Happy July from SkyBreak Therapy
July Newsletter
July is a time for celebrating independence, spending time with family and friends, and enjoying all the fun that summer has to offer. As we gather for barbecues, parades, and fireworks, it’s also a great opportunity to create meaningful memories and encourage children to explore new experiences, build confidence, and stay active.
At SkyBreak Therapy, we’re grateful for the opportunity to support the incredible children and families in our community. We hope you have a safe, fun-filled, and memorable Fourth of July!
Hot Topic - Screen-Free Summer Fun
Summer is the perfect time to unplug and reconnect! While screens can be entertaining, too much screen time can impact sleep, attention, creativity, and physical activity. The good news? Even 30–60 minutes of screen-free play each day can help children build important developmental skills while making lasting family memories.
Try these screen-free ideas:
- Go on a nature walk or backyard scavenger hunt.
- Ride bikes, scooters, or play outside together.
- Get creative with chalk, painting, or simple crafts.
- Read a book together or visit your local library.
- Build with LEGO®, blocks, or complete a puzzle.
- Let your child help prepare a simple snack or meal.
- Enjoy water play with sprinklers, water balloons, or a splash pad.
This summer, challenge your family to trade a little screen time for play time—you may be surprised by the smiles, conversations, and confidence that grow along the way!
Movement Matters - PT Pro Tips
Creeping: Why It Matters
Creeping—or crawling on hands and knees—is an essential developmental milestone that lays the foundation for a child’s physical and cognitive growth. This movement strengthens the arms, shoulders, core, and leg muscles among others, which are crucial for later skills such as pulling to standing, lowering from standing, cruising, and walking.
As babies coordinate their limbs to move forward, they also develop balance and spatial awareness. The cross-lateral movement—using opposite arms and legs together—helps improve global motor coordination and problem solving.
Creeping and crawling encourages further exploration, independence, and language development skills.
Skipping this milestone could also mean missing out on key opportunities for sensory and motor integration that support lifelong development. Even children who are older may benefit from creeping to improve their motor coordination and muscle strength.
Some activities to perform at home:
- Crawling or creeping through a pillow fort or tunnel
- Creeping up and down stairs
- Creeping over uneven surfaces, short hurdles, or over different surfaces like tile and carpeted flooring
Everyday OT
Fun Ways to Maintain Fine Motor Skills All Summer Long!
Summer is the perfect time for children to explore, play, and strengthen important fine motor skills. Fine motor skills support handwriting, dressing, feeding, school participation, and everyday independence. By incorporating a variety of textures and hands-on games into daily routines, families can help children continue developing these skills while having fun.
Texture Play Ideas:
- Create sensory bins using rice, dried beans, sand, water beads, shredded paper, or pasta. Hide small toys for children to find using their fingers.
- Practice drawing shapes and letters in shaving cream, pudding, kinetic sand, or finger paint.
- Use play dough to roll, pinch, squeeze, flatten, and hide small objects for retrieval.
- Encourage outdoor exploration by collecting leaves, rocks, sticks, flowers, and other natural materials.
Fine Motor Games:
- Tweezer Treasure Hunt: Use tweezers or tongs to pick up pom-poms, cotton balls, or small toys.
- Clothespin Challenge: Clip clothespins around a container edge or match them to colored cards.
- Bead and Button Creations: String beads, buttons, or pasta onto yarn or pipe cleaners.
- Sticker Scenes: Create pictures using stickers to encourage finger strength and precision.
Easy Daily Routine Activities:
- Help prepare snacks by peeling oranges, spreading toppings, stirring ingredients, and pouring drinks.
- Practice dressing skills with buttons, zippers, snaps, and shoe tying.
- Water plants using spray bottles to strengthen hand muscles.
- Build with blocks, LEGOs, and magnetic tiles to develop coordination and planning skills.
Summer Challenge Calendar:
- Monday: Play dough creations
- Tuesday: Tweezer race Wednesday: Nature collage
- Thursday: Water spray bottle art
- Friday: Bead or pasta threading activity
- Weekend: Family scavenger hunt using collected textures and objects
Therapist Tip
Focus on participation and enjoyment rather than perfection. Short, engaging activities completed consistently throughout the summer are often more beneficial than longer structured sessions.
Speech Therapy Corner
Is Your Child a Gestalt Language Processor?
Did you know that some children learn language in a different way? Rather than starting with single words, Gestalt Language Processors (GLPs) often learn and use longer phrases or "chunks" of language they have heard from parents, favorite shows, books, or songs. For example, a child may say, "Let's go on an adventure!" instead of simply saying “go."
These phrases, called gestalts, are meaningful communication and an important part of language development for many children. Over time, children learn to break these longer phrases apart and create their own original sentences.
Signs your child may be a Gestalt
Language Processor include:
- Repeating phrases from movies, TV shows, or favorite people
- Using longer memorized phrases instead of single words
- Seeming to communicate more through scripts than individual words
- Mixing parts of familiar phrases together in new ways
Therapist Tip
Gestalt language development is a natural language-learning style, and with the right support, children can continue progressing toward flexible, self-generated language. If you have questions about your child's communication development, talk with a speech-language pathologist to learn more.
Meet The Team
Connie Bailey
Clinical Director & Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant (COTA)
This month, we’re excited to introduce Connie Bailey! With 26 years as a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant, Connie has dedicated her career to helping children reach their fullest potential. She has also worked with the Department of Developmental Disabilities, supporting individuals with special needs. While she’s received an Outstanding Employee Award, Connie says the relationships she’s built with families have been the most rewarding part of her career.
Outside the clinic, Connie enjoys reading, baking, crafting, golfing, bowling, walking her dog Maverick, and spending time with her family. She’s a proud wife, mom of three, and grandma to two. Her favorite dessert is crème brûlée, her motto is, “Not today, Satan!”, and she dreams of visiting Japan during cherry blossom season.
Connie’s compassion, positivity, and dedication make a lasting impact on the children and families she serves. We’re grateful to have her as part of the SkyBreak Therapy team!
Stay Connected with SkyBreak Therapy
Leave a Google Review
Share your experience with SkyBreak Therapy on Google and receive a Starbucks Gift Card as our thank you. Simply leave your review and let our front desk or team know to claim your gift card.
Refer a Friend
Know a family who could benefit from therapy services? When your referral becomes a client, you’ll receive a $50 groceries gift card to Winco or Walmart as a thank you for helping us connect with more families in our community.
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