April is Occupational Therapy Month!

Happy OT Month!  Make sure to give your favorite OT a big hug :)

Here is a picture of the OT room door at NDS.  The little "game pieces" have faces of students and were colored by them and placed on the game board.

Occupational Therapy - Skills for the Game of Life!

When a child is determined to require occupational therapy services, I like to explain to the student (at their level) why they are seeing me.  We talk about what's hard and why and how we're going to work on making it easier.  Every April, I ask the students "What is OT?"  Some (typically the older students) can tell me what it is and why they are there.  Others can tell me why they come (after I remind them that coming to see me is "OT") and others don't remember :)  It's a good opportunity to review!  The kids were given a prompt of "OT is" and asked to finish the sentence.

OT is drawing. - Devin

OT is fun. - Joshua

OT is a time to learn and write things neat. - Dakota

OT is work hard. - Domenick

OT is fun! - Haleigh

OT is a time to learn time to work. - Nick

I got two "OT is fun!" answers...to me, that means I'm doing my job well :)

Duck! Rabbit!

We read the book Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld.   It's about two people who look at the same thing and see two different things - one sees a duck, one sees a rabbit.  They argue and show their perspective throughout the book.  "Two unseen characters debate the identity of the creature at the center of this clever book - is it a duck or a rabbit?  Readers will join in the discussion, because the creature could, in fact, be either.  Just as each of the debaters begins to see the other's perspective, the duck/rabbit runs away and they see an anteater.  Or is it a brachiosaurus?"  

After reading the book and talking about our perspectives, we made a duck/rabbit (or "drabbit" as one student liked to call it!)  

Coloring the duck

The duck!

But if I turn it around...

See my duck?

It will be this bunny!