Supporting your child to concentrate
on tasks at home

Movement (vestibular) input is one of your senses. Messages from the vestibular receptors are located in the inner ear to help you understand movement and its relationship to the environment. We need a balance of regular movement breaks to maintain their concentration and arousal level throughout the day.

Proprioception is another one of our senses. We have proprioceptors in all of our muscles. These tell us about the position of our limbs as well as movements our body is making and the force it is using. Having appropriate proprioceptive awareness gives us consistent and clear sensory feedback about our body. This feedback helps us to organise our body for daily activities.

Proprioceptive activity is also the regulator of our senses and can help calm an overactive and excited child. It can also be used to increase a child’s arousal level and to wake up their body so that certain activities can be carried out. The following ideas would be beneficial to develop the above areas. Your child needs a diet of these activities throughout the day.

Find out which of these activities excite them and which activities calm them and use a combination of these activities throughout the day to balance their need for movement.

Movement (vestibular) input is one of your senses. Messages from the vestibular receptors are located in the inner ear to help you understand movement and its relationship to the environment. We need a balance of regular movement breaks to maintain their concentration and arousal level throughout the day.

Proprioception is another one of our senses. We have proprioceptors in all of our muscles. These tell us about the position of our limbs as well as movements our body is making and the force it is using. Having appropriate proprioceptive awareness gives us consistent and clear sensory feedback about our body. This feedback helps us to organise our body for daily activities.

Proprioceptive activity is also the regulator of our senses and can help calm an overactive and excited child. It can also be used to increase a child’s arousal level and to wake up their body so that certain activities can be carried out. The following ideas would be beneficial to develop the above areas. Your child needs a diet of these activities throughout the day.

Find out which of these activities excite them and which activities calm them and use a combination of these activities throughout the day to balance their need for movement.

• Having your child do small movement chores throughout the school day, e.g. move furniture; carry things from classroom to classroom/office and delivering messages.
• Jumping on a trampoline, slowly and rhythmically or bouncing on a space hopper.
• Playground equipment such as swings, roundabouts, seesaw, rocking horse, etc.
• Allowing them to chew something chewy when they have to concentrate.
• Allowing them to fiddle with something, e.g. stress ball, when listening.
• Using a mov’n’sit cushion to increase arousal levels and therefore improve concentration and posture.
• Lifting heavy objects (e.g., pour water from one container to another, lift a toy box, etc). Make sure that when lifting, they bend their knees and avoids hurting their back
• Using playground equipment such as monkey bars, climbing frames, etc.
• Crawling races: pretend to be different animals and move along the floor or crawl along the floor as fast as you can pick up marshmallows with your mouth as you go.
• Catch a ball in half kneeling (one knee on floor and one foot on floor). Gradually position the foot on the floor closer to your body – this makes it harder!
• Tug of War while standing, lying on tummy or high kneeling. Use a rope or hands and try to pull your partner over a line.
• Obstacle courses: Going over, under, around, beside, through, backwards, forwards etc.
• Games such as twister, Simon says and hokey cokey 
• Flag drills – where children mirror your posture
• Gymnastics – tumbling, somersaults, vaulting etc.
• Cut out coloured hand and foot prints from cardboard and set them out in a path. Have your child follow them. After this activity the child can pick up all the left or all the right footprints.

• Throwing over or through a hoop or rope
• Throwing into certain areas e.g. a hoop or rope
• Bouncing a ball along a line or rope circle, square etc
• Throwing to targets – higher or lower, side to side
• Using different size balls or sticky mitts, rackets
• Catching, throwing, bouncing

Spread a rope along the floor and jump over it in different patterns: