No toys? Unstructured outdoor play can take you down an interesting path!

Parents often ask for suggestions of books to read for themselves or their children, activity resources, and toys that promote development. Our favorite books for adults include:

• Raising a Sensory Smart Child by Lindsey Biel and Nancy Peske
• Balanced and Barefoot by Angela J. Hanscom
• The Out of Sync Child Has Fun by Carol Kranowitz
• Understanding Your Child's Sensory Signals by Angie Voss​
• Just Take a Bite by Lori Ernsperger
  

Books for Children:

• A Handful of Quiet: Happiness in Four Pebbles by Thich Nhat Hanh
• Anh's Anger and Steps and Stones by Gail Silver
• Soda Pop Head, Personal Space Camp, It's Hard to be a Verb,  and The Worst Day of my Life by Julia Cook.

Please note: We are a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program and earn a small fee when you purchase through our links. We only recommend products that we have tried and tested in the clinic and have been kid/ parent/clinician approved.

Squigz

A creation of Fat Brain Toys, there are many ways you can use these simple suction cup based toy to build fine and visual motor skills. 

Peaceable Kingdom

This brand has many board games we love- our favorites include Feed the Woozle, Mermaid Island, Stack Up!, Engineering Ants, and Willy's Wiggly Web

Yoga Cards

There are many games you can play with yoga cards- our favorite is "Yoga Boss" where we take turn teaching each other. We like the Yoga Pretzels card brand. 

Fit Deck

We will often use these cards to create "ninja training" sequences.

Swish by ThinkFun

An excellent game to promote visual perception skills. One of the best things about this game is each player can play at a different level of difficulty while still interacting with one another- making it excellent for families or therapy groups.

Enchanted Cupcake Party

This game seems to be universally popular with younger boys and girls alike. We like to practice handwriting by copying the recipes before building. Manipulating the small pieces helps build fine motor skills.

Scooter boards are used to activate the core and build shoulder girdle strength and stability. We like this brand because it can link together to provide more or less surface space. Try riding on your belly and using your arms to move around, or riding on your back and using your legs to push off the wall or door.

 We love this Thinkfun coding game- it reminds a lot of our kids of Minecraft and is very popular- our favorite is to play the game a few times then invite the kids to create a life size version! If that is too challenging, acting out the "run, jump slide" tokens is an excellent way to work on gross motor skills.

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Quarto is helpful to build executive functioning skills and scanning for details in a cluttered visual field. This is great for older children, while younger children prefer Goblet Gobblers (picture below)