In Part 3 of getting kids outside for a therapeutic experience, Jenny introduces you to ‘Painted Rocks’, another way to get kids outside connected to nature. Rock Painting is artwork painted on the surface of a smooth stone, then placed in an easy access location outside such as a park or a trail for someone to find and keep or hide again. Painting the rocks develops a child’s fine motor skills and hiding the rocks or finding a painted rock provides opportunity for physical activity and a sensory rich experience in the great outdoors.

In parts 1 and 2 of getting kids outside for a therapeutic experience, we discovered how important fresh air and physical activity is for a child’s physical, mental and emotional health. Part 1 we explored fun activities to connect children to nature in their own back yard. Part 2 we explored therapeutic gardening as a way to connect children to nature. In Part 3 of this series I am introducing you to ‘Painted Rocks’, another way to get kids outside connected to nature. What is it and how does it benefit our children’s health and well-being?

Rock Painting is artwork painted on the surface of a smooth stone, then placed in an easy access location outside such as a park or a trail for someone to find and keep or hide again. Painting the rocks develops a child’s fine motor skills and hiding the rocks or finding a painted rock provides opportunity for physical activity and a sensory rich experience in the great outdoors.

Materials needed for Painted Rocks:

• Smooth flat rocks – these can be purchased or found outside easily, just keep your eyes open
• Acrylic paint – I like Apple Barrel brand or Martha Stewert
• Paint brushes – Look for brushes that don’t shed bristles
• Paint pens – Artistro or POSCA are good quality brands
• Chalk Markers – these are great for younger children
• Sealer – I use Modpodge for outdoors. You can use paint on sealer or spray on sealer. The sealer is an important step because it keeps the paint on the rock if it gets rained on before someone finds it.

What to do:

• Wash the rocks and let them dry completely
• Paint a smooth flat rock using acrylic paint. Allow the paint to dry
• Decorate the rock using paint pens, small paint brush, or chalk markers
• You can choose to skip the acrylic paint step and go right to decorating the natural surface of the rock
• Seal it with Modpodge or other sealer of your choice
• Remember to label the back of the rock if you have a Rock Painting Facebook page or if you belong to a Rock Painting Facebook page community – there are several to choose from. In most cases, you will need to request permission to be admitted to join the group
• Take a photo of the painted rock and post the pic to a Facebook page
• Hide the rock in a park, family-friendly hiking trail, or at a playground
• Your job is complete. Now time for someone to find the precious treasure!

With older children and teens, you can take rock painting to the next level and paint an inspirational message on your rock. Whoever finds this rock, well, it will make their day! I found a rock with a kind message one day when I was out mountain biking. The timing was serendipitous, as I needed to read that message on that day to help me resolve a conflict I was experiencing.

There is national movement called ‘The Kindness Rocks Project’. A woman by the name of Megan Murphy is the creator of this movement. The Kindness Rocks Project encourages people to leave rocks painted with inspiring messages along the path of life. Check it out at www.thekindnessrocksproject.com 

There are tons of ideas on Pinterest for painted rock designs and inspirational messages to write on the rocks.

Some of my favorite inspirational quotes I have painted on my rocks include:

• Dream Big
• Stay True
• Be Kind
• Shine On
• Just Breathe
• Trust Life
• Live Simply
• Feel Inspired

I have my own Painted Rock Facebook page called ‘Dolphin65’. It is open to anyone. If you find a painted rock with that label on the back, then you found one of the painted rocks I created!  I’d love to hear from you, so feel free to post a pic of anyone’s painted rock you and your child find on my Facebook page and let’s share the joy!

Telehealth is an adventure in which therapists encounter many new opportunities and challenges. It requires flexibility, creativity, and open-mindedness. In this podcast, Jenny offers some ready-to-implement activity ideas from her experience in telehealth to help make the telehealth adventure easier to navigate.

I know it is very scary to tackle teletherapy for the first time. I was nervous when I started practicing teletherapy 3 years ago. I needed confidence that I could navigate the technology pieces. I needed reassurance that I could be creative with limited resources. I learned a lot about how to effectively implement teletherapy, but it took courage and a sense of adventure.

So I ask you, what would Winnie The Pooh do during this time of COVID-19? Pooh bear is a simple bear with a childlike personality, full of wonder and exploration. He takes things as they come and lives life in a fun and spontaneous manner. And when he lives his life this way, it always turns out just fine. Remember to be like Winnie the Pooh so you don’t get stuck in the mud like Eeyore!

Telehealth truly is an adventure! You will encounter many new opportunities when using telehealth service delivery model for pediatric therapy. You will develop resiliency, just as the children with multiple challenges do in their lives daily. Be flexible, creative, open-minded and expect the unexpected.

Here are some ready-to-implement activity ideas to help make your telehealth adventure a little easier to navigate.

Ready-to-Implement-Activity Ideas

Activity ideas using a paper bag and crayons

• Tear edges of bag to make fringe
• Go on a scavenger hunt with paper bag
• Locomotor actions – pick up a crayon and move across room to place in bag
• Trace hand on paper bag with crayon
• Identify objects inside bag without looking

Activity ideas using a couch, pillows, chairs

Good for proprioception input, motor planning and following directions.

