Fundanoodle Camps

Are you still searching for a camp that’s fun but also purposeful for you child?  Check out the Fundanoodle handwriting camps!  The camps are perfect for learning to write letters or to just improve a skill already learned.  We are offering two types of camps.  For rising kindergarterners and first graders we will work on refining those little fingers and writing print letters upper and lowercase letters.  The second type is for rising third, fourth or fifth graders who want to learn or improve their cursive writing skills.  You can register online at fundanoodle.com.

Therapist Thursday….Birds are made to fly! Kids are made to move!

by: Michelle Yoder

Birds are made to fly and kids are made to move!  Action is meaningful and exciting for children!  In our experience as OTs, we have found that making fun noises while writing is much more fun and engaging for the children.  Therefore, we use action words to describe our strokes.  It is much more exciting to “zip” down rather than just write a straight, vertical line.  So, for any vertical or horizontal line, we use the action word, “zip”.  We use the action word, “zoom” to describe diagonal lines. “Buzz” describes any curved stroke.  “Hop to the top” moves the pencil from the bottom baseline back to the top, to avoid re-tracing, which makes their work look messy and illegible.  Once you and your children have an understanding of these action words, it will allow consistent formation of all letters.

 Have your child draw a B in the air while saying these action words.  “Zip down, hop to the top, buzz around, buzz around”.  Now, put the pencil to the paper and do the same thing!  You’ve got it!

 Green means go!  To increase accuracy and legibility, we use a green line at the top to facilitate top to bottom formation.  Every child knows that red means Stop! Once they reach the bottom baseline, the red line indicates that it is time to stop.  We provide these cues in both the boxes and three lines on our paper, on our magnetic and dry erase boards and muscle mover gross motor cards to foster carryover and ensure accurate formation.

 Why do we use the three-lined paper with the middle dotted line?  Great question!  We’ll answer that next Thursday!

It’s HERE!!!!

We are so excited to announce our new cursive book is now available online!  (Guess, what, it’s also on sale for a limited time!)  Click here to purchase!

Don’t forget to come….

 

I Can NOW Pound LETTERS!

We are excited to announce we now have FREE downloads of all uppercase and lowercase letters for the I Can Pound kits (complete with the red and green Fundanoodle lines).  Just click here, type in the UPC code for your I Can Pound activity kit and download the letters.  Don’t have an I Can Pound kit?  No worries, we are having a flash sale and the kits are 25% off now through October 19th.  Go to our web store to purchase.

This 5 yr old  is using the I Can Pound kit as a supplement to her letter of the week, T.
She also reviewed the letter, P.

This is an excellent way to introduce letters to your preschooler and to help those Pre-K/Kindergarten students who might be struggling with letter formation!

Fundanoodle Special Event

Don’t Forget!

Fundanoodle is on sale now at zulily.com!!  Quick, zip over and get in on the deals!

Muscle Mover Monday | Upper case “Y”

Charge like a yak.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then practice writing the upper case “Y”.

Indoor Summer Activity: Spy Agent Treasure Hunt

By: Leann Presley for Therapists Thursdays

This past weekend in Charlotte was HOT, HOT, like 105 degrees HOT. Unless you and your family had a pool to float in all day long, most activities had to be enjoyed indoors in the comfort of air conditioning. We’ve got a great fine and gross motor activity that you can do indoors on a hot, sunny or dark, rainy day to share with you today — Spy Agent treasure hunt!

Materials needed:

Streamers
Painters tape
Hallway 
Here’s what you’ll need to do:
Tape streamers across from one wall to the other in all various directions all the way down the hall at various levels and lengths. Place a treasure — a special treat or a new toy — at the end of the hallway as the prize for reaching the end of the hallway successfully.

Here’s how to play:
Tell the children playing that they have turned into spy agents and you have a mission for them. Explain there is a secret treasure hidden at the other end of the hallway and you need them to get it. In order to reach the treasure successfully though, they will need to be careful of the laser beams (streamers) that can set off an alarm if they touch or break them. Explain they can step over the laser lines, crawl on the floor or do whatever they need to get to the treasure but they just have to do it without touching any of the lasers along the way.

Variation 1: Let children help set up the laser beams (streamers). Tearing and ripping the streamers and tape is a great fine motor activity to increase hand strength and confidence in performing tasks with their hands.

Variation 2: Add more laser beams (streamers) to increase the difficulty level in the game. 

 

Muscle Mover Monday | Lower case “x”

Fly like a xenops bird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then practixe writing the lower case “x”.