In my opinion heavy work activities is one of the most important things you can add to a sensory diet. Heavy work has helped with everything from meltdowns to helping my children get ready for bed.
Benefits of heavy work:
- Stimulates the proprioceptive senses.
- Helps calm the child.
- Gives the seeking child the sensation they are looking for.
- Helps with body awareness.
Examples of heavy work:
1. Push or pull a box, laundry basket, bag or wagon with books or other heavy items.
2. Drive cars on floor well on hands and knees. I like to take tape and make a road on the floor. Here is an example I did at work.
13. Make a sensory tunnel (ours is 2 meters of a stretchy fabric sown lengthwise). This tunnel has many different uses from crawling through it to pulling against it.
14. Make a track with tape on the floor. The last one we did included jumping and walking backwards. The children added more after we made this video.
These are just a few things we do for heavy work in our home. We are constantly coming up with new things and adding to our collection of heavy work items. I also make sure to bring a few items with is when we travel such as the tunnel and weighted items.
Benefits of heavy work:
- Stimulates the proprioceptive senses.
- Helps calm the child.
- Gives the seeking child the sensation they are looking for.
- Helps with body awareness.
Examples of heavy work:
1. Push or pull a box, laundry basket, bag or wagon with books or other heavy items.
2. Drive cars on floor well on hands and knees. I like to take tape and make a road on the floor. Here is an example I did at work.
3. Have children pull each other on a sheet.
4. Bounce on a trampoline, we have a large one outside and a small one inside.
5. Have child lay down and cover them with pillows, couch cushions and weighted items.
6. Allow your child to open heavy doors (this is one of Baby Boy's favorite).
7. Allow child to jump off of items of a safe height and jump on couch cushions (couch cushions can be used for many different things).
8. Invest in a bungee chair. There is often fights over Artist's chair.
9. Make a ball bit, we put ours in a closet by adding a board across the bottom of the closet to keep the balls in, we also added a slide they can use to slide into the ball pit or out.
10. Dig out your exercise tubing.
11. Go for a swim. The water creates great resistant.
12. Roll a weighted ball back and forth or carry it from one point to another.
15. Get a crash pad; I want to invest in getting a crash pad or make one by putting pillows, cushions, foam and other soft items in a duvet cover.
16 Thera putty! There putty is great for when we are out somewhere and my children need to remain seated. I have a few containers that I can pull out of my bag and hand to children. My husband and I have also been know to fidget with the putty.
These are just a few things we do for heavy work in our home. We are constantly coming up with new things and adding to our collection of heavy work items. I also make sure to bring a few items with is when we travel such as the tunnel and weighted items.