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We love to use Helicopter Spins as a whole group brain break activity because they help get the wiggles out so students can focus again. Show your students a map, before you start spinning, pick a destination! When you “land,” share information about the area. Remember the return flight home at the end of your adventure!
Keep these things in mind when doing Helicopter Spins:
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There are only 25 more days of school left!!!! (...give or take a few days). To celebrate the end of the year, host a S.M.A.R.T. Olympics in your room. Remind your students that as they do the S.M.A.R.T. course each day that they are practicing for the Olympics. Need some ideas of what to include for the big day? Download our S.M.A.R.T. Olympics PDF.
We love Overs and Unders for building eye movement skills critical for reading. Students will draw a line under a specific object and over the other. We've created one for you with fun spring pictures - instruct your students to draw a line under the sunshine and over the rainclouds, under the rainboots and over the sunglasses, etc. In the beginning, some students may need lines pre-drawn to encourage eye movements and eye-hand coordination skills.  Loop de Loos are one of our favorite vision activities. They can be done at home and they don’t take a lot of time or resources. Have students use newspaper articles, magazines, old homework assignments, etc., some type of printed material. Have students draw a continuous line under each row of text, circling a specific letter or sight word. The example shows the word “the” being identified in a text.  Resources:
Loop de Loos (Pre-K) or the Scanning Game (K-2) develop and enhance eye movements and eye-hand coordination skills students use when reading. Draw a continuous line as you loop the flowers. For younger students, draw a line for them to trace so they can practice smooth eye movements. Below is a spring themed activity for you to download, print and use!  Send your students on a shape hunt! Download our shape sheets or draw shapes on a sheet of paper, have your students hunt around the house to find items that are the same shape and place the items in the correct shape.
We are always looking for ways to combine skills, so when one S.M.A.R.T. OT, Sarah, shared this video from Its Totally Therapy, we knew we had to share it! Sarah has the students cut the squares and hole punch them to work on their fine motor skills before they begin the Eye Activities.
Watch the video for more eye exercises! We are always finding new reasons to use Tactile or Vision Trackers. This month we love the idea of using Tactile/Vision Trackers to help the brain connect information! Seeing the pronoun ‘he’ and connecting it to a picture of a boy, helps our brain make the link the two pieces of information.  We use Tactile/Vision Trackers to show the relationship between math concepts too. For example, we might have a picture of 5 goldfish and connect it to the numeral five.
Download:Resources:
Stillness is the highest form of movement because it is the absence of movement. So how do we teach children the difference? We give them many, many, many opportunities to experience feeling the contrast between moving and being still. Helicopter Spins are one way to teach the difference.
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AuthorSCheryl Smythe Archives
May 2021
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