Sensory Motor Skills

Sensory motor skills are the ability to use incoming sensory information from the 5 basic senses(sight, smell, taste, hear, touch) as well as our proprioceptive sense (sense of body awareness) and our vestibular sense (sense of movement awareness) to produce an adapted response to that information.

Each student has unique needs. Please be sure to contact your student's occupational therapist to select activities that will match their sensory motor needs.

ACTIVITIES:

• sight-Flashlight tag-have 2 players each shine a flashlight on a wall, have one player follow the other until both lights overlap
• smell-Name that food-present food to the person with their eyes closed and see if they can guess the food presented
• taste-New Food Challenge-present one bite of a new food to taste and chew (spit out if needed) in order to win a prize
• hear-Music fun-find out your child's preferences by listening to music, let them control the volume while exploring, play musical instruments together
• touch-Messy Mania-play in all types of textures, outside may be best; sand, moon sand, kinetic sand, dry rice, dry beans, water, cornstarch and water blend, vanilla pudding, homemade play dough, etc.
• proprioception-Tough kiddo Challenge-create a challenging obstacle course with climbing, pushing, pulling and carrying, use a timer to see how long
• vestibular-Rock and Roll-Either rock on your back or roll across the floor to knock down bowling pins or a block castle

LINKs:

Sensory Idea Lists

Try out these Apps for calming strategies: