Trunk stability muscles. Be sure your knees are on a padded surface!
- Play toss and catch games in a kneeling position.
- Challenge: how long can you tolerate watching television, or doing some other distracting activity, while kneeling on your knees.
Shoulder strength and stability
- Tummy time: We therapists love this! Playing while laying on the tummy is a great way to develop shoulder strength and stability.
Try reading, writing, coloring, working on puzzles, playing with toys, anything!, while on your tummy.
- scooter board while on your tummy for rolling down gentle hills, sliding around to pick items up off the floor or to pull yourself along
by "climbing" a rope
- wheelbarrow walking
- Crawl on all fours: forward, backward, sideways or change direction on command.
- Crawl through an obstacle course
- Animal Walking: Gorilla crouch walking, Bear walking, Inchworm walking, Snake crawling, Bird walking, Crab walking. These are all
illustrated here: Animal & Bug Walks
- While in a crab walking position, kick a balloon and keep it up in the air for as long as possible.
- snake or combat crawl (low crawl on your elbows and knees with pelvis flat) to squeeze under a low limbo stick
- strengthen the arms on the playground: swing on monkey bars, trapeze bar, ladders, climb up the slide (if permitted)
- in a crawling position, do donkey kicks as illustrated here: Animal & Bug Walks
- Shoot baskets with all types of balls
- Play Zoom Ball
- Play tug of war
- Pour water from a pitcher or sand from buckets
- Push and pull each other while sitting on rolling chairs or rolling stools
- Draw large shapes and pictures on chalk boards or white boards with both hands simultaneously
Wrist stability
- Walk or race while balancing a tennis ball on a large spoon; don't let it fall!
- Play with a Yo-Yo
- Putting weight into the arms and hands with some of the Animal Walking activities, above, also help the wrists
- When sitting on the floor to play, lean into one hand and keep the hand open; Reach across your body with the other hand to play.
This is a good position for drawing with sidewalk chalk, doing a floor puzzle, playing with blocks and other small toys.
- Lite Brite is a great toy for encouraging wrist extension while using the fingers
- Practice opening jars of all sizes
- Pour water from a pitcher into several cups
- To keep the wrists straight while coloring, drawing and writing, use a slanted or vertical surface such as an easel or a wide 3-ring
binder turned sideways. Paper can be taped to a wall as well.
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