Find the Bucket

We love collaboration with other providers. We are lucky enough to have an OT company that we reciprocally share space with. This allows us to pick their brains and them to pick ours. One day they were talking about using our platform swing and how to work on visual motor skills and this activity was born. We of course have adapted it depending on what exactly we want to focus on that day, but I’ll give you the basics and then you can adapt at will!

We set up the platform swing and place a bucket of some sort underneath it. The child shouldn’t be able to see the bucket when the swing is at rest, but it should be right at the front of the swing so its easy to find when the swing is moving. Get some balls for the kiddo to drop into the bucket once the swing starts moving. This gets them to work on their visual motor skills, their timing, their motor planning and coordination.

To take it a step further you can change what position you have the child in on the swing. For our kiddo we start in prone prop, then move to quadruped, then high kneeling, then half kneeling. This lets them work on core strength, and balance.

We have the kiddo reach for the ball before they are able to drop it in the bucket. This encourages weight shifting, reaching, hand-eye coordination. They also have to hold their balance while they are weight shifted and the swing is moving which helps with righting reactions.

The dropping the ball in the bucket while the swing is moving, is of course the fun part! The kids find it hilarious to ‘find the bucket’ and get super excited whenever their ball makes it into the bucket!

Has anyone else done an activity like this? What variations have you used?

Righting Reactions

‘Oh no, my head’s too far back’

‘And now it’s back to the middle!’

What are righting reactions you may ask.  Righting reactions are the reactions that help bring our head, trunk, and body back to midline so we can keep our balance.  They help us to be able to stand on a boat, or a moving train.  They help us to regain our balance after we catch our toe on something, or to be able to walk across an unstable surface.  Basically they are pretty important.

Righting reactions start to develop right away.  That’s what head control is all about.  When a baby can hold their head stable, their righting reactions are easier.  That’s because their inner ear sends messages to the rest of the body about where it is in space.  If it’s not where its supposed to be, the body is able to begin the correction process it to bring it back to where it should be.

After head control, trunk control follows.  This allows your baby to sit up and not fall over.  Initially they are like that house of cards you may have built, they have to be in exactly the right position and you can’t even breathe on them or everything might topple.  But as they learn to react to the messages being sent about their position, and their muscles get stronger and react faster, they are able to play and pivot and reach and do all sorts of things in sitting.

Standing follows sitting (yes, there are other places that righting reactions work such as hands and knees but for this purpose we will move on to standing).  In addition to the head and trunk control there are three general reactions to help keep you in a standing position: ankle, hip, and stepping.  The ankle reaction is when you have a slight instability and sway just a bit at the ankle to find your middle again.  The hip reaction is for a slightly bigger and faster balance disturbances and you bend forward or backwards at your hips to keep yourself standing.  And lastly, the stepping strategy happens when you need to adjust your base of support (foot position) so that you can stay upright.

Hopefully this gives you a general idea of what our bodies do to keep us upright and what your child is working on as they begin to navigate through the developmental milestones.