwriting, Helpful Links, Visual Motor, Visual Perceptual by Emily Dandron, OTRL with comments disabled.
Let’s Try Coloring & Writing on a Vertical Surface!
Writing and coloring on vertical surfaces works on so many skills at once!
- Helps to strengthen and stabilize the joints and muscles in the shoulder and arm
- Bilateral coordination skills (using both arms at once) to stabilize paper on a wall
- Encourages wrist extension which will help to develop a functional pencil grasp
- Core Strength and Posture
- Visual attention to task
- Hand-eye coordination
- Crossing midline (reaching across the center of our bodies)
- Visual perceptual skills: spatial awareness
- To learn more visit https://azopt.net/vertical-surface/
Some Activity Ideas:
- Writing & Coloring on a mirror with dry-erase markers (have your student erase their creations too by wiping with a damp paper towel)
- Tape paper to the wall and color with small crayons
- Place a paper with a pre-writing shape on the fridge and have your student place magnets directly over the lines of the shape
- Do you have an eager helper in your household? Have your student “wash the walls” with a damp washcloth or help you wash windows (You MUST supervise if your student is using cleaning products.)
- Drawing on a white board with dry-erase markers
- Write in shaving cream or whipped cream on a mirror
- Paint/draw/color/write on an easel
Posted in Bilateral Coordination, Handwriting, Helpful Links, Motor Planning, Sensory, Visual Motor by Emily Dandron, OTRL with comments disabled.
OT Activities with Kitchen Tools
These activities work on several underlying skills at one time using objects you may already have in the house. If you have any questions about these activities, please email me at dandroe@dearbornschools.org
Posted in Bilateral Coordination, Motor Planning, Sensory, Visual Motor by Emily Dandron, OTRL with comments disabled.
Tic-Tac-Toe!
Is your student working on their pre-writing shapes? Tic-Tac-Toe is a great way to practice writing Crosses and Circles!
- For Crosses, remember to practice starting at the top when making the vertical line, and moving left to right when making the horizontal line.
- For Circles, remember to practice starting and stopping at the same spot.
- Remind students to use their helper hand to keep the paper still while they write.
- Use a small writing utensil (broken crayon, small chalk piece) to build fine motor strength
Posted in Bilateral Coordination, Handwriting, Visual Motor by Emily Dandron, OTRL with comments disabled.
Moon and Stars Craft
Here is a link to a fun Moon and Stars Window Hanging Craft for Ramadan: https://nurturestore.co.uk/paper-plate-moon-ramadan-craft
You will need scissors, a paper plate, tissue paper, glue, and paint/markers/crayons. Adults will likely have to cut out the crescent and star shapes, but younger hands should be able to help with all of the other steps!
- Tearing tissue paper is a great way for students to practice using both of their hands, and it is a great hand strengthening activity as well.
- Cutting the tissue paper is another great option to work on scissor skills.
- Helping to hold and squeeze a glue bottle or paint bottle is a great way to strengthen hands and practice using both hands.
- Coloring or painting the paper plate is a great way to practice using our “helper hand” to stabilize the plate while we paint or color with the dominant hand. This will also work on fine motor skills needed to grasp and manipulate a marker, crayon, or paint brush.
Posted in Bilateral Coordination, Handwriting, Helpful Links, Visual Motor by Emily Dandron, OTRL with comments disabled.
Free Library Resource
Open Library is a free resource that allows access to a ton of fantastic books! Here is the link: https://openlibrary.org/
Posted in Blogs by Emily Dandron, OTRL with comments disabled.
Howe Elementary Google Hangout Meetings
Ms. Dawn and I will be hosting Google Hangout Meetings for Mrs. Kubert’s Classroom and Mrs. Roskelly’s Classroom on the dates listed in the attached PDF:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN6TR-rtjPDVSlpg0p0YjC0z_uNzwOcg/view
For the protection of our students, the invitation link and phone number for the meetings will not be sent out until a few minutes before the meetings start.
Tip: If you want to see more than 4 screens at once, add the (free) Google Extension “Google Meet Grid View” using the following link:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-meet-grid-view/bjkegbgpfgpikgkfidhcihhiflbjgfic?fbclid=IwAR3eHCk1a89Y1aX–fTIAVNmXtKl1dcMR4YpT4OcrUqT2qPzFxRFMhKR670
Please email me at dandroe@dearbornschools.org with any questions you may have!
Posted in Helpful Links by Emily Dandron, OTRL with comments disabled.