National Eat Better, Eat Together Month

Healthy Food

October is National Eat Better, Eat Together Month. Incorporating a family meal time into your family’s schedule is valuable as it offers a time for family members to connect, a time to model a nutritious diet for your children, and a variety of opportunities to encourage children to participate and become independent in the tasks that are required to make a meal.

While this may not be feasible every night, a great starting point is aiming for one night a week or a weekend brunch. You could then build upon that once it becomes a routine.

Ways to include children in creating a family meal time:

  • Retrieve a number of items at the grocery store and have your child choose. For example, they have to recall three items within the produce section to grab.
  • Set the table.
  • Assist in preparation of the meal.
  • Follow a simple recipe;
  • Wash produce;
  • Stir;
  • Pour drinks;
  • Measure and add ingredients;
  • Clear the table; and
  • Wash dishes.

Involving children in a variety of mealtime steps can promote a child’s:

  • Independence;
  • Attention;
  • Executive functioning skills;
  • Fine motor skills;
  • Visual motor skills; and
  • Bilateral coordination skills.

Need more ideas? Contact our office. Our therapists can help identify other ways to get your kids involved in mealtimes.

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Developmental Benefits of Fall Activities

Apple Picking

Fall is such a beautiful season! Enjoy the cool weather, pumpkin spice, and autumn leaves with these fun family activities.

Apple Picking

This great family activity offers numerous developmental benefits for our kiddos.

Here is how:

  • Encourage reaching for high and low branches to work on balance and gross motor skills.
  • Apple orchards contain lots of different textures for sensory exploration, including the smooth texture of apples, the roughness of leaves and branches, and maybe even hay on a hayride!
  • After, help your children count how many they picked or practice visual perceptual skills like sorting the apples by size and color.

Pumpkin Patch

This provides an opportunity to work on decision making by allowing our little ones to pick their own pumpkin.

When back at home, you can paint or decorate your pumpkins to promote creativity and fine motor skills via using stickers, different brushes, or even sponges as stamps. Of course, carving pumpkins is a phenomenal sensory and fine motor activity! Let your children help scoop out the seeds using their hands or a large spoon. Allow them to safely assist with carving by pushing in pumpkin cutter stencils to make a silly or scary face.

Need more fun fall ideas to promote growth in your kiddo? Contact our office.

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Getting Your Kids Excited About Food

Veggies at farm stand

Summer is a great time of the year to enjoy fresh produce. August, in particular, is the peak season for many fruits and vegetables to be harvested. From farmer’s markets to orchards, there’s a variety of ways to include your youngest family members in selecting nutritious fruits and veggies for your household. Activities and outings that involve gathering foods are a wonderful way to facilitate an understanding of food production, the people involved, and where it comes from. It could also be a fun and exciting way to introduce or try different foods. Additionally, these settings encourage social skills via talking with the merchants. Asking questions can lead to new discoveries, curiosity, and provide practice talking with community members.

A visit to a market, farm, or orchard allows kids to touch, smell and get a chance to choose the produce themselves–building a sense of autonomy and pride in what was gathered. This could lead to a higher likelihood of them eating their vegetables since they picked it themselves. If you cannot get out to a market or farm, simply spending a little extra time at the grocery store produce section where kids can be included can be an easy way to build knowledge and interest in novel foods and their preparation, as well as get them excited about food. Healthy eating and good nutrition is vital to fueling our bodies and aiding in development as kids grow.

Questions? Contact our office.

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Ways to Practice Fine Motor Skills During Summer Break

Fine Motor Skills Over Summer

The first official day of summer has finally arrived! Since school is out, your kids’ days look a little different–more time outside, less structure, and open-ended play. While necessary to your child’s development, it’s also important to practice handwriting and fine motor tasks during summer break to avoid setbacks once school starts again.

Handwriting ideas:

  • Writing a letter or card to a family or friend
  • Making lists (i.e. grocery shopping, what to pack, activities they would like to do or try, and favorites of any category)
  • Journaling
  • Mad Libs
  • Alphabet hunt (You can be creative with your version of this!)
  • Hide letters around the house and have your child check them off of a list as they find them.
  • Idea for a child with more advanced handwriting skills: Have them find words in their everyday environment (such as in a magazine, books, on products, etc.) and copy a word beginning with each letter of the alphabet.
  • Junior version of scattergories
  • Decipher a code
  • Make up a story, character, or map

Fine motor/hand strengthening ideas:

  • Write or draw using sidewalk chalk
  • Pop bubbles with index finger only
  • Paint rocks or flower pots
  • Play dress up (with clothes that have zippers, buttons, or snaps)
  • Card games
  • Jewelry making
  • Use squirt guns for water fight
  • Use clothespins to hang things (clothes, art, etc.) on a line
  • Color using broken crayons (if working on improving pencil grasp)

Contact our office and our therapists can help identify strategies that work best for your family during summer break. Be sure to also check out our recent blog about why open-ended play matters.

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Why Open-Ended Play Matters

Open Ended Play

Parents and summer have a love/hate relationship. Kids spend more time at home and the weather is warmer. That said, typical routines and schedules go out the window. While it may be tempting to register our children for summer camps, classes, sports, play dates, and more, it is very important to remember that our little ones need open-ended play with friends and free time just as much as structured activities. Not only does it benefit their mental health by reducing stress and anxiety, it also encourages creativity, problem solving, and other skills vital to their development.

Other benefits to free time and open-ended play include:

  • Emotional regulation. Unstructured play helps children process difficult emotions while still allowing them to act like a child.
  • Reducing burnout. It takes a lot of mental energy for children to stick to structured routines during the school year. It’s important to allow them time for themselves, similar to how adults approach self-care.
  • Improves sleep and boosts immunity. Warmer weather often means more time outdoors, which uses a lot of physical energy in kids. Physical exercise has also been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, which boosts immunity, in addition to improving sleep!

Contact our office and our therapists can help identify strategies that work best for your family during summer break.

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