Developing Body Part Awareness

By: Judy Benz Duncan, Occupational Therapist

Body awareness is the ability to recognize where your body is, how to move through the environment, how to relate to things and people you are interacting with. As a child grows and develops, they learn how to use the information their muscles and joints are sending to their brain, to practice and learn new tasks. When a child struggles with developing body awareness they may appear “clumsy” or uncoordinated, or have delays in their motor skill development.

Body awareness affects our life in even the simplest of tasks.

For example, your body sends signals that lets you know:

o   How far to reach in order to grab a drink

o   How close you need to be to reach a toy, a hand, a snack, etc.

o   How deep to put your spoon into a bowl of food while eating

o   How hard to grip a crayon or pencil (too loosely or so hard it breaks)

o   How high you need to bring your foot up to climb stairs or step over a curb

o   How to put an arm into a sleeve, or head into a pull-over

o   How to give a “hug” without hurting the other person or pet

o   How hard to toss a ball, or how to catch a ball

o   How close to stand next to someone (awareness of personal space)

o   How to walk without having to watch their feet

o   How to successfully handle and play with toys or building/construction blocks

o   How to walk through the house or store aisle without bumping into things

Does your child exhibit any of these body awareness issues? There are many more that could be listed, but those noted above should give you a good starting point of where your child may be at, and where they may need the most support and help to develop their sense of body self-awareness.

 Getting Started

It is always a great idea to begin by speaking with your child’s OT, PT, ST, teacher, pediatrician, early intervention or pre-school providers, so that everyone is sharing information and working together for your child.

There are many ways you can help children develop body awareness. Children learn through play, and while many of the following activities may seem like play-time, remember that play is a child’s work, and that is how they learn, grow, and develop their skill base.

All activities that follow can be adapted so that your child can participate and benefit. Working with your child’s service providers, who know your child, is a perfect way to know how and what to adapt for your child’s developmental and performance levels.

If any of the activities below are “too difficult” or “too frustrating” for your child, it just means that the activity needs to be downgraded so that they can find success and “enjoy the playtime!” Playtime may be work, but it needs to be fun to keep your child’s interest, promote effort, and increase their participation!

There are a few CLICK & GO links below that will provide you with more information and ideas.

Body Self Awareness Activities

o   It is easy to start out by just reviewing and identifying body parts. Talk about arms, legs, back, stomach, head, pointing and rubbing first your arm for example, and then asking your child to touch or rub theirs – assist them to find the right body part you are talking about if they seem unsure. You can start with an arm, and then work your way up to specific parts, such as the elbow, hand, finger, shoulder, and so on.

o   Use very simple commands such as kick your leg, wave your hand or shake your head, while you are demonstrating the movement for your child to copy or imitate. 

o   As your child is able, move up from finding specific body parts to finding, for example, their right ear, left foot, working on developing right/left discrimination. When they are pretty consistent with this, add in a new challenge of, for example, using their right hand to touch their left knee.

o   Chase bubbles, clapping, poking, and kicking as they float by. Try to do this where they have enough room to run and move around to avoid knocking things over or bumping into objects or walls. See more: CLICK & GO  https://theraplay4kids.com/new-page-57

o   Practice drawing pictures of people they know, or ask your child to draw a picture of themselves. Name body parts as they are drawn out. Often, children with poor body awareness are asked to draw a picture of a person, they may exclude certain body parts or place in the incorrect location when drawing a person or themselves – give cues to look to see what is missing, or ask, “Where are your arms?” to help them see the “whole” person.

o   Set up obstacle courses for the child to go over, under, around and in between objects. This is a great way to get your child to move and maneuver through a variety of spaces and changes in position.

o   Complete heavy work activities such as pushing, pulling or carrying heavy objects. This will help to reinforce where the joints and muscles are in space while they are working against a weight or resistance.

o   Sometimes a child may benefit from changes to the environment in order to help with body awareness. Try putting an “x” with tape, or a hoola-hoop, on the floor where you want the child to sit. Perhaps a chair with arms on it will help to provide an external cue of where the body needs to remain seated.

o   Sometimes walking at the front or back of a line instead of in the middle of the line will help them to be part of the group without bumping into others or straying out of the line.

