DIY Hand Fidget | Pediatric Occupational Therapy Tips

Hey everyone, my name is Thomas Revell and I’m an occupational Therapist and I’m here at Addie’s AutismFITT Club where we provide Occupational, Physical and Speech therapy for kids of all ages and today I’ll be showing you how to make a homemade hand fidget.
Hand fidgets can be helpful for kids of all ages to help them concentrate, focus, and help keeps their hand busy in certain situations so their minds can be focused during those activities. Today all we need for our hand fidget are two medium size balloons, a funnel if you have one or you can make one at home with an empty water bottle, baking soda, scissors, and a pen or stick or any item that can help you push the baking soda into the balloon.
First thing you want to do is have the person who is keeping the hand fidget to choose two balloons that are their favorite color have one balloon be on the outside and another color to be on the inside. Red to be on the outside and purple to be on the inside. So you want to take the balloon that is going to be on the inside and you want to have them blow it up, about half way should be good… and just let all the air out. It expands it a little bit so there is more room for the baking soda to get into.
Next we’ll take the balloon that you’re choosing to put on the outside and we’ll cut it right where the neck begins to widen… Just like that. So we’ll take the balloon we want to put in the inside and attach it to our funnel, real simply and this is a fun activity with children so whatever step you feel comfortable having them do, whether it’s holding something or pouring is up to you it can be a great way for you to work on that team work and work on those direction taking tasks.
We’ll pour the baking soda into the funnel, and we’ll fill it up as much as we can. At some point you’ll notice that the baking soda gets blocked because the balloon is at capacity. What you’ll do is take your spoon, pen or whatever you have, to push into the balloon. You want the balloon to be filled as much as you can. Once you have it nice and full, if you have any extra, take it out of there, so when you take this balloon off, there won’t be any mess. So we’ll simply take the balloon off, so like any other balloon, tie it into a knot.
And you have a great, malleable, hand fidget you can play with, that’s not too firm or too soft. That can feel comfortable in someone’s hand. If the child is smaller or bigger, depending on the size, you’ll blow up the balloon. So if someone has larger hands, blow up the balloon larger so you can put more baking soda in it. If someone has smaller hands, don’t blow up the balloon as much so that it can feel more comfortable in their hand.
So now that we’ve got that. Take our other balloon that we snapped the top off of, the other person will hold it open like this, kind of like an opening to a sock, and the other person will simply put the balloon that we made into it, having the nub at the top on the outside. It’s a great coat to protect it from scratches or anything like that.
Here we have the final product with the outside balloon cover with the jacket, and that way it gives it a little bit of protection and texture to help kids feel more comfortable and squeeze it a little more harder. Precautions, you don’t want anyone throwing or scratching this. Scratching it can lead to it breaking, in which case you can make another one using a few house hold items. If you have any questions please leave a comment below.
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Homemade Hand Fidget
*Do not throw or scratch
Information on Hand Fidgets:
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