• Hop over a pillow
• Jump & stop activity on couch
• Bear walk, crab walk over pillows
• Pretend turtle with pillow on back while crawling
• Imitate Ninja moves with pillow

Activity ideas using pipe cleaners

• String cereal
• Twist together and jump over
• Copy design for visual perception
• Wrap around finger
• Minute to win it, how many can you pick up in 1 minute

Activity ideas using a playground ball

• Roll over bowling pins (could be empty plastic bottles)
• Ball wall walk, don’t let it fall
• Crab kick
• Spell words for each catch
• Over under game with adult assistant

Activity ideas using cotton balls

• Draw a sheep or cloud on paper and glue cotton balls
• Sponge painting with cotton balls
• Pretend feed cotton balls to plush animal
• While supine, pick up cotton ball with toes and bring to hands
• Throw and catch cotton ball

In this podcast, Jenny shares some fun Valentine’s Day activities that help to integrate the senses. Activities that incorporate the seven senses, especially vestibular and proprioception, help to facilitate sensory integration, which contributes to a child’s ability to concentrate, organize, have self-confidence, and good academic ability.   

We have seven sensory systems which coordinate in synchrony to help with developing a child’s motor skills, language, emotional regulation, and cognitive functioning. The sensory systems include two hidden sensory systems; the vestibular system and the proprioception system and the basic five; touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing. The vestibular system registers head movement in space and has several functions, including facilitating balance and helping a child with maintaining posture. The proprioception system is stimulated during heavy work that causes the muscles to contract or stretch. When a child’s nervous system gets enough proprioception input, the brain sends out neurochemicals called endorphins, which produce an overall calm alertness, helping the child to focus and feel emotional well-being. Activities that incorporate the seven senses, especially vestibular and proprioception, will help to facilitate sensory integration, which contributes to a child’s ability to concentrate, organize, have self-confidence, and good academic ability.   

I would like to share with you some fun Valentine’s Day activities that help to integrate the senses.

• For Vestibular and proprioception input: Cut out red or pink paper hearts. On each heart, write a locomotor action, such as gallop, march, bear walk, crab walk, jumping jacks. Have the child pick a heart and perform the action. Older children can practice reading skills. You can also work on directional concepts and prepositions by having objects the children move around/under/between/over.
• Add other senses to the activity.
  • For the sense of smell have scratch and sniff stickers on the hearts for the children to smell
  • For the sense of touch glue different textures to the paper hearts, such as sandpaper, bubble wrap, Velcro, and fabric
  • For the sense of sight, dim the lights in the room and turn on a glow lamp during the activity to create a calmer space.
  • For the sense of hearing play music in the background. The children can practice following directions by moving when the music plays and stopping when the music stops, then moving again when the music starts again. This also helps with impulse control.
• Let’s finish with a simple and fun fine motor activity for Valentine’s Day. Draw a heart shape about 10” on a piece of aluminum foil. Have the child trace over the heart shape with a marker. If the child can draw a heart shape, have them draw the heart on the aluminum foil. Using either red or pink construction paper or tissue paper, have the child tear small pieces about 1” and glue inside the heart shape on the aluminum foil. This activity develops finger strength, pincer grasp, bilateral coordination skills, and visual motor skills.

Wikki Stix is a product made of wax coated yarn. Parents, teachers, and pediatric occupational therapists can all use Wikki Stix with children. Touching Wikki Stix wax coated yarn stimulates the tactile system. Wikki Stix  are fun and motivating.  Give a listen to this short podcast to see how children with tactile sensitivity benefit from Wikki Stix fun.

For more information on Wikki Stix go to wikkistix.com

Wikki Stix is a product made of wax coated yarn. Parents, teachers, and pediatric occupational therapists can all use Wikki Stix with children.

Touching Wikki Stix wax coated yarn stimulates the tactile system. Some children have tactile sensitivity, some are tactile seeking, and some are tactile underresponive. Wikki Stix benefits all 3 sensory modulation subtypes.

The fun and motivating Wikki Stix may encourage children with tactile sensitivity to tolerate touching the Wikki Stix, thereby increasing exposure to noxious tactile input. This may carry over to other tactile challenges, such as tolerating hands in messy art material. 

Children who are tactile seeking benefit from engaging with Wikki Stix because the stickiness may satiate their neurological need for tactile input.  This may carry over to helping these children decrease their excessive need to touch objects in the classroom.

Tactile sensory underresponsive children gain increased tactile input while engaging with Wikki Stix. The increased tactile input these children experience, may help them to feel a pencil in their hand with increased sensory awareness, thereby helping them with improved pencil control for handwriting.

Manipulating Wikki Stix to create designs helps children developing important fine motor foundation skills such as pincer grasp, bilateral coordination, in-hand manipulation, and prehension. These can carry over to functional skills such as manipulating scissors, holding a crayon or pencil with correct grasp, and successful use of math manipulatives.

Using Wikki Stix to copy designs helps to build important visual motor and visual perceptual skills, the foundation skills necessary for reading, math, and handwriting.  

Wikki Stix can be used for visual accommodations in the classroom.

• Stick on handwriting paper to give a tactile cue for baseline letters
• Stick around coloring picture to teach children coloring inside boundary lines
• Use for visual cue to mark reading line to help children keep from visually skipping lines
• Roll a Wikki Stix into a small ball and place on larger numbers for Touch Math
• Use Wikki Stix for a hand fidget
• Wrap a Wikki Stix at base of pencil for an instant pencil grip
• Stick to paper to stabilize it on desk

Here are some fun activity ideas with Wikki Stix. You can find more ideas at: www.Wikkistix.com

• Create shapes for pre-writing skills: plus, circle, square, triangle
• Create and trace numbers
• Create and trace letters in name
• Practice spelling words
• Connect dot to dots (https://www.wikkistix.com/crafts-for-kids/dot-to-dot/)
• Follow a maze
• Make your own original craft creation! Example: Pixar’s Forky Inspired Spoon Creations (https://www.wikkistix.com/forky-inspired-spoon-creations/)