Scissor Skills Crash Course (with Gift Wrap!)

Teaching kids how to use scissors and exploring scissor skills is one of my favorite things to work on as a school-based Occupational Therapist.  There are so many creative ways to address the skills needed for accuracy in cutting with a pair of scissors.  Today, I’m sharing everything you need to know about cutting with scissors.  I’ve got all of the skills a child need in order to be successful.  I’ve got great ways to practice teaching your child to cut on lines.  


AND, I’ve got a top secret to share about teaching kids to cut with scissors; Something that will make practicing cutting with scissors frugal and fun.  My secret weapon in teaching kids to cut on the lines?  It’s wrapping paper!  Gift wrap makes the best scissor practice tool because you can get a huge roll for an inexpensive price.  Hit up dollar stores and grab the after season and get ready to snip, snip, snip your way to cutting shapes on lines.  This is your creative Crash Course on teaching kids to cut with scissors!


Want to know more about functional skills like scissor use? Read more here!

Scissor skills activities for kids.  These are developmental ways to practice scissor skills and teaching kids to cut on the lines.  Also, all of the skill areas needed in order for kids to accurately cut lines and shapes.


Teach Kids to Cut with Scissors (A Crash Course)

Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.


There are many components that go into cutting with scissors.  These are the skill that kids need to master or be developing as they pick up a pair of scissors and can cut a shape.  Using scissors to cut is a developmental progression of skill.  And by that, I mean that as children progress in their development, they achieve more skill and accuracy.  Kids need to gain better control of fine motor and visual perceptual skills as they grow and develop and with that development, comes better use of scissors.  A child with deficits in any of the skill areas needed for using scissors will have difficulty with progression of typical scissor use development.


In this crash course, I’m going to share the skill components that a child needs to cut with scissors and various steps of cutting accuracy.  Not included in this crash course are the developmental ages and stages of scissor use.  That blog post will come at another time!


Skills a child needs to cut with scissors

These are the skill areas that a child needs in order to initiate scissor use and develop their progression toward successfully cutting multiple angled shapes:
Fine Motor Skills Needed for Scissor Use: From dexterity to graded precision, using scissors requires fine motor use skills for scissor use.

  • Prerequisite skills: Before a child can effectively use scissors in a functional manner, prerequisite skills are essential.  These are the functional skills that babies, toddlers, and preschoolers practice and achieve to learn graded muscle movements.  Read more about prerequisite skills here.
  • Open Thumb Web Space: Opening and closing the thumb against the fingers positions the thumb in abduction.  Abduction and adduction are required to open and close the scissor’s blades.  If a child is not able to open and close their thumb due to physical deficits or weakness, they will not be able to cut with typical scissors.  There are many modified versions of scissors out there to assist with this area.  Read more about open thumb web space here.
  • Hand Strength: Cutting with scissors requires strength.  The first stage of this is snipping paper. Children may complain of hand fatigue, not be able to cut thick paper such as construction paper, or may cut paper with short snips of the scissors.  A gross hand grasp is needed for endurance in scissor use. Looking for ways to build hand strength?  Try these creative activities.
  • Visual Motor Skills:  Also called hand-eye coordination, visual motor skills are our ability to position and use our hands in activities that are guided by our vision.  Read more about visual motor skills here.
  • Visual Tracking:  In order to follow a line with scissors, a person must use visual tracking as they move their scissors along the line.  Without this skill, a child will show poor line accuracy and may cut through shapes or across lines multiple times. Read more about visual tracking here.
  • Bilateral Hand Coordination:  This is a skill that is required for so many self-care and functional tasks.  Using scissors to cut a shape is a functional task that requires both hands working together in a fluid manner.  The hands are doing different tasks during the activity of cutting with scissors but both know what the other is doing without the child looking at either hand constantly.  This manner of fluid activity is a mechanism of the brain as both hemispheres communicate in an efficient manner. In scissor skill activities, one hand must hold the scissors as the non-dominant hand holds and rotates the paper. Read more about bilateral coordination here.
    • Hand Dominance: Related to bilateral hand coordination, is hand dominance in scissor use.  A child need an established hand dominance in order to develop fine motor skills that are needed for accuracy with scissor use.  If a child continues to switch hands, there are scissors that can be used with either hand on the market, however, the child will not develop accuracy and fluid scissor cuts as easily with out an established dominant hand.  Read more about hand dominance here.

Try THESE scissors for kids who have a left-right confusion or undefined hand dominance.

Scissor skills activities for kids.  These are developmental ways to practice scissor skills and teaching kids to cut on the lines.  Also, all of the skill areas needed in order for kids to accurately cut lines and shapes.

NOTE: THESE are my favorite scissor for kids.


Line Accuracy with Scissor Skills: Teaching Kids to cut on the Lines

Line accuracy when cutting with scissors is greatly dependent on position of the hand on the scissors, as well as all of the areas described above.  Hand positioning and scissor grasp is a developmental progression and typical tearing of paper happens with certain positions.  Typically, a child will developmentally go through certain stages in their scissor skills and as they progress, their accuracy will improve.  

Help Kids Cut with Scissors on the Lines

Now is the time to pull out the wrapping paper that I told you about.  Grab a roll of gift wrap and work on cutting with graded difficulty.
 
Try these scissor practice ideas to work on cutting on the lines.  These ideas progress (mostly) from easiest to most difficult.
 

 

Scissor skills activities for kids.  These are developmental ways to practice scissor skills and teaching kids to cut on the lines.  Also, all of the skill areas needed in order for kids to accurately cut lines and shapes.
 
