Coloring...Not Just For Kids!

I wrote a long time about about coloring books and often refer to my favorites in some of my posts.  I

love having a good selection of coloring and activity books in my office and at home.  One thing that I have discovered is that coloring isn't just for kids these days.  I will often join the kids I work with or my own daughter when she is coloring.  I do this for several reasons:

*if I am engaged in a coloring activity, I find that the kids will color for longer which ends up building up their grasp strength and endurance.  It also helps on increasing a child's attention span

*I will often mess up or ask a child for their suggestions on what colors I should use to help them understand that their pictures don't have to be perfect or that they shouldn't get too frustrated when coloring

*I find coloring to be one of the most calming and organizing activities.  Not just for kids, but for anyone.  

In this post, I am not going to focus just on kids coloring/activity books, but also ones that are good for older kids and for adults who may love to color.  Coloring with your kids is a great way to stimulate conversation and imagination skills.  It is a wonderful way to build confidence and self-esteem...when a child completes a picture that they have worked really hard on, they feel really good about themselves and want to show it off to their people.  There is no greater source of pride for my own daughter when someone compliments her on her work and then hangs it up.

Some of my favorite coloring and activity books right now are the following:
Secret Garden and Enchanted Forest-these two books by Johanna Basford are more than just coloring books.  They are also coloring adventures that take you on a journey through a beautiful garden and an enchanted forest to discover what is in the magical castle.  The pictures are all in black and white and have so many little details to color in.  In addition to coloring some of the most magnificently drawn pictures, you have to find objects hidden within each picture.  I also like that some of the pages have mazes to go through and pictures to complete.
While these books are most definitely for older children, they are definitely something that could be done together with your child.  Having them look at the pictures and tell a story based on what they see is great for building up their language and imagination skills.  You can play a game of I Spy while looking at the pictures to find some of those hidden objects.  I first discovered these beautiful books when shopping at my local toy store, Norman and Jules, but you can also find them at the bigger bookstores and other speciality toy/bookstores.

Color Me Calm-this is a book that was designed for busy and crazed adults.  At a time where life gets busier and more complicated each day, we find ourselves to become more stressed and overstimulated by work and family obligations.  Created by art therapist Lacy Mucklow and artist Angela Porter, Color Me Calm has about 100 different coloring templates that were created specifically to get a person to color themselves to a calmer and more relaxed state of being.  The book is broken down into seven therapeutically-themed chapters including Mandalas, Water Scenes, Wooded Scenes, Geometric Patterns, Flora and Fauna, Natural Patterns and Spirituality. The intention of the book is for adults to put pencil to paper and get themselves into a state of creativity and relaxation.  Some of the pictures could be appropriate for younger children, but this is definitely intended for older children and adults.


Daydream Doodles-I've been looking through the shelves at Barnes and Noble and other bookstores non-stop lately trying to find new coloring and activity books for not only the kids I work with, but for my own daughter who has officially turned into one of those kids who can't stop drawing and coloring.  While I love to see her imagination come to life on paper, it isn't always so easy for her and she needs some jumping off ideas.  Throughout this book, there are several different kinds of activities.  You can color in pictures, complete different kinds of pictures or draw your own patterns on objects.  This coloring book is definitely more appropriate for older children (they suggest 6 and older).  In addition to working on improving visual motor and visual perceptual skills, it is great for working on creative thinking and imagination skills.  I like that you can also work on language skills while the kids are completing their pictures.  You can also work on improving executive functioning skills be encouraging them to talk about what they are going to draw, how they are going to do it, etc..

Usborne Big Book of Drawing, Doodling and Colouring-I am a huge fan of all the Usborne activity books.  They have a wide range of coloring and drawing books that will spark the imagination of children.  This book is especially awesome because it has a wide range of activities in one book.  There are pictures and patterns to color in and complete, various scenes for children to color in and add their own details and pages that will teach your child how to draw things step-by-step.  The book is filled with a ton of modern and stylish pictures ranging from monsters, animals and food.  I have found that many of my kids, even those who typically resist any kid of drawing/coloring activities, love looking through this book and finding the "right" picture for them.   My favorite pages are those that teach kids how to draw different animals, people and objects step-by-step.  The directions are easy to follow but also leave plenty of room for kids to use their imagination and add their own details to pictures.  This book promises to be fun not only for your children, but for the adults who want to color and draw with them!

