Miss Potatoes (2025)

27/07/2022

Scope of practice for a school OT.

18/03/2022

A look into my St. Patrick’s Day🍀

15/02/2022

DYED RICE— A quick and easy way to upgrade your rice bin!

The thought of dying rice sounded complicated to me. How long does it take? Will the dye rub off onto my students’ fingers? Will it really work?

Well spuds, it DOES work! And it’s super simple.

1. Pour one cup of rice into a zipblock bag. And one tablespoon of lemon juice and a few drops of food coloring. The more drops, the brighter the color.

2. Shake the bag of rice until the color spreads evenly through the rice.

3. Line your cookie sheet with a paper towel.

4. Once the color of the rice is to your liking, spread the rice over your cookie sheet.

5. Let the rice dry. It takes anywhere between 20 minutes to an hour.

It’s that easy! Finish off putting it in a bucket and adding some sensory and small knickknacks.

11/02/2022

Here’s a super simple, low cost winter bulletin board idea!

❄️Luckily my school provides large bulletin board paper and I found the border at a local store for a $1.

❄️ These foam snowflakes at Michaels. They come in a pack of about 15. Bonus— they were on clearance for 50 cents!!! I had my students write their names and decorate them. Grade the activity up by having them cut out their own snowflakes.

❄️The igloo is from ToolstoGrow! Have one of your students cut it out.

❄️Add a cute saying and a draw a snowman.

You’re all set!

30/01/2022

❄️WINTER CRAFT SERIES❄️

Here’s my new series of posts dedicated to all of the winter themed crafts and activities done by my students.

First up, nothing says Winter like a Snowman! My students loved the added tactile input of the cotton balls! It’s what makes this ordinary craft into something special. ✨

MATERIALS:
❄️ Scissors
❄️ Glue
❄️ Paper— Apiece of each: white, orange, brown & color of your choice
❄️ Cotton Balls
❄️ Marker
❄️ Googly Eyes
❄️ White Paint & Stamper

DIRECTIONS:
1. Draw 3 circles on plain white paper and cut them out.
2. Have your students arrange and paste the circles onto a piece of construct paper to build their snowman.
3. Pull apart the cotton balls and glue them onto the circles.
4. Glue on googly eyes.
5. Cut a small triangle out of orange paper and glue below the eyes.
6. Many of my students are working on cutting straight lines. I had them practice by cutting lines for the arms. Then, we glued them on.
7. Dip a stamp into paint and put around the snowman for a snowy effect. ✨Bonus sensory input if you finger paint instead!

What winter crafts are you doing at school? Leave a comment below! ❄️

02/11/2021

Take a look at our Halloween Sensory Stations! The kids had a spooktacular time! 🎃🦇

10/10/2021

Spooky season is here and so are sensory bins!!🦇 This Halloween inspired sensory bin is full of rice, black beans, feathers, skulls, bones & much more! Do you dare to see what’s inside?!🎃

15/08/2021

Hanging with my best spuds🥔🥔

04/08/2021

Extended School Year is complete!!! Here’s a few activities my students and I did over the last two weeks:

☀️In the Target dollar spot, I picked up fine motor manipulative to create the letters of the alphabet. My students put together a letter of their choice and then I asked them to think of a word that started with that letter. We then created a sentence with that word to practice writing!

☀️Coloring and cutting worksheets: I love worksheets that work on multiple skills. This worksheet was a coloring, cutting and a bonus of handwriting!! What more could you ask for?!

☀️Sensory Pathways are a big hit with almost all of my students and fortunately the school created brand new ones in the hallway during ESY. Who doesn’t love a good movement break?

☀️Basic Shape Crafts: Pictured is a basic shape craft of a flower using only circles, ovals and a long rectangle. You can also make rockets and sail boats using basic shapes!

☀️Alphabet Puzzle & tracing letters

☀️Word Search and then Search and Find for letters in visual clutter to form the words in the word bank!

What’s your favorite activity in this list?!

17/07/2021

ESY WEEK TWO COMPLETE!!

We’re halfway done with ESY and I wanted to share some of my activities for the week.

🏖 Beach ball paper plate craft: this activity was a team effort! I had each student pick a color, tear the paper into pieces and then glue it onto their designated section of the plate.

🏖 My coworker gave me this dry erase board for tracing the alphabet and numbers. This board is so handy and easy to carry around!

🏖 Coins and piggy bank: This piggy bank was a thrift store find and the students love it🐷 The younger students picked up the coins while working on their pincer grasp while the older students worked on in hand manipulation skills like palm to finger translation before putting it in the piggy bank. 🪙

10/07/2021

Are you working ESY this summer?!☀️📚

This is my first year working ESY and my first week has already come and gone! Here are a few things I’ve learned:
📌Your planned schedule will most likely (alright, 100%) change. BE FLEXIBLE.
📌Some students won’t show up that day, that week, or even the entire duration of ESY. Again, BE FLEXIBLE.
📌 Some teachers won’t care when you see their students while others will. Some might want you to stay in the classroom while others prefer you to pull the student out. BE ADAPTABLE.
📌 Expect to get lost if you’re working in a building you’ve never been in before. BE PATIENT.
📌The students will have missed you and want to go to OT!! BE CLIENT CENTERED AND CREATIVE. Prepare activities that they will like and enjoy!!

