Arms up for strong shoulders

Occupational therapy

﻿Hi, I'm really looking forward to our lesson today. I hope you are too. Before we get started, this is just a little reminder, we're here to support any approaches you might already be using, and any work you might have already been set. We know that this lesson is going to be going up so many different children and families. So if you're not sure about anything or have any questions, then please do contact your usual therapy team. Hello, and today's lesson we're going to be learning about how working on a vertical surface can really help improve our shoulder strength, which in turn will help improve our fine motor skills. Why is it so important that we practise working on a vertical surface. Because we spend so much time working on flat surfaces like tables. It means that ,by working on vertical surfaces we're giving other muscles a chance to be used and therefore for them to improve and to grow. When we're working up on this vertical surface, it means that we have to keep our arms up against gravity. And that activity is really good for improving our stamina and endurance when we're using our shoulders. There are lots of games that we do which we have to be able to keep our arms up for long periods like tennis, baseball ,rounders, or holding on to a bike handlebars. For today, we're going to need quite a few bits of equipment. So pause this video now, have a look and see what you need. And also please check with your responsible adult or carer that it's okay for you to do some of the activities on a mirror or window. If not, then we can adapt it. Okay, restart once you're done. Our first activity we're going to be looking at is painting on an easel. And that simply means you're going to be painting on a vertical surface. So if you don't have an actual easel, you can simply take your paper and hold it up against a wall. Or if you want to you can put it on a door or anything like that. Okay, so I want you to be standing in front of an easel with a piece of paper on it with your paints nearby. Now, for extra challenge, you should not tape the paper down, but instead use your helping hand to hold the paper there. Okay? that will mean that at the same time we working on our bilateral skills. The easel should be about the same height as your chest and your head. And I want you to try and draw a picture. You can either paint or you could use chalks or crayons or pencils and See if you can go for five minutes without having to rest in between. Remember, make sure you have an adult's permission before you go to stick any paper or anything on the walls or the doors. Okay. In our earlier lessons when we were talking about our core strength, I showed you how we can work in on a vertical surface while we're kneeling or half kneeling. And you can see in the pictures there, I'm just doing some pegs and again I'm swapping hands and when you do it in kneeling or half kneeling, it's really good because you're working on your core strength and your core stability at the same time. You can see in those pictures there with my arms being raised up there, my shoulder muscles, my shoulder girdles, big Muscle at the back of my shoulder blades there is getting a lot of input and I'm going to make them really strong. Okay pause the video, to try and have a go. Restart once you're finished. Our next activity, we're going to be using Play Doh and putting it on a window. Okay, I want you to get some Play Doh and you're going to stand in front of a window. Please make sure that you've got an adult permission before you get into stick things onto the windows. And remember it's absolutely fine if you can't , simply take a piece of paper and hold it on the wall. Or maybe you could ask them if you can do it against a door because doors are easy to clean and so are things like kitchen cupboards, okay, so make sure you have permission first. So what you're going to do is with your arms in that position the whole time, you are going to make a really lovely picture by sticking pieces onto the window. Now you can even do things like spelling out your name, okay? And so going to make the letters of your name using the Play Doh. As you get strong shoulders and you feel more able, you can make bigger pictures or bigger patterns. A fun thing to do also, is to ask an adult if you can help them wash the window after you've taken off the Play Doh. Okay, if you don't have Play Doh, you could perhaps stick some stickers on or you could give it a little bit of sticky tape and stick that on, Yeah ? Okay, Pause the video now to try Play Doh on the window. Restart once you're finished. Our last activity is going to involve shaving foam on a mirror. So this could be a mirror or window and make sure that you have an adult's permission before you put shaving foam on the mirror. Okay.So you're going to take the shaving foam, you're going to rub it all over the mirror. And then what you're going to do is you're going to use your fingers to write letters. So you can write your name, you can draw shapes or you can even draw whole pictures, yeah? And what you can do is rub it all off again, and start again. If you don't have shaving foam, you can try finger painting, if an adult has said it's okay. you could also and again, help an adult afterwards to clean the mirror to get even more shoulder work done. Pause the video to give that a go. Restart once you're finished. If you're finding that it's too hard to keep your arms up for such a long time, try keeping them a little bit lower down until they're stronger and then you can move them higher and higher and higher up Okay. Take regular breaks if you need to. Because it's much more important that when you're holding your arm up, it's nice and steady and relaxed and you're not hyper extending and also not shaking because its so hard Okay, so do some really good work, then have a break. You could also try some squirty cream, if you had any at home that would be fun and tasty, or some soapy firm and that's a good one that you can do in the bath for example, against the bath, the sides of the bath, or if you have a shower, you could maybe try it then make sure that there's an adult supervising you and they've given you permission to put stuff on the mirrors in the windows, okay? Remember, do the best for you. Don't worry about what other people can do. Practise, practise, practise, and always get help and permission from an adult for these games. Thank you for listening. As always, if you'd like to please ask your parent or carer to share all the wonderful work that you've done on a vertical surface on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter tagging at Oak national and hashtag learn with Oak. Bye ,See you next time.

Arms up for strong shoulders

Arms up for strong shoulders

Lesson slides

Lesson details

Key learning points

Equipment

Licence

Lesson video