Harkla Sensory Activity Dice – Fun and Effective Brain Breaks for Kids and Adults | Helps with Focus, Calm and Energy | Self Regulation for Kids | Occupational Therapist Approved

My son was born 14 weeks premature (and subsequently had significant complications in the NICU like sepsis). He is currently just over 3.5. While he “looks normal” — he isn’t. He has various complications likely due to his extreme prematurity — asthma, developmental delays, sensory processing and emotional regulation issues, feeding issues, and more. Not diagnosed ADHD or autistic (yet) but many indicators and he likely is both. He’s already getting the same services so it doesn’t really matter what the label is.While he is 3.5, developmentally he is more like 2. He is a petite little guy, wearing 2T. We see four private therapists per week (PT/OT/ST/feeding) and he goes to a special education developmental preschool.My career is in health insurance, too. I have been living and breathing this for years.We own numerous Harkla products (and competitor products)… in fact, I have written reviews about my son’s experience using some of their other products.My son also struggled with areas these dice are targeting - various aspects of ability to emotionally self-regulate.I am very pleased overall and find these safe for 3+. I love the concept, I love how easy these will be to integrate into our routine and make learning fun. I think these mainly “physical” moves will be good for him, too.I can’t wait to take these to the OT and discuss her thoughts on incorporating them and making the most of them. (I do love the content Harkla provides and find it generally great but we are very close with our own therapists who are more familiar with our son’s unique needs).ONLY complaint: this will not be uncommon in their target audience - children with tics/particularities. My son likes things clean and undamaged. If they are dirty or broken he can become highly fixated on cleaning and fixing them. :(These dice have seams that my son perceived as dirty and damaged (even brand new), and this was very frustrating to him. He desperately wanted them fixed. We’ve been working on the concept that damaged things are not broken, it’s ok to be damaged, etc…. But this is just one of his *things*.I was disappointed to see all 3 dice had similar notable/jagged/dirty looking seams. This isn’t what I typically expect of Harkla products. I am rating a full 5 stars for now… However, I am VERY excited for this product for my son and will update as we begin to use it more!

My son finds it difficult to sit still and remain focused for longer than 10-15 minutes at a time for most things, and we've found that these dice are a really great way interrupt an activity with little mini breaks to help him get out some wiggles so he can re-focus. The different colored dice encourage different types of energy: calming, alerting, and focusing. We usually start with the orange dice (alerting) a few times to get some energy out, then the blue dice (calming) once or twice, and sometimes we'll throw the green dice (focusing) if he is still interested in them.I've found that when he starts to seem restless or less focused when we are working on a project or learning something new, I can ask him if he wants to throw the dice a few times (he almost always answers with a yes), and after the dice activities we are usually able to get back to the original activity with renewed vigor or interest.My son and I both really like these dice and recommend them to folks whose kids could benefit from breaking up larger, more focused activities with occasional movement breaks.

Time to move, pick the activity. I like how this adds some random choice into getting kids involved in the movement break. Fun.KEY:⭐️ 1 star= Disappointed. I don't recommend it, it is poor quality, or it does not reflect the advertising.⭐️⭐️ 2 stars = Has some redeeming quality.⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3 stars = It's passable. I might not have bothered.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4 stars = Mostly Satisfied.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 stars = Entirely Satisfied. Recommend.

It’s a nice set of dice that has three different types of activities on them based on the color. Calming or awake and alertness or another type.Each side of the dice is a unique activity that will help to do whatever you need assistance with. The semi randomness of it also helps to ensure that you’re not forcing an activity on someone but rather it’s randomly chosen and it may help if they are an averse to something. It wasn’t chosen. It just happened to be that way.The screen printing is pretty good. The injection molding is a little rough and there’s some seams on the dice. A little bit of scraping with a knife helped clean that up. It would be nice if it was easier to remember what each of the colors meant. There is an instruction manual that comes with it, but that’s going to be lost after a few uses.

These dice are sturdy with wonderful sensory activities on each side. They has been very useful when I need some activities for my boys to do. We don't have to think, we just roll the die and it chooses the activity for us. I especially love that each color represents a different need, so we know which one to use (Blue = calm, Orange = alerting, Green = focus). The activities are pretty easy to understand, but for any that you are unsure about, they include a QR code on the last page of the instruction guide that takes you to their activity library.