o   Make sure you always name body parts when washing and dressing your child to reinforce them.  Every opportunity you have verbally state right from left.  For example, when dressing a child say “put your right arm in the sleeve”.  When turning left in a car or walking on the street say “let’s take a left here”.

o   Cut out body parts of a person from a magazine, and have the child put the pieces together using child-safe glue or tape

o   Draw an incomplete picture of a person and have the child fill in missing parts.

o   Put on some energized dance music and do some crazy fun dance moves around the room. Get creative and let the music do the “talking” through your body movements.

o   Have children try to mimic poses of different movements that you model for them. Crazy positions are always fun!

o   Ask your child to lie on their back on a large piece of brown wrapping paper or opened up big cardboard box, and draw around them, making their outline on the paper. Have your child draw on features and clothes to the outline and name the body parts while they are doing this. Let them get as creative as they want. Hang on the wall to let the see a life-size “them.”

o   Practice drawing pictures of people, mom/dad/brother/sister/grandma/grandpa and name the body parts as they are drawn.

o   Let your child draw a face on a paper plate to make a mask or cut out different facial features from a magazine and stick them on a plate to create a cool crazy face.

o   Draw a large circle and then have your child add the facial features and hair, eye brows.

o   Have your child to trace round their hand or foot on a piece of paper, or try doing self-portraits or a family portrait.

o   Set up obstacles courses for your child to go under, over, through and around objects. You can use pillows, big empty boxes, a line of chairs, a line of “painter’s tape” to follow from room to room, and so on.

o   Imitate animal movements by asking your child to imitate the movements of different animals, such as creep like a turtle, waddle like a duck, hop like a rabbit, slide across the floor like a snake, prance like a horse, and so on.

o   Work on balance by encouraging your child to balance on one leg, and then the other for as long as possible. Use low balance beams or “walk the line” with a piece of painter’s tape on the floor.

o   Give tactile cues and reinforcement using gentle, but firm pressure, to touch a child’s right side while saying the body parts on the right side. Switch and continue with cues on the left side.

o   Try working on jumping jacks, jumping rope, cross crawls, crawling, and other activities that require bilateral coordination.

Games for Body Part Awareness

Body Part Game: This can be done with just your child, or in a group. Have the child move the body part that in answer to the question. You may need to model the action for your child to imitate until they are able to follow without visual cues. For lower levels of understanding, physically assist your child to perform the action.

Some examples for this game follow – Make up some of your own, and even ask your child to come up with some ideas:

• Question:  What part of your body do you wave hello with?

• Response you want:  Child(ren) wave hands in the air

• Question: What part of your body wears socks?

• Response you want: Wiggling of feet

• Question: What part of your body can lick an ice cream cone?

• Response you want: Sticking out their tongue

• Question: What part of your body can hear the phone ring?

• Response you want: Touching their ear

• Question: What part of your body can hold a crayon?

• Response you want: Wiggling fingers or touching their hand

• Question: What part of your body can sit in a chair?

• Response you want: Patting or touching their rear-end

• Question: What part of your body grumbles and gurgles when you are hungry?

• Response you want: Rubbing or patting their stomach

What other things can you come up with?

Now change the game and request actions based on different noises:

Noisy Body Awareness Game:

Do this game with eyes open, then change up to do with eyes closed. This can be done with just your child, or in a group. You may need to model the action for your child to imitate until they are able to follow without visual cues. For lower levels of understanding, physically assist your child to perform the action.

With their eyes closed, you perform the sound and let them guess what body part you used.

o   Hum both loud and softly

o   Clap your hands, loud and soft

o   Stomp your feet

o   Snap your fingers

o   March in place – march loudly, and march softly

o   Smack your lips as loud as you can

o   Slap your knees; slap just one, and then alternate slapping back and forth with both knees

o   Tap your shoulders quietly so you can “just hear it”

Exercise Ball Game

Give each child playing a soft exercise ball or a large beach ball (slightly squishy balls are easier to control and manage). This can be done with just your child, or in a group. You may need to model the action for your child to imitate until they are able to follow without visual cues. For lower levels of understanding, physically assist your child to perform the action.

