National Bigfoot Day, also known as National Sasquatch Awareness Day, is celebrated on October 20th. The day commemorates the anniversary of the famous 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film, which captured footage of an unidentified, ape-like creature, commonly referred to as Bigfoot or Sasquatch.
A couple of years ago, quite by accident I found out that October 20th is National Bigfoot Day! I have always loved the thought of Bigfoot and the mystic surrounding him. I want to believe he is real. So, because we always love a reason to celebrate and we want to provide special experiences for our therapy kids, at our clinic we now have Bigfoot week! We have multiple activities for our kiddo’s to enjoy and we present the activities in a way to work on their therapy goals. The kids and the therapists love it. I have posted the following pictures and activities to show some of the fun ways we celebrate. I have also posted links to Amazon if you would like to make your own Bigfoot celebration! For me, any day is Bigfoot day!
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Our kids go on a Bigfoot Expedition! Their quest is to learn various skills to be able to get their Bigfoot hunting license, which is awarded at the end of their therapy session. What better place to hunt for Bigfoot than a campout! If you want to spot one you have to go where they are! They start at their campsite where their mission is explained. We listen to Bigfoot noises and learn how to be “sneaky” so we can see one.
Our campsite includes our Teepee tents, sleeping bags, lanterns, “wood slab” cushions, pretend fire and pretend s’mores. We use the Mickey Mouse campfire set which is now only sold through second hand sellers. It is great because to fire lights up and the marshmallow’s can slide on and off the stick and you can then build your s’more with pretend graham crackers and pretend chocolate. It also comes with cute Mickey Mouse plates. I will put the link, but I do not know what the availability is. There are other companies that make pretend camp fire and s’mores but I have not used them or seen them in person. I will include a link for them as well.
Unfortunately, due to not being able to make a real fire, the kids make s’mores in the microwave. They are still delicious! Give us S’more!!
Cooking s’mores! Pretend play is always important. Works on language skills, imitation skills, and cognitive skills. It’s also fun!!
Please see our section about how important pretend play is for children. It also gives them a space to problem solve and come up with solutions on their own. Even with our kiddo’s that have significant delays, we try to give them the time and opportunity to explore and learn in their own time frame. We also try to use a variety of materials to engage in play for sensory learning.
In our campsite we have the Astro Turf “grass” that has a scratchy feel. The boulders are weighted and provide heavy work when the kids have to move them. We encourage the kids to “set up” their campsite and arrange the boulders and logs where they want them to be. The logs and wood stumps are soft and squishy. The sleeping bags have s silky feel and we have the kids crawl in and our of them which gives them good proprioceptive input and works on body awareness. We also have the hard plastic of the fire, lanterns, and s’more utensils. With the boulders and logs, a great number of times, the children want to be on the floor with all of them piled on top of them. This is a good calming strategy for a child that might be getting overwhelmed. We have handouts about heavy work, what it means, ideas for activities, and how it is very useful for hyperactivity and emotional regulation located on our website.
We also will darken the room and only use the lights from the lanterns, fire, and from the lights on the fall trees, to make it feel more like dusk. Our kids that have light sensitivities or find it hard to calm down love the lower light and the weighted objects to help calm their systems. We also have night sounds the we play of crickets chirping and other night animals. The one we use will randomly have the howl of a wolf. The kids always anticipate it and look forward to hearing it. Then we answer the call and howl back.
We currently use a diffuser with forest smells such as pine trees or the Christmas tree to add in the sense of smell. I would love to be able to add a campfire smell and have been looking at candles, but have been unable to find the right scent that is tolerable to the majority. If anyone knows of a campfire candle that smells like a fire please let me know. I tried Disney’s Epcot Candle Rome Burning which smells great when you are riding Spaceship earth at Epcot, but is hard to recreate in a candle.
These are fun little lanterns that have 2 modes. They can be flickering yellow light like a flame or a brighter white light that is dimmable. The kids really enjoyed pretending to sleep in the tents and turning the light on and off.
