7 Beach Activities That Count As Therapy
We hope everybody is enjoying these last few weeks of summer! There’s still plenty of time to enjoy all the fun summer activities before we have to think about going back to school. One of our wonderful physical therapists Mrs. Debbie is here today to share some ways to incorporate therapy at the beach! (Hint: we love it when our patients do therapy without even realizing it). If you are on your way to the beach over the next few weeks, check out these fun suggestions for 7 activities your child is probably already doing and ways to encourage core stability, balance, visual learning, and so much more!
Building a sand castle is a comprehensive therapeutic experience!
Digging with the hands in the sand builds hands strength, letting dry sand slowly leave the hand is eccentric control of the hand muscles. Watching the sand leave their own hand or another person’s hand is visual attention, tracking and processing.
Digging from a hands and knees position will build core stability and upper extremity strength.
Carrying water in a bucket from the sea will build motor planning skills, eye hand coordination, and whole body strength. The further the walk from the water the bigger the effort. Walking through soft sand is more difficult than walking through hard sand.
The whole experience is a tactile extravaganza! Sand, surf, breeze. All of these textures are being experienced by hands and feet.
Put dry sand in a bucket and have your child grab a fistful of sand (a sensory experience already), then ask the child to slowly release the sand so it streams out of the pinky side of their hand (make sure to demonstrate!) Catch the sand with the other hand to make it a bilateral hand skill. Make 3 piles of sand - big, bigger, biggest! Small, smaller smallest.
Pour sand from one container to another! Use containers of different sizes and see how many little containers of sand it takes to fill a big container.
Pouring with larger and smaller containers requires different degrees of strength, and pouring from larger to smaller openings requires more muscle control and eye hand coordination. Holding a flimsy plastic cup requires different grip strength than a cup with firm sides. Using a shovel verses hands requires a different motor plan and is a different sensory experience.
Use language throughout the activity to describe what is happening and how everything feels. Example: The sand leaves the BOTTOM of your hand. The sand tickles, the sand is dry/wet, put the more sand on TOP, put sand IN, POUR sand OUT.
This helps with balance and is a huge sensory experience!
When standing on the sand at the water’s edge the water moves closer and further away and is different every time. Watching the water move in and out is a visual experience. The water rushes over the feet and then leaves, the sand moves out from under the feet and can be felt moving. The loss of sand from under the feet changes the support surfaces and challenges balance.
This can help with motor planning, moving forward and back, changing direction, and judging the speed and distance the water will travel.
This challenges leg muscles! Push sand forward to make a hole, move sand side to side in the hole, make sand angles.
This challenges visual learning. You can also print a beach BINGO card available online!
Do this on hard sand verses wet sand and all of the levels in between. It is hard to get push-off (the forward movement obtained from the toes on the ground just before swing phase) from soft sand so there are lots of compensations that work the body harder. Challenges can be graded with the degree of sand ‘hardness’.
Thank you Mrs. Debbie for some great suggestions! We love any reason to be at the beach. Let’s go enjoy these last few weeks of summer break!
