Activity #5: Rescue the Monkeys scavenger hunt

Description: I placed the monkeys from the Barrel of Monkeys game into various containers and hid them around the first floor of the house. I told the kids that the monkeys escaped and had to be rescued. When they found the monkeys they had to open the containers to put the monkeys in the barrel. I made monkey noises as a clue to help them find them. The monkey noises got louder as they got nearer to the monkey.
Age: 2 and up, you can make the hiding spots more obvious and in a smaller area for little kids
Purpose:
Fine motor,
Search and find,
Counting (how many have you found?),
Simple math (how many do you still need to find?),
Question asking,
Prepositions.
Prep time: moderate
What you’ll need: various containers and bags, and monkeys or other objects to rescue.
Fun Factor: Adding the scenario of rescuing monkeys kept them motivated to keep looking for all 10 monkeys. My kids are not the greatest at looking for things, so it took a fair amount of time to finish.
Tip: Every so often you can stop to count the monkey’s you have found and figure how many monkey’s are left to find. It’s also a good way to work on opening containers without your kids even knowing it.

Activity #4 : Making pizzas craft

Description: Cut out pizza ingredients and have your child assemble them into a pizza by using a glue stick. Before putting the pizzas together, you can have your child sort the toppings into groups.
Age: 3 and up
Purpose:
Fine motor (cutting and pasting),
Labelling,
Sorting,
Sequencing of events.
Prep time: extensive, especially if your child has basic scissors skills
What you’ll need: We used a plate to cut out circles from cracker boxes. Red construction paper for the sauce. White paper cut into small strips for cheese. We Google searched pizza toppings and cut each of them out, but you can also use construction paper.
Fun Factor: My kids really like pizza, so that helps. The kids had a good time trying to figure out what all the topics were and gluing the pizzas together (especially putting on the cheese). I pre cut all of the materials so they just had to glue. The pizzas also turned out pretty realistic.

Parenting Tip #1: Get your child involved in household tasks.

In the May-July 2016 edition of Autism and Asperger’s Digest, Cara Koscinski wrote about teaching household tasks to young children to promote later independence. This is definitely something I need to do more. So, I had my children help clear the table and load the dishwasher after dinner. They followed my directions with no complaints. Perhaps, it helps that my ASD child really likes dishwashers right now (and he got to push the buttons after). It also led to a discussion about where to put things when we clean up (garbage vs green bin vs recycling), and how to load a dishwasher properly. Overall, a positive experience. Koscinski, C. Teach cooking, money management, cleaning, shopping & other critical skills to young children with ASD if you want independence later. Autism Asperger’s Digest 2016 May-July: 28-29

Activity # 3: Ball roll obstacle course

Description: Set up an obstacle course outdoors or in the house if you feel ok with it. Have your child roll a ball through all of the obstacles to add variation and work on ball skills. We used the following obstacles: roll the ball around pylons, through a tunnel, under a table, throw it into a bin, roll the ball over the couch and down a pillow slide, roll a die and bounce it that many times onto a wall and roll it around the shape of square
Age: 3 and up, younger children may have trouble following the directions
Purpose:
Gross motor,
Ball skills,
Sequencing.
Prep time: moderate for set up
What you’ll need: pylons (but any marker will do), painters tape to put directions on the floor and outline the square, large bouncy balls, a bin or basket to thrown the ball into, tunnel, pillows or foam mattress for the kids to roll on. You can make modifications to the stations if you don’t have some of these things, or if you’re uncomfortable with the kids climbing on your couch.
Fun Factor: Obstacle courses are always a big hit with the kids, especially climbing over couches. This one didn’t sustain their attention as long as I had hoped. This is probably because we do a lot of obstacle courses (and it was close to snack time). However, my child said it was the favourite part of the day.
Tip: Often, I have the kids help me set up the course by labelling the stations on the floor. It keeps them busy while I’m setting things it up and helps to work on their penmanship and spelling.

Activity #2: Put Humpty Dumpty Back Together

Description: Cut a picture of Humpty Dumpty into 4 or 5 pieces and have your child put him back together. Use bandages to up the fun factor and work on fine motor skills by opening the bandages
Age: It was pretty challenging for my 3 year old
Purpose:
Fine motor,
Visual spatial.
Prep time: moderate
What you’ll need: pictures of Humpty Dumpty which you can search on Google Images. I even found one with Humpty already in pieces. Bandages: ours were glow in the dark, so we could look at Humpty in the dark later.
Fun Factor: As I said above, it was a bit challenging for my 3 year old. But, my 6 year old child had a great time, even if the activity was pretty short.

Activity #1: Noodle buried treasure

Description: Hide various objects in a container of noodles. Let the little ones dig through the noodles to find the buried treasure. Bury treats for added motivation. I also individually wrapped the treats so they would have to work on opening them.
Age: 3 years and up, or when you can be sure they won’t try to eat the noodles
Purpose:
Sensory,
Fine motor,
Labelling.
Prep time: Minimal
What you’ll need: one or two packages of small noodles. We used the small shells. Various small objects you can find around the house. I put in small dinosaurs, Lego men, magnetic letters, small chocolates and cars.
Fun Factor: They had a good time looking for the objects (especially the chocolates), but it lasted a relatively short time. However, they played with the noodles afterwards by pouring them into different containers. It’s like water without the mess
Tip: Use a serving tray or large shallow container to catch any noodles that escape

More about our Blog

Check out our blog page frequently for activity ideas, parenting tips, our favourite books and toys and places to go. We are always trying out new activities with our children. This is to expand our ASD child's interest beyond his repetitive interest and to limit the screen time. All of the pictures were taken while we were doing the activities. This is to emphasize that these activities can be easily done at home with your child.
Repetitive Interest: lining up markers to make roads

Please Check out this wonderful Book for children.

The Boy Who Lost and Found God (AppleID: 1106724707) is now available on iBooks. We are using 100% of the proceeds of the sale of the book for our child's Autism therapy. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-boy-who-lost-and-found-god/id1106724707?ls=1&mt=11

Welcome to Arkstone Inc.

We provide therapy to children with autism, focusing on Pivotal Response Treatment and Physiotherapy. We are also parents to a child with autism.