Floortime is the bread and butter of CTC. Learn more about Floortime and the DIR® model here each month!

January 2025 - Floortime at Home

As the weather cools, many children struggle with routine changes and decreased activities. Are you looking for a solution? If so … let’s PLAY! Floortime can be done anytime, anywhere, and by anyone! When there is downtime,  even at home, our kids need to be stimulated and kept busy aside from having screen time. Floortime benefits the whole family, and what better way to engage and build stronger relationships than by using your child's passions and creating meaningful experiences. 

• Any daily activity or chore can be turned into a fun time! Using affect and anticipation can turn a vacuum into a robot, or a hairbrush into a microphone. Foster executive functioning by playing chef in the kitchen, making cookies or pizza. Expand on that, and turn your kitchen into a five star restaurant. You can take turns role playing between the chef, the host, and the server!
• Need some exercise? A spontaneous dance party will get the whole family moving. Put on some Koo Koo Kangaroo, Brady Rhymer, Freeze Dance, Kids Bop, or any of your favorite songs and get dancing! Make up some simple and fun choreography;  nothing can be too silly.​

• Remember it’s all about the process and how we engage rather than the product, so get out some fun art supplies and get creative! Make a masterpiece using recycled materials or objects from nature. Practice fine motor skills such as cutting, gluing and ripping. Half the fun of art is using your original ideas!
• Get messy! Shaving cream not only smells good and doesn’t stain, but it makes a great sensory play material too. Pretend you are making an indoor snowman or add some glitter to make it magical. Why not expand on the snow day and get some recycled paper, crumple it up to make snowballs and have a snowball fight in the living room!
• Blankets are not only for getting cozy. They can be used to play hide and seek, create blanket forts, and for the little ones, blanket swings! Expand using the blankets and get out the pillows for a fun pillow fight too!
• How about a game of flashlight tag or making shadow animals on the wall  in a dark room? Hang some pictures on the wall and have a glow in the dark scavenger hunt. 
• For more motor planning and visual spatial fun, create an obstacle course or use string or streamers to block off a hallway or doorway like a maze to get through.

Any activity can be turned into Floortime. Sometimes you have to be creative and think outside the box, but most of all, have fun, laugh, be silly, engage, and build everlasting memories!

​-Antoinette Price, Developmental Training and Support at Celebrate the Children