Providing kids with kid-friendly scissors and paper will help with practice.  Kids can practice cutting with scissors as early as you feel comfortable.  It’s important to remember that all children develop differently.  Hand over a pair of scissors and show the child how to snip into the edge of the paper, without lines or shapes.  At this point, the child is only working on the skill areas described above.  This is when wrapping paper makes a great cutting medium.  No more will you go through the piles of construction paper that just get snipped and cut all over the floor.  Use the wrapping paper and let the kids snip away!
 
A strip of wrapping paper (or paper) is a great starting point for practicing line awareness with scissors.  Make the paper strip tin enough that one snip across will cut the paper.  
 
Next, practice cutting into the paper and along a line.  A black dot will provide a visual cue to stop at the end of the line. 
 
Next, provide a strip of paper that is wider and requires several cuts across the page to cut through the line.  This activity works on the child’s ability to open and shut the scissors without choppy cuts for several snips.  (NOTE: Provide a wider strip of paper than is shown in the above picture for more practice of continued cutting!)
 
Finally, provide a strip of paper with lines without stopping dots.  The child must cut along the lines and stop at the end of the line.  These lines are drawn very dark to provide a thicker cutting line, to ensure more accuracy.  
 
 

 

Scissor skills activities for kids.  These are developmental ways to practice scissor skills and teaching kids to cut on the lines.  Also, all of the skill areas needed in order for kids to accurately cut lines and shapes.
 
When moving on to cutting shapes, start with squares.  You can draw the square along the edge of the paper to allow the child to cut into the corners from each side.  Then practice cutting a square inside the paper.  Cutting shapes requires the paper to be rotated and turned accurately.  Practice cutting other strait line shapes like triangles and rectangles. 
 
After practicing strait line shapes, introduce cutting curved shapes. 
 

 

Scissor skills activities for kids.  These are developmental ways to practice scissor skills and teaching kids to cut on the lines.  Also, all of the skill areas needed in order for kids to accurately cut lines and shapes.
 
Another way to practice line awareness with scissors is to cut curved and multiple angled lines across a strip of paper.  Add in more complex shapes like stars and hearts.
 
Scissor skills activities for kids.  These are developmental ways to practice scissor skills and teaching kids to cut on the lines.  Also, all of the skill areas needed in order for kids to accurately cut lines and shapes.
 
When starting on more angled or wavier shapes, provide stopping points with black dots.  These will act as a visual cue and an indication to turn or rotate the page and move the scissors.
 
Scissor skills activities for kids.  These are developmental ways to practice scissor skills and teaching kids to cut on the lines.  Also, all of the skill areas needed in order for kids to accurately cut lines and shapes.
 
Finally, practice cutting multiple-angular and curved line shapes.  To start, try drawing a thick black line around the shape to provide a thicker cutting line.  Then, remove the visual cue of the line and cut directly on the lines of the shape.
 
I hope that these scissor skill tips are helpful for you and your little scissor user!
 
Use this scented scissor skills activity to help kids learn graded scissor use in a fun way! 
 
Looking for more ways to use wrapping paper in crafts and activities?  
 
 
 
Scissor skills activities for kids.  These are developmental ways to practice scissor skills and teaching kids to cut on the lines.  Also, all of the skill areas needed in order for kids to accurately cut lines and shapes.
 
 
Our favorite scissor activities and ways to work on the skills needed in scissor skills:
https://www.theottoolbox.com/2015/10/visual-tracking-tips-and-tools-for.html hand strengthening activity
 
 

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:

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!

Fun Way to Explain Regrouping Hundreds and Tens with chocolate!

Need to explain regrouping? Are you thinking Ok, HOW do I teach regrouping of tens or hundreds when I am totally wondering “what is regrouping”?!? This very fun and completely motivating regrouping activity is a hands on math activity that will explain regrouping for math as well as regrouping for addition! AND, the best part is that chocolate math is the way to go…even if the chocolate seems to be subtracting (into mouths) more than adding! 

Here’s the thing: Sometimes, practicing the same.old.math.facts. gets booooring!


It’s boring for the second grader and boring for mom.


But, practice needs to happen and new math skills need to be practiced! So, what is a bored-to-the-gills Mom to do when there is yet another night of subtracting triple digit numbers?


You bring on the chocolate.


This regrouping hundreds and tens math activity is hands-on and taste-bud friendly and was a big hit (surprise, surprise!) with my daughter…and me.  We made math fun by adding chocolate chips as my second grader subtracted three digit numbers.  It is such an easy math activity to put together and uses hands-on learning to make math activity fun (and delicious).


We’ve shared a few other hands-on math activities on the blog, and even some re-grouping activities like this double digit regrouping activity or beginner regrouping tips. This one might be the favorite of the bunch 😉

Regrouping Hundreds Math Activity

Regrouping math with chocolate chips


Regrouping Tens and Hundreds with Chocolate 



Full Disclosure:This post contains affiliate links.


You don’t need many materials for this math activity.  
We used:
chocolate chips

((There are Mini Chocolate Chips
on the market for those kids that really want to practice their math problems after seeing this activity.))

