Must Have Sensory Strategies!

by Sara | Apr 9, 2018 | Sensory

There can be many sensory challenges that kids and teens face throughout the day. Colleen from The OT Toolbox has created a great solution for me to share with you today! *This post contains affiliate links. There is no extra cost to you, but we may earn an income. Please see our disclosure statement for further details.

It can be a real struggle to help kids manage tricky sensory-related challenges. Parents find it difficult to weed through all of the information and pull out what will work for their child. Teachers may struggle with kids who fall out of their chairs, can’t focus, and feed off other students. They may feel compelled to help these students but lack resources, time, or tactics. Therapists may search for fresh ideas that provide the right kind of sensory input and will be carried over at home and at school, all while fitting into the child’s occupational performance sweet spot.

Do one or more of the categories described above sound familiar?

Maybe you are trying sensory strategies, searching for information, and creating sensory diets that just aren’t working. You’re doing all of the right things, but struggle to meet the sensory needs of an individual child.

Colleen from the OT Toolbox has created 3 amazing FREE solutions for you!

The Outdoor Sensory Diet Cards and Sensory Challenge Cards

The Classroom Sensory Strategies Toolkit

The Attention and Sensory Workbook

She has created an amazing sensory ebook called The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook that has TONS of resources and helpful tips for teaching sensory strategies to your child!! This is a great book for parents, therapists, teachers, and professionals!

Outdoor Sensory Diet Cards

That’s where the Outdoor Sensory Diet Cards and Sensory Challenge Cards come into play.

They are a FREE printable resource that encourages sensory diet strategies in the outdoors. In the printable packet, there are 90 outdoor sensory diet activities, 60 outdoor recess sensory diet activities, 30 blank sensory diet cards, and 6 sensory challenge cards. They can be used based on preference and interest of the child, encouraging motivation and carryover, all while providing much-needed sensory input.

Research tells us that outdoor play improves attention and provides an ideal environment for a calm and alert state, perfect for integration of sensory input. In fact, outdoor play provides input from all the senses, allows for movement in all planes, and provides a variety of strengthening components including eccentric, concentric, and isometric muscle contractions. The outdoors are a vestibular, proprioceptive, tactile, and overall sensory-enriched goldmine!

There’s more: Providing opportunities for sensory diet activities in the outdoors encourages open-ended play, imagination, creativity, body awareness, learning skills, self-confidence, gross and fine motor development, attention, and social-emotional skill development.

Here are a few ways that the Outdoor Sensory Diet Cards and Sensory Challenge Cards can address much-needed skills of our children/students/clients with sensory needs: 

• Outdoor play is the ideal setting for incorporating the “right kind” of sensory input. A child who uses a therapy band in the classroom receives just one direction of proprioceptive input. Outdoor play provides sensory input in all planes, directions, and with multiple senses.
• Outdoor sensory diet activities are easy, fun, and motivating…and they make memories for the whole family while meeting the needs of a child with sensory processing challenges.
• Outdoor sensory activities can be completed as a group or on an individual basis, and learning can be incorporated right into the tasks.
• Teachers will find the outdoor recess sensory diet cards appropriate for the right kind of sensory-based brain breaks throughout the day.
• The great outdoors is the biggest sensory gym you can imagine…and all of the sensory equipment is already there! From tree stumps, to hills, to pebbles, to pavement…outdoor sensory diet strategies can occur with little or no equipment.
• Parents will love these outdoor sensory strategies that make memories for the whole family.
• The whole family can join in on these sensory brain breaks! They provide the best kind of calming proprioceptive input, alerting movement, and sensory-based play that we ALL need!
• The outdoor sensory diet strategy cards include a section of outdoor recess activities. These are perfect for the parent advocating for more sensory input for their child at school. The school playground is a powerful source of calming and organizing input!
• Therapists will find the Outdoor Sensory Diet Cards a valuable tool in creating home programs. Every child needs more of this type of play!
• Sometimes therapists run into issues with sensory diet carryover at home or in the classroom. These are sensory-based activities that kids will love and WANT to do!
• As an added bonus, the Outdoor Recess Sensory Diet Cards included in this free packet can be used at any neighborhood playground, making a quick stop at a park a motivating means of incorporating much-needed sensory exercise.
• The Sensory Diet Challenge Cards incorporate all of the senses and are a quick checklist of activities that can be used for easy sensory activities.  

