Activities to Keep Students Busy When Interruptions Occur

Here are 10 free activities to keep students busy when interruptions occur. Print and throw in your bag of tricks for those emergency moments

As school based therapists we juggle high caseloads, many schools and tight schedules. It can be difficult to find a few minutes to discuss a student’s needs. Interruptions occur at times when you are working with a student such as a phone call from a doctor about a student, a teacher pops into the therapy room to ask you a quick question or an aide needs to borrow a piece of equipment.

When those interruptions occur, it would be beneficial have an emergency plan of action with some items in a “bag of tricks”. Prepare a few activities that you can grab super quick to have the student work on while you deal with the interruption.

Create an emergency bag of tricks for when interruptions occur from www.YourTherapySource.com

10 Free Activities to Keep Students Busy When Interruptions Occur

Here are 10 free activities to keep students busy when interruptions occur. Print and throw in your bag of tricks for those emergency moments during a therapy session or give to a teacher for when these moments occur in the classroom. I tried to pick ideas that address fine motor, gross motor and sensory processing therefore the activities address many goals:

  1. Motor Minute Challenge Freebie – fine motor and gross motor activities on a page to complete in under 1-2 minutes. My personal favorite!
  2. Visual Discrimination Puzzles – challenge visual discrimination skills and add in physical activity
  3. Superhero Action Training – can the student complete all the locomotor skills
  4. Move and Match Yoga – practice visual perceptual skills, body awareness and more!
  5. I Spy Exercise – One of our most popular activities to keep students busy – practice visual discrimination, visual motor, body awareness and exercise!
  6. Dinosaur Puzzle – Do you know a dinosaur loving kid? Check out this FREE dinosaur puzzles printable to practice visual spatial skills and problem solve.
  7. Roll, Move and Cover activity– Roll two dice. Add them up. Find that number. Move like that animal. Say the letter that the animal starts with. Color in the circle or cover the circle up with a small ball of clay
  8. Beanbag Alphabet Fun– Beanbags are a wonderful tool to encourage physical activity, body awareness, motor planning and coordination skills in children.  They are inexpensive or you can even make them yourself with socks and some rice.  So grab a beanbag for each child and try moving through the alphabet with your beanbag.
  9. Hole Punch Race– add this fun FREE printable hand strengthening exercise game to work on building up those muscles.
  10. Roll Some Free Brain Breaks– These activities to keep students busy encourage self-regulation, body awareness, coordination, physical activity and balance all on one page. These freebies are from the complete Roll Some Fun digital download that includes 30 no-prep, boredom busting brain breaks to encourage visual motor skills, sensory motor skills, and FUN.  Each game board can be done with one person or a group in a small or large space!

Motor Minute Challenges

 

Motor Minute Challenges digital download includes  20 fine motor, gross motor and visual motor challenges to complete.  Complete each challenge sheet by finishing pictures, mazes, physical activities and more.  Time the tasks for 1-3 minutes or let the child complete each one at his/her own pace.  These pages are great activities to keep students busy for when interruptions occur or for early finishers. FIND OUT MORE.

 

Here are 10 free activities to keep students busy when interruptions occur. Print and throw in your bag of tricks for those emergency moments