Paper
Marker
math problems

Regrouping math with chocolate chips

Use a marker to draw three sections on a piece of paper.  Label them “Hundreds”, “Tens”, and “Ones”.   Grab a bowl of chocolate chips
and some math problems.  Ask your child to look at a math problem and sort the chocolate chips
into the columns.  If the math problem is 634-x=, sort  6 chocolate chips into the hundred column, 3 chips into the tens column, and 4 chips into the ones column.  Then, as your child subtracts a two or three digit number from 634, move the chips around in the columns.  Try subtracting 634-256=.  Six can not be subtracted from four, so you need to regroup to make it a larger number.  Take a chip from the tens column and with your pencil, cross out “6”. Make it into a “16” and subtract the ones column.  Continue through the problem and when you subtract the tens column, remove a chocolate chip from the hundreds column.

Regrouping math with chocolate chips

We had fun snacking on the chocolate chips after re-grouping.  This was a math activity that my daughter didn’t mind doing over and over again!


MORE Ways to Practice math skills with chocolate chips:

  • Grab a handful of chips and place them into each of the columns.  Count the chips and name the number.  If there are more than 10 chips in the ones, tens or hundreds column, move them over to the next higher column.  
  • Practice adding with the chocolate chips and carry the extra tens over into the tens and hundreds columns.



Looking for more chocolate learning ideas?  Stop by and see what the other Early Elementary Blogging Team have created with chocolate:

Chocolate learning activities for hands on learning


Make Fractions Fun with Chocolate from Crafty Kids at Home
Chocolate Cocoa Writing Tray from Still Playing School
Chocolate Sight Words Writing from Natural Beach Living
Tracing with Chocolate from Sugar, Spice, & Glitter

How to Make a TeePee for Indoor Play

Winter weather means cold temps.  We try to get outside to play every day, but sometimes the thermometer is just too low for us to go outside for very long.  Other days, we are out there for hours!  (Yesterday, my daughter and I were outside for FOUR hours strait.  In the mud, melting snow, and more mud.  It was a day of fun, but I was ready to bundle up in a blanket with my wiggly babies and hot cocoa after that!


When you are looking for an indoor play idea, you want easy prep, minimal materials, and easy clean-up.  This indoor teepee is perfect for creative play, a cozy book nook, or imaginative teepee play, all indoors!  I love that it can be used for a sensory calm-down hideaway, too.  

How to make a teepee for indoor play that kids will love for a reading nook or pretend play space. I love it for a sensory calm down space!

How to make an indoor TeePee

Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

To make this indoor tee pee, you’ll need only a few items:
3-4 Hair bands (THIS brand
worked best because they had a rubber grip to them.)
Cotton Scarf (for added stability)
Large sheet

How to make a teepee for indoor play that kids will love for a reading nook or pretend play space. I love it for a sensory calm down space!

Start by leaning all of the Corn Brooms
together in a tripod position. Stretch the hair bands over the top to keep the broom sticks together, like in the picture above.
How to make a teepee for indoor play that kids will love for a reading nook or pretend play space. I love it for a sensory calm down space!


If you like, you can wrap and tie a cotton scarf around the end of the brooms for more stability.

You’re done!  Drape a large sheet over the teepee and start playing!  

Quick Tip:  Place the teepee on a carpeted surface.  The Corn Brooms
ends will be more stable than if you place it on a hardwood floor.


How to make a teepee for indoor play that kids will love for a reading nook or pretend play space. I love it for a sensory calm down space!


Use the teepee for a quiet reading nook, sensory calm-down space, or pretend play area.
How to make a teepee for indoor play that kids will love for a reading nook or pretend play space. I love it for a sensory calm down space!


Have fun playing indoors!

Looking for more indoor play ideas?  Stop by the A-Z of Indoor Play Activities series to see more!

Some Indoor Play Ideas that we love:

Mini Eraser Patterns Kindergarten Math

Miniature erasers are one of my Occupational Therapy toolbox power tools. These little bits of rubber are the perfect manipulative for working on so many fine motor and developmental skills.  Today, I’m sharing how we use them in learning and reviewing skills learned at school, like patterns with my Kindergarten -aged son.  

Be sure to check out our resource on name practice in kindergarten for more hands-on activities for 5 and 6 year olds.

Mini-eraser patterns are a fun way to practice hands-on math with Kindergartners, and fine motor skills like in-hand manipulation.

 

 
 
We’ve been sharing a few other of my favorite fine motor manipulatives recently, like chain links and LEGOS.  It’s so much fun to use toys and OT tools in learning activities and I’m excited to continue this series as my kids learn!
 

Fine Motor Pattern Activity

Mini-eraser patterns are a fun way to practice hands-on math with Kindergartners, and fine motor skills like in-hand manipulation.

 

Full Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
 
These mini erasersmhave been in my therapy bag for years.  I’ve got a collection of mini erasers that I’ve found at Dollar Stores, Target, and teacher stores.  But, my favorite place to get a variety of miniature erasers is here for the variety of animals and items.
 
We worked on a few fine motor skills with our mini erasers
.
 
This math activity was so simple.  I piled up a bunch of mini erasers
and asked my Kindergarten son to create an “ABB” pattern.  He had to pick up the erasers using in-hand manipulation to squirrel away the eraser into his palm.  Picking up the erasers works on translation from fingers to palm as well as separation of the two sides of the hand.  Then, he had to hold on to the erasers in his palm as he placed the erasers one at a time onto the paper in a pattern order.  
 
After he made the “ABB” pattern, I had him do a few other patterns like “AAB”, “ABA”, “BBA”, BAB”, and “AABB”.

Mini-eraser patterns are a fun way to practice hands-on math with Kindergartners, and fine motor skills like in-hand manipulation.

 

Want to know more ways to work on fine motor skills with these mini-erasers?  I’ve got ideas to share, and they will be up on the blog soon!
 
