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Children learn through play. As an occupational therapist who works with children and youth, I use games and toys almost every day to help develop important cognitive, visual perceptual, motor, sensory, social, play and leisure skills. While many different types of activities can be used in therapy, this blog focuses on off-the-shelf games and toys that are accessible to most. Whether you are a therapist, parent, teacher, or a game lover like me, I hope you discover something useful while you are here. Learn a different way to play a game you already own or discover a new game for your next family game night. Either way, just go play. It's good for you!

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Oct 1, 2017

Cheese Dip

Use the mice tails to pick up the letters you need.

A spelling game with whimsical manipulatives that an OT can appreciate. Your job is to pick up the cheesy looking letters that you need to spell your word. The fun part is that you will be picking them up out of a bowl of letters using only a mouse tail.

To determine which word you will be spelling, you will draw a card. The words come in 8 sets of 5 words. Some of the words are shorter and have pictures, some are longer. The longest words I see are 5 letters. Here are some of the words: light, hay, car, rain, zoom, prune, smile, cat, away, sweet, pool and tree. The mice are a softer, flexible plastic.

The yellow and orange letters are a hard plastic and have many holes all over them, but you will be putting the tail through the big hole in the middle. The die is oversized and will determine what you will do on your turn. Here are the options:

  • Throw a solid color and use that color mouse to try and hook a letter that you need.
  • Throw the side with all four colors and each player will get a change to hook a letter.
  • Throw the side with the picture of the cheese wedge and you will have to put one of the letters you have already collected back in the bowl.
Set up:
  • Put the bowl in the middle of the players and place all the letters inside the bowl.
  • Choose one color set of word cards and stack them by the bowl.
  • Each player takes one of the word cards and chooses one mouse.
  • Place the die near the bowl.
Play:
The first player throws the die and proceeds according to the directions I gave above. To hook a letter, hold the mouse and turn it so that you can put his tail into one of the holes. Lift the letter (on the tail) and carry it to your word card. Then take it off. You don't have to pick up the letters in order of the word. If a letter you need is not on the top, push the letters around in the bowl with the mouse tail. You may not use your hands to pick up or move the letters. Players take turns until someone spells their word, winning the game. 

Try this:
  • Practice picking up the letters with the mice tails before playing a game. Start with them flat on the table top if this is easier. 
  • Turn the hand to pick up the letter at different angles, don't turn the whole body.
  • Start by playing with the letters flat and separated on the table top if the individual has trouble with figure ground, visual form constancy, or visual closure. Then move to putting only the necessary letters in the bowl, or just the necessary letters plus one or two.
  • Put only the necessary letters in the bowl and take them out in the order needed to spell the word.
  • Give instructions how to pick up each letter by saying things like pick up the letter by the hole in the middle or by a hole in the corner.
  • Leave the bowl in one position, do not allow the player to turn it so that he does not have to adjust the position of his hand/arm.
  • Cup the hand and roll the die in it before throwing. Since it is oversized, it is easier to roll than shake. If the individual has difficulty cupping the hand, place a small ball in the palm and cup the fingers around it, then remove the ball.
  • Play alone. Use spelling words instead of word cards. 
  • Work on visual discrimination, visual closure, figure ground, visual scanning, spatial relations, manual dexterity, shoulder stability, palmar arches, eye-hand coordination, executive functioning skills, socialization skills, process skills, play and leisure exploration and participation
In the box: 37 letters (26 consonants, 11 vowels), 20 2-sided cards (8 sets of 5 words), 4 mice, bowl, die
 
If you are interested in purchasing this item or just want more information, click on the image below.
 

Muuli (Mule)

Reduce the mule's load, one piece at a time.

The Muuli (mule) is hauling a load of bamboo pieces. Your job is to reduce his load by removing the pieces, one at a time, without the whole structure collapsing. The 64 pieces are solid plastic and good quality. They come in four different sizes and colors, with all of one color being the same size.

Setting this up can take as long as it does to play, sometimes longer. It's a little hard to see in the image above, but the white part at the base is shaped like a mule. A heavy-duty elastic cord is attached to the mule (in the front and in the back - making a circle) and it will enclose all the pieces, as you see above. You can't set up the game in a vertical position, you will have to lay it flat on the table before you start putting the round plastic pieces inside the elastic cord. The more pieces you put in, the more you stretch the cord and the more taut it gets. The more you add, the more you have to push the pieces around to accommodate them. When you are finished, some of the pieces will be rather loose and some will be quite tightly wedged in. I recommend setting up the game on a piece of flat cardboard, then holding the cardboard against it to keep any lose pieces from slipping out as you stand it up.

Setting up.


PLAY:
Players take turns removing one piece at a time without causing the whole thing to collapse. Push on pieces gently to find a loose piece and remove it. As you take pieces out, the others may adjust to fill the space. Or, allow each player to take out as many pieces as he dares on each turn. When the structure collapses, the person who has collected the most pieces is the winner.

The instructions say to play with the mule standing in the box to catch the pieces when it collapses, and am I glad I did. When the piece was removed that brought down the structure, the elastic cord recoiled quickly and the pieces that didn't land in the box really flew.

Try this:

  • Demonstrate how to test to see how loose a piece is by tapping or pushing on it lightly. If the player cannot feel the tension, instruct him to watch for the piece to move slightly. If the person doesn't know how to test for loose pieces, you may spend all the time setting up just to have it go down in one or two turns.
  • Sort pieces by color, or call each color to add while setting up.
  • Play alone. See how many pieces you can push out before the structure collapses. Then play again and try to beat your score.
  • One player calls a color and the next player has to remove a piece of that color. No fair testing pieces before calling the color.
  • Name each color as you put each piece in while setting up.
  • Pull the pieces out instead of pushing them out.
  • Work on visual discrimination, eye-hand coordination, visual scanning, manual dexterity, in-hand manipulation, finger isolation, graded pressure, tactile discrimination, shoulder stability, executive functioning skills, social interaction skills, process skills, play and leisure exploration and participation
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  • In the box: Mule with elastic attached, 64 "bamboo" pieces