Heavy Work Activities for School

Try these heavy work activities to help improve focus and attention in the classroom. Simple activities to increase body awareness and calm kids for better learning.

Boy carrying stack of books for heavy work activity at school.

What are heavy work activities?

Heavy work activities are tasks that involve heavy resistance for the muscles and joints (i.e. activities that involve pushing, pulling, squeezing, moving, or heavy lifting). This resistive input provides a lot of information back to the muscles and joints to help organize the body, and can improve attention, body awareness, and muscle tone. This is particularly helpful for children who have difficulty with proprioception.

What is proprioception?

Proprioception is a form of sensory input to the muscles and joints which helps us understand where our body is in space. Proprioception is stimulated any time we push or pull on objects, or when our joints are compressed together or stretched apart. Running, jumping, crashing, hugging, climbing, pushing, lifting, and pulling are all ways that we activate our proprioceptive system. Proprioceptive input tends to have an organizing and calming effect on our body – especially when we are feeling overwhelmed or experiencing too much stimulation.

Boy hanging from money bars for heavy work input.

What are signs that a child needs more proprioceptive input?

Children who have challenges with proprioception can have difficulty grading and planning their movements. They also have difficulty with regulating their level of arousal (i.e. how excited or calm they are). They may seem disruptive, full of excessive energy, or even unsafe, but they are just looking for a way to calm and organize their nervous system. These are the crashers, jumpers, movers and shakers. They…

often accidentally break things
appear clumsy and uncoordinated
frequently bump into objects or people
have difficulty sitting still during carpet time
may fall out of their seat at their desk
frequently chew on their pencil or shirt

How to Choose the best Heavy Work Activities.

It may take a little trial and error to determine which heavy work activities are best for each student. It’s important to note which activities calm the student, which activities arouse them, and which activities over-excite them. This can be very unique to each child. Look for activities that your student is interested in and improve their state of arousal to its most functional point (i.e. not too calm and not too excited). After you have tried an activity, look for their response. Do they look more focused and relaxed or is the activity appearing to be making them overly excited? Do they seem to be moving better and have a better awareness of where their body is in space?

The most effective heavy work activities activate as many muscles and joints as possible at the same time for a short period of time. For activities involving less muscles and resistance, a longer duration may be required before you notice results. You’ll need to play around with both the activity and the duration to find the best heavy work activities for your kids.

Boy rolling out on a ball for heavy work activities.

How to use heavy work activities in the classroom.

Try using heavy work activities prior to quieter desk activities to help with organizing and calming. These activities can also be helpful for those students that have difficulty staying in their seats, are constantly fidgeting, or appear disruptive. These work best if you can do them before your child really starts to lose attention.

There are many different heavy work activities that can be incorporated into the school day. Many can be done within the classroom with very little space. If some kids need more time or space, you could try doing them in empty hallways, at the playground, or in an activity/sensory room.

Helping Activities

Here are some ideas for students that like to help out within the classroom or school…

Take down chairs at the start of days or place chairs on the desks at the end of the day,
Help to rearrange desks, chairs or other objects within the classroom.
Place chairs on desks at the end of the day or take them down at the beginning of the day.
Erase chalkboards or whiteboards. Cleaning on the chalkboard or whiteboard, wiping down a table, or scrubbing off a dirty surface all give great proprioceptive input through the upper body.
Move packs of paper for the printer/photocoopier.
Help to stack chairs.
Fill plastic crate or basket that kids can carry with books or other items to take to the office or other classrooms.
Help the gym teacher set up and move equipment such as mats, carts of balls, etc.
Carry books with both hands hugging them into chest.
Staple paper onto bulletin boards.
Help with classroom chores such as recycling, sweeping, emptying wastebaskets, etc.
Open heavy doors and hold open for people.

Gross Motor Activities

Sometimes students may require more gross motor movement and bigger input. These activities could include…

Jumping on a trampoline or other jumping activities.
Running around the track.
Hanging from the monkey bars.
Climbing activities. (i.e. on the playground or a rock climbing wall)
Ball activities using a weighted ball.
Marching, stomping, or running in place.
Using a scooter board to move to and from a designated location.
Having the child pull someone on a scooter board using a hula hoop.
Hanging from the monkey bars.
Having the child lay on their back holding onto a therapy ball with their arms and legs. Try to take the ball away and tell the student to hold onto the ball as hard as they can.
Animal walks such as crab walks, bear walk, kangaroo jumps, etc.
Bounce on a hippity hop ball or exercise ball.
“Hot Dog” game where child lies across end of a blanket or may and is rolled up (ends up inside the blanket with head sticking out. Can apply some light pressure if child likes.
Pushing against a wall with both hand or doing wall push-ups.
Playing with a body sock.
Tossing and catching heavy bean bags.
Wall sits.

Child working on heavy work activities at a desk using putty.

Heavy work activities that can be done in sitting

Sit in bean bag chairs. Bean bag chairs are a great alternative seating position for a quiet or calm space. The added input can have a calming effect and help improve focus while reading or doing other quiet activities.
Squeezing and pulling activities with hands such as koosh balls, theraputty, squishy balls, etc.
Chair push-ups.
Tearing heavier paper.
Crumpling up paper and tossing it into a bin or basket.
Have the child color a “rainbow” with large paper on the floor in a hands and knees position.
Tie a theraband around the front legs of a chair or desk that the student can kick their legs into
Chewy candy breaks {or can chew gum if this is allowed at school}.
Other items that can be safely chewed on such as chewlery.

I hope these ideas help to get you started with some heavy work activities in your classroom or at home. Do you have any other favorites that work well?