Here are a few handwriting/coloring tips to keep in mind when coloring with your children:
*always encourage a child to hold a writing instrument properly.  Broken crayons or short colored pencils are an easy way to get a child to hold a writing instrument with a tripod-like grasp. Some of my favorites are the Faber-Castell Jumbo Triangular Colored Pencils, Flip Crayons by Handwriting Without Tears and the Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Markers.
*if you are working on increasing upper body strength, have children color on an elevated surface like an easel or tape the paper to a wall.
*let kids do what they want with colors....let them choose whatever color they want for what they are doing without telling them what they should do.  Coloring should be an activity that allows kids to express themselves and expand their imagination skills.  They want to color an elephant pink...go for it!
*try and encourage a child to stay in the lines when coloring, but don't make a big deal about it if they don't.
*work on building language skills by having children tell you a story about their picture.  Encourage them to elaborate and talk about the details by asking them meaningful questions.

With summer just a few days away, I'm finding that parents are asking me more about what they can do for their children to keep working on their fine motor and visual skills while they are taking a break from therapy.  Coloring, drawing and activity books are a great and fun way for kids to keep working on skills that have been addressed in therapy during the school year.  So many parents want to be more involved in their child's therapy but complain that the kids won't "work" for them.  Coloring is a great way to hide the therapy piece.

The books I suggested in this post are definitely geared more towards older kids, but there are many other books out there for younger kids.  If you want to read about books that are better suited for younger/pre-school aged children, check out this post here.

Do you have any great coloring or activity books that I should add to my library?  I'm looking forward to nights of coloring with my little girl this summer and would love to test out some new ones.  I am always a click away and love hearing from you all.

Summer hAPPiness

It seems like just yesterday I was writing about the school year beginning.  Somehow, this year has
gone by faster than seems real and I am doing summer scheduling and helping families who will be out of the city for the summer come up with activities to keep their kids busy and learning.  I have several kids on my caseload who will take the summer off but need to remain a bit focused on what we have been working on in occupational therapy all year so when they come back we don't have to spend too much time reviewing things.

Every year, parents ask me what they can do with their kids over the summer.  They don't want to spend too much time focusing on academics but they also want to make sure that their kids don't lose any of the skills that they have worked so hard on acquiring over the course of the year.  So many of the families I work with spend a lot of time traveling so I like to give them a list of apps that they can work on while in the car, planes, etc..

It's a proven fact that kids are motivated by an iPad.  I can't tell you the number of things I have been able to accomplish and get kids to work on when presented to them in app form first.  For those of you who read my blog, you will know that I don't believe that the iPad is the end all and be all of things.  When used in conjunction with more hands-on activities, it can be a tremendously motivating tool.  There are so many great apps out there that can work on a ton of occupational therapy skills, especially handwriting and visual motor/perceptual skills.  I highly recommend setting up a folder on an iPad for each of your kids with the apps that are best for them.  I think it is also important to note that using an iPad can not only be good for learning, but can be good for encouraging social skills and language development.  Kids should always be supervised when using the iPad...not only to make sure that what they are playing is appropriate for them but also so adults can step in and encourage kids to be social if they are using it together.

Whenever appropriate, I have my kids use a stylus when using the iPad.  This helps on working on fine motor skills, especially proper grasping skills when using writing instruments.  My two favorites are this crayon stylus by Fred & Friends and this mini stylus pen by Kikkerland.  Both are the perfect size for little hands!

Here are a just a few of my favorite apps and a brief description of what they will work on:

LetterSchool-one of my favorite and definitely my go-to app for handwriting.  Whether you want to begin working on teaching children how to write their letters or if you want to review what they already know, this is the best app out there.  It comes with three options:  uppercase, lowercase and numbers.  There are two levels of play for lots of practice.  For each letter and number, you work through 3 games (tap, trace and write) in order to earn stars.  Once you have completed both the silver and gold levels of play, you can then unlock the opportunity to do free-form writing.
Toonia Differences-I blogged about this awesome app by Toonia a couple of weeks ago here.  This app is similar to those Spot the Differences games you have may have played at some point.  You have two pictures side by side that are almost exactly the same and you have to find the 8 things that are different about the picture.  This is a great app for working on improving visual perceptual skills, especially visual scanning and visual attention.  You can read more about this app here.
Toonia Storymaker-another great app by Toonia.  This one is a fun and educational app that encourages children to be the author of their own story.  They are allowed to choose their own characters and scenes to tell their own story.  They can change colors, shapes, size, posture and emotions while creating their story.  This app encourages creative thinking, sequencing, organization and focus and attention.

