The school summer holidays are long awaited by parents and children alike, but a few weeks in and they can seem never ending! If you’re running out of ideas of what to do to entertain your kids then we are here to help.

Dealing with routine change

For children with support needs the holidays not only means a huge change to routine but also warmer weather resulting in wearing different clothes, putting on suncream, glare of the sun etc. all of which can be challenging for people with conditions such as Autism.

Here are our SensationALL tips and suggestions to tackle any challenges you may be having…

A sun cream sensory story example
  • Use a social story to explain why summer items like sun cream are required. When applying sun cream start with less sensitive areas such as arms and leave the face until last. Try turning it into a game where they ‘paint’ their skin with the suncream.
  • Put Winter clothes away out of sight if you can and make Summer clothes the only available choice to minimise confrontation about what to wear.
  • Use timetables to provide an awareness of what they will be doing that day. Add pictures of their choices to their timetable.
  • Offer a limited choice of activities maybe printing a picture of two options that you know you are able to do and let them to choose.
  • Find quieter times to go out to activities such as sessions specifically for people with additional support needs or times of the day that are quieter
  • Have ear defenders available at noisier times
  • Introduce a visual countdown of how many sleeps there are left until school; if you feel the person would find this helpful

Activity Ideas

Run out of parks to go to and picnics to have??

It can be hard to keep coming up with things to do with that will entertain the kids and not cost a fortune. Here are fab sensory activities we use at SensationALL that you can do at home:

Cornflour Putty – this has a melting texture which can be relaxing to feel and is great fun to make and play with:
– mix 2 cups of cornflour and 1 cup of conditioner until a dough is formed

Making cornflour putty

Sensory Shaving Foam Bag – once made this bag can be taken out with you and used on-the-go as a calming sensory tool:
– Take a zip lock bag and fill with shaving foam – Add a squeeze of two colours of paint – seal the bag and press to mix.

Making a shaving foam bag

Relaxation Glitter Bottle – a brilliant sensory toy: – Using a clean, clear plastic bottle (with screw top lid) add warm water, clear glue and glitter to create relaxing shaker.

Glitter bottle

We hope you all have a wonderful summer and look forward to seeing you for the new term starting from 19th August!

The SensationALL team x