Understanding what's under my feet
What you'll need
Different textured surfaces, bubble wrap, paper, rubber mats, rugs, leaves, pebbles, sand and soil
Activity
- Try playing games which encourage balancing on one foot. Hold both of your child’s hands initially and gradually reduce your support. Games such as Simon Says, or children’s yoga poses work well.
- Play games that involve reaching up high. At first, hold your child’s hands to encourage them to stand on their tiptoes.
- Try walking on different gradients of slopes. This should be introduced by firstly holding your child’s hand until they become confident to walk without support.
- Walking as quietly as possible on crinkle paper, bubble wrap, leaves or pebbles. You may need to hold your child’s hands initially, but their balance will improve with practice.
- Use simple words consistently to describe activities as you and your child complete these together.
Exploring through touch
What you'll need
Two boxes, rough and smooth paper, or fabric cut into squares.
Tips
- Introduce exploring using touch to your child by creating different games. Use the language like ‘rough’ and ‘smooth’ when you and your child are handling everyday objects. Try to widen their experience and allow them to associate the words and textures.
- Always support your child to explore new textures; they may be unsure about touching new, unfamiliar things. Placing your hand under theirs and exploring together promotes confidence and shared experience. As your child grows in confidence, begin to withdraw your support a little at a time.
Activity
- In the bottom of your boxes, completely cover one box with rough fabric or paper and the other with smooth.
- Cut out your squares of different textured fabric or paper.
- Introduce your child to the boxes and give them lots of time to explore the whole box. When they find the area you have created as rough or smooth, use the right word to describe the texture. Keep language simple and direct so that your child understands ‘rough’ applies to this particular texture.
- Hand one piece of your fabric to your child and give time to explore, then help them to match it to the inside of the box – smooth with smooth and so on.
- After a little practice, you can jumble up the pieces in another bag or box and take turns to choose and match.
- Extend the matching to other textures.
Dressing and fasteners
What you'll need
Your child’s everyday clothes (this can become part of their daily routine). Also, consider playing with clothing with large fastenings or zips and brightly coloured toys which have fastenings.
Tips
- It may be easier for your child to begin with the bottom half of their clothes first and undressing.
- Dress your child in the same sequence.
- Practise on clothes, or objects with large buttons, zips or fastenings.
Activity
Buttons
- Practise putting things through slots, such as pennies into a piggy bank or shape sorters.
- Build the concept of pushing and pulling by using lacing cards, stringing beads, or practise on big buttons.
- When buttoning on their body it’s easier to start at the top to align the clothing.
- Start with large buttons in loose holes. Use an easy fabric like a loose cardigan.
- Ensure there’s a good colour contrast which supports your child’s need, for example, bright red buttons on white fabric. You can sew on different buttons or make holes bigger. Start bigger and looser and gradually progress.
Zips
- Practise zipping and unzipping attached zips, first on purses or backpacks.
- Use an unsewn zip or cut out a panel.
- Use contrasting colour sides.
- Try backwards chaining, start with pulling a zip with an up or down action.
- Try a dot of colour on each part of the zip to make it easier to match and join. Your child may find it easier to zip a coat by sitting down and lifting the zip up to fasten; that way it’s closer.
- A keyring on a zip can make it easier for your child to pull it up.
My strong hands
What you'll need
Dough ingredients from your own recipe or you could use playdough.
A working station to complete the activity where mess can be easily cleaned.
Tips
- Try to encourage your child to take part in making the dough. They could help to measure ingredients, pour using their hands or a stir with a spoon.
- Consider colour contrasts between the dough and the working station as well as the impacts of lighting. For example, a white, easy wipe cloth, red dough and blue cutting or rolling tools. A darker coloured dough may be better suited to your child’s needs than a lighter coloured dough.
Activity
You can guide your child by completing the activity yourself as they place their hands over yours to feel the different actions and movements.
- Spaghetti: take a large amount of playdough and ask your child to pull it apart using two hands to create long, stringy pieces like spaghetti shapes.
- Meatball: ask your child to roll the playdough to make meatballs. Repeat using the opposite hand. Place the spaghetti and meatballs on a plate.
- Sausages: make sausages encouraging your child to either use one or two hands to roll playdough into a sausage shape.
- Pancakes: roll a piece of playdough into a ball and ask your child to use the palm of their hand to flatten the balls into pancakes.
- Doughnuts: make a ball and then flatten it. Encourage your child to use a gentle touch and with pincer grip take a small amount of playdough from the middle creating a doughnut.
Developing my throwing and catching skills
What you'll need
Objects which are easier for your child to catch, such as a softball, small pillow, balloon, ball with a bell inside or soft sponge bag.
You may want to consider using:
- Lightweight objects – these travel slower and have reduced impact
- Objects which create sound – such as bell balls.You can make this easier for your child by considering colour contrast.
Tips
- Practise throwing and catching with your child indoors before trying this outdoors.
- Bean bags and juggling balls are both softer than many sports balls and are easier to hold onto as they won’t bounce out of your child’s hands. You can make balls and beanbags easier to catch by adding a fabric tail so that there’s more for your child to grasp.
- Balls with holes in or handles on are also easier to catch, for example, balloons, sponge balls, hollow balls or balls with holes in them.
- Place a bell inside a foam ball or sewn into a bean bag.
- To support your child’s needs, you may want to use brightly coloured objects, which contrast with the surrounding environment. Bigger equipment may also be easier than smaller equipment.
Activity
- Support your child by providing verbal clues and cues. Count to three before throwing the ball to allow time for the child to work out the direction the ball is coming from.
- Move to involve peers and encourage them to shout the name of the person they are passing to next. You might also want to be more specific, for example, pass to (name of child) on your right.
- You can gradually increase confidence and difficulty by beginning with rolling the ball along the floor, then introducing gentle bounces, which decreases the speed. This will also give your child more time to listen to the ball’s speed and route as it approaches. This would require an even surface and ball with a predictable bounce.
- Practise these skills in a quiet environment before gradually increasing background noise.