Dexteria Jr.-I've had this app on my list of favorites for a long time.  This occupational therapist created app is a set of hand and finger exercises that help develop fine motor skills and work on getting kids reading for handwriting.  It's great for children as young as 2 years old and can be motivating enough for those as old as 8-10.  There are 3 games with multiple levels of play in each game.  Squish the Squash works on pointing skills; I am pretty strict with the kids about using their pointer finger during this game.  Pinch the pepper works on developing in-hand manipulation skills, specifically pinching using the thumb and pointer finger.  The last is game is Trace & Erase and kids work on graphomotor skills by tracing lots of different lines and shapes.  Once they are done tracing, they have to erase the lines and then the built-in camera will take a silly picture of the kids.  It's a simple game that works on visual motor and visual perceptual skills as well as improving focus, attention and concentration.
Pepi Play-it's hard to choose just one of the apps by Pepi Play.  I have all of their apps and they are big favorites with the kids I work with.  They are incredibly interactive and within each app, there are several games for them to play with.  Right now, my kids are really loving Pepi Bath 2 and Pepi Doctor.  Pepi Bath 2 has 6 different bathroom or cleaning situations.  It's the kid's job to help their character (3 to choose from) get all cleaned up:  they may help them go to the bathroom, get cleaned in the bathtub or get their clothes cleaned after some dirty play!  In Pepi Doctor, the kids help their character "get better"; they may need to help them get better from a cold, after falling off their bike or scooter (I ask the kids to tell me what they think happened to the kid and how they got hurt) and getting lots of scrapes and dealing with an aching tooth.  These apps are just two of the several that you and your kids will love playing together!
Tiggly-Tiggly has created two interactive games and several apps that work on fine motor, visual motor/perceptual, eye-hand coordination, early literacy and math skills.  Tiggly Shapes are rubberized shapes (circle, square, triangle and star) that children can use for learning and play with three different Tiggly apps.  The shapes have a soft plastic cover and silicon touch points that interact with the iPad screen.  They are incredibly durable and can withstand crazy toddlers but gentle enough that they are safe for the iPad screen.  Read more about Tiggly Shapes here and find out all therapeutic fun your kid will have with them.  You can read more about TigglyMath in an early blog post here.  Rumor has it that Tiggly will be releasing a third learning system next week....just in time for the summer!  I can't wait to see what they have in store for all of us.  It's sure to be both educational and fun!
Endless Alphabet/Endless Numbers-Originator Kids is another wonderful studio creating fabulous apps for kids.  My two favorite are Endless Alphabet and Endless Numbers.  Endless Alphabet is a fun way for kids to get ready for early reading by being introduced to new words.  Kids have to match the letters of the word and then get to watch a short little video with some really cute monsters once the letters are all placed in the right spot.  Endless Numbers is a really fun way for kids to learn numbers, sequences and quantity.  It is incredibly interactive and fun so the kids don't even realize that there is a tremendous amount of learning going on at the same time.  These are just two of the great apps by Originator.  Be sure to check out all the others, especially the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head Create and Play apps!

Bugs and Buttons /Bugs and Bubbles/Bugs and Numbers-Little Bit Studios may be one of my favorite app designers for children.  First of all, the games are fun and educational at the same time.  Each app comes with 18 different games which means that your kids can be entertained for a really long time.  The likelihood of them getting bored quickly is pretty slim which leads to lots of learning as the explore all the mini games.  Check out this blog post here that talks about just how amazing Bugs and Buttons (original and Bugs and Buttons 2).  If you want a real bang for your buck, then I highly recommend any and all of the apps by Little Bit Studios!
Avokiddo Apps-I wrote about this amazing company extensively in this post from March 27th.  So far, there are 5 different apps to choose from and they work on a variety of skills ranging from learning the letters of the alphabet to recognizing emotions to problem solving and several executive functioning skills.  The graphics are just amazing, the music is soothing and because of that, the kids I work with are totally motivated to play, explore and learn when using them.  I know when apps are really amazing when the kids I work with constantly ask for them and that is what happens with all of the apps by Avokiddo!

So, these are just a handful of the many apps I would recommend for summer learning.  As I was going through my iPad that is chock full of wonderful apps, I had a hard time choosing which ones to share with you all.  I ended up picking ones that kids are most likely to be independent with....they won't have to ask their grownups for too much help.  I also chose ones that I thought would be good for kids to play together in order to promote important social skills like turn-taking, compromise and conversation skills.

I would love to hear from any of you with some of your favorite apps.  If you have specific questions about apps that would be good for your children or ones that would work on specific goals, I would be more than happy to help you find the perfect ones.  I am always a click away and love helping parents and professionals identity apps that are better than others.  It can be a daunting experience going through the thousands and thousands of apps out there and since I have done so much research, let me be the one to help you as you figure out what would be best for your child.