Mini-eraser patterns are a fun way to practice hands-on math with Kindergartners, and fine motor skills like in-hand manipulation.
 
 

More fine motor activities you will love:  

Teach Buttoning Skills with Heart Buttons

Teaching kids functional skills like how to button their coat happens naturally during a day’s progression.  You help your Toddler or Preschooler into their coat before an outing and sneak in a few verbal cues while you show them how to slip the button through the button hole.  Then, before you blink your eyes, they are saying “I do it, Mommy!” and your little one is on their way to independence. This would be a great addition to a Valentine’s Day theme in occupational therapy.
 
NOW, I am a huge supporter of teaching kids to do things like buttoning and shoe tying in a natural setting, with real buttons and shoe laces and on their body.  BUT, sometimes a child just needs a fun way to practice the skills that make up the task of buttoning a button.  Other times, it’s just fun to practice buttoning so that kids can show off what they can do and get a little boost of self confidence.  
 
This Buttoning Skills Activity is easy to put together, fun to do, and a creative way to practice buttoning.  Before you know it, your little “do it myself”-er will be buttoning their pajamas up in a flash.  For now, we play our way to independence!
 
Teach kids how to button with this easy DIY buttoning teaching tool for fine motor practice and play, with hearts. Perfect for Valentine's Day
 
 

Teach Kids Buttoning Skills with a DIY dressing board

 
 
This post contains affiliate links.
 
So, we’ve practiced buttoning with egg cartons and tissue paper.  Today, I’ve got a new idea for you.  We used Foam Hearts to practice precision in fine motor skills while working on the motor control and dexterity needed for buttoning.  This was such a fun activity for my preschooler to do.  She can button large buttons on her body at this point, so it wasn’t hard for her to practice these motor skills.  BUT, adding the novel component of flimsy fabric and fragile paper made her practice the fine motor control that she needs for buttoning small buttons and many fine motor tasks.
 
To make a DIY heart button activity, you’ll need just a few items.
Heavy Cardstock
Embroidary Thread
(we received ours from www.craftprojectideas.com)
Scissors
 
Teach kids how to button with this easy DIY buttoning teaching tool for fine motor practice and play, with hearts. Perfect for Valentine's Day
 
This is an easy project to throw together, and equally adaptable to your child’s age and fine motor needs.  We made out Buttons with Foam Hearts, but for a child who needs more help with buttoning skills or has weaker fine motor control, use cardboard or plastic buttons.  
 
Sew the foam hearts/buttons along the edge of a piece of felt.  We used a thicker felt sheet for more control.  A thinner piece of felt would be more like fabric of clothing, so if you are working on certain aspects of buttoning, like controlling the material with two hands in a coordinated manner, you can make your buttoning project with fabric or thinner felt.
 
Use a cross-stitch pattern to simply sew the Foam Hearts
in an “x”.  This is a great real-life skill activity for older kids.  Threading a the large needle is a nice fine motor task and the project is so simple that it’s a great beginner sewing activity for kids. 
 
Fold the felt over and add snips for button holes and you have a nice portable practice activity!
 
We practiced buttoning with the felt a few times and then added another way to practice.  I marked button holes on a sheet of thick Cardstock
.  After cutting the holes with scissors, my preschooler practiced pulling the foam buttons through the holes.  Using paper to practice is a real workout for little fingers as the paper will tear with too much force.  The point for this part of the activity is to practice pushing the button through the hole and pulling it out.  The paper is a great reminder that the button slides through the button hole easily when both hands are working together in a coordinated manner. 
 
TIP: Snip the cardstock or Stiff Felt Sheet
button holes just a bit longer than you think you need to for kids who are working on buttoning skills. You can also cut the hole wider for easier buttoning.  This is one way to grade the activity for kids who need help learning how to button their clothes.
 

 

 
Teach kids how to button with this easy DIY buttoning teaching tool for fine motor practice and play, with hearts. Perfect for Valentine's Day
 
More ways to teach kids buttoning skills using this DIY button project:
 
  1. Lay the fabric on the child’s lap as a beginner task.  This is a good way for the child to see what they are doing as their hands are working together on the buttons.
  2. NEXT, lay the fabric on the child’s lap, BUT position it so that it would be if the child were buttoning a coat on their body.  Make sure the buttons are on the child’s lap and not on their truck for easier accessibility and success.
  3. THEN, position the buttoning activity up higher on the child’s trunk to simulate buttoning a shirt or coat on the child.
  4. Finally, move on to teaching buttoning with real-life articles of clothing.  
Be sure to provide real clothing items along the way of teaching buttoning skills, while adding in fun motor planning activities like this DIY Button activity or our egg carton buttoning activity.  Learning through play in creative ways is fun!
 
This post is part of the Activities for Kids blog hop. This month, each blogger is posting about hearts.  Stop by to see what our friends have come up with:
 
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
FREE Number Bingo // The STEM Laboratory
Heart Match Up Activity // Frogs, Snails and Puppy
Dog Tails
Counting Roses // Best Toys 4 Toddlers
Love Bug Clock // Fairy Poppins
Heart Wreath // Powerful Mothering
Magic Heart Sight Words // Playdough to
Plato
Valentine Numbers and Counting Hearts // Play and Learn Everyday
I Spy Valentine’s Day Heart Bottle// The Pleasantest Thing
Color Sorting Hearts // Modern Preschool
Candy Heart Addition Cards // The Kindergarten
Connection
 
 
 
Teach kids how to button with this easy DIY buttoning teaching tool for fine motor practice and play, with hearts. Perfect for Valentine's Day
 
 
MORE fine motor activities that we love and you will too:
 
Neat Pincer Grasp Fine Motor Activity Buttoning Tips and Tricks
 
 

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.