Be sure to grab your copy of the Outdoor Sensory Diet Cards and Challenge Cards! 

So often, kids with sensory processing challenges struggle in the school environment. Colleen from the OT Toolbox has created an amazing school sensory strategy toolkit just for you! This post contains affiliate links. There are no extra cost to you, but we may earn an income. Please see our disclosure statement for further details. 

As a caregiver or parent, it is exhausting to see the challenges your child faces, while ticking through the laundry list of strategies and still witnessing the sensory breakdowns. Parents are the advocate for addressing their child’s needs. They are looking for resources to share.

Therapists are challenged to find tactics that will be carried over while meeting functional goals. We strive to create streamlined suggestions that will be used at home and in the midst of a busy classroom.

Often times, teachers are the middleman when it comes to sensory issues. They are dealing with curriculum requirements, little time, and demands of a full classroom. Time, space, and resources are limited in the classroom. Teachers struggle with meeting sensory needs and children who “feed off” other students.

Because of these challenges, the classroom can be a tricky environment for addressing the needs of students, incorporating strategies, and addressing behaviors related to sensory needs. If any of these struggles sound familiar, know that you are not alone!

You’re striving to find and use the sensory strategies that students need and to put them into place in easy-to-understand handouts where recommended tools can be highlighted. You’re seeking information about why students are acting the way they are and how to help them to improve learning, attention, regulation, and emotional needs so that educational needs are met.

Classroom Sensory Strategy Toolkit

That’s where the Classroom Sensory Strategy Toolkit comes in.

It’s a free printable packet of resources and handouts that can be used by teachers, parents, and therapists. Whether you are looking for a handout to explain sensory strategies, or a tool for advocating for your child, the Classroom Sensory Strategy Toolkit has got you covered.

And it’s free for you to print off and use again and again.

In the Classroom Sensory Strategy Toolkit, you’ll find:

• Fidgeting Tools for the Classroom
• Adapted Seating Strategies for the Classroom
• Self-Regulation in the Classroom
• 105 Calm-down Strategies for the Classroom
• Chewing Tools for Classroom Needs
• 45 Organizing Tools for Classroom Needs
• Indoor Recess Sensory Diet Cards

Here are a few ways that the Classroom Sensory Strategy Toolkit can address much-needed skills of our children/students/clients with sensory needs: 

• Science tells us there are more kids with processing needs than ever before. Schools are responding with a better understanding of how to help students using sensory input within the school day.
• The Sensory Strategy Toolkit is a helpful tool for incorporating sensory needs within the educational environment as supports and tools that kids need.
• Sensory processing challenges in kids are baffling! Having a set of sensory tools that can be used in the classroom is powerful to teachers, parents, and therapists.
• Sensory processing issues cause stress, motivation, and challenges for the whole family. Having a toolkit of sensory strategies for the classroom can help.
• Self-regulation in the school environment can derail the whole classroom from effective learning. Use the calm-down strategies and self-regulation pieces in the toolkit and have the information you need to address these challenges.
• Those who work in the school environment struggle with a limited budget for addressing sensory needs. These strategies use equipment that is on hand in the classroom.
• The toolkit is appropriate for preschool through teenage years and older and the strategies can be modified to meet the needs of each individual.

Be sure to grab the Classroom Sensory Strategy Toolkit and start addressing those classroom sensory challenges!

Attention

Today, I wanted to chat about an issue that so many children struggle with, whether they have sensory processing needs or not. Colleen from The OT Toolbox has created yet another amazing resource to share with you and it is all related to attention and focus! *This post contains affiliate links. There is no extra cost to you, but we may earn an income. Please see our disclosure statement for further details. 

Attention is a big challenge for kids. Distractions occur in the home, community, classroom, and everywhere a child goes! When attention interferes with learning, performance of functional tasks, or creates unsafe situations, it can be a real problem. But did you ever stop to think about how attention is so very related to sensory processing?

