Planning for “Back to School” assumes a high priority for parents, teachers, and therapists as July gives way to August. You’ve told us that you and your students LOVE these school /therapy items! Start the new academic year with a bang using these items in your tool box. Check them off your list!
Big Box of Scrambled Sentences
For students who focus better and calm with oral input, Topper Zilla is a winner. It has a chew factor of 3, meaning it is designed for strong chewers. It is not only Godzilla-like strong, but soft as well. It is appropriate for any age, and includes a pencil.
To help build a child’s foundation for success with school tasks by improving strength of the trunk and upper upper body, and fine motor control, Upper Body and Core Strength Fun Deck is comprised of 52 fun activities at your fingertips. It also includes game ideas.
The Star Spacer helps students understand letter spacing, sizing, and alignment. It is a simple, clever tool that works! By providing immediate results, the student gains confidence in his/her more legible handwriting. For Grades 1-5, and for older students with writing difficulty.
For a product designed to help children with functions including sequencing 3-part sentences, reading sight words, and understanding sentence meaning, take a look at Big Box of Scrambled Sentences. It includes 90 colorfully illustrated puzzle pieces that engage children ingeniously. It is appropriate for Grades K-2.
Use Learn to Move, Move to Learn!to plan group activities using 52 creative, theme-based lessons that utilize a sensory-integrated developmental sequence, this book is a must! All of the themes have 7 sensorimotor activities including warm-up, vestibular, proprioception, balance, eye-hand coordination, cool-down, and fine motor. The activities are geared to support young school-age children with diverse abilities.
Of course, we have plenty more “favorite and popular” products – be sure to view the Therapro Back to School Catalog for hundreds more ideas to make this the best school year ever!
This year the 2018 ASHA conference was held in Therapro’s backyard in the beautiful city of Boston, Massachusetts! The ASHA Convention is the largest annual gathering of audiologists, speech-language pathologists, scientists in the field of speech, language, and hearing, as well as students. This year there were an incredible 18,143 people in attendance. Boston provided a stunning backdrop for this convention and we were all treated to an early snow storm Thursday night.
Therapro set up shop at booth 637; we were so excited to be among the many exhibitors in attendance this year! The Therapro crew consisted on Karen, Linda, and myself along with our special guest Deborah Fortin MSPA, CCC-SLP. Over the three days that the Therapro booth was up and running we had the opportunity to meet so many of you. It was heartwarming to hear comments like “we order from Therapro all of the time”, “We have so many of your products”, and “I love Therapro”. At the Therapro booth, ASHA attendees had the opportunity to play games, check out many of Therapro favorite products, and get a sneak peek of upcoming products!
ASHA attendees, who visited the Therapro booth, had the opportunity to get an early preview of Rules and Tools and speak to the author of this program, Deborah Fortin MSPA, CCC-SLP. Rules and Tools is a program of sixty-eight rules for teaching children to use social language in the context of play, conversation, and learning. This unique program targets generalized rules, uses multisensory teaching strategies, and is taught through interactive role-play in a group setting. This new program was published by Therapro and will be available soon!
This year an entire area of the Therapro booth was dedicated to feeding resources. The new book Pediatric Feeding Disorders: Evaluation and Treatment, was on full display and well received among attendees who specialize in the area of pediatric feeding.The Sensory Spoon was hugely popular and sold out quickly! Therapro occupational therapists Karen Conrad Weihrauch and Filomena Connor were involved in the design of this spoon with Chewy Tubes. Attendees loved that the spoon was specially designed to encourage self feeding for infants as young as seven months, they also enjoyed the sensory aspects of the spoon. Milton was as popular as ever; attendees loved his cute appearance and his ability to be used for a variety of purposes including with picky eaters,to model chewing skills, and to demonstrate toothbrushing. Other feeding products that were well received included the book Just Take a Bite, Flexi Cups, Funbites, Mr. Juice Bear, and the Lollacup.
Our “Game Station” was a huge hit! Attendees had fun playing games like Novenops, A Fist Full of Coins, Obstacles, Trunks, and Letter Treasure Hunt. The very portable Novenops was sold out
by the end of the conference and had many of you asking for it to be shipped! In case you missed the demo at the conference, here is a great video on how to play! Another popular game was A Fist Full of Coins; it seemed to be a hidden gem that got attendees excited once they learned more about it. Popular features of this game were its ability to target direction following, its use of prepositional phrases with concrete manipulatives, and it’s visual appearance being appropriate for older students. Obstacles wins the award for being the fastest game to sell out! Popular features include it’s visually appealing pictures, its ability to be used for creative problem solving, and the cooperative nature of the game.
This year ASHA wasn’t all
work for the Therapro team! We were honored to join Mary Schiavoni, the
inventor of Chewy Tubes, in celebrating the 20th anniversary of Chewy Tubes. It was a great night, spent with an amazing group of dedicated professionals!
Thank you ASHA-Boston, we
had a great time and are looking forward to Orlando 2019!
Allyson Locke, MS, OTR/L Allyson is an occupational therapist with a diverse background in both sensory integration and school based practice. She currently works in a school for children and young adults who have significant medical, mental health, and cognitive needs.
The inaugural School-Based Practitioners Summit took place on August 6th and 7th in Columbus Ohio. It attracted almost 600 invigorated attendees and 20 exhibitors, including Therapro. Refreshed from a summer hiatus, therapists and educators launched head first into a diverse selection of workshops presented by a distinguished group of presenters.
Workshops featured vital topics including: sensory regulation, team collaboration, the impact of visual skills on learning, integrating primitive reflexes to improve school function, handwriting success, survival guide for the school therapist, and much, much more!
Yoga products were wildly popular. Yoga Bingo and Relaxation Station Photo Booklet were two new products that drew attention because of the beautiful photographs of elementary age students. Yoga & Me Come Be a Tree, by Therapro author Tere Bowen-Irish, OTR/L was a favorite because it depicts yoga poses by an able bodied child and one in a wheelchair, side-by-side.
The SBP Summit was a successful endeavor chaired by Mike Collins, Executive Director of OSHS (Ohio School Health Services Association), and executed by his enthusiastic, dedicated team! They presented new and seasoned school-based practitioners with a 2-day conference that offered a well-planned selection of intensive sessions. As an exhibitor, our goal was to offer an array of materials for attendees to examine and try out that will help therapists and teachers meet the goals they set for their students for the coming school year.
We enjoyed our fast-paced two days in Columbus. We hope to see you next year!
Allyson is an occupational therapist with a diverse background in both sensory integration and school based practice. She currently works in a school for children and young adults who have significant medical, mental health, and cognitive needs.
The Therapro exhibit was constantly buzzing with attendees searching for the best tools for their school-based practice. Ginger MacDonald, OTR/L, co-author of