Cotton-Ball Derby & Thick-Shake Straw

The mouth is one of the body’s most powerful regulation switches, and a 5-year-old can learn to flip it on purpose. The trick is resistive oral input — work the lips, cheeks, and jaw have to push against. Slow, sustained blowing (nudging a cotton ball across a table) and effortful sucking (pulling a thick smoothie up a narrow straw) tend to be calming and organising, while crunchy, cold, or sour mouth-play tends to be alerting. These two playful games give a child a discreet, portable tool — a way to settle when the world feels like “too much,” or to perk up when they’ve gone floppy. (This is resistive mouth play that moves an object, not slow belly-breathing.)

  1. Cotton-Ball Derby (blowing). Mark a start line and a goal at opposite ends of a smooth table with tape (or two cups as goalposts). Set a cotton ball or pom-pom on the start line; the child gets down so their mouth is level with the table.
  2. “Big slow breath in through your nose… now a long steady blow to push it to the goal.” Long, controlled puffs travel farther than frantic bursts — let them discover that. Race a sibling lane-against-lane, then make it harder: swap in a ping-pong ball (more push needed) or blow through a straw for a more focused puff.
  3. Thick-Shake Straw (sucking). Offer a genuinely thick drink — a yogurt smoothie, a thinned applesauce, a milkshake — in a cup with a narrow straw. “Pull it allll the way up — make your cheeks work hard.” The thicker the drink and the thinner the straw, the more effort, and the more organising the input.
  4. Use the straw as a calming ritual at a predictably hard moment — the transition home from preschool, the wind-down before a meal, or any time the engine is running too fast.

Variation (the alerting version): when your child is under-powered — sluggish, foggy — flip the toolkit to crunchy (a carrot stick, a few pretzels), cold (an ice pop), or mildly sour (a lemon-ade sip), or a party blower, kazoo, or whistle for a burst of resistive blowing with a fun noise. Other blow-play: keep a feather or tissue aloft, blow bubbles into a cup of milk through a straw (a huge favourite), or spread blow-paint across paper. Build a little “engine kit” the child decorates and let them learn to choose which tool their body needs.

Requirements

  • Space: A tabletop and a chair; the whole thing fits on a kitchen table or a tray
  • Surface: A smooth, hard table for the blowing game (cotton balls stall on rough or cluttered surfaces); a stable seat for drinking upright
  • Materials: Cheap and household — cotton balls or pom-poms (and a ping-pong ball to level up), drinking straws in a few widths, and one thick drink (yogurt drink, smoothie, milkshake, or thinned applesauce); optional feather, a glass of milk for bubble-blowing, washable paint, a party blower or kazoo; tape or two cups for goalposts
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child; works beautifully as a two- or three-child race, each in their own lane; each child gets their own straw — never shared
  • Supervision: Close and active — small round objects plus straws plus a 5-year-old's mouth means an adult stays within arm's reach the whole time and packs the pieces away after; not a leave-and-go activity

Rationale & Objective

The objective is to hand a child a portable, increasingly independent oral self-regulation tool — a concrete action they can take with their own mouth to nudge alertness up or down, without an adult managing their state for them. The mouth and jaw are rich in proprioceptors, and effortful sucking and sustained resistive blowing deliver deep, organising “heavy work” to the mouth, which tends to dampen arousal and help the nervous system organise — the same principle as proprioceptive heavy work for the whole body in sensory-diet practice. The clinical rule of thumb is that chewing and sucking tend to calm while crunchy, cold, and sour inputs tend to alert; the Alert Program makes the mouth one of its five strategy channels for changing “engine speed,” and Dunn’s model explains why some children actively seek oral input to stay regulated. Early on the adult offers the tool; over time the child learns to self-initiate — sipping water through a straw when a room is too loud, asking for a crunchy snack when floppy — which is real, transferable self-regulation. As a welcome secondary benefit, resistive blowing and straw play also strengthen the lip, cheek, and jaw coordination and breath control that support feeding and speech sounds. Honest framing — oral sensory strategies are common in OT practice and are low-risk and fun, but controlled evidence specific to oral input is thin; a recent systematic review found strong evidence for deep-pressure input and for caregiver training, but oral techniques were not among the well-evidenced practices. Treat this as a playful tool worth trying and observing for your child, not a proven treatment.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: engages only as a game with the adult fully running it; blows in short frantic bursts that scatter the cotton ball, or gives up on the thick straw as “too hard”; doesn’t yet connect the activity to how their body feels
  • Developing: with coaching, produces a long, steady blow that moves the cotton ball to the goal and can pull a thick drink up a narrow straw; accepts the tool when an adult offers it at a hard moment (“let’s do a thick-shake sip”)
  • Proficient: notices a body state in words (“I feel wiggly,” “I’m tired”) and, when offered a choice, picks the matching tool — a calming sip versus a crunchy or sour wake-up — and uses it with little help
  • Advanced: spontaneously reaches for an oral strategy when their engine is off — discreetly sipping water through a straw when a place feels overwhelming, or asking for a crunchy snack to focus — and can explain why (“the straw helps my body calm down”)

