Life Skills/Executive Functioning

Ways to enhance Focus, Attention to Task and Organization

for At-Home Distance Learning

-Set a daily routine and stick to it. It may fluctuate a little bit in the beginning as you find out what works best for your child. Consider starting the day with a scooter ride, run down a safe street or through the local park, go noodle, yoga video/poses, dance party, or other movement activity and/or reading a book together.

*Include in routine, gathering materials for students K+ to enhance personal responsibility and provide another preparatory movement break.

-Designate work areas with appropriate materials. During school closure, it may be beneficial to have a few areas available. Examples: table top area for writing, couch for reading, floor for listening/videos/web based/tablet work. Pencil box with all necessary items where child can easily access.

-Find when your child is most alert. Some are ready to work at 7 am while others work best at 10

-Flexible Seating: Allow child to stand, sit on floor in designated area, lay on stomach, place pillow on chair as a mini wobble seat or sit in chair. If child is engaged in task, positioning can vary. If child is silly, zoned out and/ or off task, take a break for 10-15 minutes. Set task expectation and try again. The goal is learning, not sitting in a chair, at this time.

-Tomato Timer http://www.tomatotimers.com/ Visual task timer on website

-Frequent water breaks: Have closed water bottle close by work area

-Frequent movement breaks: Use brain break bingo, take a walk outside for 10 minutes, go noodle break, play outside with sensory materials like sand/dirt and/or playdoh/kinetic sand play

-Realistic expectation of time on task: Children benefit from frequent changes to maintain attention in the classroom. Expectation of time on task generally follows developmental age, either generally or in that particular skill. For example: if a child is 8 years old but is reading at a kindergarten level, time expected to read should reflect that age range, i.e. 5-6 minutes.

-Varying types of breaks and length of time: For example, engage child or set expectation of task for 2-10 minutes based on developmental age, then take a 30-60 second jumping break/yoga break, then return to task for 2-10 minutes based on developmental age. Once task is completed, give sticker/take picture then take 10 minute playdoh/kinetic sand break using timer, return to next task.

-For younger students, extending length of engagement in a sensori-motor task, play calm song and ask child to stay with task until song is finished, sing a nursery rhyme or two and stick with task until song(s) are completed, count to 30 or more to extend time as appropriate

-Use child’s strengths. If a child is good at math, start with math. Complete it and give praise. Sometimes, completing a task can start the ball rolling.

Alternatively, if a child does not like reading, read together first then do math as a reward. (First-Then)

-Sticker charts for task completion; take pictures of completed tasks with child to send to teacher (show off a job well done!)

- Masking: Place paper over worksheet to cover view of entire page. Sometimes, children can become overwhelmed by the amount of work seen.

-Balance screen and printed work. Too much of either can decrease attention to task.

-Play soft music in background. Some children focus better with background sound. A classroom is a busy environment. Our students are used to frequent changes, social interactions and chatter.

-Facetime, Skype, Zoom social time with friends and family: virtual play dates

-Jumping, crunches, jumping jacks, skipping while doing rote learning skills such as math facts, spelling words, flashcards

-See document regarding games/activities that can help foster executive functioning development.

If your child continues to struggle, contact your child’s teachers to discuss modification of work as appropriate.