Having a disorganized desk can make school hard to manage.Ā When the teacher asks his or her students to take out their science books and turn to page 57, the child who is lost in their desk trying to find the book often can not remember the page number once it is found. Many times this student will remain lost in the lesson because of their fraught start.Ā Tasks that should be simple become overwhelming and time- consuming often leading to stress and frustration.Ā Organization can be an elusive skill that many kids struggle to acquire.Ā The fact of the matter is thereās a lot that goes into being organized.Ā Organization is part of a set of skills called executive functions.Ā Keeping a desk organized requires more than just putting things away.Ā Managing school materials requires planning, prioritizing, decision making, sequencing, task initiation, and following through with those tasks to completion.Ā Some kids need extra help to set up and maintain an organized desk space at school.Ā This post will focus on how to provide grade-schoolers with the support they need to establish and sustain a functional workspace at school.
Author Archives: Linda Craig Dennis
The Frugal OT Series…Reading Highlighters
How to address visual-motor skills on a budget. February’s Dollar Tree Find of the Month: Reading Highlighters
9 Strategies to Increase Attention and On-Task Behavior
Above all, the most important thing needed for a child to progress with anything is focus. When presenting a child with a task, particularly a novel task, you must establish meaningful engagement with the child, in other words, where the child can focus on the task. What exactly does focus mean? The ability to sustain selective attention or concentration on the task at hand while ignoring or filtering out the non-relevant or distracting information in oneās environment. Sustained selective attention yields steady results on a task over time. For some children, often, this is very challenging.
The Frugal OT Series: Little Laundry Line
Introducing…”The Frugal OT” Series featuring my Dollar Tree Find of the Month. How to work on fine motor skills on a budget. January’s Activity: Little Laundry Line
A Quick and Easy Way to Improve Pencil Grasp
A Quick and Easy Way to Improve Pencil Grasp
Pencil Grasp Development: What to Expect
Pencil Grasp Development…What to Expect
Benefits of Working on a Vertical Surface
There are many reasons to use a vertical surface like an easel or whiteboard when working with children. Your child will attain so much more by simply changing tabletop activities to vertical surface activities. In this post I share the many benefits your child will gain.
What Are Fine Motor Skills?
What Are Fine Motor Skills?
Book Launch…Fun Strokes!
Book Launch…Fun Strokes! An innovative pre-writing program created for preschool-aged children of ALL abilities.