October 2015

Ghost Craft Sensory Exploration

October 1, 2019October 9, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This Halloween Ghost craft was so beyond easy to throw together. I tend to save a little bit of everything to use in play, crafts, and fine motor/sensory/movement activities and use them in occupational therapy halloween crafts to work on a variety of areas with a fun fall theme. We have a pile of these plastic bread ties that I’ve been saving for a fun craft or learning activity. Today, we made an easy ghost craft with them and used these cutie pie ghosts in a tactile sensory exploration play. For another ghost craft that can be used at Halloween parties for kids or in OT this season, try this easy ghost craft that works on scissor skills or this recycled container ghost craft.

Ghost sensory bin with cute bread tie ghost craft. Lots of sensory bin tips and tools in this post, from an Occupational Therapist, including why sensory bins are so great for kids with and without sensory issues!

Ghost Craft for Kids

To make the bread tie ghosts, you’ll need just two items: (We’re including affiliate links in this post.)

These ghosts are just one way to use recycled materials in kids crafts.

Plastic Bread ties (you can save these from loaves of bread, bagels, and other grocery items.
A black permanent marker

Simply draw on eyes for each ghost. Done! Kids will like making this simple ghost craft and using them in sensory or fine motor play.

Fill a bowl with a sensory bin filler. We used dry black beans, but you could use any material. Some ideas are shredded paper, dyed rice, pumpkin seeds, dry split peas, cotton balls, or sand. The options are limitless. Ask your child for ideas, too. They probably have some some ideas that you might not have thought of!

Sensory bins and sensory play is important in discovery of materials, tactile exploration, and learning how a child’s environment works together. Not only that, but simple sensory bins like the one we made can encourage language development, self-confidence, and work on tactile defensiveness in kiddos. (This post is part of our 31 Days of OT series where I’m sharing free or almost free materials in Occupational Therapy activities.)

Start playing!

Ghost Sensory Bin

Sensory bins allow a child to explore textures through play. Discover, explore, and inspire creativity with a simple sensory bin like this ghost and bean bin. In Occupational Therapy settings, therapists might use a sensory bin like this to provide a calming period in a sensory diet or lifestyle. A sensory bin provides an opportunity for the body to slow down, much like a sensory bottle. It can be relaxing for a child who is overstimulated or hypersensitive to his or her environment. Some kids do not prefer to touch materials that are sticky, squishy, scrapey, or tickly. A sensory bin can allow a child to explore these textures and more in a confined area (a box, bin, bowl, or baby pool are some ideas.) Other kids who are easily overstimulated in their environment can benefit from a sensory play like a sensory bin be exploring the textures and getting a chance to calm down. Sensory bins can be small and perfect for hand activities, or big enough to hold the whole child. Another benefit of a sensory bin in therapy and play is that you can customize them to fit the needs of your child/children: Fine motor, visual motor, tool use, bilateral hand coordination, gross motor skills, and even learning objectives can be added to sensory bins.

Sensory play in sensory bins is a great way to encourage a “just right” sensory level as part of a sensory diet. Kids can benefit from sensory bin play to challenge sensory processing, to fidget, more, or help with self-regulation. Here is more information on how to create a sensory diet.

For more information on tactile sensory play this time of year, try our list of Fall Tactile Activities.

This cute ghost looks like he’s not feeling too well, doesn’t he??

Sensory Bin Items for Learning and Play

These are some items you might want to include in your sensory bins for a filler, manipulation, leaning, and exploring. These are just some ideas to get you started, and only the beginning of sensory bin play! The awesome thing about sensory bins is that they can be customized according to the child’s needs and interests and so, there are limitless ways to set up and play with a sensory bin!

Waterbeads are an awesome sensory bin filler. Have you tried these yet? They are a fine motor powerhouse and great for tactile sensory fun. See how we played with them here.

