An OT’s guide to outdoor activities
Summer is here! It is time to take advantage of the warm weather and take skill-building outdoors. Playing outside provides excellent opportunities to explore new textures, develop social skills, and burn off some energy. Take a look at these activities to help your children further their development!
Tonya Booth, MS, OTR/L
Summer is here! Let’s soak in the warm weather and take skill-building outdoors. Playing outside provides excellent opportunities to explore new textures, develop social skills, and burn off some energy. Take a look at these activities to help your children further their development!
Backyard Scavenger Hunt
Go on an adventure in your backyard and search for creatures and plants! This activity targets a variety of skills such as visual motor (visual scanning, figure-ground), fine motor (pincer grasp), and sensory exploration. Challenge your children to create art from their plant findings OR have them draw an animal they found to work on their handwriting grasp.
Gigantic Bubbles
Make your own bubble solution to work on attention to task and sensory exploration. After making the solution, run outside and blow gigantic bubbles for your child to chase around and pop with their fingers! This activity can work on gross motor skills by adding obstacles that the child has to jump/hop/skip/run over to catch the bubbles and finger isolation to pop the bubbles.
Plan a Picnic
Start a checklist and begin planning a family picnic! Whether it’s in your backyard or at a park! Allowing children the opportunity to organize a picnic is awesome for increasing self-confidence and their ability to plan and prioritize, which are important skills to develop early in life.
Beach Luau Water Bin
Grab a water bin and fill it with water! Add your favorite luau items such as seashells, sand, lei, and coconuts. You can add bath color tablets to make the water blue like the ocean. Water bin activities are great for sensory explorations especially in the hot summer heat.
Obstacle Course
Create your own personal outdoor adventure. An obstacle course can be made to suit your child’s needs and with a variety of items found in your home. A few key items could be hula hoops, balls, slide, tape, and jump rope! Obstacle courses are a great tool to improve your child’s gross motor skills (balance, coordination, jumping, running) and to engage in heavy work to burn off some energy.
Paint with Nature
Design some fridge art by grabbing some paint, paper, and your favorite plants/flowers. Dip your flower in the paint and stamp it onto your paper. An alternative to using flowers is fruit or vegetables! If you have a picky eater, have them select non-preferred food to use as stamps to create positive experiences with the food. This activity is also awesome for sensory exploration and fine motor skills (pincer grasp, fine motor control).
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