Looking for ideas to work on scissor skills? Do you need a quick craft idea to add to your therapy line up to address skills like scissor use, bilateral coordination, hand strength, or visual motor skills? This Ghost Craft is a fun Halloween craft idea that kids can do while boosting the skills they need for scissor skills and other fine motor skills. Use this ghost craft idea to work on occupational therapy activities and OT goal areas in a fun and festive way, perfect for Fall activities and ghost theme therapy ideas! Here is another quick and fun ghost craft that will boost those fine motor skills. 

As therapists, we often times see clients with vision needs that impact functional skills. Visual processing is a complex topic and convergence insufficiency is just one area. Read below to find out more about convergence in kids, to understand exactly what is convergence insufficiency, and how convergence plays into functional skills and learning.

**DISCLAIMER** I am not an optometrist, ophthalmologist or vision therapist. All information in this post is informational in nature only and should not be utilized in place of the appropriate professionals treatment and evaluations.

Primitive Reflexes impact a child's ability to function in so many ways. Learning about primitive motor reflexes is something that we've all gone through as therapists during our school career during those days in occupational therapy schools. There are many questions about primitive reflex integration, too. Specifically what is a reflex and what is reflex integration. That's why I wanted to put together some information on primitive reflex integration, including books about primitive reflexes so that a collection of tools are available for anyone researching reflexes and their impact on functioning. You'll also find more resources on primitive reflex integration including courses on primitive reflexes.

In this post I will share with you a super fine motor tool kit that will reach a variety of kiddos and probably contains many items that you already have on hand.

It’s back to school time and all of us are beginning to think about how we want to approach the new school year. We feel re-energized and rejuvenated and are looking for some new therapy tools to start off the year. If you are like me, you want an easy and fun start to the school year for all!

The beginning of the year is a busy time for the occupational therapist, determining caseloads, organizing forms, reviewing goals, scheduling kids, and collaboration with the staff and your team.

After all of this OR during all of this, you start seeing kiddos for services and you want something that is easy, something that addresses OT goals, and something that is fun for the kids while helping build a rapport. Why not a fine motor fun kit? It is low key and helps transition into the new school year without a lot of stress.

As an added bonus, you can scroll to the bottom of this post to get a free back-to-school download for planning therapy themes this school year.

As the leaves begin to change colors and fall, and the pumpkin spice everything is in the air, it's a great time of year to add some fall themed activities to your therapy toolbox or even just add to play! Try a few of these fall fine motor activities to encourage and strengthen fine motor skills, a tripod grasp, fall fine motor activities for preschoolers, fall ideas for toddlers, or fall occupational therapy activities!

Fall Fine Motor Activities

These fall fine motor activities are ones that boost the skills kids need for tasks like pencil grasp, managing clothing buttons and other fasteners, manipulating small items, opening containers and so many other fine motor tasks! Enjoy the season of Fall with a fine motor twist!

Crunch leaves- This is a seriously satisfying activity, according to my kids! Read more about using the season's finest splendour in a Fall Leaves occupational therapy activity that can be used to work on auditory processing, sensory play, bilateral coordination, crossing midline, and fine motor skills like arch development, grasp strength, separation of the sides of the hand, and more. 

Add fall fun to play dough with this Fall Fine Motor with Play Dough. It's an easy way to encourage small hands to develop the strength needed in the intrinsic muscles of the hands as they manipulate play dough with a few extras from the season. Use a fall scented play dough to add to the activity.

Cut Leaves with Scissors. If you live in an area with colorful fall foliage, use those leaves to work on scissor skills! Kids will love to cut leaves into small pieces or snip shapes from leaves. Make art with the leaves by glueing them onto paper or just snip and cut! We worked on line awareness by adding lines to our leaves, but you could just work on snipping leaves in half or cutting around the edges. If you are in an area without colorful leaves that fall this time of year, just use paper leaves or whatever you've got in your area.