Sensory bins are a great way to practice fine motor skills. No matter what your learning objective is (or maybe it’s just simple play!), these fine motor tool set
can be used in so many sensory bins for scooping, tweezing, dropping, and dumping!

So what do you put your sensory bin IN? We love our Sand Table. Kids can stand and play with any sensory bin. We’ve used ours for sand, water, paint, water beads, bubbles, and more. You can also take the legs off and play right on the floor or ground.

We use our sand and water tables often in sensory bin play, but many times we use a Under the bed storage bin (or really any plastic bin!). It’s so easy to use the bin as a storage area for all of our sensory tools and then use it in sensory bin play, too!

Natural River Rocks are a creative sensory bin filler. Use them in bug sensory bins, proprioceptive play, and more.

Shredded Paper is an easy sensory bin filler. Explore and play while searching for items.

Animal figures are perfect for small world sensory play and can be used in pretend play sensory exploration in so many ways. Freeze them into ice cubes, play with them in flour, add to a bin of dry beans…How would you play with these animals?

I love this Alphabet Puzzle for letter learning with sensory play. Put the letters into a sensory bin for literacy activities. Or, play with the puzzle itself, like we did here.

Sensory lifestyle handbook- How to create a sensory diet

Are you looking for more information on Sensory Processing, creating a sensory diet, or understanding the body’s sensory systems and how they affect functional skills and behavior? This book, The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook, will explain it all. Activities and Resources are included. Get it today and never struggle to understand or explain Sensory Integration again. Shop HERE.

Cal Oct OT

September 30, 2021October 7, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Thank you for joining us in this month’s Sensory Challenge in honor of Sensory Awareness month!

Flip through the booklet and add creative sensory input to your day. Invite the whole family to take part in these activities that can build on or add to a sensory diet.

Complete one sensory activity each day.

Print off your October calendar to keep track. Just highlight the activities that you complete and fill in the whole month. Follow the dates outlined or go through the activities on your own.

Have fun this month and enjoy all the sensory experiences that October has to offer!
Looking for more ways to explore all things sensory this month?

Are you looking for more information on Sensory Processing and Proprioception (or any of the sensory systems and how they affect functional skills, behavior, and the body’s sensory systems?

In-hand Manipulation for Functional Tasks and a Letter Activity

December 2, 2022October 7, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Kids require a lot of skills to write with a pencil, button a coat, zipper a shirt, and manage a handful of coins. Today we’re sharing ideas to help your child with in-hand manipulation. This skill is important for moving that pencil, erasing mistakes, and fine motor tasks like managing buttons and zippers, coins, small items that fit in the hand, and pretty much a ton of functional tasks. SO what is in-hand manipulation and what can you do to improve all of these skills in kids? Here are a few ideas for you! This fun and easy activity is part of our 31 Day series of Occupational Therapy series where each post this month are functional and creative activities that can be done in Occupational Therapy treatment or in activities for kids who might need to work on certain skills through play. All materials are free or items that might be found in your home.

Toys and tools for working on in-hand manipulation skills in kids, perfect for handwriting, pencil use, buttoning, scissor use, zippering, and more from an Occupational Therapist.

In-hand manipulation activity for kids learning letters

This post contains affiliate links. This easy play activity was a fun one to set up for my four year old. She is practicing letter recognition and letter sounds so we practiced identifying letters with this foam puzzle that we have. We found ours at a garage sale, but you can get one in dollar stores or

a similar puzzle here. Simply grab a pile of whatever you’ve got on hand to fill the letters. We used beads, but you could use dry beans, corn kernals, dry split peas, or any other small item.

Letter Recognition Activity for Preschool

To practice letter recognition, I called out a letter and my preschooler filled that letter with beads. It was a great way for her to work on letter identification. We also did a little phonetic awareness and I named a letter’s sound. She then filled the letter that makes that sound. She enjoyed testing me, too. “I’m filling a letter that sounds like this: /mmmmm/. What letter is that, Mom?”

