We have been using the park after school as a good strategy for getting/staying regulated. Just going and camping out with a meal for a few hours, til it’s close to bedtime. But on this particular day, everybody was too dysregulated for that to even work, or be safe. We came home instead. The kids played … Read more
Intellectually, I am aware that “science” does not mean “mixing a bunch of bubbling purple liquids together”. But like, doesn’t it feel like sometimes it SHOULD? We did “science” today in my OT room. (I accidentally referred to us as wizards and our work as potions a couple of times and was promptly corrected.) I … Read more
It was 45 minutes until bedtime and my kids (6 and 4) were super amped up and high energy. Some days I have the energy to start playing goofily with them in a way that I know will help them get the deep pressure body input they need in order to start settling and feeling … Read more
A play invitation from my therapy gym — as part of the child-led exploration of stations in my room during OT time, or for the children who use the therapy gym for other reasons than dedicated OT time. I left a sensory bin filled with coffee grounds. Earlier this year, I had plastic flowers placed … Read more
I’ve written before about “sensory mismatch”. It’s one of the hardest things for people with vastly different sensory profiles to be able to get along with each other in stressful circumstances. Let me tell you another story from my own family. The cast of characters here is myself, my son Apollo (5), and my daughter … Read more
Kids are very creative in play. They may be interested in symbolic play, using things to represent other things. They may be interested in sensory play, exploring the sounds and sights and textures of materials or the ways they interact. They may be interested in motor play, exploring how objects move and how they themselves … Read more
I hoped for a warm day to do an ice-themed camp invitation*, but in England all we had were moderate days and chilly days. The kids seemed completely unfazed by this fact and the ice probably lasted longer! I had soooooo many kinds of ice. I basically just did everything I could remember Busy Toddler … Read more
This camp invitation* was so simple and so engaging — all I did was collect a bunch of things that weren’t paintbrushes and set them out with a big piece of paper and some paint! The possibilities are, of course, endless, and any replication of this activity would end with a zillion zillion different permutations … Read more
I set up an invitation at camp* to make “nature soup”. If we had had the access, I would’ve loved for the kids to be able to pick whatever flowers and leaves and weeds and pinecones were interesting to them and were in the vicinity. However, for our specific purposes, all we had was a … Read more
The single play invitation that I was most excited for in all of Camp Creativity* was set for Thursday: the “make your own potion” station. This could totally have been anywhere from really simple to really complex. I probably fell on the side of the scale closer to really complex 😉 We have had several … Read more