Hi, my name is Mandy and I’m a recovering perfectionist! I’m also a student mom to two teenagers. I’ve been working in schools in Johannesburg for 20 years and I’m passionate about helping big...

Strengthening Little Fingers and Hands
Hand strength is an important area of development. Kids who struggle with hand strength may have difficulty with grasping a pencil, colouring, holding, using scissors, attaching a seatbelt, squeezing a glue bottle, opening, and managing food containers or tying their shoes. However, there are tons of creative and playful activities for kids that can target hand muscle strength. We explore one of our favourite activities in this blog. Try it with your little ones…we promise that they’ll have heaps of fun!
Stimulate Your Baby – Milestones and Activities for 6-9-Month Olds
Developed by occupational therapists, the Stimulate your Baby series covers x5 developmental areas. The video series can be found on the Clamber Club YouTube channel. SEEING AND LOOKING What your...
Surviving Burnout
Definition: to ruin one’s health or become completely exhausted through overwork. Our lives are extremely busy…and getting busier each day. Work, home, social activities, friends, families,...
Stimulate your Baby – Milestones and Activities for 3–6-month-olds
Developed by occupational therapists, the “Stimulate your Baby” series covers x5 developmental areas. The video series can be found on the Clamber Club YouTube channel.
How To Develop Gross Motor Skills
Helping children stay physically active is essential to promoting healthy habits that last a lifetime. When you make physical activity fun, kids are likely to participate. In this blog we look at...
Fine Motor Development
The branches of a tree develop from the base of a good trunk. In terms of your child’s development, their “tree trunk” is made up of big muscles found in the back, tummy, shoulders, arms, and legs....
Optimizing your Baby’s Development
Optimizing your baby’s development is something we all want to do for our babies. But how and where do you start? It’s probably hard to imagine now, but what we do to enhance development in the...
Stimulate your Baby – Milestones and Activities for 0–3-Month-Olds
Developed by occupational therapists, the “Stimulate your Baby” series covers x5 developmental areas. Covering milestones and activities for caregivers and babies, this informative series has been created in video format, and can be found on the Clamber Club YouTube channel.
The ABC Approach to Positive Discipline
Research shows that for a child to learn, they must feel that they are being accepted unconditionally and that they have the freedom to express their emotions. When a child feels heard, they are less likely to escalate their behaviour to get their message across and are likely to be more responsive to the next step.
x10 Rough & Tumble Games
Rough and tumble play stimulates the balance receptors and promotes a child’s use of protective reactions. Read more about how playing in this way can be invigorating and fun.
The Cardboard Box Approach
Putting the children at the heart of our pedagogy, in the very essence of the planning of the physical environment, the sourcing of materials, resources and equipment ensure that every child is excited to learn. Children feed into every aspect of the intent, implementation, and delivery of the quality of care and education being delivered. The setting is their place to feel contained and learn respect, emotional intelligence, and all about themselves, who they are and what they are capable of.
Helping my Child to Emotionally Regulate
In my clinical work with both children and adolescents, there is a certain skill that becomes a strong predictor of wellbeing, healing, and adaptation, and this is the skill of regulation....
Great Ideas to Promote a Healthy Tactile System
When the tactile sense is fully functioning, children are secure and organised enough in their bodies to be able to respond to all of the other sensory information they encounter each day. They...
Eating the Rainbow
“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true” (Y, Harburg). Whether you hear the soft melody of Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz… or Israel...
Promoting a Healthy Posture
Babies develop naturally healthy alignment by moving in instinctive ways. In this blog we explore x3 top baby positioning tips to promote a healthy posture in young infants.
Body Space Awareness
It takes a lot of practice for kids to learn where objects are in relation to their own bodies and how to move their bodies to achieve a desired result, such as kicking a ball or crawling through a...
Child-Led Play – The How And Why
‘Play, reflected back, is the creation, and validation of a meaningful relationship with the world’ --Winnicott in van Eerden 2010. As a mother I marvel at the deep focus and intricate layers of...