In-hand Manipulation

So are you still thinking, “Ok, cool. I like it. But what the heck is in-hand manipu-what”?

In-hand manipulation is essentially is the ability to move small objects around in your hand without using the other hand to help. This skill is essential for managinfg small items within the hand for accomplishment of tasks. There are three parts to In-hand manipulation…translation, shift, and rotation. We shared two fun activities to work on these skills here.

In-hand manipualtion begins to develop around 18 months, with the greatest skill development occuring between 2 and 2 1/2 years old.

Parts of In-hand Manipulation

Finger-to-Palm Translation: Movement of an object from the fingers to the palm i.e. picking up a coin and moving it to the palm.

Palm-to-Finger Translation: Movement of an object from the palm to the finger tips. (i.e. moving a coin from the palm to the fingertips to insert into a vending machine.)

Shift: Slight adjustment of an object on or by the finger pads. (i.e. adjusting a pencil up and down in your hand.)

Simple Rotation: Turning or rolling an object 90 degrees or less with the fingers moving as a unit. (i.e. unscrewing a toothpaste lid)

Complex Rotation: Turning an object more than 90 degrees using isolated finger and thumb movements. (i.e. Turning a paper clip)

Each of the above skills can occur with items “squirreled away in the palm using the pinkey finger and ring finger. This is called “with stabilization”. If other items are not pocketed away in the palm while in-hand manipulation occurs, it is called “without stabilization”. Stabilization typically occurs around 2 years of age.

Activities to work on in-hand manipulation using (almost) free materials. These a few of my favorite activities from my Occupational Therapy treatment bag and ones that should be pretty easy (and inexpensive!) to set up:

Roll play dough into small balls using only the fingertips.
Tear newspaper into strips, crumble it, and stuff an art project.
Use tweezers to pick up small items. This works on the intrinsic muscles of the hands.
Lacing activities.
Eye Droppers to drop water into recycled lids.
Coin or button matching, sorting, and stacking. We loved playing with coins for fine motor fun.
Small pegboards, tucking extra pegs into the palm of the hand. You can use cut up straws and play dough, too.
Dropping small items into bottles with a small opening like we did here.
Pick up beads from the floor and drop into ice cube trays.
Push coins into a piggy bank.
Press buttons into a slit cut in the lid of a plastic tub.
Pick-up sticks.
Games with small chips.
Beading.
Twisting lids on/off water bottles.

In-Hand Manipulation Toys and Tools for Fine Motor Skills

These are some fine motor tools that kids will love. While they are definitely not free, they are additional ideas for in-hand manipulation play and learning. These are toys that will help with handwriting, buttoning, zippering, managing snaps and shoe-tying, among other functional skills, and all through play.

Lite Brite
is a classic art creating activity that works on fine motor skills, and especially in-hand manipulation. Prop the board up on a on angle and you’re getting excellent wrist extension which helps with translation from fingers to palm and vice versa.

Lacing & Tracing Dinosaurs can help kids with lacing, managing strings, threading, bilateral hand coordination, and strength. It’s a great activity to work on in-hand manipulation. Try these Lacing & Tracing Sea Life cards, too.

HABA Color Peg is a fun creating activity to work on in-hand manipulation to translate the small pegs into the slots.

This Peg Board with 1000 Pegs
was one of my absolute favorite treatment tools in pediatric Occupational Therapy. I love the small size of the pegs that allow children to manipulate and manage the tools within their hands. The key to working on in-hand manipulation is to use items that are smaller than the child’s hand and these colorful pegs work on so many other skills besides the vital in-hand manipulation.

Manipulating coins is such a great way to work on in-hand manipulation. This Coinasaurus Bank
is a fun bank to practice with!

Spinning tops is a nice way to work on rotation. These Standard Tops
are fun!

The game, Ker Plunk Game
is an in-hand manipulation powerhouse. Handle the marbles to work on translation, and rotate the sticks with the thumb and the pointer finger. This is a game that will work on so many fine motor skills.

