In honor of Occupational Therapy Month, BRAINS is inviting you and your family to participate in our Superhero Challenge! Our client’s lives have been turned upside down. We are living in unprecedented times, and our routines have been interrupted. We are all working hard to activate our superpowers! We realize as occupational therapists that we are operating in crucial developmental windows of time and we want to press on, encouraging progression for your children, not regression.
The Challenge: Many of our clients present with impaired body schema or body awareness. This impacts their ability to correctly build and draw a person with at least ten identifiable parts placed in the correct spot. Because of this, key parts of the human body are often misrepresented in drawings of children.
Here are some examples. Do you see how these children have omitted body parts from their drawing, some with legs coming from the head?
Teaching children to build and draw bodies improves their body awareness, and increases their understanding of where they are in relation to others or things.
This challenge is intended to support children in learning how to make a plan for identifying and including at least ten identifiable body parts in their superhero creation. Don’t forget the body, and encourage your children to orient the arms coming from the shoulder, legs coming of the waist, etc. The superhero can be your child, or their own imagined superhero.
Below are examples of Mr. Heal and Super Jodi-Girl, they are superhero Occupational Therapists who work at BRAINS. They care very much about their clients and have identified superpowers of their own to get through this time. We want to fill social media with these superheroes! As you create them, please tag us on Facebook and/or Instagram so we can share your child’s positivity!
Mr. Heal and Super Jodi-Girl will share their superhero favorites next week Friday on Facebook and Instagram!
The items we used to make Mr. Heal:
- Military top for durability
- Scrub pants to honor healthcare workers
- Checker pieces for eyes
- A circular mirror for his face
- Playdoh for his smile
- A mat for his Superhero cape
- Twigs for his hands
Some superpowers of Mr. Heal:
- He can fly all around the world to help patients
- He has super healing powers
- He can build hospitals and shelters in the blink of an eye
- He is a super-chef that can make lots of yummy food to feed the hungry
Some superpowers of Super Jodi-Girl:
- She can drink 64 oz. of water a day!
- She can exercise 5X a week
- She can Facetime her friends and family
- She can eat great healthy food