Sensory: Pillow Pal fun

My SIL gave the Dews Pillow Pals for Dew1's birthday.  A Puppy for Dew1 and a Tiger for Dew2.  They love them, needless to say, and they are in bed every night.  Dew1 sleeps on top of it, like an actual pillow, and Dew2 rolls around with it.

Disclaimer:  I sneak in every night after they fall asleep and take them away as they are super soft and have rather deepish plush.  I don't want either of them to end up face down in one, or have it entirely cover their heads / faces.  I know that they are old enough to turn away from it to breathe, but why tempt fate?

But here's the interesting thing.  I never considered the Pillow Pal to be a great Sensory tool.  But Dew1 loves his Pillow Pal, and last night I realized what the deal was.  He's soft.  He's squishy,  and He's very sensory.  I never expected this!  He is a wonderfully soft and furry that he's a sensory activity on the go - and not terribly expensive, either.

Thrift Shop Find: Fisher Price Animal 2x2 Game

Another great find at the local Thrift Shop.

I just saw the blue Fisher Price case and knew that something great was in it because it was the same case that Barnyard Bingo is in.

So when I got home and opened it up, I was thrilled to find what was inside.  A Matching / Animals / Memory / Tic Tac Toe game!  Perfect for our family.

So the game comes with 24 "coins", each of which are half of a whole.  They match up by animal (turtle, zebra, bumble bee), and then they fit together to make a whole coin.  At that point, you can also look at the shape on the coin that matches to the slot on the top of the ark.  It then drops into the ark like Connect 4.

This is such a great game for any child, but especially for a Special Needs kid.
Fine Motor:  not only does it take good coordination to put them into the ark, but matching them up is tricky too, and then keeping them together while putting them in is yet another level of skill.
Memory:  you can flip them all face down and play it like a memory game.
Matching:  we put three in a row (eventually four, then five, and so on) and have the boys match the one we hand them to the choices in the row.  We could also turn the choices over so they can start to learn to remember where the match is or isn't.
Colors/Shapes:  once the animals are matched, you need to talk about colors and shapes to get them into the ark.
Manding:  so easy to have a child mand for the coins simply by "coin" (or use the sign for it), by animal name (or sound!), or by shape name or color.
OT: make it a sensory activity!  Put the ark on one side of the room and hide the coins in the rice table on the other side of the room.  Dig for a coin, run it across the room and put it in the ark.  Or roll across the room.  Or pull yourself across on a scooter board.  Or put them in a bag and have the child reach in and pull them out one at a time.  Or put them in a baby wipes box and have the child reach in through the slot in the top to pull them out (Huggies wipes have a great rubbery slot that little hands reach into nicely and easily but also provide good resistance.)

So, while I hate it when other people post about great thrift shop finds that I will never have a hope in finding, I've discovered that you just never know what you might find, if you just open your eyes a little bit.

Tot School / Sensory Activity: Alphabet Rice Table Hunt

On a whim yesterday, I came up with this great idea that not only occupied both Dews for a good 10 minutes solid (!) but was such a good mix of things: sensory input, OT involving big muscles and work, alphabet identification, OT work using the magnet board standing up, and team work.  You can bet we'll be doing this again.

Materials:

1.  Alphabet Letters - from the Dollar Spot at Target, currently one of our Activity Packs.

2.  The Sensory Table - currently filled with Rice.  From Lakeshore Learning.

3.  The Magnet Board - a DIY from a blog suggestion.  I can't find the link now, but will post it as soon as I do.

4.  The Alphabet Strip - I made it from a word document - it matched a foam magnetic letter set that a friend passed down to us, and Dew1 loves to match the letters.  I should say Loved because many of them have, sadly, been chewed to a lettery death.

The Game:

1. Hide the letters in the Rice table.

2. Encourage the Dews to dig and hunt for the letters.
3. When they find one, they have to say which letter it is, and then run it across the room to the Magnet Board and match it on the Alphabet Strip. 

At this point, I asked Dew1 what sound the letter makes, because he knows them.  Dew2 doesn't know the name of his letters yet, so I told him which letter he had found, but he's getting really good at matching them so we cheered him on big time for that.

4.  Continue until all letters have been found.

This activity is excellent as an OT Sensory activity because they really have to dig for them, and then run across the room.  Then add the letter recognition, and letter sounds!

Next time, maybe I'll make them drag themselves on the scooter board!  I also intent to share this with Dew1's OT because he really liked it and it might be a good one for them to do together.  He enjoys his letters and he needs to do some good OT activities at the beginning of his session to chill him out.