When you start home health for pediatrics, the majority of companies require you to purchase your own activities, games, and supplies. Usually PPE, assessments, and basic things like sensory brushes may be provided but you can assume you will be investing in a few things before you get started. That being said, don’t feel like you have to go out and spend a fortune on new toys right away. Most new home health therapists will gradually build their caseload, so initially you will only need a few things.
Before spending money on brand new toys and supplies, try to build your OT toolbox by:
- asking friends and family with kids if they are willing to part with any toys that their kids have outgrown
- checking garage sales
- shopping at thrift stores
- looking around your home to see if anything you already have can be used in therapy
Now on to what I take with me for pediatric home health visits!
If you can get only three things, I would recommend: a 3D puzzle, paper and markers, and play dough. There are so many things you can do with each of these such as: imitating and tracing lines/ shapes, folding paper, playing simple two player paper+pen games like Tic-Tac-Toe or Squares, cutting shapes (assuming the client has scissors in the home), practicing assembling the puzzle in a variety of positions (prone, side-lying, tabletop, quadruped — all depending on your goals), and the list is truly endless with playdough!
But when you’re ready to diverse your OT toolbox of toys and games below are some of the things I rotate with my kids with developmental delay, and grade them according to their developmental stage and OT goals.
Lacing Activities for Home Health Pediatrics
I find that kids prefer the lacing boards to the beads, most likely because the beads challenges bilateral integration and cognition at a higher level. I like to use both for fine motor goals, to change things up and for carryover to real life functional use.
Scissors For All Ages and Abilities
Up until a few months ago, I never knew there were so many different kinds of scissors! It is wonderful that so many options exist, but like me, so many parents are unaware of all the options out there to make cutting more accessible to their child.
The green ones depicted in the image above are training scissors with lift assist which assists children with opening the blades after completing a cut. Many children actually struggle with this part of cutting, and it just reminds me that we take so much for granted in everyday tasks.
The yellow pair are adapted scissors which assists with opening the blades and does not require the child to have a strong palmar grasp in order to cut. This particular pair is actually very sharp, so take extra caution with these in your bag!
The kids scissors on the bottom are regular kids’ scissors with blunt tips and soft grip handles.
“Let’s Cut Paper” Workbooks
Going along with scissors are these adorable cutting worksheets. Kumon puts these out, and has other similar workbooks for working on folding paper and tracing skills.
Building Blocks
I found a good set on Amazon a while back for my own kids, and when they grew out of them, I knew I’d one day be able to use them in therapy. They have held up pretty good and are easy to wipe down without losing color. If you are measuring a child’s progress with the PDMS-2, these are nice to have as some of the activities in the assessment involve building different things with blocks.
Shape Block Patterns
These are something I finally added in my OT toolbox last week and the kids seem to be loving the addition! If they are mastering 3D puzzles, this is a nice grade up for a visual motor activity. I finally printed and laminated about 10 different designs from PreKinders. She has them in color and black and white. You can use the colored version for grading down, or the black and white version to grade the activity up.
Pencil Grips
These are great for kids who are ready to use a pencil for graphomotor tasks but still need some help with a functional tripod or quadrupod grasp. They are also great for parent education on what things can help in the classroom and at home. The grey one is Dex the Effortless Art Pen Grip from Effortless Art Products. I shared more about Effortless Art products here! And the orange one I snagged in a three pack from Amazon.
Tweezers
These tweezers are great for building intrinsic hand strength, pincer grasp, and handwriting grasp patterns. You can use these for pinching pom-poms, small wads of crumbled paper, rolled up balls of play dough, beads or anything of similar size like beans or macaroni noodles.
Visual Perception Worksheets
For older kids working on visual spatial skills, these are a nice thing to change these up. You can also laminate them to reuse. The ones on the right are copies of worksheets in Building Thinking Skills, one of my favorite visual perception resource, with a variety of level books available.
Theraputty in Home Health
With the surge of kids’ screen time combined with the decrease of fine motor activities in their regular routines like the game of sticks, Cat’s Cradle, marbles, board games, jump rope, bike riding, climbing, tug-o-war, and so many more classic childhood games, hand strength in children has declined significantly when compared with previous generations. For this reason, I would be amiss if I failed to include theraputty in this list! To make it fun, you can hide fun things like marbles, beads, tokens, gold coins, or other favorite toys for the child to pick out.
Dry Erase Markers and White Board
A white board and markers is a no-brainer! Especially if you like to save trees! I have regular sized markers and larger grip markers, for the younger patients. Even opening the lid is a strengthening task in itself for some! Beware though — some kids revert to using their mouth when they cannot pull it off with their hands.
Do A Dot Markers
This are a hit with kiddos working on a functional palmar grasp. They can make quite a mess so bring plenty of paper and wipes, but the mess is often worth it! This also reinforces the joy of graphomotor tasks and the ability to create art. I find that kids are more proud of the things they make with these than even regular markers. Easy Peasy Learners has a lot of free Do A Dot Printables for these paint markers. Additionally, you can simply draw a shape and encourage them to paint inside the lines of the shape you drew.
Some other things I like to use in home health is:
- Balancing Tree Game – this is WONDERFUL for encouraging bilateral coordination, and the kids on the spectrum for me who need symmetry and balance in their play enjoy this one
- Stickers and small rewards – given some kids, especially oral sensory kids, are not appropriate for “small” things, so just use your best judgment but don’t be stinfy with verbal praise, that is always best anyway! Stamps and “high fives” work well too!
- Wipe Clean Workbook – this is one of my FAVORITE tools to use, with a variety of lines and shapes to learn to trace. It gives variation when working toward simple tracing/ imitation goals.
- Scrapbook Organizer Bag (with wheels!) – this is a new way for me to organize all my home health toys and activities without wasting time searching for something at the bottom of my bag. Talk about pocket HEAVEN.
What would you add to this list?