Felt Feelings Board

Children on the autism spectrum, with ADHD, and others, may experience difficulty recognizing emotions. There are many ways to help these children develop a better understanding of emotions and the felt feelings board is one of them.

The board is made up of two large squares of felt, an oval piece of felt for the face, and lots of different facial features and hair-dos cut out of felt. The nice thing about felt is that it sticks to itself, so fasteners aren't necessary.

Faces can be put together by the child to match an emotion, or by the adult for the child to guess. Emotions can be simple, like a smiling face, or complicated, like the anxious fellow above.

Faces can be customized to represent the child or their friends and family to make things more relatable. Because the pieces are made from felt, this can be safely used with fairly young children. Older children may also enjoy using this, especially if some form of current fashion or video game is used as inspiration for the felt pieces.

More Sensory Kit Ideas!

Spring is here and we're all getting out of the house again! We're getting busier and really need to pay attention to our/our loved ones' sensory needs if we wish to maintain harmony. We may have a sensory room at home or at school, but what about when we're away? Well, that's where the sensory kit comes in!

Sensory kits can be large and full of sensory tools for every sensory need, or small and focused on only one or two sensory needs. This really depends on what the individual needs and what is most practical. I like medium sized kits stored in metal lunch boxes, personally. They have enough space to carry a number of different sensory tools without being too cumbersome, there are many options for personalization, they're easy to carry, and they don't look out of place.

Here's a picture of one sensory kit, all decorated!

So, what does one put into a sensory kit? Well, that depends on the sensory needs of the individual. In the spirit of sharing, though, I'll show you a kit I recently made for a teenage girl.

This kit was designed primarily for tactile seeking sensory needs. It also includes plenty of fidgets, a chewable, a lighted sensory tool, and the individual's personal natural anxiety remedy. A kit like this can easily be tossed into a backpack or brought along in the car.

Sensory kits really are great. They can help stave off meltdowns and shutdowns by taking the individual's sensory needs into account. This is better for everybody but, most importantly, it is better for the individual.

In the next post I'm going to show a smaller, purse sized kit, so stay tuned!

I Spy Bags and Jars

I've been blogging about weighted products lately and I thought I would change things up a little bit. I've been fascinated with I spy bags lately and thought I'd share.

This is basically just a clear plastic pencil case, filled with coloured rice and small objects, with a picture of the objects attached to show what you're looking for.

I found the pencil case at Dollar Tree. I used vinegar and food colouring to dye the rice. I chose to dye my rice red, blue, and yellow. I used everything from plastic drywall screws to beads to paper clips to small toys as the oblects to find. Before putting the objects in, I put them all on a table and took a picture. I made sure to sew the zipper shut since all that rice would make quite a mess if the pencil case was opened. I printed a picture of the contents, laminated it, and attached it to the pencil case. 

I chose to make the "viewing window" of my I spy bag smaller. Originally both sides of the pencil case were see-through. I just used some colourful duct tape to make the viewing window smaller. The size of the viewing window will determine the difficulty in finding the objects.

Anyway, that's it! There are jars like this that you can buy, and they are a lot neater, but they're also a lot pricier. Whether you make or buy, though, I spy bags and jars are super neat and can provide the distraction needed to calm down after an overstimulating experience.

Weighted Animals

I recently blogged about weighted snakes. I realize snakes aren't for everyone, so I thought I'd try something a little softer and fuzzier! 

I decided to use a frog since there are so many stuffed animals that are more girly and I wanted to give an option for boys. I found my Webkinz frog at Dollarama for $3 and there were some other stuffed animals available for lower prices. I like the Webkinz ones because the stitching is strong enough to handle the weight and extra stuffing.

I used a seam ripper to open the stitching at the frog's rear and pulled some of the stuffing out. I set the stuffing aside to be used later.

For filling, I used some pool sand that I had laying around. You can use anything with weight like rice or dried beans or peas, play sand, grain, or anything else nontoxic that you can find. I put the sand in small "snack size" zippered baggies so that it would be contained. 

I stuffed the little baggies of sand into the middle of the frog, leaving some stuffing all the way around to keep it feeling soft. I then stuffed in the stuffing that I had set aside, just to make sure the frog would still be cuddly. I sewed the frog shut.

I chose to remove the tags while I had the seam undone as I know that tags can really bother some people on the spectrum, and some people in general!

The frog works quite well as a weighted lap buddy and is much neater looking, in my opinion. Anyway, it is another option for people looking for weighted products and it really is easy to make.