Love this? Pin it! You will also love our Fine Motor Play Pinterest board for more fine motor fun.

Check out these posts for more ideas:

http://www.sugaraunts.com/2015/10/visual-tracking-tips-and-tools-for.html

Visual Tracking Tips and Tools

Handwriting Spacing Tool and Spatial Awareness Tips and Tools

Motivating Handwriting Activities for Reluctant Writers

Cursive Handwriting on the Window

Healthy Yogurt Parfait Bar Snack

July 11, 2019October 7, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

When you have kids in your house, snacks are a must. With four kids, I go through a ton of snacks. We try to keep our snacking on the healthier side, with lots of fruits and vegetables and wholesome foods that will fill up the bottomless pit bellies that my kids have. Do your kids do this too? How do you keep your kids full without constantly feeding them? Today, I’ve got a snack idea that was a total hit with my kids. We made a Mini Yogurt Parfait Bar, loaded with fresh fruits and Greek Yogurt. This was such a fun experience as well as a filling snack that kept the complaints of “I’m Hunnnnnngry” away, for a little bit longer than average!

This yogurt parfait snack bar will fill up the kids with wholesome fruit and Greek Yogurt! #SnackandSmile #sponsored

Greek Yogurt Parfait Bar

This snack idea was such a hit with all of my kids. We made it as an after-school snack one afternoon. You know that time of day when the kids are famished after a long day at school and homework just doesn’t seem appealing when the kids are dragging. When we made these parfaits, it was all smiles and kids happily doing math (or in the younger kids’ case, staying out of the bigger kids’ hair while they ate their parfaits!) It was so easy to throw together, that I will definitely be making this for play dates, birthday parties, and cousin sleep overs. To get the kids really smiling, add a few fun containers for the fruits in the parfait bar.

To make your Yogurt Parfait Bar, head to the store and grab your favorite kid friendly fruits. We used Yoplait yogurt, blueberries, halved grapes, sliced bananas, strawberries, sliced kiwi fruit, apples, and our homemade granola. The fruits can really be customized to what you’ve got on hand. For the yogurt, we used Yoplait Greek 100 Whips that we had found at Walmart. The size of the Yoplait yogurt cups were the perfect size for my kids’ snack. We could open two or three yogurt containers and it filled all four of my kids’ parfait snacks. Using a healthy option like Greek Yogurt makes for a filling and protein-packed snack, perfect for after-school. It was so nice to grab everything I needed for this snack in one trip. (Anything that makes things easier with my crew of 4 helps!)

Get your kids involved in the food prep for this snack! My kiddos love to help me cook, so when I pulled out yogurt and their favorite fruits, they were ready to help with chopping and dicing.

Scoop the fruits, yogurt, and granola into containers and arrange on a table or tray. Next, show the kids how to layer the yogurt and fruit. We used spoons for each fruit, but you could use toothpicks with older kids.

Once your parfait is done, enjoy! How would a yogurt parfait snack bar work in your house? Would you make one for an after school snack like we did or as a special weekend treat? What is your favorite way to snack with Yoplait? Let us know in the comments below!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of General Mills. The opinions and text are all mine.

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Fidgeting During Homework

October 16, 2023October 6, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Ooooh, those wiggles. The wiggles start and then they become so distracting. It’s hard to concentrate on homework when the fingers are messing with the pencil sharpener, the feet are kicking, and the bottoms are sliding all over the chair. Mom gets frustrated, the kiddo gets upset, and the homework battle continues. Does this sound familiar?

Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post. As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Fidgeting during homework

Struggles with concentrating on homework can be far more than just the math facts that need practicing. Sometimes, the urge to fidget and move and fall out of the chair is just too overwhelming.

It may be that your child has a sensory need, or it may just be a long day followed by an overstimulating bus ride home…and then having to sit down for more writing, math, spelling, and vocabulary. Trying to get the homework done with the fidgets is just not easy for any kid.