Use Fall Leaves to work on Pre-Writing Lines and Visual Motor Skills. This is a fun way to work on visual motor skills needed for pre-writing tasks like forming and copying shapes and letters. Kids can work on crossing midline and the eye-hand coordination needed for writing, all using colorful fall leaves. This activity would work with acorns, seeds, or other small seasonal items too.

This Fall Leaves Craft uses leaf shapes to work on bilateral coordination, tripod grasp, eye-hand coordination, and more as kids create a seasonal fall craft. This fall craft may be better for older kids, but it's a great introduction to sewing too.

There is just something about punching holes in leaves! Really boost that hand strength by Punching Holes in Leaves with a Hole Puncher. This activity uses fall leaves to strengthen the gross grasp of the hand while creating leaf confetti. Kids can pick up and manipulate the leaf holes to really work that pincer grasp. Glue the small circles onto a paper to along a line to promote more eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills.

This Pumpkin Stamp Art is an old craft our our website that really boosts fine motor skills with a fall pumpkin theme! Kids can create stamp art with a paper towel tube or toilet paper tube while working on skills like grasp and precision of grasp, crossing midline, and arch development. This is a great craft for a small group or for a therapy caseload to complete with various graded components based on individual needs.

Fall Fine Motor Apple Tree Activity- This is another fall fine motor activity that uses a hole puncher to really boost hand strength and gross grasp. Punching holes with a hole puncher allows kids to strengthen their hand strength while encouraging skills like bilateral coordination and eye-hand coordination. 

A Fall Fine Motor Apple Seed Activity can be just the thing for toddlers to practice eye-hand coordination needed to scoop and pour objects. This activity encourages pincer grasp, in-hand manipulation, separation of the sides of the hand and other fine motor skills like precision of grasp. What fun!

MORE Fall Fine Motor Activities Kids will LOVE...

A fall fine motor craft like this Thumbprint Pumpkin Craft can be a powerful tool to promote separation of the sides of the hand, finger isolation, as well as strength and dexterity of the radial or precision side of the hand. This precision of the thumb that occurs in thumbprint fine motor crafts is especially important as distal thumb flexion can be helpful in dexterity in a tripod grasp when holding a pencil. 

Ahhh, sunflower seeds are a tool that can be used in so many fall fine motor activities for kids! From the pincer grasp needed to hold them to the in-hand manipulation necessary to manipulate them within the palm, sunflower seeds are a creative and fall festive way to encourage fine motor strengthening and development this season! Kids can make this Fall fine motor Sunflower Craft and really boost those fine motor skills with a fall craft that will look great hanging on the wall!

There's another seed this season that plays a big part in the development and strengthening of fine motor skills! Pumpkin Seeds! Pumpkin seeds can be used to improve dexterity, grasp precision, in-hand manipulation, arch development, grasp strength, and so many other areas. Use food coloring or liquid watercolors to dye pumpkin seeds after they've been scooped out of a pumpkin. (Get the kids in on that fine motor task, too!)  The, use those colored pumpkin seeds to scoop, sort, drop, pinch, and play while building fine motor skills. You can find the directions to color pumpkin seeds and read all about why and how this activity helps kids build fine motor skills in our Fall Fine Motor Activity with Colorful Pumpkin Seeds activity.

THEN, use those colored pumpkin seeds to extend the fine motor fun even more by creating a Fine motor Fall Suncatcher that kids can make and hang on a window. Let the kiddos get in on hanging the suncatchers because working on a vertical plane is an awesome way to strengthen the core and proximal shoulder/shoulder girdle which is oh, so important for fine motor tasks!

One more way to address fine motor needs this fall is to save up those bread ties. The plastic bread ties that you find on loaves of bread or items like bagels are great for manipulating and strengthening fine motor skills. Kids will love this Bread Tie Ghosts Fall Fine Motor Activity where kids can manipulate and manage bread ties while strengthening fine motor skills this fall!

What are your favorite fall fine motor activities for kids?

