Crossing over

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 out to 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. Hi. We have some really fun activities to do today. One involving coins and one involving my friend, Mr. Tennisball. And we're going to use both of those activities to learn why it's important to cross the midline of our body. We have a middle down there. And how we can get better at doing that. So I said we had some fun activities today, all involving crossing the midline of our body. But why is that so important? Okay, well, we have two sides of our body, so we need to learn how to reach over from one side to the other. If we don't, what's going to happen is that we're going to forget that we have a hand and just use the hand that's closest. And that's actually going to make us not so efficient, not so good at doing activities. When we can't reach over the centre of our body, what we might do is bring it to the middle and then take it with the other hand instead of just reaching over. Okay. And that means that the activity that we're doing becomes slow and clumsy. When we're able to cross our midlines, we're actually helping our brains to learn to do different things with the different sides of our body. So you're actually making your brain grow bigger. Isn't that amazing? So today you're going to need a piggyback or a box with just a little slot cut into it. Ask an adult or a carer to do that for you. A selection of coins or just some tokens, like for games and then a tennis ball with a mouth cut into it. Now you have to, have to, have to ask an adult or responsible carer to do this for you. And you want then some little toys, such as marbles or treasure. Okay, once you've got everything ready, restart the video. Okay, so for our first activity, we're going to be posting coins into a piggyback. In the video, you'll see that I didn't actually have a piggyback. So I cut a slit into some Play-Doh. Now I did ask an adult before I did that. And then what you're going to do is you're going to put coins on the opposite sides of your body and you're going to take the coins one by one and put them into your slotted box. Okay? What I need you to do is to try and keep your body really still. Try and move just your arms and your head to look. Don't turn your whole body, okay? 'Cause when you're turning your body, you're not actually crossing your midline. Once you're done, swap over and use the other hand for each of these jobs. And again, you can make this more challenging by placing the coins further apart, or using more coins or asking an adult to time you. So in this video, you can see I've got coins on either side and I'm crossing my midline. In the middle of my body is where I've placed the slotted box or my Play-Doh piggyback I guess. And my left hand is holding the box. Now I'm going to swap over. Okay? There you go. Can you notice how still my body is? Yeah? And pushing them in. And you see that I'm moving it further over to the other side to make it a little bit more challenging for myself. Okay. Pause the video to try posting coins into a piggyback or a slotted box. Restart once you're finished. Our next activity is called feeding Mr. Tennisball. Now I hope you've met Mr. Tennisball. Have you met Mr. Tennisball? Hmm, well, you'll see him in the next video. Okay, so you're going to ask an adult to make you a Mr. Tennisball. So find an old tennis ball and an adult to just, again, to cut a slit into the tennis ball and that will be his mouth. Okay? And let's watch the video and you'll see what we're going to do for feeding Mr. Tennisball. Okay, there he is. Hi guys! Mr. Tennisball! And you can draw a face on yours like I did there. So now watch my hands. I've got coins on either side. He's going, "Haha!" Oh, that Mr. Tennisball has got glasses on! And you can see that when you squeeze Mr. Tennisball, again, you are using your hand muscles. Okay? And the little muscles in your fingertips. So one hand is squeezing and holding Mr. Tennisball. The other hand is reaching over and feeding him, okay? Crossover. Look at how my fingers are tucked away and I'm just using my index finger and my thumb. And again, swap hands. And you can see in my hand there, there's a really nice curve of where the muscles are. Yeah? And now to make it more challenging, I've put quite a few gems in my hand. And we practised this skill earlier. We're moving the items to the tips of our fingers. And once again, notice how still my upper body is. Notice that my arms are close to my body and that I'm quite relaxed. 'Cause if I wasn't relaxed, you'd see my body would kind of be tensing something like that. Okay? So grab all your gems and your marbles. Oh, I think I may have dropped one then. And here he goes. Very hungry, Mr. Tennisball. Okay. "Thank you for my lunch." Alright so, you pause the video to try feeding Mr. Tennisball. Restart once you're finished. Okay. So there's loads of ways that we can adapt this activity to suit the level that you're at and the level that you're working towards. If you had a box or a piggyback with bigger holes, it'll be easier to put the coins into. Now you saw with my Play-Doh lid, it was actually quite a narrow cut, so I had to push really hard to get the coins in there. You could try placing the box or the piggyback and the coins close together at first, and then moving them further apart. If it's hard initially, if you're finding it really tricky to not turn your body, then you can ask an adult or a carer to just gently hold your shoulders to remind you not to. And once you've repeated this activity enough, your muscles will start learning that that's what they're going to do and they're going to relax into that position. If you're finding it really hard to squeeze your Mr. Tennisball, then ask a responsible adult to make his mouth much bigger. Okay. And if you're finding it really hard to squeeze with one hand and feed with the other, then what you can do is you can ask an adult to either hold it open for you on the other side of your body, so you can put the coins in, or you can hold it with one hand and they can put the coins in, okay? Remember, do the best for you. Practise, practise, practise. Have loads of fun. If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to show me your amazing skills at putting coins into a piggyback and feeding your Mr. Tennisball on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak. Bye, see you next time!

Crossing over

Crossing over

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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