Today, I’ve got tips for doing homework when kids just can’t stop fidgeting. This post is part of our 31 Days of Occupational Therapy with free (or mostly free) materials. We’re hoping this resource is helpful for the fidgets!

Tips and tools for kids who fidget during homework and classroom activities.

This post contains affiliate links.

Tips for helping with Fidgeting during homework

So why do kids fidget? Fidgeting during work stimulates the brain, allowing a child to complete school work or homework. Fidgeting is mindless play or touching fingers, pencils, hands…anything that allows a person to focus on the task at hand.

Kids that are fidgeting are seeking calm, and focus so that their brain can complete a task. The problem is when the brain’s urge to fidget distracts a child from school tasks.

They might be so wiggly and moving that they just can not sit still and focus in a functional manner. Fidgeting can be managed with less distracting techniques which can allow the child to accomplish the homework, and move on to other things.

Solutions for Fidgeting During Homework

Try some of these techniques to help with the fidgeting. These are certainly methods that can be adapted to classrooms, but I wanted to focus on the kiddos that come home from a long day at school and just need strategies for success in homework.

A DIY fidget toy can be just the tool that helps.

Brain Breaks: Do jumping jacks as you spell words with your child, toss a ball as you practice math facts, or do a quick jog around the house between math papers.
Forget the dining room table. Do homework on a bean bag or a pile of pillows using a clipboard. Kids with sensory needs often times, crave proprioceptive input and an upright chair can be overly distracting, especially after sitting in a desk at school.
Or, forget sitting down all together! Try completing homework while standing up.
Tie a bungee cord around the chair’s legs so that your child can kick and stretch their feet.
Partially blow up a beach ball. Place this on the chair’s seat. Kids can sit on the beach ball to get needed movement during homework.
Provide a small bit of play dough.
Squeeze balls
Wrap Wikki Sticks around a pencil.
Pipe cleaners wrapped in a loose ball.
A small bouncy ball and a cup.
Rubber bands on a ruler
A strand of paper clips
Pop beads
Bubble Wrap
Paper binder clip
Provide a chewy snack at the same time as homework. This might include gum, raisins, celery, carrots, fruit leather or fruit roll-ups, or licorice sticks. You could also try therapy rubber tubing.
Another snack idea is a thick smoothie in a straw. Try one of these recipes, with added ice for a thicker smoothie.
Drink water from a “squeeze bottle” or sports bottle.
Chair push-ups: Show the child how to push up from their chair, by placing their hands on the seat alongside each leg. Slowly, they should push their upper body up and off the chair. Do a set of 10 chair push-ups before returning to homework tasks.
Roll a tennis ball under their foot. They can roll the ball back and forth under their feet as they work.

Other modifications to homework time that may help with sensory needs causing fidgeting:

Eliminate distractions (as much as possible in a busy family’s home.)
Begin homework at the same time each day. Keep routines consistent.
Set up a homework station and do homework in the same place each day.

Classroom and homework fidget toys to help with concentration and fidgeting in sensory processing disorder SPD, Autism, Asperger's, and typical sensory needs.

Toys and Tools to Help with Fidgeting

There are many items on the market that are designed to help kids with the fidgeting. There are apparently A LOT of kids out there who fidget.

These toys and tools are items that may help your child in the classroom and at home during homework.

While the tools detailed below are certainly not free (based on our 31 days of free or inexpensive OT tips), they are items that may be of use to your child or classroom. These might be items that are a great gift idea if you are looking for more resources for your fidgety kiddo.

Amazon affiliate links below:

The Tangle Jr. Original Fidget Toy (affiliate link) will keep fingers and hands busy so kids can concentrate on homework or school work.

A ball of play dough or this Pull and Stretch Bounce Ball (affiliate link)
is a good way to keep kids’ hand occupied as they move with the small motor proprioceptive input. This heavy work for the hands can allow kids to concentrate as they write.

