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»
What is attention? Paying attention seems like such a simple process – we just do it! But there is much more to it than we think. Every day we use attention skills to assist us in selecting and focusing on tasks. We then use concentration skills to sustain our attention to that specific task. Using… Continue Reading»
WHAT ARE PRE-WRITING SKILLS AND HOW CAN YOU HELP TO DEVELOP THEM AT HOME? You may have heard your Occupational Therapist refer to pre-writing skills before but what exactly are pre-writing skills and how can you help to develop this important set of skills at home? Pre-writing skills are the fundamental skills that children need… Continue Reading»
As a parent are you feeling overwhelmed and wish you had someone to talk to and/or are you concerned about the development of your child and not sure where to look for help? Then our drop in clinic will be perfect for you. Building Blocks Therapy will be opening our Mernda clinic doors on the… Continue Reading»
10 THINGS TO THINK ABOUT WHEN DEALING WITH FUSSY OR RESISTANT EATERS 1. Eating is the most difficult sensory task that children do. a. Knowing your child’s sensory preferences and the sensory properties of their always foods is important and a helpful place to start when introducing new foods. This will allow you to tune… Continue Reading»