Help your Sensory Child Get Organized Strategies for Planning and Prioritizing Life

This is a small series I’m sharing this month, called Get Your Sensory Child Organized.  These are tips and ideas for helping your child with sensory processing concerns and other underlying problem areas get organized and start planning and prioritizing tasks.  These are the kids that look sloppy or lazy, but really have problems with fine motor, visual motor, gross motor, attention, executive functioning, and many other areas.  All of these problem areas will interfere with task completion and will lead to sloppy closets, messy desks, and homework that is not completed.  



Real tips for kids with sensory needs to get organized at home and school from an Occupational Therapist


If you know a child who is having trouble getting organized, then this series is for you!  Be sure to stop back to get all of the tips!

How to Help Sensory Kids Get Organized

These are the posts you will be seeing from us, soon!  Be sure to stop back and see them all.

 help kids get organized with tips from an Occupational Therapist

Help Your Sensory Kids Organized in SCHOOL: Read the full article HERE.
Our first post in the series is live!  If you know a child or student who has a sloppy desk, crammed locker, misplaced materials, and forgotten homework, then this post is for you!

Help Your Sensory Kids Get Your Kids Organized AT HOME:  Read the full article HERE After-school routines, homework struggles, afternoon free-time, extra-curricular activities, organizing the home and prepping for the next day, cooperative family work, fun family time, and more.

Sensory Considerations in Organization and Attention: Read the full article HERE.  Sometimes, attention and sensory processing issues have a huge factor in organizing a child.
Helping kids with sensory processing disorder get organized in school, in the mornings, and after school.

Want to see more of our ideas?  Sign up for our newsletter and you won’t miss a thing! Join us here!

Handwriting and Sensory Issues

Sensory Processing and Handwriting

There are many handwriting and sensory considerations, from paper sensory issues, to pressing too hard when writing, to sensory issues that impact handwriting posture, handwriting is connected to sensory processing. When teaching a child to write, there are many sensory processing to consider. Today, I’m sharing sensory considerations and strategies to help children in handwriting tasks.  

Handwriting and Sensory Issues

This post is part of my new year-long series with 9 other Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy bloggers as we discuss Functional Skills of Childhood

Pick up a pencil.  Hold it correctly.  Write a letter.  Copy a word.  Fill in a worksheet. Write down the day’s homework assignment in the correct space with a noisy classroom full of talking kids while the teacher chats to someone at the door. The open windows alert you of another class playing on a playground.  Bouncing balls, laughing students, buzzing pencil sharpener, bright sunshine, and that homework assignment that needs to be written legibly so you and your parents can read it an hour from now.

One of a child’s occupations are to perform educational activities like handwriting.  Holding a pencil, forming letters, writing on lines, and copying from a chalkboard is a multi-sensorial function of childhood.


Handwriting depends on accuracy and legibility.  Letters must be formed correctly and with appropriate pencil pressure, on the lines, and with attention to details.

To complete these skills, handwriting and sensory processing are naturally associated.  All components of handwriting require integration of our senses for accuracy, legibility, and performance.  

In a classroom environment, we are constantly bombarded with an input of sensory information.  We receive sensory information from our eyes, ears, skin, muscles, and joints and our brain has the job of organizing the information, selecting the important parts, and disregarding the rest.

When our body’s sensory systems are functioning appropriately, we are able to manage tasks like writing with a pencil.  When there is a deficit in one of these areas, there are sensory integration problems and activities that we are required to perform are affected.

Handwriting and sensory problems and sensory strategies to help with messy handwriting.
 


 

Full Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.


Sensory Processing and Handwriting


What is sensory processing?

Sensory processing, or sensory integration requires the body’s central nervous system to effectively register sensory information, filter the parts that are not necessary, organize and interpret what to do with that information, and modulate the attention level of our nervous system.  
 
Ineffective accommodation to this process leads to distractibility and disorganization.  There are seven sensory systems in our bodies: 
  • Tactile System (touch)
  • Vestibular System 
  • Proprioceptive System
  • Olfactory System
  • Visual System
  • Auditory System
  • Gustatory System
Sensory integration is what turns sensations from these systems into perception.  We perceive our bodies, and our interactions in our environment because our brain has integrated the sensory information into something meaningful, organized, and useful (Ayres, 1979). 


An Explanation of the Sensory Systems related to Handwriting

The proprioceptive, vestibular, and touch senses are primary influences on the integration of our senses.  This happens from infancy as we are swaddled, carried in a flexed position, and swung in a baby swing or our mother’s arms.
 
If these sensory systems are poorly functioning, a child will have trouble developing in all areas.  Integration of the vestibular and proprioceptive systems gives the child control over eye movements at infancy.  Without integration of these two systems, the baby will be slow to develop postural reactions and have a poor foundation of movement. 
 
If the proprioceptive, vestibular, and touch sensory systems are not functioning adequately, the child will have a poor reaction to his environment. He may withdraw or over-respond to auditory and visual stimuli.  The child can not focus on tasks and may feel insecure in his environment.  These problems can lead to a poor body perception.


A child with proprioception dysfunction may seek out sensory feedback from his environment.  You might see these children bumping into their desks, stomping their feet on the ground, kicking their chair or their neighbors chair.  
 
They might rub their hands on the desk, bight their hands, shirt, or pencils, or write with heavy pencil pressure.  Students seeking proprioceptive input often crack their knuckles and chew on shirt cuffs or collars.