One thing that is apparent in our Handwriting Group on Facebook is the very real need  that parents and teachers struggle with when it comes to teaching letter formation. 

(Want to join the group? The link is at the bottom of this article!) 

So many members of the group question how to teach letter formation. They wonder where to start with teaching kids to write letters or they are challenged by kids who have formed bad habits with letter formation. They are seeing kiddos who form letters incorrectly or don't know where to even start to teach letters accurately from the beginning. Read on to find 10 creative ways to teach letter formation whether you are starting at the beginning with a young child or are addressing those pesky bad handwriting habits that have resulted in poor letter formation and therefore, legibility.

Creative Ways to Teach Letter Formation

These fun handwriting activities are those that add a fresh concept to teaching letter formation. You can use these ideas to teach pre-writing skills or to work on specific letters.

But first, consider these thoughts when teaching kids to write letters...

When using the ideas below, it's typically recommended to start with uppercase letters because of the simplified forms and letters that for the most part, start at the top and are formed in a downward pencil stroke, which is developmentally appropriate for young children. Read more about the order to teach letters like cursive letter order here.

Using a non-pencil activity to teach handwriting can be the trick to get kids interested in writing!

10 Ways to Teach Letter Formation

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1.) Work on letter formation by "building" letters- This is a question for some parents, teachers, and therapists. Sometimes we see children who construct letters by parts, but use inappropriate letter formation when building letters. When writing a lowercase letter "d", they might draw a circle and then draw a line, without the re-trace. Drawing or building letters can have inefficient consequences if kids are just allowed to copy letters inaccurately and without being taught. So often, we see this in those writing tray videos over on Pinterest or Facebook. Read more about writing trays and handwriting and how to use writing trays to effectively teach letter formation. Teaching kids wot build letters with proper sequence in each letter formation is essential! This color-coded letter building activity teaches kids to start at the correct starting spot and to pick up the pencil when necessary. Try this activity for those children who respond well to visual cues. Adding a kinetic twist to teaching letter formation can be just the tool that makes formation stick! Therapists love these hands-on letter parts in the Fundanoodle Letter Kit that allows kids to form the parts of letters and recognition of descriptive terms like big line, little line, big curve, little curve that many who use the Learning Without Tears program love!

2.) Teach Letter Formation with a Writing Tray- The fact is, using a sensory writing tray for handwriting is a technique to practice proper letter formation is a way to incorporate multiple senses into learning letter formation. Be sure to encourage proper starting points and direction of letter lines such as starting letters at the top and lifting the writing utensil when appropriate to form parts of letters such as the curves in a "B" or the slanted little lines in a "K". Writing trays can come in all sorts of themes, sizes, and using all types of mediums. You can even create a mini-sensory writing tray like we did. Take it along in your therapy bag or on-the-go to learn and practice letter formation anywhere!

3.) Use the Sandpaper Letter Trick to Teach Letter Formation- Use a sheet of sandpaper to work on letter formation! This multi-sensory activity uses the senses to teach letter formation, by providing feedback for pencil control and line placement. Adding a quick sheet of sandpaper to your therapy toolkit is an easy way to work on letter placement by adding additional prompts to handwriting.

4.) Teach Letter Formation with Soap- Kids can learn to write letters in shaving cream, soap, and even pudding! Using multi-sensory strategies to work on letter formation can help kids remember the proper formation. So often we see strategies that are taught in isolation and then not carried over to the classroom or home. When a child is asked to write with increased speed or in a distracting environment, we may see letters that revert back to those bad habits. Adding sensory activities to letter formation such as writing in soap, shaving cream, or sandpaper can provide the feedback kids need to add just one more cue for formation. Remember to provide instruction in proper letter formation and line placement and not just setting up a child with an activity and then letting them "play and write".