Here are a few activities I’ve relied on during my first week:
🧩Puzzles!!! Peg puzzles, floor puzzles, interlocking puzzles, oh my!!

🖍 Step-by-step drawing worksheets with a written portion

✏️Letter worksheets to work on tracing and writing with proper formation, alignment and spacing!

🏀Playing catch

🐻🐴🐍🐸 Animal Walks and scooter board!

💧Playing with bubbles has also been a huge hit for many students! 😊

Leave a 📚 in the comments if you’re working ESY! Leave a 🌴 if you’re taking a well deserved summer break!

26/05/2021

I recently found this Mr. Potato Head and had to buy it!! I brought it to school today and every single student was enamored with it!!😊😊

Here are some ways I used Mr. Potato Head during my sessions:

🥔 Fine motor skills, bilateral coordination, intrinsic strength, and visual motor skills: Placed and pushed all of the pieces into the slots.

🥔Body Awareness: Pointed to own body part and then put the corresponding piece into Mr. Potato Head.

🥔Visual Perceptual Skills: Near point copying requiring the student to pick the correct body part/accessory from various options to make it look like the image on the box. We also drew and colored pictures of Mr. Potato Head for additional copying skills.

🥔 Gross Motor/ Hand Eye Coordination: We played hot potato by throwing and catching Mr. Potato Head while listening to music.

🥔Writing: We wrote sentences about Mr. Potato Head with a focus on correct spacing, size, left to right flow, and alignment.

What are other ways you can use Mr. Potato Head?! 🥔🥔

05/04/2021

Gotta love thrift store finds! All these items for less than $8🤩🤩 I’m excited to use these new puzzles with my students after spring break!🧩

02/04/2021

April is Occupational Therapy month! It’s a time to celebrate all OTs— their hard work, perseverance during difficult times, and their commitment to their clients and profession. The term occupational therapist encompasses many roles and it’s important to acknowledge each and every one. No matter what role, from clinician, researcher, mentor, educator, specialist to entrepreneur, occupational therapists tackle each day with passion and purpose knowing that the possibilities are endless.

One of my favorite things about occupational therapy is how broad the scope of the profession truly is. As a school-based therapist, I teach children how to use scissors for class projects, how to tie their shoes, sensory processing, and writing. I have colleagues in skilled nursing facilities with clients working on folding laundry, home modifications for improved safety, and medicine management. Another OT goes to work at a neuro rehabilitation facility, working with people who may have Parkinson’s disease, concussions, traumatic brain injuries and strokes. We work with a lot of different people on a lot of different skills!!

I love OT because every day, occupational therapists have the power to positively touch the lives of a diverse group of people.

What do you love about OT? What’s something you want to know more about OT?

23/03/2021

When you can’t find a bingo board you like, you make one of your own! I’m so happy Spring is here and even happier that it’s almost Spring Break!😊🤪🌸🌈

01/03/2021

Welcome to the Jungle🦁🐸🦋
Try making your own giant coloring poster! I designed this activity with a focus of getting my students to color while in a prone position. A lot of my students love animals, so a jungle theme was a must!

🥔 Coloring in prone is a great activity to promote:
-upper extremity and core strength/stability
-bilateral coordination
-handwriting skills
-fine motor skills
-eye hand coordination
-visual perceptual/motor skills
-sensory regulation

🥔 Change this activity up by adding numbers to a section of the poster and have the student color by number. Play ISpy! Give them hints about an animal and have them problem solve by figuring out which one it is! Work on counting skills by finding all the butterflies. Write sentences about the animals.

24/02/2021

⭐️MAT MAN TO THE RESCUE!!⭐️

🥔It’s my second week of school- based OT and one activity that’s been a life saver is Mat Man. I’ve used it for in-person and remote therapy.

🥔 In grad school and fieldwork, I learned about Mat Man and the benefits it has with making pre-writing strokes more fun to learn! It also teaches body awareness.

🥔 A lot of students on my caseload are preschoolers and kindergarteners so this activity is great for them! Check out the Mat Man videos on YouTube. I usually have the students point to the body parts on their body while listening to the song. You can grade this activity up and down as you please☺️

🥔Grade it ⬇️by tracing the shapes and coloring him. Grade it ⬆️by drawing the circle and square and cutting him out. Cut strips and even accordion fold for the arms and legs. The options are endless!!!

Miss Potatoes