The DESK BUDDY (affiliate link) is great for kids who are doing homework as it can sit on a table surface or it can be a hand-held sensory fidget toy.

A pencil topper like these Pencil Tops Fidget (affiliate link) can help kids while they write, and can be fidgeted with on or off the pencil.

Try writing with a vibrating pen like this Squiggle Wiggle Writer (affiliate link) for proprioceptive input before a writing homework assignment.

THE ULTIMATE FIDGET (affiliate link) is a quiet fidget toy that kids can keep in their pocket.

Something as simple as nuts, bolts, and washers (affiliate link) can make a great fidget toy for kids.

A few Wikki Stix (affiliate link) can give a child just the fidget toy they need to concentrate. Kids can bend them into a ball, and work the bendable strings as they work.

Grip Pop Beads (affiliate link) are one of my favorite fidget toys for kids. They work on the small muscles of their hands as they build the pop beads and have a fidget once they have a strand of beads.

Are you looking for more information on Sensory Processing or any of the body’s sensory systems and how they affect functional skills and behavior?

This book, The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook, will explain it all. Activities and Resources are included. Get it today and never struggle to understand or explain Sensory Integration again.

What are your favorite fidget toys and tools?

Tips and tools to help with kids who fidget during classroom and homework activities.

Learn Cursive Handwriting on the Window

May 18, 2020October 4, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Looking for a fun way to learn cursive writing or practice handwriting? This cursive handwriting on the window activity will encourage a functional grasp on the pencil, an extended wrist, and improved letter formation. Learning cursive letters with creative writing techniques makes new concepts fun and memorable.

My daughter is all about learning cursive lately. When I share a fun way to practice, she is even more into it! One day, I taped a piece of paper to the window for creative cursive practice. Using a gel highlighter and a pencil makes this activity easy to set-up and efficient for learning.

We’re sharing this post as part of our 31 Days of Occupational Therapy with free materials where most of the items we’re using are ones that you can find in your home. It’s been a fun series and we’re excited to continue with today’s post!

Learn cursive writing with this cursive handwriting activity to learn cursive letters, lines, and connecting lines on the window.

Learn Cursive Writing on the Window:

This post contains affiliate links.

Writing on a vertical surface encourages an extended wrist. While writing on a full vertical surface like a wall or a window is not effective for a lot of writing, practice is appropriate for short periods. Kids can practice letter formation and learn cursive writing lines with this activity.

This activity is so easy to set up:

Tape paper to a window.
Write cursive lines with a highlighter or marker. I used a gel marker which is perfect with it’s smooth writing lines. The gel glides onto the paper and with the glass surface of the window, it really provide a a lot of feedback for writing the smooth lines of cursive letters. Let your child write with the gel marker to try it, too!
Have your child trace the highlighter with a pencil. The light will shine through the highlighter lines and make a great tracing line. You can practice beginning strokes like we shared in this post, cursive letters, and words with connecting cursive lines.
It can be helpful to teach similar cursive letters together in groups. Read more about cursive letter families.

This would be a great way to continue to learn cursive writing and practice cursive in your Creative Cursive Journal (get it free!)

You could also use free cursive worksheets right on the window for another way to practice.

More creative ways to work on learning cursive writing:

Fizzy Dough Pre-Cursive lines

How to teach cursive writing with sensory textures

Creative Cursive Handwriting Journal

Napkin Letter Formation Art

Do you remember learning cursive as a kid? Do you still write in cursive?

Mini Pumpkin Stickers Fine Motor Activity

August 11, 2022October 1, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This mini pumpkin stickers activity is a fine motor workout for little hands!

