{New Tool} Help Me Identify MY Sensory Activities! Checklist for Kids!

Last year I released a huge "sensory diet activity reference sheet" with over one hundred sensory diet activities listed.  This reference sheet was designed to provide therapists, teachers and parents with a resource to try a range of activities with their child to help them to regulate their bodies, when working out an appropriate sensory diet in their regular environments.  Read more about sensory diets here.

Since writing this reference sheet, I have been working with children who have insight with their own bodies and feelings.  These kids can work through questions such as "How do you feel after you jump on the trampoline? Do you feel more relaxed or more alert?"  I have also been working through the social skills program Zones of Regulation with these kids. "The Zones is a systematic, cognitive behavior approach used to teach self-regulation by categorizing all the different ways we feel and states of alertness we experience into four concrete zones".

The ALERT program with the accompanying book "How does your engine run?" is another self-regulation program which I have been using.  You can read more about this program here. 

I have found that I can combine both sensory activities with these programs to provide "tools" for these kids to help them to self regulate finding both activities which are "calming" and more "alerting". As a result, I have created a tool to help children identify "Activities for ME!" .

"Activities for ME! Sensory Activity Checklist for Kids" is a series of sensory based activities which are divided into categories labelled

• strong activities (proprioception),
• moving activities (vestibular),
• looking activities (visual),
• listening activities (auditory),
• mouth activities (oral) and
• smelling activities.  

Children are asked to draw an up arrow next to activities that make them more alert (or excited) and a down arrow next to activities that help them to feel calm (or more relaxed).

I would recommend that this tool is used in collaboration with an adult who is familiar with the child (eg. OT, parent, teacher).  If an activity is unfamiliar, then it may be an opportunity to trial this activity over a period of time and find out the affect of participating in this activity has on your child.  Not all activities will be relevant for all children. There are also blank spaces so that children (or relevant adult) may write in extra activities for each category.

Here is a preview of the "Activities for ME! Sensory Activity Checklist for Kids." tool. 

After working through this tool with my students, I then cut up each activity strip and we group the activities into an "alerting" (exciting) pile and a "calming" (relaxing) pile. When using it in conjunction with the Zones, we then identify suitable activities to be used as "tools" for each coloured zone.  The tool could also be kept in it's entirety as a reference. It would be interesting to use this tool with the same child after a period of time (eg. a year) to see if there are any changes. 

​As OTs (and parents/teachers) we can sometimes assume that certain activities will help our kids to relax and others will give them more energy.  This assumption can sometimes backfire.  If you think about it, as adults some of us will be more energised after a cup of tea and others will be more relaxed.  The same could be said for a range of activities such as jogging, having a shower, playing an instrument, etc.  
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I designed this tool to meet a need of mine  in therapy practice.  If you know of a similar tool then I would love to hear from you.  If you use my tool, I would love to hear your feedback too! "Activities for ME! Sensory Activity Checklist for Kids" can be found at the YKOT shop.   Thanks for your support.

Disclaimer: The information on this site is general in nature. The activities are safe for most children, however, you should consult an Occupational Therapist or health professional to address specific movement, sensory or other medical conditions.

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