Heavy Work. Sounds exciting huh, don’t everyone jump up at once. This term, heavy work, inevitably popped up every time I searched for proprioceptive activities. So, I did what anyone that “may wanna avoid something” does, I ignored it. And continued my search to find something that sounded a little less grueling. But there it was….again and AGAIN. Only this time it had a picture of a child playing with green spaghetti noodles beside the words HEAVY WORK ACTIVITY. It looked harmless to me so I took a chance, and took a peek.
JACKPOT! It turns out that heavy work activities are PROPRIOCEPTIVE ACTIVITIES! Bearwalking, running and jumping onto a mattress, tug-of-war, blowing bubbles, squeezing and squishing play dough. All fun stuff!! The list continues…..carrying heavy loads of books, scrubbing a floor or table, digging in the garden, all not-so-fun activities, but sometimes necessary to increase and maintain a certain level of independence. Check out this link for 40 heavy work activities and also further explanation of what our proprioceptive system should help us do if it is working properly. This is an easy read, surprisingly not too heavy:) http://mamaot.com/2015/04/07/40-heavy-work-activities-kids/
After reading about 40 fun/simple heavy work activities, I continued my search and stopped here to read about more (some the same) activities to increase proprioceptive awareness. http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/heavy-work-activities.html. There are different categories for activities according to the area you are targeting. Whole body, oral, or use of hands. There are gross and fine motor activities that improve muscle tone, coordination, concentration, and increase one’s ability to attend to tasks.
Basically, you could do nothing but proprioceptive activities in your class all day and never run out of things to do because, guess what, much of what we do is aided by, or in some way involves our proprioceptive system. And realizing that was, the aha moment for me. That is why it is important to incorporate heavy weight activities into your daily classroom schedule (not to mention give parents a list of proprioceptive activities and tasks that can be carried out at home) to improve students’ sensory imput! Increasing ones’ ability to interact with their environment, there by increasing their independence, quality of life, and overall well-being is, quite simply, amazing!
http://lemonlimeadventures.com/15-must-follow-sensory-blogs/
abbiemullis 