Sometimes you have to make Second Grade boring homework a little more fun. Am I right?? Homework is definitely NOT play-based and after a loooong day at school, kids are ready to p.l.a.y! When they have to sit down to do homework and study for those upcoming tests, homework can become more of a battle than is should. Do we ever know this in our house! Some days, a visit to the dentist to pull teeth would be easier than getting the 5 minute homework task done.

English Language Arts in second grade covers nouns and predicates in sentences and my kiddo has been busy figuring identifying nouns and predicates in her decodable readers that are sent home from school. We practiced a bit with these DIY mini pumpkin stickers…and voila!

Pumpkin Predicates were born!

Practicing Nouns and Predicates with a Pumpkin Theme:

Pumpkin Predicate and Noun activity for second grade English Language Arts. Kids will love to identify the pumpkin predicate with these cute DIY pumpkin stickers!

(This post contains affiliate links.)

First, What is a noun and a predicate?

Second graders are responsible for knowing what a noun and a predicate is, by definition and by showing examples in sentences.

A noun is a person, place, thing, or idea. There are proper nouns (like Alabama, Tuesday, and Sammy) and plain old fashion nouns aka: common nouns…(like steak, alligator, and tennis ball). The noun is the subject of the sentence and is the do-er of the action in the sentence.

A predicate is a verb or verb string. It is the action of the sentence.

So, after practicing that with my daughter, off we went on our Pumpkin Predicate fun!

To make the pumpkins, grab a sheet of full-sheet label paper
This is the stuff that has a sticky back and you make address labels with. Very cool and useful stuff in crafting, I might add. Scribble a rectangle of orange with an orange marker. Then, use your hole punch
to make a bunch of orange holes. Use a green marker to make a tiny little stem, and you are done! Instant teeny tiny cute little pumpkin stickers.

We used decodable readers that my second grader had from school. They photocopied booklets that the school has created and sent home with each student. You can make your own sentences to practice predicate and noun naming, use worksheets, the newspaper, or magazines. You don’t want to stick these pumpkin stickers in a real book, because the stickers will be hard to remove.

Have your child name the noun and the predicate in sentences. Place the pumpkin stickers above each predicate. Note: Peeling the backs from the label sheet stickers can be a real exercise in fine motor dexterity! Your kiddo will get their fine motor skills moving!

Love it? Pin it!

So punch out those pumpkins and play away the homework blues. These cute little pumpkins are sure to help make predicate practice a bit more fun!

Looking for more second grade activities with a pumpkin theme? Try these from our Second Grade Blogger Team:

Pumpkin Patch Arrays to Learn Multiplication by School Time Snippets

How to Carve a Pumpkin Writing Prompts by Still Playing School

How to Set Up a Pumpkin Engineering Task Your Second Graders Will Love by Thriving STEM

Pumpkin Seed Place Value – Subtraction Math Fact by Rainy Day Mum

Shapes on a Pumpkin by Preschool Powol Packets

Pumpkin Math Fact Pick and Solve Sticks by Creative Family Fun

Looking for more second grade activities? You will love these:

Second Grade Skip Counting to 1000

Nickel and Dime Skip Counting

Expanded Form Math

Pumpkin activity kit — **Pumpkin Fine Motor Kit**

Grab the Pumpkin Fine Motor Kit for more coloring, cutting, and eye-hand coordination activities with a Pumpkin theme! It includes:

7 digital products that can be used any time of year- has a “pumpkins” theme
5 pumpkin scissor skills cutting strips
Pumpkin scissor skills shapes- use in sensory bins, math, sorting, pattern activities
2 pumpkin visual perception mazes with writing activity
Pumpkin “I Spy” sheet – color in the outline shapes to build pencil control and fine motor strength
Pumpkin Lacing cards – print, color, and hole punch to build bilateral coordination skills
2 Pumpkin theme handwriting pages – single and double rule bold lined paper for handwriting practice

Work on underlying fine motor and visual motor integration skills so you can help students excel in handwriting, learning, and motor skill development.

You can grab this Pumpkin Fine Motor kit for just $6!

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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