Summer is a great excuse to plan special activities that can get your kids excited to complete occupational, physical, and speech therapy. It's an out-of-the-box approach to ensuring your child completes their therapeutic exercises while having fun at home. 

• Create art (and work on fine motor skills): One of our favorite projects is making salt fireworks!
  • Take a black piece of paper and draw out fireworks with a white piece of chalk.
  • Squeeze glue on top of your fireworks and then sprinkle with a lot of table salt!
  • Finally, give them some color with water color paints or food coloring. Watch the salt color sparkle in the sunlight when dry. 

• Do science (and work on breath support):
  • Make your own kazoos to march around with! Take an empty cardboard tube and wrap parchment or wax paper to the bottom, then secure with a rubber band.
  • Next, poke holes in the tube to increase the airflow.
  • Finally, vocalize or speak into the tube!

• Go to space (and use your imagination): Often we stare up at the stars on clear summer evenings. Let’s go see those stars by having an astronaut read to us from outer space!

Think outside the box this summer to help your child have fun while completing their therapy exercises, and feel free to get in on the fun yourself. After all, it’s summertime in Chicago!