An inefficient grading of movement might result in students holding their pencils too tightly, writing so heavily that the pencil point breaks, or producing messy work with large erasure holes.


A child with vestibular dysfunction may present as a hyperactive child or a hypersensitive child.  Some students might have an intolerance for movement and will seem willful and uncooperative, while demanding physical support.  
 
A problem with the vestibular system sometimes presents with gravitational insecurity.  These kids might be fearful when moved such as when a teacher pushes in their chair.  
 
The hypo-sensitive student will have an increased tolerance for movement.  These kids need to keep moving in order to function.  They might fidget, wiggle, and bounce in their seat.  You will see these students jumping up and down in their chair, sitting on their feet and swaying, hanging upside down at their desk, and falling out of their seat.


Children with vestibular, tactile, and proprioception difficulties will have trouble with eye-hand coordination.  Writing on lines and coloring between lines is difficult.  There will also usually be difficulties with depth perception.  In order for a child to develop visual perception, they need adequately integrated vestibular and proprioception systems.


Many times, children have auditory and tactile dysfunctions that interfere with handwriting:


The child with auditory processing concerns will seem unaware of where sounds are coming from.  When a teacher directs the class to write down items or copy specific information, these directions are lost.  They are unable to pay attention to one voice or sound without being distracted by other sounds in the classroom.  
 
They may even be distressed by the sounds of pencils making marks as they or other students write.  
 
They have trouble attending to and understanding and remembering directions related to letter formation in words and sentences.  These kids might have difficulty putting their thoughts onto paper and trouble revising or correcting what they have written.  
 
Additionally, students with poor auditory processing often times have a weak vocabulary so when they are writing words and sentences, they struggle with words and sentence structure and therefore lose focus on the letter formation and line placement that they need to attend to.
 

Sensory Issues with paper

The child with tactile dysfunction may be either hypersensitive or hypo-sensitive to touch.  

 
A student who has tactile defensiveness (hypersensitivity) may overly react to light touch.  
 
When teachers are up close as in handwriting instruction, the student might become fearful or irritable.  These kids can become overly focused on neatness in handwriting and their desk space.  They might need to brush off every eraser bit or clear their paper and desk of every stray mark.  
 
Touching paper can cause anxiety. There can be over sensitivities to the texture of paper, the lines on the paper, or the “feel” of paper.
 
Others may find the sound of ripping paper abrasive or anxiety causing.
 
Still others may struggle with crumbled paper and find the creases of paper are too rough on the hands.
 
The child with under-responsiveness to touch (hypo-sensitivity) might seem unaware of pencil pressure and write with very heavy or very dark pressure on his pencil.  
 
These children fail to realize that they’ve dropped their pencil or that they’ve got pencil smears all over their palms.

Sensory Processing and Motor Planning needed for Handwriting

When our body understands sensations from our skin, muscles, and joints, we are able to feel and know what our body is doing without looking at it.  
 
This poor perception can lead to difficulty coordinating the two sides of the body as they perform different tasks.  The child might have trouble holding his paper with one hand while writing with his dominant hand.  
 
The child will need to think through his actions without them happening automatically.
 
Most students learn to form letters and numbers automatically given practice.  Children with a poor motor plan must think out the way a letter is made.  
 
Motor planning is the sensory process that allows us to complete and adapt to an unfamiliar task (like a worksheet), using what we already know.  The key to motor planning is a body perception that can accommodate to tactile, proprioceptive, and vestibular information.  
 
Also related to the sensory system is a child’s attention span.  If the sensory information is not registered, filtered, organized, selected, and discarded appropriately, the child will not be able to focus his attention on an activity like handwriting.


 

Handwriting and sensory problems and sensory strategies to help with messy handwriting.

 


Handwriting Difficulties due to poor Sensory Processing

Children with difficulties modulating sensory input face a big challenge in the classroom.  The school environment is overstimulating and asking a child with sensory integration difficulties to filter out irrelevant sensory input while attending to academic work is very difficult.  
 
Problems in handwriting might include (but not be limited to): 
 
Handwriting Issues Related to Poor registration of sensory input with an Under-reactive response
  • The child may be unaware that he drops his pencil.
  • Shows a weak grasp.
  • Difficulty maintaining an effective writing posture.
  • Tires easily in writing tasks.
  • Does not notice details (Misses letters when copying words or sentences)
  • Desk and writing area are disorganized and sloppy.
Handwriting Issues Related to Poor registration of sensory input with a Hyperactive or Over-reactive Response
  • Avoids smells (pencil or paper) in the classroom.
  • Easily distracted during writing tasks.
  • Difficulty paying attention to a writing task.
  • Cannot work silently.
  • Visually distracted by others, including noises, scents.
  • Difficulty focusing on one section of a chalkboard or one part of a worksheet.
Handwriting Issues Related to Sensory Seeking 
  • Seeks movements by moving the chair, wiggling in the seat, bouncing legs and arms and distracts other students with the movements.
  • Overly excited after recess and is difficult to settle down.
  • Always touching the desk or parts of the chair during writing tasks.
  • Craves scents or tastes: chews the pencil for it’s task, smells the paper or pencil shavings.
  • Chews the pencil or eraser and clothing.
  • Bites hair/shirt/nails when writing.
  • Writes with heavy pencil pressure.
Handwriting Issues Related to Sensory Avoiding 
  • Difficulty with changes in the routine of writing: new paper or type of worksheets
  • Low frustration level with errors in letter formation
  • Anxiety: wants to make letters and numbers correctly the first time
  • Stubborn in handwriting concerns
  • Avoids touching pencil shavings, the wooden part of the pencil tip, or the eraser.
  • Avoids erasing mistakes
Handwriting and sensory problems and sensory strategies to help with messy handwriting.


