Active Imagination Activity Book: 50 Sensorimotor Activities for Children to Improve Focus, Attention, Strength, and Coordination Paperback – May 1, 2011

Got this because my son's OT uses it in therapy. My 9yo and 3yo NT both enjoy doing exercises and activities from this book. It has different color-coded categories, so depending on what area you want to work on you can pick the color and let the kids pick the activity. We mostly work within the Core categories, but some of the other games have been fun to do as a nice break. The 9yo's favorite is the game where you use your feet to pick up objects and lift them into a container. He could seriously do that one for hours! We haven't been able to go back to OT, so having this resource at home has really been helpful for us to continue with home therapy.

This is a great little book with fun activities for kids to build strength and endurance. As a pediatric physical therapist, I use this book all of the time and kids love doing the activities. The illustrations are great and the descriptions are easy to follow.

We are using this as part of a sensory diet for our son with SPD and regressive ASD. Good high quality product with flipchart styling. Easy to follow and understand. Wonderful item to have in my ASD mama toolbelt.

I bought this for a project we are doing at work for early interventions with troubled kids. Very useful. Everyone across the building is using it.

Practical, creative ideas to add to therapy sessions. Activities can be easily modified and keep the kids engaged and active.

There are all kinds of different therapies for children on the autism spectrum but in my opinion, two stand out head and shoulders above the rest; Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy. Both of these are expensive and even with government support, it's unusual for parents to be able to continue beyond one or two terms at a time.You won't become an occupational therapist simply by using this book but you will learn a lot of fun and simple techniques to achieve many of the same things that occupational therapists work toward.This book is intended for use with children and adults who need help with attention, calming down and energizing but I can see that it will also provide a lot of benefit for people with poor co-ordination and/or low muscle tone - two things which affect many people on the autism spectrum.The BookThe book itself is spiral bound and set up so that it can be folded to "self-display". This is a really useful feature for this type of book.Even better, the pages are all plasticised which not only provides better protection but also keeps them shiny and bright. In fact, these pages are so shiny and bright that they "leap out at you". The great use of colour makes this a fun book to use.Page LayoutEach page has coloured tabs at the bottom which tell you which of the four categories a given exercise belongs to. Usually they belong to more than one;EnergizingUpper-Body StrengtheningCore-Body StrengtheningCalmingIt's all quite subtle and I missed it at first assuming that it was part of the page design but it's a very useful set of criteria. You'll want to use particular types of exercises with your child at different times during the day.There is also at least one or two very relevant illustrations on each page. If an activity is "complicated", then multiple postures are shown.The activities are all described in a few simple sentences which means that even the kids can self-pace themselves through activities.The ActivitiesThe activities all have great names, like "The hot dog", "Cotton candy" and "daddy long legs" and they're all quite achievable and look like a lot of fun.The activities sensibly avoid any major equipment requirements and if you've got floor space, little bean bags (or something else, like tennis balls or balloons), then you've really got what you need to do most of the activities.In ShortThis is an extremely well thought-out, well laid-out book which contains 50 very relevant and easy (and did I say fun!) exercises for children and adults. If you're an occupational therapist - there's absolutely no excuse to not have this book - it really is that good.If you're the parent of a child with special needs, or if you're an adult with sensory or muscular difficulties, then this is the best way to address them at home.Finally, if you're a teacher, particularly a physical education teacher at a primary/elementary school or kindergarten or if you interact with groups of children in other ways and settings, then this book will come in very handy. As for myself, I'll be taking this one off to Joey and Cub Scouts.

I have zero expertise on children with sensory disorders. However, I am a parent of 5 and 7 year old girls and both of then would delight in the activities listed in this book. This is a spiral-bound book which "stands up" to make it easy to read and look at the illustrations of the activities. The activities are divided by type (Calming, Core Strengthening, Upper-Body Strengthening, and Energizing) and are designed for children between ages 9 and 12. However, younger children are able to perform the activities as well, depending upon their skill level and comprehension.As an added bonus, this book is small enough to fit in a large purse or in a tote bag, so a parent can refer to it while out and about. You're not limited to performing the activities at home.Reviewed for Arms of a Sister blog

Perfect for OTs. I work in the school system and frequently show this to EAs as suggestions for heavy work!