5.) Teach Letter Formation with Gross Motor Play- Sometimes, adding a movement component to teaching letter formation can be all it takes to make letters "stick"! There are so many options for adding gross motor to letter formation. These Upper Case Letter Muscle Mover Cards provide an opportunity to learn letter formation with gross motor movement. Each card has an uppercase letter on one side and a corresponding animal and gross motor activity on the other. Includes an O-ring for storage and a dry-erase pen. There is also a lower case version of these muscle mover cards that promote optimal letter formation for the lowercase letters of the alphabet. Both versions are laminated cards that are very durable and can be used with dry erase markers, wiki stix, and play dough to practice forming letters. Use the muscle mover cards for fun “brain breaks” to get the kiddos up and moving while teaching letter formation.

6.) Teach Letter Formation on an alternate surface with a sensory bag- Fill a sandwich bag with soap, foam, or other liquid material and practice letter formation. You can even tape the sensory bag onto a wall or window to practice letter formation. Read more about how to create and use a sensory bag to teach letter formation in this older post on sensory handwriting. 

7.) Use a resistive surface to teach letter formation- The motor plan needed for letter formation can occur with practice on a resistive surface. We've shared ideas to teach letter formation on resistive surfaces such as using carpet squares or carpet scraps, a styrofoam tray to learn letter formation, and foam sheets to teach letter formation.

8.) Teach Letter Formation with the "Ghost Writing" Trick- Have you tried the ghost writing trick to teach letter formation? It's a fun way to explore the pencil strokes needed for letter formation as well as skills needed for legible handwriting and pencil pressure in written work. 

9.) Use Boxes and Dots to Teach Letter Formation- This box and dot letter formation trick also helps kids learn letter size or spatial awareness in written work. It's also a tool to help kids who struggle with letter reversals. You can make your own paper or use graph paper to create a quick practice tool for teaching letter formation. 

10.) Help kids learn to write with a Kinetic Letter Formation- This is fun kinetic fine motor activity is another spin on adding resistive input and a motor component to letter formation, all using recycled materials or objects found around the home. Use a recycled can and push pins to teach letter formation while improving hand strength and fine motor skills. 

Do you have any letter formation activities that you love to use when teaching handwriting? Tell us about them! There are over 6,000 members in the Sweet Ideas of Handwriting Help Facebook Group that love sharing ideas to work on handwriting. 

With a new school year, it’s time to start thinking about kindergarten screenings, screenings for vision problems, and wondering how previously struggling kids will do in the next academic year. One of the largest challenges facing some of these kids may be unidentified vision problems. Read more to learn about how vision problems affect learning.

Typical vision screenings given by the pediatrician or school nurse test for acuity only. They do not look for any other underlying vision problems that a child may be experiencing that is hindering their overall development in reading and writing.

This article was written by The OT Toolbox contributor author, Kaylee Goodrich, OTR.

Visual Tracking is an important part of everything we do and visual tracking games can be a valuable resource to improving visual tracking skills! For tasks such as reading and writing, however, the ability to track visually across a line of written text is essential for reading and fluency in reading.

When kids read across a line of text in a book, they are using visual tracking skills to follow the line from word to work. When they follow a finger along lines in a book they are using visual tracking skills. When they shift their vision from one point to another, they use a combination of visual scanning and visual tracking skills. Visual tracking is a multi-faceted topic and you can read more about visual tracking and all that it entails in functional tasks here on the website.

Looking for a fine motor craft idea that boosts all of the underlying skills kids need? This fine  motor craft is a soap holder animal and it adds opportunities for skills like fine motor strength, precision of fine motor skills, dexterity, coordination, visual motor skills, and many more therapy areas. The best part is, after kids make this fun fine motor craft, they have a fine motor toolkit that can be used again and again to address the motor skills they need! Contributor author, Regina Parsons-Allen shares how to make a soap holder animal and use this fine motor craft idea to maximize the therapeutic benefits!

Fine Motor Craft- Soap Holder Animals

Soap holder animals are great busy box kits which are made with simple materials and come in their own storage containers. They address creativity, visual perception, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, problem solving and fine motor skills. Being stored within themselves makes them easily portable allowing a therapist to toss one quickly into their therapy bag or cart.