How to Help: Sensory Handwriting Strategies

Many times, sensory integration can help with handwriting problems related to handwriting.  Children who demonstrate proprioceptive issues may benefit from heavy work activities in the classroom.

Heavy Work Sensory Activities to Help with Handwriting


 

  • At the beginning of the day, take down chairs from desks and push them to correct places in the room
  • Erase the chalkboard
  • Wash desks/dry erase board
  • Sharpen pencils with a manual pencil sharpener
  • Chewy food breaks (fruit leather, licorice)
  • Crunchy food breaks (vegetables, popcorn, pretzels, dry cereal)
  • Cut materials from oak-tag or heavy paper
  • Carry books with both hands, hugging the books to their chest
  • Weight down the student’s chair by taping weights to the chair legs
  • Pad the feet of the chair to add extra resistance
  • Climb playground equipment
  • Carry books and supplies to other classrooms
  • Hand fidget toy
    and squeeze toys
  • Brain Breaks
  • Wall push-ups
  • Chair push-ups
  • Animal walk breaks
Possible Modifications and Strategies to Help with Handwriting Problems

 

  • Try a variety of pencil grips.
  • Wrap the tip of the pencil in clay and tell the child that if the clay is misshaped, then he is pressing too hard on the pencil.
  • Try various proprioception in handwriting modifications.
  • Tilt the child’s writing surface to a slightly included position using a 3 ring binder.  This positioning provides improved wrist positioning and will decrease the force the child presses through his wrist.
  • Try writing with carbon paper under the paper to show the child that he needs to press harder or lighter through the pencil.
  • Copy written work from a his desk instead of from the chalkboard or overhead.
  • Write with a grease pencil
    to provide more resistance and feedback.
  • Remove distractions from the classroom and seat the child away from windows and doors.
  • Provide the child with written and verbal instructions.
  • Provide a quiet space in the classroom.
  • Provide movement breaks. 
 

Typically, the sensory systems and sensory integration is developed by the time a child enters school.  

 

The ability to concentrate while managing sensory input is very much needed for the classroom that is multi-sensorial, like described above.


Problems seen with handwriting, like heavy pencil pressure, sloppy letter formation, difficulty with letter size and form, fast or very slow speed of writing, and inattention to writing tasks are often times an end product of an inefficient and irregular sensory processing system. 


A sensory integrative approach to teaching handwriting can be successful for the child with sensory processing concerns.  Occupational Therapists can analyze sensory processing skills during the performance of handwriting (and other school-day tasks).  

 

An OT uses formal evaluations, screening tools, standardized tests, observation of classroom behaviors, parent/teacher checklists, and observation of classroom behaviors and play activities to identify handwriting issues related to sensory processing.

 

This post is part of the Functional Skills for Kids.  See all of the bloggers who are participating and more about the series here.  Looking for more information on the components and considerations related to Handwriting? 


Resources:
Ayres, A.J. (1979). Sensory integration and the child. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services.
Bundy, A., Lane, S., & Murray, E. (2002). Sensory Integration Theory and Practice. F. A. Davis Company.


Looking for more Handwriting ideas?  These are some of our favorites:

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

 

The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook walks you through sensory processing information, each step of creating a meaningful and motivating sensory diet, that is guided by the individual’s personal interests and preferences.

The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook is not just about creating a sensory diet to meet sensory processing needs. This handbook is your key to creating an active and thriving lifestyle based on a deep understanding of sensory processing.

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.

Valentines Day Sensory Bottle

Have you tried making a sensory bottle yet?  These a super easy and creative ways to encourage learning through a calming visual sensory tool.  We’ve shared awesome ways to make them and have a great new idea to bring you today, and just in time for Valentine’s Day: this heart waterbead sensory bottle! It’s a great Valentine’s Day activity to add to your therapy toolbox.
 
I love sensory bottles to use as a calming and quieting sensory tool.  My kids love making them and the fun of discovering items in the bottle.  When you add a learning component like math or literacy it’s even better!
 
Valentine's Day Sensory Bottle with waterbeads and hearts
 
 
 

Valentine’s Day Sensory Bottle

 
Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
 
We made this discovery bottle very quickly one day.  I had a bunch of pink and rose colored Waterbeads
ready to go.  I poured them into a big bin and had my kids help me fill the bottle.  
 
Depending on the age of your child, you may want to prepare the sensory bottle yourself and just present the finished tool to your child.  My kids had a blast playing in the water beads and placing them into the bottle, though.  It was a sensory experience in itself!
 
We used a regular peanut butter plastic jar that had been cleaned out.  (Get the kids in on the cleaning job too!)
 
Valentine's Day Sensory Bottle with waterbeads and hearts
 
Use any combination of Water beads.  You can find them in the dollar store in the craft section or many large stores in the floral section.  I love grabbing a bunch of different colors at once, though and get them online here.  It’s hard to find a lot of different colors in the stores, so online is easier for me.  
 
 
Fine Motor Water Beads Activity
Have the kids fill the bottle with water beads for a fine motor activity.  Manipulating the Water beads and dropping them into the bottle is a nice way to encourage in-hand manipulation and tripod grasp.
 
Once the bottle is 3/4 full with water beads, add a handful of foam hearts.  Kids can slide these into the sensory bottle.  
 