• Hold the ball over your head

• Hold the ball on your right side

• Hold the ball on your left side

• Squeeze the ball between your knees

• Try to turn the ball around and around in your hands (rotate or spin it around)

• Put the ball behind your back

• Try to pass the ball around and around your body

• Sit on the ball (with help for safety)

• Lay over the ball (with help for safety)

• Put the ball on the sofa, or bed

• Put the ball next to the chair

• Touch the ball with your foot

• Try to hold the ball with just one hand

• Put the ball on top of your foot

• Try to bounce the ball up and down

Hide the Object Games

Hide different soft items or toys around the room and ask the child to find them. You can hide items under cushions, behind a chair, in a low cupboard, under their bedspread, in a box, etc. If you have a list of what they are looking for that will help your child focus – check them off the list as they are found.

Music Themed Body Part Awareness Games

Play a game of “Simon Says” directing your child to touch different parts of their body. Try “Dance the Hokey Pokey” reinforcing right and left sides of the body, or sing and follow “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” song.  What other songs do you know?

Target Games

Activities involving trunk rotation and both sides of the body are a great way to work on body part awareness. Examples include throwing bean bags (pick them up from left and throw to the right). Throw soft balls, bean bags, or toys into hoops, buckets or standing open bags. Throw balls or ring darts, at the target bucket from various distances. Tossing and throwing different weighted items to various distances lets your child get the “feel” of how hard to throw as well as work on their eye-hand, perceptual, and coordination skills.

Heavy Work for Body Awareness

Have your child participate in heavy work activities such as pushing, pulling or carrying heavy objects. This helps reinforce and cue a child where their joints and muscles are in space.

Provide increased movement opportunities for kids who have difficulty with body awareness. Movements of importance include “heavy work” tasks, such as pushing a heavy laundry basket, carrying the groceries, carrying armfuls of books, loading and unloading laundry, marching and stomping with heavy boots, commando crawls, wall push-ups, and jumping on a play mattress or trampoline. See more: CLICK & GO 

For increased body awareness specific to hands, provide playdough, modeling clay, cutting thick paper, exploration of various textures, digging in the sand box or sand table, use of sensory boxes, water table, and so on. See more: CLICK & GO Here   or CLICK & GO HERE TOO  

Tug of war with just you or with a group of kids

Sledding, sliding, swinging, monkey-bars, slip-and-slide

Hippotherapy

This type of therapy is used under the supervision of a qualified staff. Hippotherapy involves riding a horse with simultaneous involvement of a variety of therapeutic activities. Riding a horse provides all kinds of sensory information, including, tactile, visual, proprioceptive and vestibular. Maintaining their position on the horse, and staying alert while riding, facilitates postural control, balance, and body part awareness. See more: CLICK & GO

Home Tasks for Body Self Awareness

Home tasks and Self-help skills for children can range from the daily living skills of bathing, dressing, and grooming, to cleaning their rooms, fixing simple meals and snacks, and helping around the house.

No one is perfect. If your child is helping and doing their chores try not to insist on perfection. They will learn by doing and through practice. Show and teach them how to do the task, or how to “make it better,” but remember it is the child’s work, not yours.

Give praise and positive comments before, during, and after! Children enjoy hearing and feeling like what they are doing is a “good job,” and that you are noticing. Letting them know that you think they will do a great job, or that they will help you out so much, before they start will help set the tone for the activity, and promote effort.

Some examples of home tasks your child can help you with include:

o   Helping you wash the car

o   Vacuuming

o   Mopping

o   Helping set the table

o   Help toss their toys back into the toy box

o   Wipe off their space at the table, or highchair, where they sit

o   Help to brush their hair

o   Help sweep or mop the kitchen floor

o   Help carry in small bags of groceries

o   Wipe off counters, kitchen table, vanities

o   Help put items from the cart onto the checkout counter

o   See more: CLICK & GO!

WOW! This is a lot of things that you can work on with your child!! Take one or two activities a day. Be consistent in working on developing body part awareness and before you know it, you will start to see some great positive gains!

Keep calm, breathe, and stay positive! Every child is different and learns at their own pace – help them achieve!  

Remember, Play is Work, and Work goes easier when it is FUN!

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