West Mains Room 7 – Home Learning Ideas

Sensory processing – Calming Activities

Sensory Calming Activities provide sensory input and they help your child stay calm, self regulate and be less fidgety. These sensory calming activities will also reduce
your child’s stress and anxiety too.

Rub some lotion on

Deep pressure massage

Chew on a chew toy

Bounce on an exercise ball

Have a bubble bath

Make silly faces in the mirror

Pop bubble wrap

Play with putty, gloop, shaving foam &/or squishy cream (draw pictures in this, make a mess), play doh, slime,

Use a calm down or sounds bottle

Play in a dry beans, lentils etc in a tray – these are nice to stand or walk on.

Sensory Processing – oral motor

What is oral motor?

Oral motor development refers to the use and function of the lips, tongue, jaw, teeth, the palates. The movement and coordination of this is very important in speech production, safe swallowing, and eating various textures.

You can have either hypo-sensitive or hyper-sensitive oral motor.

Signs that a child is hyper-sensitive (oral sensory avoiding) include:

dislike of brushing teeth, having their faces wiped,
picky eaters especially with specific textures.
very particular about being neat and not enjoying messy play or eating.
They also may prefer a very specific type of cup/nipple for a bottle and not able to use other brands. They may also be unwilling to use utensils.

Signs that a child is hypo-sensitive (oral sensory seeking) include:

eating/licking everything.
Usually have to have something in their mouths including non food items.
Usually tend to overstuff their mouths with food and very messy eaters.
Often like very crunchy foods and foods with a strong flavor such as spicy foods, very sweet/sour foods such as lemons, and very salty foods.
Chewing and sucking on items such as pens, pencils, hair and fingers.
Drooling is the flow of saliva outside the mouth. It’s often a result of weak or underdeveloped muscles around your mouth or having too much saliva.
Oral motor exercises help the muscles in the mouth and face for speech, eating, and saliva control. Here are some things you can do with your child just for fun, and target better oral motor control at the same time.

Activities to try:

Try using a vibrating toothbrush to stimulate tongue.
Blowing bubbles and blowing up balloons, blow feathers from hands or off table, make simple floating boats – blow with straw across tray or bath.
Chew a chew toy.
Encourage your child to blow into music instruments such as horns and harmonicas.
Look in mirrors: Play a funny face making game with a mirror with your child, play “smile, don’t smile, frown, and repeat,” say ‘oooooo’ then ‘eeeeee’ while looking in the mirror at each other, put yoghurt or chocolate moose (or similar) around lips and encourage child to lick off their lips while looking in mirror.
Drink through a straw – runny and thick consistences.
Encourage eating different textures.
Assist children to bite food into mouthfulls not making food per-mouthful sized.
Lick lollies and ice-cream or ice-lollies

Some handy sensory recipes

Here are some recipes for sensory play to make with your child. Remember the ‘measuring,’ mixing, and pouring while making it with you, will be as much fun as playing with the end product 🙂 !

NB – while almost all these recipes are ‘edible’ they shouldn’t be consumed in large quantities. Fluffy Slime is not edible.

Pete the Cat

In Room 7 we have all loved the Pete the Cat stories and songs. Just click the images below to view the pages.

You’ll find our favourite Pete the Cat game here. There are many fun other games on this page too. Check them out!

This is a great interactive page with lots of story-songs about our favourite Pete the Cat!

Hairy Maclary

Click the image to hear one of our class favourites!

These are some animated videos of our favorite Hairy Maclary stories. Just click to view a collection of the stories.

Makaton Signed Stories

https://youtu.be/VwmkzeTAJ8I?list=PLjT4XhijakZjWIMLJt4UIANIZ_l4c9cVR

This is a selection of Makaton signed stories.

Sensory Activities

List of “Heavy Work” working on on Proprioceptive and Vestibular Input

Proprioception is the sense of where your body is in space and this information is transferred through muscles, joints and bones. Children that have difficulty in this area will often have some of the following symptoms:

-need tight hugs to calm down, or the opposite and avoid hugs and closeness
-seek out movement activities like jumping and climbing
-appear clumsy and accident prone – stubbing toes, bumping into walls and doors, tripping over feet
-enjoys rough housing and wrestling play

The vestibular system helps with balance, feeling the direction and speed of movement and remaining upright against the pull of gravity. Some children may exhibit these symptoms if they have problems with their vestibular system:

-poor postural control (falls from chairs frequently)
-poor eye / hand or eye / foot coordination
-may feel insecure in movement (may dislike coming down stairs)
-seeks out intense movement like running, swinging, spinning (doesn’t get dizzy easily)

-often suffers from motion sickness, doesn’t enjoy spinning or quick movements or being held up in the air or upside down.

Activites to help

1 “Hot dog” game, where the child lies across the end of a blanket and is rolled (ends up in rolled up blanket)

2 Carry heavy items (baskets with cardboard blocks, laundry, bag for teacher, etc.)

3 Tug of war

with help if needed, pull a blanket between you while standing or sitting – can be singing row your boat?
Wrap blanket or teraband around your child’s waist and while holding both ends pull them towards you and gently push away, repeat – don’t forget the kisses or tickles as they reach you.

4 Scooter board to and from a designated location (sit and lie on stomach use arms to propel)

5 Pillow cases with a few stuffed animals (for weight) and drag and pull them up a ramp, incline or stairs. Climb on, hide under, jump on pillows or cushions and play squashy sandwich games between them.

6 Push someone around on a scooter board

7 Squeeze toy sensory fidgets, ones that do not make noise as that is disturbing to classroom

8 Drink milkshake through a thin straw

9 Play row row row your boat sitting on the floor rowing against each other

10 Rice play, koosh balls, water play, jelly play and putty

11 Two adults swing the child in a sheet

12 Mini trampoline

13 Wash table, desks or counter tops

14 Bounce a large ball

15 Pinch, roll or pull putty, Play with balloon filled with flour.

Hello Rm 7 families

We wanted to put together some ideas and resources of ideas to keep you busy while the kids are off school. We hope you all find it useful.

Please feel free to contact us via email to share photos or to gt any help or advice while we are all away from school. We will hope to post some of your pics on here, to share with the other blog members, and will get back to you as soon as possible if there is any way we can help while we are off.

Morna – gw07mckenziemorna@glow.sch.uk

Emma – gw14stevensonemma1@glow.sch.uk