You can add superglue to the lid of the plastic bottle if you are worried about little ones opening the bottle and dumping the contents.  We just used ours as is and did not glue the lid shut.  This way, we could have a nice storage container for the water beads and play with them again.
 
Valentine's Day Sensory Bottle with waterbeads and hearts
 
Now play!  Shake the jar and count the hearts.  Ask your child to find all red hearts or all pink hearts.  Use this sensory bottle as a calming tool when kids need to focus or attend.
 
 
Looking for more Valentine’s Day sensory bottles?  Stop by and see what the Discovery Bottle team have created this month:
 
Color Mixing Sensory Bottle | Preschool Inspirations
I Spy Love Sensory Bottle | Modern Preschool
Heart Glitter Jar | Fun-A-Day
 
Valentine's Day Sensory Bottle with waterbeads and hearts
 

Let us know if you make a Valentine’s Day sensory bottle!  I would love to see your version.  

 
Looking for more sensory bottles?  These are our favorites:
 
 

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.

Avocado Black Bean Lettuce Wrap with Orange Zest

My kids are hungry all the time.  So, when we made this Avocado Black Bean and Orange Zest Lettuce wrap, and they were actually full for more than an hour, I was a happy mama.  We made this easy lunch recipe using a fun ingredient: Orange zest.  It is part of our Cooking with Kids A-Z series and Z is for Zest!


It’s hard to believe that we’ve cooked our way through the alphabet while cooking with new ingredients and exposing my kids to new foods.  We’ve come up with new favorites, like our Carrot Veggie Puffs and have tasted and shared some old family recipes, like our Apple Dumpling recipe.  We’ve made bread dough, snacks, and main meals.  It has been a fun year of cooking and I’m excited for the next phase of this project.  For now, try cooking your way through the alphabet with great recipes from A-Z!

Avocado Black Bean Lettuce Wrap with Orange Zest. This recipe is so easy and filling that kids can make it and it fills them up! You dont even need dressing with the orange zest! It's healthy and low-calorie.

Avocado Black Bean Lettuce Wrap with Orange Zest



This post contains affiliate links.


This recipe is so easy to through together.  It’s one that we’ve made before, with different versions.  Today, we added orange zest, and the result was crisp and tasty.  My kids called the zest our secret ingredient!


For this recipe you’ll need a few ingredients:
Iceburg Lettuce (or any large-leaf lettuce)
Black Beans
Cherry tomatoes, quartered
Avocado, diced
Zest of 1/2 orange


Avocado Black Bean Lettuce Wrap with Orange Zest. This recipe is so easy and filling that kids can make it and it fills them up! You dont even need dressing with the orange zest! It's healthy and low-calorie.

Pull apart a few large leaves from the outside of the head of lettuce.  Place the lettuce leaf on a plate until ready to build your wraps.

Avocado Black Bean Lettuce Wrap with Orange Zest. This recipe is so easy and filling that kids can make it and it fills them up! You dont even need dressing with the orange zest! It's healthy and low-calorie.

Prepare the black beans, and place them in a dish.  Chop the tomatoes.  Kids can do this with a child safety knife.  Peel and slice the avocado.  Once sliced, avocados are a great food for young chefs.  It’s soft enough for easily slicing.  Add the tomatoes and avocados to the bowl.  Zest the rind of 1/2 orange.  My preschooler loves zesting oranges and remembered the last time we did this task (and we don’t often zest oranges!)  We used our standing box grater
to zest the orange, and this worked well for my 4 year old.  She could stabilize the grater with her non-dominant hand while zesting the orange with her dominant hand.  
Older kids could use a classic zester.

Avocado Black Bean Lettuce Wrap with Orange Zest. This recipe is so easy and filling that kids can make it and it fills them up! You dont even need dressing with the orange zest! It's healthy and low-calorie.

Now it’s time to build your lettuce wraps.  Load up the lettuce leaves with as much or any combination of the avocado, black beans, and tomatoes.  Sprinkle the orange zest on top.  We found that with the citrus-y touch of the zest, we didn’t need any dressing at all in our wraps.  What a filling and low calorie dish this is!

Avocado Black Bean Lettuce Wrap with Orange Zest. This recipe is so easy and filling that kids can make it and it fills them up! You dont even need dressing with the orange zest! It's healthy and low-calorie.
Avocado Black Bean Lettuce Wrap with Orange Zest. This recipe is so easy and filling that kids can make it and it fills them up! You dont even need dressing with the orange zest! It's healthy and low-calorie.

Stop by and see what the other bloggers on the Cooking With Kids A-Z team have cooked up with Zest:

Orange Cookies from Still Playing School
Fat Rascals Recipe from Mum in the Mad House



Try a few of our other cooking with kids recipes:

 Overnight Egg Strata Recipe   Strawberry Whole Wheat Pancakes  Fruit Pizza Recipe  Honey Peanut Butter Crispy Treats
E is for EggsOvernight Egg Strata Recipe | F is for FlourStrawberry Whole Wheat Pancakes
G is for GrapesFruit Pizza Recipe | H is for HoneyPeanut Butter Honey Squares
Avocado Black Bean Lettuce Wrap with Orange Zest. This recipe is so easy and filling that kids can make it and it fills them up! You dont even need dressing with the orange zest! It's healthy and low-calorie.
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Want to cook healthy foods for your family?  Grab Yum! Deliciously Healthy Meals for Kids, a cookbook for busy families that want healthy meal ideas. 

Healthy recipes for kids