I am a pediatric Occupational Therapist with over 20 years experience. I received my Bachelor’s degree in Occupational Therapy in 2000. I am currently finishing up my level 1 certification as a handwriting specialist and also have training in many other handwriting curriculums. Most of my Occupational Therapy career has been spent providing school-based OT services in Minnesota. I also have experience providing virtual handwriting tutoring.
As I have worked as a school-based Occupational Therapist over the last 20 years, I have seen the lack of explicit handwriting instructions children receive in their school day. More and more children are struggling with writing skills (maintaining posture to sit upright at their desk/table, hold a pencil correctly, apply adequate pressure to their pencils, accurately forming letters/numbers, letter formation/size/spacing/line placement, accurately forming sentences, etc.). This is why I created “Write” Here on The Farm to help children improve their handwriting skills both at school and in their daily lives. At “Write” Here on The Farm, I am happy to be able to share my farm and farm animals with your child while providing explicit, multi-sensory handwriting instruction! Your child will participate in a handwriting evaluation to determine their handwriting strengths and needs and then a handwriting plan will be developed based on your child’s individual needs.
An added special bonus at “Write” Here on The Farm is that children will participate in multi-sensory activities around the farm and with the farm animals! We have chickens, ducks, bunnies, cats, mini horses, goats, and dogs! Wondering what a handwriting session will look like? Something like this – your child will start out with a gross motor farm activity (collecting chicken and duck eggs from the coop, feeding/watering the animals, running with the goats, etc.), followed by multi-sensory explicit handwriting instruction (forming letters with a variety of multi-sensory media such as play-doh, sticks and weeds they find around the farm, sand or dirt, chalk/chalkboard, sidewalk chalk, crayons/pencils/markers, etc) and ending the session with a calming sensory activity (snuggling a bunny, brushing a mini horse, taking a nature walk, etc).
While I am a licensed and board certified Occupational Therapist, “Write” Here on The Farm was created specifically to provide explicit, multi-sensory handwriting instruction. Occupational Therapy services will not be provided, but I am happy to offer recommendations for skilled Occupational Therapy providers if children are in need of additional services. Skills to be worked on at “Write” Here on The Farm include fine motor development, upper body strengthening, pre-writing skills, crayon/pencil/scissor grasp, uppercase/lowercase print instruction/remediation, cursive instruction/remediation, sentence/paragraph writing, and functional writing tasks.