10 Apples Up on Top Pre-Writing Activity

Colleen Beck OTR/L
Colleen Beck, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist and the owner and author of The OT Toolbox website. She manages all of The OT Toolbox social media accounts and runs the popular newsletter. Read about Colleen's experience and career as an occupational therapist, including how The OT Toolbox began on our About The OT Toolbox page: https://www.theottoolbox.com/about-us/ Colleen created The OT Toolbox in 2011 and since then has written thousands of blog posts designed to support therapy providers, educators, parents, counselors, admin, and caregivers in promoting the healthy development of kids. Check out Colleen's blog posts below:

Ten Apples Up on Top is one of our favorite books.  We do love finding fun books to come up with creative book-related activities.  In fact, we’ve covered this book before when we made baked cotton balls for a sensory fine motor activity.  

The book, Ten Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss is a great activity to us in a book club for kids and an awesome book for creative play and hands on learning. We went with a pre-writing activity based on the book using an apple theme, and had so much fun working on pre-writing lines with Ten Apples Up on Top in mind!

Ten Apples Up On Top Activity for Fine Motor and Learning

This Ten Apples Up On Top craft is a fun, hands-on way to target fine motor skills, visual motor integration, and early learning concepts in a playful format. Using beads as apples, children place them onto circles drawn on a piece of paper, creating a meaningful connection between movement, counting, and literacy.

Our resource on fine motor activities for preschoolers covers more on these areas. Refer to more information on preschool activities for other developmentally appropriate activities.

This activity works well in the classroom, therapy sessions, or at home and is especially engaging for younger kids and kindergarten learners. It combines motor development with early math and literacy skills, making it one of those top activities that supports multiple areas of development at once.

Building Fine Motor Skills with Apple Activities

As children place beads onto the drawn circles, they are strengthening the small muscles in their hands. This supports fine motor skills needed for writing, cutting, and daily tasks. Picking up and placing beads requires coordination and control, especially for little hands that are still developing precision.

Connecting the apples across the page adds another layer of skill-building. When children draw lines to connect each apple, they are working on pencil control, pre-writing strokes, and visual tracking. This helps prepare children for handwriting tasks while keeping the activity fun and meaningful.

Supporting Counting and One-to-One Correspondence

This activity is also a great way to build early math skills. As children count and place each bead, they are practicing one-to-one correspondence, matching one object to one space on the page. This foundational skill is essential for understanding numbers and quantity.

You can vary the number of apples used in the activity to match the child’s level. Try using different numbers for differentiation, making it appropriate for a wide range of learners. This makes the activity perfect for a math center or small group math lesson in the classroom.

Visual Motor and Pre-Writing Skill Development

After placing the beads, children can connect the apples across the entire paper, creating lines that support pre-writing development. These lines can be straight, curved, or zig-zag patterns to increase the challenge.

This part of the activity targets:

  • Pencil control
  • Visual scanning
  • Crossing midline
  • Directionality

These skills are important for handwriting, reading, and overall task performance in school-based activities.

Making It Engaging and Thematic

This activity can easily be adapted into seasonal or themed learning. For example, you can switch the apples to a pumpkin theme in the fall or use other small objects for different units of study.

You can also extend the activity by:

  • Using real apples for counting and sorting
  • Adding the activity to sensory bins for a tactile component
  • Creating a story connection where apples are stacked on the top of their heads like in the book

These types of engaging activities help keep children motivated while reinforcing important developmental skills.

Using This Activity in the Classroom

In a classroom setting, this activity works well as:

  • A math center activity
  • A fine motor station
  • A literacy extension paired with the book
  • A small group intervention activity

Clear instruction and visual models can help children understand expectations and complete the task independently. Teachers and therapists can easily adjust the difficulty level based on student needs.

 


 
Ten Apples Up on Top pre-writing activity

Ten Apples Up on Top book and pre-writing activity

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This activity is very easy to set up.  you’ll need only a few materials:
  1. Red pony beads 
  2. Markers
  3. Pencil
  4. Paper
 
To get started on this pre-writing activity, create small circles with a red marker on the paper.  This can be a job for the adult/parent/teacher/clinician.  
 
The circles should be about the size of the pony beads and you will want to make them going in two rows, one at the top of the page and one at the bottom of the page.  
 
You or your child can use the brown and green markers to add leaves and stems to each apple.
 
Show your child how to place a red pony bead on each circle.  Grasping the pony beads and placing them on the circles is an exercise in pincer grasp, opening of the thumb web space, and in hand manipulation.  
 
Each of these skills is needed for proper pencil grasp and it makes this fine motor activity a great handwriting warm-up exercise.

Ten Apples Up on Top pre-writing activity
 
Then, you can show your child how to draw a line from the top apple to the bottom apple on the paper.  They can continue to draw vertical lines connecting each pair of apples.  They should draw the lines going from top to bottom to best prepare for correct letter formation.
 
After completing a page of top-to-bottom vertical lines, kids can repeat the exercise by drawing horizontal lines across a page to connect apples.
 
Continue to add complexity to pre-writing skills by having them connect lines in a cross sign, an “x” and even in circles and curved lines.  We had to make a stack of ten “apples” and trace the line of apples, too!
 
How many ways can you think of using these apple markers to work on handwriting and pre-writing?  Maybe creating letters and connecting the apples would be fun.
 
Or, try using just one apple as a starting point for forming letters once the child is ready.
Ten Apples Up on Top pre-writing activity
 
Looking for more apple themed activities to go along with the book, Ten Apples Up on Top?  Try these ideas from the Virtual Book Club for Kids:

 

Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.

Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:

Letters Fine Motor Kit
Kit de motricidad fina de verano
Summer Fine Motor Kit
Outer Space Fine Motor Kit
Space Fine Motor Kit
Spring fine motor kit
Valentines Day fine motor kit
winter fine motor kit
Winter Fine Motor Kit

Or, grab one of our themed Fine Motor Kits to target skills with fun themes:

Want access to all of these kits…and more being added each month? Join The OT Toolbox Member’s Club!

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

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