Careful, it’s hot!!
Basically this is a game of freeze tag mixed with Hide and Seek. We work on listening to directions, attention, and multistep commands. The kids have to hide in the hideout (camouflage tent in the back of the picture) or in the trees on the count of 3 or freeze in place without moving.
Hide and Seek trees made with upside down tomato cages and strips of plastic table cloths. Put strips of brown on the bottom rings for the trunk and strips of 2 shades of green on the upper rings for the foliage. Then we hung ours from the ceiling. The plastic blows easily in the wind and the brush of the plastic on skin is a interesting sensory input.
The size is perfect for hiding if you are a child, or a bigfoot!
Making tracks!
A variety of skills can be addressed with this activity. It is a great sensory activity with smoothing out the sand. Depending on goals we have a rake they can use to smooth sand or use their hands. Strengthening and grasp patterns can also be addressed with the Velcro straps on the big feet and on donning/doffing shoes. It is also a great coordination/motor planning activity!
We have this poster and do a variety of animal tracks in the sand for the kids to identify animal tracks. They can also use the molds and make a variety of animal tracks in the sand.
Is that Bigfoot tracks?
We also have a other animal tracks that the kids can make in the sand and identify the animal that makes them. The opposite side of the mold has the animal that makes the print.
This side you stamp the print
This side you have to press the clay in the impression. We were using Crayola Model Magic. It has a great feel to it and is easily manipulated. We buy it in bulk with individual packages.
These are fun fine motor and sensory activities. For our kiddos that have limited mobility, we can make this a table top activity using sand, clay, playdough, etc. You can make it more or less resistive dependent upon the medium you choose to make the impression in. Both of these activities use various grasp patterns. Tasks include rolling, pressing, stamping, and pulling the clay away from the mold. Also strength and endurance on rolling into a ball and flattening the clay.
As they maneuver through the enviornment, we use balance beams and stepping stones to “cross” the river. Great activity for balance, coordination and motor skills. With the stepping stones we can also work on recognizing colors, attention, and language skills.
You need to eat in the woods! This is a fun Velcro game that you throw fish and blueberries at each other and you can catch it with your “paw” or with your “mouth”.
Works with visual motor skills, coordination, timing, and motor skills.
In our gym we hide various sized stuffed bigfoot’s (bigfeet? what is plural for a bigfoot?) the kids have to look up, down, and all around to find them. Again dependent on goals they might have to climb, jump, crawl, or swing to “catch” all of them.
Link to Aurora® Mysterious Fantasy Big Foot Stuffed Animal - there are 2 sizes of these and we have both sizes to hide in various places around the clinic.
Let’s picnic and eat s’mores!! Delicious! We also make hot chocolate for their camping experience. So many of our kiddo’s we see in therapy have sensory feeding issues. This is a good time to work on touching, smelling, tasting food items. Textures can be addressed by adding sprinkles to s’mores or hot chocolate. You can also add utensil use by using tongs for marshmallows, spoon usage for spooning hot chocolate and sprinkles. You could have the child read a recipe, measure the ingredients, and make the food/drink items. Sequencing skills, cognitive skills, language skills, sensory differences, and attention can all be addressed with this fun activity.
This is our fun make and take activity. We use a variety of moss, rocks, and sand to cover a slice of a wooden branch. Then we add our big foot and trees. The kids get to design their creation and I have seen some pretty spectacular ones. They will build rock formations, caves, standing stones, and forests. This is also a good sensory activity with all the different input from the moss, sand, and rocks. The moss and glue also has a slight smell that provides an opportunity to address olfactory sensitivities.
Yay! At the end of our session the child gets presented with their Bigfoot Hunting license.
New balance boards that we are trying this year.
New Games that we are trying this year! I’ll update after we have played them with the kids!
Fun times with Bigfoot! See you again 10-20 on National Big Foot Day!!