Kids love soap holder animal crafts and therapists will find they make for a cool and engaging therapy activity. Soap holder busy box kits fit the bill for many pediatric therapists who travel from site to site. They are a cheap and easy fine motor craft to transport, are easy to store, and are fun to create with an engaging focus on child skill development.

Therapists will find soap holder animal make for a great send home activity too! 

More benefits of a soap holder animal fine motor craft:

Children love opening the boxes to see what’s inside and they are intrigued by what they are able to create with them. They love crafting animals and making them come to life. 

Soap holder busy box kits allow for children to expand on their skills while also enjoying the high level of creativity that can be achieved. 

With these soap holder creations, children experience an improved feeling of success and achievement having used their own skills to create something fun and entertaining.

Many skill areas are hidden within the process of this fun activity.  Just the developmental benefits of bead stringing alone would be enough to make the activity worth using!  Bead stringing activities can help improve overall fine motor, visual perception, visual motor and cognitive skills. Functionally, bead stringing can help a child improve their pencil grasp and control for drawing, writing and coloring as well as improve their ability to manipulate fasteners on clothing. 

The skills and target areas addressed with soap holder animal crafts and use of these fun busy box kits include:

Bilateral coordination - The act of opening and closing the boxes, threading and un-threading the beads, and building legs or other appendages requires the child to use two hands together in a coordinated manner.

Pincer grasp and finger strength - Pinching small beads for placement and threading them requires a thumb to index finger pinch pattern and small muscle strength to manipulate and place the bead.

In-hand manipulation - Pinching small beads and turning them around within the fingers for placement requires coordination of the small hand and finger muscles working on shift and rotation movements.

Eye-hand coordination - Threading and un-threading beads and building legs or other appendages requires the child’s eyes and hands to work together.

Visual perception - Recalling the bead color pattern while searching for one specific bead color from a group of assorted beads requires visual memory, visual scanning and visual discrimination skills.

Executive functioning - Deciding what type of creature the child wants to make and organizing and planning their approach while also determining what kind of pattern they want to use and where to place the appendages requires organization, planning and problem-solving skills.

Graded Fine Motor Craft Kids Love

Soap holder busy box kits can easily be downgraded or upgraded by matching the type of materials used to the needs and abilities of the child or by modifying the approach and the necessary skills required to complete the activity.

A few considerations on adjusting this fine motor craft to meet the needs and skills of various children:

1. Consider the use of larger beads vs. smaller beads. Determine if the bead hole diameter is small enough or large enough to meet or challenge the child’s skills.

2. Use flexible string vs. pipe cleaners. (Be sure the string is flexible enough that the box lid can close once they are inserted and that beads do not easily fall off.)  Flexible string can provide a good challenge for some children.

3. Keep pipe cleaners full length or cut in half to make the activity more challenging for appendage placement, manipulation, and orientation.

4. Consider keeping the process simple by having the activity set-up for the child and then have them only string the beads.

5. Have the child simply string beads at random vs. following a color pattern.

How to Make a Soap Holder Animal Fine Motor Craft

Now that you know the total benefits and a few ways to grade the activity, here is what you need to create your very own soap holder animal:

Travel soap container with a flip-top lid
Assorted pony beads
Assorted paper straw beads (paper straws cut into beads)
Assorted pipe cleaners (either full length or cut in half)
Googly eyes (to tape or hot glue to the top of the soap holder) Self-adhesive googly eyes may work too, depending on the soap holder.

Soap holder busy bead kits are easy to assemble for use as a therapy activity or home busy box. Take a short time to gather the materials and use it all year long to build a multitude of skills with children.

They never get old as they may never be the same creation twice!

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About Regina:

Regina Parsons-Allen is a school-based certified occupational therapy assistant. She has a pediatrics practice area of emphasis from the NBCOT. She graduated from the OTA program at Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute in Hudson, North Carolina with an A.A.S degree in occupational therapy assistant. She has been practicing occupational therapy in the same school district for 20 years. She loves her children, husband, OT, working with children and teaching Sunday school. She is passionate about engaging, empowering, and enabling children to reach their maximum potential in ALL of their occupations as well assuring them that God loves them!

You can find all of Regina's posts on The OT Toolbox on her Contributor Spotlight page.

Let us know if you make this soap holder animal fine motor craft!

Travelling with kids to the city? Reading a book about a city? Learning about or teaching kids about geography or communities? This City Play Dough Mat is a supplement that can help with more skills than just adding to a city learning theme, all in a fun play dough activity! This free play dough mat has a city theme and a special component that boosts fine motor skills specifically hand strength, and the intrinsic muscles of the hands. Print off this city playdough mat and start playing and learning WHILE boosting those skills that kids need!

City Play Dough Mat

I love adding hands-on components to learning themes. It adds a special twist that really helps with recall when motor components are added. This city play dough mat is a great accompaniment to any community or geography theme. Kids can fill in the circles in the city skyline while building the fine motor skills they need for tasks such as endurance with writing or coloring, pencil control when forming letters, functional pencil grasp, management of buttons/zippers/other clothing fasteners, opening and closing of food containers, and so many other fine motor tasks!

For the child who struggles with fine motor skills or has a fine motor delay, this city play dough mat can be a fun way to build those skills. In fact, there are so many fine motor skills needed in school environments whether it occurs in the classroom or homeschool dining room. Building fine motor skills can make an impactful difference in learning and functional tasks!

How to increase hand strength with a play dough mat

Play dough mats are everywhere! Do a quick Google search and you will come up with tons of options for free printable playdough mats that kids can use. The thing is, though that just the act of playing with play dough on a play dough mat is a really power tool in strengthening little hands! 

In fact, there are so many ways to use a play dough mat to strengthen the skills kids need for fine motor tasks. 

One of the ways we have been focusing on here on The OT Toolbox with our recent play dough mat series is working the intrinsic muscles of the hands by rolling small balls of play dough in various sizes. Using the finger tips and thumb of one hand at a time to roll a play dough ball is an intrinsic muscle workout that builds the muscles of the thenar eminence, hypothenar eminence, the interossei, and the lumbricals. All of these muscle groups make up the intrinsic hand muscles which are those located within the hands. 

The intrinsic muscles are those responsible for nice, defined arches of the hands, the ability to separate the two sides of the hand, and to have nice, bulky muscle tone in the mass that makes up the base of the thumb and the side of the pinkie finger. These muscle groups help with dexterity, endurance, coordination, and controlled manipulation of small items and all things fine motor!

Use this Free Play Dough Mat with a City Theme in fine motor play!

Grab a copy of this free playdough mat by entering your email in the form below. You will receive the printable play dough mat in your email where you can download it and use it over and over again in your therapy toolbox. You'll also receive a couple of emails over the next week or so that provide resources and tools for increasing hand strength with play dough, along with all of the other free play dough mats we've shared here on the site. You'll definitely want to get in on this email action!

Want to strengthen the muscles in the hand to improve pencil grasp, scissor use, coloring, or fine motor coordination and endurance? 

Grab this FREE printable City Themed play dough mat to help kids strengthen the intrinsic muscles of the hands!

You'll also receive weekly emails that are loaded with resources and tools promoting the healthy development of kids.

To better serve you, please check all that apply. Are you:

occupational therapist / COTA

parent

teacher

Want to check out the other play dough mats we've shared recently? They are all designed to promote strengthening of the intrinsics and hand strength in kids! Here's the thing, though...you only need to enter your email into one of these pages listed below. As a subscriber, you get access to all of the free play dough mats. 

Free Astronaut Play Dough Mat

Free Outer Space Play Dough Mat

Free Ice Cream Play Dough Mat

Free Bird Theme Play Dough Mat

Be sure to grab the city play dough mat and use it for increasing hand strength in fun ways!