Winter can be a hard time to stay active! Outside can be cold and wet, making it a tough time to keep engaged in sports and other gross motor activities. Below are 15 activities that you can do with your child to help develop their coordination, balance and other gross-motor skills, whilst giving an opportunity… Continue Reading»
Occupational Therapists at Building Blocks Therapy work with children and their families, kindergarten staff, school staff and other therapists to manage challenging behaviours. A challenging behaviour is any unpleasant behaviour that is socially, culturally or environmentally not appropriate. This can include hitting, screaming, biting, pinching, thrusting, spitting, slapping, kicking, swearing and absconding. The following 5… Continue Reading»
Eating is a big part of everyday life – we need food for energy, to keep our bodies going throughout the day, as well as for nutrients, vitamins and minerals to keep our bodies healthy and strong! It is not always easy to maintain balance in our diets and to eat what is expected of… Continue Reading»
Children are referred to Paediatric Occupational Therapists (OTs) when they need assistance to develop confidence and independence in particular roles and skills in their life. Each child is unique, as is the family and community context that they are part of. In order to understand your child and family, and where your child may… Continue Reading»
HELPING CHILDREN WITH SEPARATION WORRIES 10 Practical Strategies As most of you will know children experience a huge range of emotions. As adults we love seeing kids happy and excited and we don’t mind watching them be silly or cheeky either but what we do find extremely difficult is seeing kids distressed, worried, anxious, sad,… Continue Reading»
What is Mindfulness? Mindfulness is “a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.” Why is it important to incorporate Mindfulness into our day? Mindfulness improves attention, memory processing and decision making Mindfulness increases our… Continue Reading»
Now that it’s starting to warm up outside, what better time than to get the whole family outdoors! Here at Building Blocks Therapy, we are big believers in putting down the iPad, putting on some runners and getting moving! There are so many things that you can do outside – the options are endless! Here… Continue Reading»
Does this picture look familiar? I can imagine most parents will be nodding their head whilst reading this. Its 8.30am on a Monday morning, school begins at 9am. Your child has 20 minutes to get themselves organised before you all make your way to school. Its now 8.45am and your child still isn’t ready. You… Continue Reading»
Handwriting is a skill that will be carried with a child from the start of schooling right through to adulthood. However, motivating a child to practice their writing, to develop correct letter formation, size and spacing can be challenging. Here are ten easy ways to freshen up handwriting practice so children don’t feel like they… Continue Reading»
Importance of Play in relation to classroom learning: Play is anything that we do for fun! This could be dress ups, turn taking games, pretend play, constructive play, social play, games with rules etc. Once we start having to work and it is no longer fun, it is no longer play. For children (including babies)… Continue Reading»