Safety Notes

  • Choking and inhalation is the top risk: cotton balls, pom-poms, ping-pong balls, and straw pieces are all hazards; stay within arm’s reach the whole time, coach blowing out only (demonstrate first), and never let a child inhale or sniff a pom-pom; account for every piece and pack them away immediately after
  • Don’t use the blowing games with any child who still mouths, bites off, or swallows small objects — stick to the supervised straw-and-drink play (or a bubble-straw and a feather only)
  • Straw safety: use sturdy straws, watch for a child biting off and swallowing a chunk, and never run, walk, or lie down with a straw in the mouth — sudden movement plus a straw can cause injury
  • Sit upright while drinking and blowing; no lying down, crawling, or moving around with food or a straw in the mouth
  • Check all snacks and drinks against your child’s allergies and your family’s food rules, and avoid known choking-shape foods; never share straws between children, and give each child their own cup

Hints

  • Playfulness: make it a real derby — name the cotton balls, call the race, add a tiny medal or a “winner’s roar.” For the straw, make a show of puffed “hamster cheeks” and how loud the last slurp can be
  • Sustain interest: rotate the prop every week so it stays novel — cotton ball, then ping-pong ball, then feather, then bubbles-in-milk, then party blower — kept in a small “engine kit” tin the child helped decorate, and let them pick the day’s game
  • Common mistake: framing it as breathing practice or correcting form (“breathe deeper!”). This is resistive play that moves an object, not slow belly-breathing — keep it light and let the resistance do the work; and teach it in calm moments, not for the first time mid-meltdown, so it’s ready when needed
  • Limited materials: a single straw and any drink covers the calming half; a torn-off piece of cotton wool or a scrunched tissue covers the blowing half. A wadded paper ball races just as well as a pom-pom
  • Cross-domain: count puffs to the goal or score the race (numeracy); name start/finish, “fast/slow,” “thick/thin” (vocabulary); notice how the body feels before and after (interoception); use blow-paint for art; resistive blow-play doubles as gentle oral-motor practice for clearer “p/b/w” speech sounds
  • Progression: light cotton ball → heavier ping-pong ball → blow through a straw for a tighter puff. For sucking: thin juice through a wide straw → thicker smoothie → applesauce or milkshake, narrowing the straw at each step. Adult-led game → child chooses the tool when offered → child self-initiates the right tool for their state

Sources

  • Ayres, A.J. (1972/2005). Sensory Integration and the Child (25th anniv. ed.). Western Psychological Services
  • Bundy, A.C. & Lane, S.J. (2020). Sensory Integration: Theory and Practice (3rd ed.). F.A. Davis
  • Dunn, W. (1997). “The impact of sensory processing abilities on the daily lives of young children and their families: a conceptual model.” Infants & Young Children, 9(4), 23–35
  • Williams, M.S. & Shellenberger, S. (1996). How Does Your Engine Run? A Leader’s Guide to the Alert Program for Self-Regulation. TherapyWorks, Inc.
  • Wilbarger, P. & Wilbarger, J. (1991). Sensory Defensiveness in Children Aged 2–12: An Intervention Guide for Parents and Other Caretakers. Avanti Educational Programs
  • Piller, A., McHugh Conlin, J., Glennon, T.J. et al. (2025). “Systematic review of sensory-based interventions for children and youth.” Frontiers in Pediatrics, 13, 1720179
  • American Academy of Pediatrics (HealthyChildren.org) — choking-prevention guidance for young children
  • OT Practice Framework (OTPF-4) — sensory and oral-sensory client factors