Our children with sensory challenges know the struggle of inattention. Parents, teachers, and therapists know that sensory processing challenges interfere with a child’s ability to attend. They may be so focused on a specific sensory input or need that they don’t notice when someone has called their name. Or, they may be so fearful in anticipation of a light touch that they miss what’s happening right in front of them.

As a parent, teacher, or therapist working with these children, we can find it difficult to address the underlying needs so that a child is able to pay attention to their classroom, or to a passing car.

We need to figure out strategies that meet the child’s needs in motivating and natural ways within the environment. Lack of attention span and undesirable responses to sensory input can lead to frustrated teachers, and challenged parents. Distractions from external and internal stimuli can lead to responses that look a lot like behaviors.

What if we could treat the underlying issues, resulting in increased focus and attention?

The Attention and Sensory Connection Workbook

That’s where the Attention and Sensory Connection Workbook can help. It’s a one-stop spotfor information on the basics of how attention is related to sensory processing. It provides tips to boost attention through the senses so that kids can learn, focus, and pay attention when they need to. The workbook covers information about how impaired sensory processing relates to attention issues in a variety of ways and provides movement and sensory-motor activities that can help boost attention. There are specific activity ideas and tactics to address attentiveness. You’ll also find workbook pages that can be used to identify underlying sensory-related areas that impact attention and tools for addressing those needs.

This is an ideal tool to add to any sensory lifestyle!

Here are a few ways that The Attention and Sensory Connection Workbook can address much-needed skills of our children/students/clients with sensory needs:

• It’s been found that there is a co-morbidity of 40-60% of ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder.
• This workbook is an actionable guide to help teachers, therapists, and parents to help kids boost attention and focus in the classroom by mastering sensory processing needs.
• You will find information on the sensory system and how it impacts attention and learning. There are step-by-step strategies for improving focus, and sensory-based tips and tricks that will benefit the whole classroom.

Don’t forget to grab your Free copy of The Attention and Sensory Connection Workbook!

The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook

The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook

The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook is a strategy guide for sensory processing needs. With valuable insight into the sensory system and the whole child, the book details how sensory diets can be incorporated into a lifestyle of sensory success. The tools in this book provide intervention strategies to support and challenge the sensory systems through meaningful and authentic sensory diet tactics based on the environment, interests, and sensory needs of each individual child.

So often, we hear that sensory recommendations are not carried over into the home or classroom. The tips and tools in The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook uses child-led interests and daily life interactions so kids WANT to participate in sensory diet activities their bodies need…because it’s part of play!

There’s more. To celebrate the release of the book, there will be added bonus items that address needs like self-regulation and self-reflection, school screening tools, sensory diet cards, sensory planning calendars, play-based sensory activities, and so much more.  These are strategies and solutions for every sensory kiddo!

When you buy The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook, you get an additional 6 bonus products. These include:

• A Year of Sensory Play- 67 pages of sensory activities for the whole year, 12 months of sensory planning sheets, and 12 months of movement activities and sensory bin fillers
• Sensory Diet Activity Cards- 24 pages of 345 sensory diet activities including calming and alerting movement activities, heavy work fine motor activities for pre-writing needs or fidgeting needs, sensory activities, and sensory support cards

• Sensory Diet Visual Schedule- 3 page visual sensory diet schedule form to be used with sensory diet cards. Print it off, laminate, and use over and over again in binders, at desks, at home, and within a sensory lifestyle

• My Self-Reflection Journal- 6 page printable journal designed to help kids self-reflect on daily and weekly actions, behaviors, and tools for better self-regulation. This is a great tool for managing sensory needs.

• School Sensory Checklist Screening Form- 7 page screening tool for the school or homeschool environments to identify sensory red flags

• Sensory Lifestyle Forms- 16 pages of forms, data collection sheets, sensory diet guides, checklists, and schedulers needed for creating an effective sensory lifestyle. Print these forms off and use them over and over again.

The guides in the bonus bundle will help to create simple sensory routines that fit into a family’s schedule, help parents figure out why their child responds to sensory stimulation in the ways that they do, help master sensory behaviors with simple activities, manage appointments and sensory routines, and find balance in sensory strategies.

You can also purchase the book from amazon: The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook