Valentine’s Day Snack Mix

Need a Great

Last Minute Preschool Snack for Valentine’s Day?

This was invented while rushing through the grocery store at 9:00pm after a long day.
I saw this Whole Heart cereal and grabbed it up.  It was on sale…I guess this is the week to eat heart shaped cereal 🙂

Little Guy is my early riser (and the one that wakes up everyone else in the house), so he and I got to making this treat eeeeeaaarly this morning.
He loved pouring the entire box of cereal and bag of m&ms into the big bowl.  I think his quote was
“this is the best idea you ever had, mom”.
We scooped the mix into baggies and added a little heart with a message for our friends.
That was easy! 

DIY Snowflake Stampers

This is a super easy and fun activity to do with the kids.
We have done this so many times recently…with all kinds of different foam stickers and the kids keep asking to do this craft again, and again, and again!

Save those bottle caps.  They come in handy for tons of crafts and activities. 
We did a similar Christmas stamper project…and used our stamped paper to make gift tags.  This would be fun for gift wrap too.  And, you can find all sorts foam shapes at the Dollar Store. 
(We love the Dollar Store for crafting and art projects!!

Enjoy today!
Colleen

Body Parts Activities for Toddlers

This body parts activities for toddlers is a fun activity to teach young kids about body part names using a baby doll. We love this body parts activities for babies, too because babies AND toddlers can relate to using a baby doll and adding band aides to different body parts!

body parts activities for toddlers

This body awareness activity is perfect for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. Kids LOVE to peel bandages and stick them onto a baby doll. They can stick the bandages (or paper or felt bandages for a pretend version) to use a baby doll to teach body parts.

I got this idea after Baby Girl had her most recent well child doctor’s visit, and she had a couple of vaccinations.  The next day, she was sooooo interested in her new band aides that the had nurse put on her leg. 
 
Baby Girl is getting pretty good at pointing to her body parts when we say “where is your head, where are your toes…” and you better act fast if you ask her “where are your eyes”.  The girl will come at ya with a pokey finger ready to show YOU where YOUR eyes are!
 
When a baby and toddler begins to show finger isolation to poke or point, this is finger isolation. This progression of fine motor skills is a progression from pincer grasp.
 
Our resource on fine motor milestones further breaks down this progression.
 
To further develop these fine motor skills with babies and toddlers, try fingerplay songs.
 
So, I used some of our felt sheets and cut up a few colored band aides.  I wanted them to be felt so they would sort-of stick to Baby Girl’s clothing if we laid them on her pant leg or sleeve…and I thought it would be fun for her to stick them to her favorite felt-y feeling baby doll.
 
body parts activities for toddlers
 
 
 
I set the felt band aides out along with some real band aides and some pieces from a play doctor’s set.
 
 
Playing with band aides is a really great fine motor task for preschoolers.  Peeling them open, and pulling the backs off of the sticky part…Sticking them down…All so perfect for fine motor dexterity, bilateral coordination, & tip-to-tip pincer grasp. 
 
If you find some band aides on sale or at the dollar store, pick them up.  You can use those buggers in all kinds of fun pretend play and craft activities.
 
 
 
See, she will poke eyes!! You gotta watch this girl, people! She pokes while she says in the cutest possible little voice, “Eyyyyyyyeeessssssss”.  At least while your eye is being poked out, you can hear that cute little word haha!  (You may not have vision from that eye for  a few minutes…but still.)
 

 

Big Sister and Little Guy had so much fun playing doctor and giving the baby shots, applying band aides, checking her temperature/ears/heartbeat…
 
Older kids can also use our bone names activity for learning bone names.

 

 

 
And Baby Girl was busy doing what she does best…
 
Being Her.
 
“hmmm. Yup, I think I better spill these last drops of milk on the table.  Yes. That was a great idea.”
 
 
 

 

She did do a pretty great job with the body part thing!  She showed me the baby’s chin and leg.

 

 
We stuck the felt band aides to Baby Girl’s elbow and belly.  They stuck pretty well on her fleece top.  And then stuck them in the same places on her baby doll. 
 

 

 
I have no idea why (or how) there suddenly was a sticker on the back of Baby Girl’s head.  I’m thinking Little Guy had something to do with this one.
 
Brothers.
 
 
This baby had a rough day.

 

 

 
Big Sister finished up by giving baby a little bath time. 
 
 
 
And then of course, baby needs swaddled.
 
and chest compressions, apparently.
 

 

 

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.

Share It Saturday #6 and our week in review

I brought the kid’s easel up from the basement after they were in bed one night so they would wake up to a fun surprise. They loved seeing it in our living room and the little message made them smile.
 
Here is a rundown of some other fun things we did…
Painting (turned into little brother painting big sisters hands and then beautiful hand prints).
A little geography lesson given by some cute little ladies.  Here they are teaching me where Santa lives!
Baking, baking, and more baking of some cookies for a fun event coming up this weekend.  This also involved making a run to the local resale store and making this cute tiered tray to hold the cookies.
And this week little guy was such a big helper, I just had to share this cute photo of him sweeping our floors.  He put on daddy’s hat and went to work, gotta love that!

We have been spending a little time on Pinterest to gear up for making pre school treat bags for the Valentine’s Day parties coming up next week.  Is it just me, or is Valentine’s Day getting a lil’ crazy with the school parties??? I remember signing my She-Ra (Princess of Power) Valentine’s Day cards and being done with….

These are only a few of our Favorites from this week.  Check out these lovely blogs.  These ladies have some fabulous ideas.

School Time Snippets created a slew of Penguin themed activities including cute penguins from toilet paper rolls.
Housing a Forest made and painted gorgeous icicles.  My kids would LOVE doing this!
Reading Confetti came up with a way to encourage literacy and fine motor skills using a Valentine box. How fun!

Shredded Paper Sensory Bin

Valentines day shredded paper sensory bin

We made a quick Valentine’s Day sensory bin using shredded paper one year and it was a big hit. This shredded paper sensory bin used paper from our paper shredded and some other materials found around the home as we worked on fine motor skills and tactile exploration. Here is another Valentine’s Day sensory bin to try as well. Both of these are great additions to your occupational therapy Valentine activities.

Valentines day shredded paper sensory bin

Shredded paper sensory bin

This sensory bin was a Valentine’s day activity for us, but the shredded paper sensory bin can be used with any theme. You could use any sensory bin base material but for this one, we’re using shredded paper.

You’ll need just shredded paper, some cardboard tubes, and pipe cleaners. Then add other scoops, stirrers, and other materials if you like: recycled bottle caps, cookie cutters, craft pom poms, etc.

To make this sensory bin, you’ll start by making colored paper.

You can also add Valentine’s Day sensory bin materials like the ones found in our new Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Kit. The Kit contains 25 pages of hands-on materials designed to develop and refine fine motor skills in kids, but some of those items are perfect for adding to sensory bins like this one. Simply cut (or have the child cut out) the images of hearts and other Valentine items. Then, you can scatter the sensory bin items into the sensory material. Hide them and have the child find them.

Valentines Day memory cards, color and cut activity and fine motor sheet

How to dye paper

To dye the paper, all you need are these items:

  • shredded paper from the paper shredder
  • a plastic bag
  • food coloring
  • water

First, place the shredded paper into the plastic bag. We used just regular junk mail, printer paper, and recycled newspapers and placed it into a plastic store bag.

Add a few drops of food coloring

I added about 10 drops of food coloring, and some water and tied the top up.  Just a few drops of water is needed. If you add too much, it will be a goopy mess, so start by adding a few drops at a time.

You could also use a gallon sized plastic zip top baggie and seal the top up tightly.

Next, ask the kids to shake the bag. This is a good way to incorporate movement and vestibular sensory input.

We shook the bag until all of the paper in the bag was coated in red color, and then poured the damp paper into a cardboard box to let it dry for a few days.  

Make a shredded paper sensory bin with hearts made from toilet paper tubes.

Shredded paper sensory bin

Once the shredded paper is dry, it is time to play.

The folded toilet paper tube hearts are a fun addition for wrapping with pipe cleaners for a fine motor workout.

Use a toilet paper tube or cardboard tube from a paper towel roll and fold it in half to create a heart shape. Kids can pinch along the length of the paper tube to crease the cardboard roll into a heart. Then, use scissors to cut the toilet paper tube into small heart strips.

What a fine motor workout!

Dyeing Paper with Food Coloring!

Use colored shredded paper in a Valentines sensory bin.

Little Guy and Baby Girl had a little spatula battle.  Oh, this girl LOOOOVES to play with her big brother and sister.  She loves the action and chaos the big kids bring to Every. Thing!

 

VALENTINES FINE MOTOR ACTIVITIES

If you need more hand eye coordination activities for Valentine’s Day fine motor fun, try the Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Kit.

The Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Kit is here! This printable kit is 25 pages of hands-on activity sheets designed to build skills in pinch and grasp strength, endurance, eye-hand coordination, precision, dexterity, pencil control, handwriting, scissor skills, coloring, and more.

When you grab the Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Kit now, you’ll get a free BONUS activity: 1-10 clip cards so you can challenge hand strength and endurance with a counting eye-hand coordination activity.

