October 29, 2017

Adding movement and sensory input to teaching letters and handwriting is key for learning the motor plan, identifying letters, and carryover of learned skills.

This cursive slime activity is a fun way to encourage letter formation, letter identification, and letter matching using slime as a fine motor and sensory medium to make the activity fun and memorable.

This cursive slime activity adds a proprioceptive, tactile, and movement component to learning the parts of cursive letters. Kids can focus on the starting pencil lines that make up groups of letters known as cursive letter families.

Use cursive beads to work on cursive letter identification using cursive slime as a sensory tool and tactile sensory play.

Cursive Slime Activity

There is a lot more information on cursive letter families as well as more cursive writing strategies and tools here and in the How to Teach Cursive Writing series that we have on The OT Toolbox this month.

Grab more cursive writing tips and strategies for teaching cursive handwriting under the cursive writing tab up above.

For this cursive slime activity, you will first need a batch of slime. We love to make non-borax slime for safety reasons.

Our favorite recipe (and my YouTube loving kids are HUGE fans of trying all.the.recipes) is this contact solution and baking soda slime recipe. It’s a quick slime recipe that pulls together easily and one that older kids can make on their own.

Then, add cursive letter beads.

Now, it’s time to play! Kids can play with this cursive slime activity in so many ways.

Look for letters according to cursive letter family, match cursive letters, and sort.

Pull the beads out of the slime and press them back in again. What a workout for the hands.

Here are a few more slime or sensory dough recipes that would be perfect for hiding and pulling out the cursive letter beads:

How to Make Crayon Play Dough

Pair crayon play dough with Harold and the Purple Crayon book

Use broken crayons to make crayon floam dough

Celebrate the sparkle with gold, sliver, and bronze metallic crayon play dough

3 Ingredient Kinetic Sand Dough

Fizzy Soda Dough

Almond scented salt dough

orange zest salt dough

gingerbread salt dough

Coming up with creative activities that can help kids learn to identify and write cursive letters can be fun. This cursive activity uses beads as a tool for forming letters, copying cursive letters, and learning to identify cursive letters. The best thing about these cursive activity beads is that they can be used in a variety of ways to help kids learn and carryover cursive writing skills.

You can read more about cursive letter families below as well as more cursive writing strategies and tools here and in the How to Teach Cursive Writing series that we have on The OT Toolbox this month.

You can find all of the tips and strategies for teaching cursive handwriting under the cursive writing tab up above.

Cursive Activity Beads

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You’ll need just a few materials to make your own set of cursive activity beads:

Wooded Beads (Ours came from www.craftprojectideas.com)

Permanent Marker

It’s very easy to create these beads for using in cursive writing activities. Simply use the permanent marker and write letters on the sides of the beads. The flat side of the wooden beads makes it easy to write a small cursive letter. The surface “holds” the permanent marker’s ink nicely so it doesn’t smear.

We wrote the cursive letters on the beads according to cursive families. This way, cursive letters of the same cursive letter family were on the same bead. It’s a fun way to help kids learn parts of cursive letters and cursive letter families…to in the end help with carryover of cursive skills.