A “weighted lap buddy” is like a small weighted blanket in the form of a stuffed animal. These help kids who have trouble sitting in their seats, kids who feel nervous, or even just kids who love stuffed animals! You can find weighted lap buddies for $40 – $50 on Amazon, but I wanted to …
I’m constantly looking for new and fun naturalistic activities. One of my favorite apps is Toca Pet Doctor. This app isn’t one of the free ones from Toca Boca – it costs $3.99, but my patients love it (many request it for their reward activity) and it’s quite versatile! Here are some more naturalistic activities for …
For my pet-themed sensory bin I took the two pet Safari Toobs that I had, threw them into the plastic rocks that I had (and which remind me of aquarium gravel without being so heavy), and added some glow-in-the-dark plastic rocks. This bin has been evoking all sorts of conversations about different pets – so …
Boy, do kids love blind boxes! I don’t remember them being around when I was a kid, but I’m surprised at how popular they are now. I do remember loving any toy that involved pets and the Barbie Pet Surprise box combines both these themes. These cute, soft, and colorful pets were first made into …
Here’s March’s pet-themed virtual treatment room! Visit it to see the webcams, apps, videos, and websites I’m using this month. Here’s a link to my folder of treatment virtual therapy rooms (so you can download and edit a room to make it your own). You can find my other themed virtual treatment rooms here.
With Valentine’s Day, “Galentine’s Day,” and Saint Dwynwen’s day all around February most people think of “love” as a theme for this month (here are my other monthly themes). I wanted to use “self-care,” instead, because it’s the way we show love to ourselves and it enables us to show love to others! A couple …
For my self-care sensory bin I wanted to use the hot cocoa breaths exercise as inspiration. I had a heck of a time putting this one together. I’d planned to use chocolate-scented kinetic sand, but I couldn’t find any sold individually! So I took the chocolate-scented sand out of my sensory box for November. Then …
I love the Zones of Regulation. Through it, Michelle Garcia Winner and her colleagues incorporate all the things I’ve learned about sensory processing, emotion regulation, and self-care. I can’t recommend the Zones curriculum highly enough for all SLPs or, really, anyone working with children. I found when using the tools from this book I needed …
I recently ran into a problem: the toddlers I’m working with needed a toy that could help them learn to label emotions. Interestingly, our research is showing that it’s easier for children to label others’ emotions than it is for them to label their own so I start with kids labeling the emotions of others. …
For my “self-care” prizes I decided to use these emoji erasers, which I got a couple years back and found that each kid either loves or hates them. I also got these heart-shaped squeezers for my prize box. You can find the rest of my themed prizes here.