Click here to access the Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Kit and add these resources to your therapy toolbox.

Valentines Day fine motor kit

FREE THERAPY RESOURCES FOR VALENTINES

If eye-hand coordination, visual motor skills, and handwriting are tasks that you are working on with children, you’ll love both of these free therapy slide decks. Use them to outline occupational therapy interventions or to use in teletherapy sessions this time of year.

Free Spot It Handwriting Slide Deck

Free Gross Motor Valentine’s Day Activity Slide Deck

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.

 

Using Stickers to Help with Scissor Skills

There are so many fun ways to use stickers for fine motor skill development.

Stickers can be used in scissoring to work on accuracy, scissor control, snipping paper, manipulating the paper to turn corners and curves when cutting.  It can be really tricky for a kiddo to manage all of those areas if they have any fine motor/visual motor/eye-hand coordination…or any trouble area(s) that effects their ability to accurately maintain line awareness when cutting paper.
And for pre-schoolers, it can be really fun to use stickers in a cutting activity.
Anything that makes things different. Or silly.
It makes an activity Interesting!

We used some heart stickers in honor of Valentine’s Day…

(and also because we have millions of them)

to make some curves, squares, and angled lines…and to practice a little cutting!
This little bird stopped by to watch 🙂

What else can you do with stickers when practicing cutting…

~Cut along a line of stickers, like we did.
~Use a sticker only at the corners of an angled shape (the corners of a triangle) to signal when the child should turn the paper.
~Place stickers along the edge of the page, to show where the child should hold the paper with his “helping hand”, and signal when he should move his hand along.  This would be a good guide for kids with trouble coordinating both hands when cutting.
~For the child who needs help knowing when to open/shut the scissors to snip with smooth cuts, place stickers along the line signaling when to open/shut the scissors.  This can be a visual cue to assist the child.
~Using Fiscar scissors (or other scissors that have a smaller thumb opening): Sometimes kids will get mixed up about which opening their thumb goes in when they hold the scissors.  If they are holding the scissors upside down because of this, it can lessen the control they have when they cut.  Place a sticker on the scissors to they know which hole they should put their thumb into.
~Practice scissor control:  Place stickers randomly around a page and have the child cut from the edge of the paper up to a sticker and then stop before they cut into the sticker.
This was an easy and fun little activity!

Colleen

Easy Valentine’s Day Craft

We made window decorations using some contact paper, tissue paper, stickers, and bits of yarn. 
This was really easy…Trace a cookie cutter onto contact paper and let the kids go to town!
 Peeling stickers, pinching the tissue paper into little crumbles, and grabbing clumps of yarn bits all work on those fine motor skills.
I got a sweet little Valentine card from Big Sister while she worked.  Love it!
These fun sun catchers are looking Great on our window!

Ground Hog Day Theme Puppet Play

 Our Groundhog Day Puppet Show!
Today is Groundhog Day!  I’m not sure if people who are not from Pennsylvania even know about this day, but we in Western PA look forward to this day when Punxsutawney Phil comes out to see if he can see his shadow to predict how many weeks there are left until spring!  This silly and fun tradition got us thinking we needed a puppet show with a groundhog:)

Note: This post contains affiliate links.

Groundhog’s Day Puppet Pretend Play

We gathered up some supplies:
brown paper lunch bags
glue

brown yarn

googly eyes
I just grabbed what i thought would give it a nice brown color/smell- Pickling Spice worked perfectly!
The audience was patiently waiting!
There was a small incident where little brother dumped the entire bottle
of pickling spice out (oops)!  It was cleaned up easily and provided a
great smell.
 These little fingers had so much fun grabbing all those little spices and gluing them to the paper bag.
Big sister did a great job of cutting up the yarn to make fur for our groundhog.
 I was sure to purchase a ticket!
 Let the show begin!!!
~Leanne

DIY Lacing Cards (from a carry out container!!)

We had a clean take out container that was just asking to be made into something 🙂

Lacing Cards, of course!

Lacing cards are so important for pre-schoolers and kids of all ages to use in development of so many skills:
 Fine Motor Skills (tripod grasp), Motor Planning (figuring out how to pull the string allll the way through and push it through the other side), Visual Motor Skills (moving along hole to hole), Bilateral Coordination (using both of those hands together in a coordinated manner to hold the card and work the string)…
I asked them what shapes they wanted.  Big Sister chose a heart and Little Guy said his favorite shapes are an octagon or a pentagon (!).
They got started and loved it!
Little Guy needs a little work on the hole-to-hole thing haha!!
He was so into it!
The finished products…
We are gearing up for our 5th Share It Saturday link up…Hope to see you there!