Cut rose petals for a scented activity that develops scissor skills! All you need are real rose petals that fall from a rose bush (or onto your counter top from a vase of roses!) Kids can cut the rose petals with scissors to work on many aspects of scissor skills.
This scented scissor skills activity is one that the kids will love! Picking rose petals and then using them to cut is a creative way to address skills like graded scissor use, line awareness, and precision in grasp and scissor accuracy. Kids will love using rose petals to work on scissor accuracy and the visual motor skills needed for scissor use and the scent of rose petals will make it a memorable activity they will want to do again and again!
Scented Scissor Skills Activity
Cutting rose petals is something we’ve done for years and years around here. It’s a creative way to use scissors to address skills needed for cutting shapes and lines with graded precision. You can read about more creative ideas to address scissor skills and accuracy here on The OT Toolbox.
When there is a vase of flowers in the house, there will be petals to cut!
If you’ve had flowers in the house, then you know that the beautiful scent and colors only last so long. Before the flowers go into the trash or compost, use them to help kids work on fine motor skills and scissor work.
You’ll need just a couple of flowers to get a lot of scissor practice!
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Cut Rose petal Activity
First, ask the child to help you peel and pick off the layers of the rose petals. Add them to a tray or a large bowl. Using such a delicate grasp to pick and peel off flower petals helps with graded precision and bilateral coordination, both which are needed for scissor use and accuracy.
Then, you are ready to start snipping!
There are many types of scissors out there. When I am teaching kids to use scissors, I always recommend these scissors. They are perfect for the child who is learning how to hold scissors and how to cut with accuracy.
The blades of these scissors are nice for children who have trouble with positioning and are just learning to hold the scissors with a neutral wrist positioning.
To work on line awareness and precision with this scissor skill activity, use a pencil to lightly draw a line on the flower petals. Children can cut along the lines to snip the petals. Or, skip the lines and just invite the child to snip the petals into small pieces.
This scissor skills activity provides a beautiful scent when cutting the petals. It’s sure to be a memorable one, triggering the child’s memory of cutting along lines when they smell and recognize the scent of roses at another time in the future!
Preschool Scissor Activity
Cutting rose petals is a great preschool activity to support the development of scissor skills. Simply fill a sensory bin with rose petals and add a pair of scissors. It’s an inviting activity young children will love.
Looking for more ways to work on scissor skills? Try these:
If you are looking for strategies, tips, and ideas to help kids with scissor skills, you will love The Scissor Skills Book.
Childhood development occurs naturally and at an extremely fast rate. When wondering what is executive function in child development, this breakdown of executive functioning skills development will help explain how children develop in attention, impulsivity, attention, and other executive function skills.
As a newborn is held and snuggled, development is happening. One aspect of development that occurs throughout childhood and even as an adult are executive functioning skills. When you consider what is executive functioning skills, you might think that the development of these essential skills happen later in childhood and in the teen years. However, the baseline of executive functioning skills occurs in infancy! In this article, you will find information on the development of executive functioning skills as well as identifying red flags for problems with executive functioning skill development.
Executive Functioning Skills in Child Development
Studies have shown that executive functioning development in childhood occurs in different contexts for different age ranges and in a general process. Executive functioning skills are a set of abilities that are essential for thinking through and completing tasks. They are the skills that allow us to problem solve, initiate and complete tasks, and sustain attention through the completion of a task. Executive functioning skills are necessary for tasks such as getting dressed and ready for the day, completing homework, or making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. They are needed for every multi-step activity we do!
There are many sub-areas that make up executive functioning skills.
Executive function skills are present in our cognition: Working memory Planning Organization Time management Metacognition
Executive function skills are present in our behaviors: Response inhibition Emotional control Sustained attention Task initiation Goal persistence Flexibility
You can read more about executive functioning skills as well as find activities to promote executive functioning skills here on The OT Toolbox.
Aspects of executive functioning skills are developed from a very young age. The skills are then extended and further developed throughout childhood and into the teen years. Executive functioning skills continue to develop in adulthood.
Executive Functioning Skill Development in Infancy
The following executive functioning skills begin development at 6-12 months of age: Response inhibition- This skill is not an obvious one, but includes “stranger danger” when a baby responds to one adult but not another. Working Memory- Babies begin to recognize familiar faces. They recall and remember those familiar faces utilizing working memory. They are able to store that information and retrieve it when they see a face. Attachment that begins in the infancy stages of life also are influenced by working memory. Favorite toys and soothing items such as preferred pacifiers, blankets, and soothing positions are influenced by working memory. Emotional Control- While it is true that infants do not have the ability to control their emotions, this is a skill that is just beginning to develop as babies are able to be settled down by certain individuals they are familiar with. Attachment and responding to one adult but not another is influenced by the initial development of emotional control as infants feel safe and loved by members of their family. Attention- This executive functioning skill begins as an infant is able to make eye contact and follow objects with their eyes. Attention is developed greatly in the first year. Consider the length of time a 12 month old can sustain attention on a preferred toys in in play.
Executive Functioning Skill Development from 12-24 months
Flexibility is a skill that develops greatly during these months. While the ability to inhibit impulses, sustain attention, control emotions, and utilize flexibility in thought are very low at this age, they do develop in relation by the second year of life. Working Memory, emotional control, attention, task initiation, and goal persistence develop throughout the second year of life. Much of this development occurs through play.
Executive Functioning Skill Development in the Preschool Years
In preschool, children are able to run simple errands using working memory, sustained attention, and goal persistence. They are able to clean a room with help, clean up their plate, get dressed, and begin to inhibit behaviors. Preschool aged children can understand and recall instructions such as “Don’t touch the stove”, “We don’t push”, “We share toys”, etc.
Executive Functioning Skill Development in Kindergarten through Second Grade
In these years of schooling, children are able to follow 2-3 step errands such as cleaning a room independently, simple chores, and multiple step grooming and dressing tasks.
Executive functioning skill development in grades 3-5
In this stage of childhood, children are able to complete multiple step tasks and maintain sustained attention. They are able to read and follow chapter books that require extended working memory and pick up on projects that require sustained attention and goal persistence. Flexibility is further improved.
Executive functioning skill development in grades 6-8
In this stage, a child’s working memory develops as they are able to complete more complex tasks.They are able to perform multiple step math and word problems toward the end of this age range. Critical thinking improves between the ages of 6 and 8. Students exhibit increasing impulse control in the school environment and other places where rules are in place.
Executive function skill development in grades 9-12
Executive functioning skills are increasingly developed in the high school years. Emotional regulation, response inhibition, goal persistence, flexibility, sustained attention are all related to the behavioral response of persisting, initiating, and completing tasks. We can see a big difference between the high school freshman and the high school senior in behavior and all of the these executive functioning skills relate to behaviors and the act of “doing” skills. In this stage, students typically demonstrate and increasing ability to plan and complete multiple step tasks while generally performing less risky behavior as they progress toward the higher end of this stage.
Executive functioning skills related to cognition are also greatly impacted during these years. Planning, organization, time management, and metacognition are developed and then refined in these years.
Executive functioning skill development age 18-20
Executive functioning skills are greatly developed during the ages of 18 through 20. Skills enable the ability to maintain a working schedule and perform the requirements of jobs, friendship, and family. Task initiation, persistence, emotional regulation, metacognition, planning, organization, and goal persistence are greatly refined. In this stage we can see the student heading off to college who needs to incorporate these skills independently in order to multi-task and complete the requirements of a job, schooling, or both.
Executive skill development in adulthood
As adults, we continue to refine executive functioning skills. While distractions are a fact of life, we are able to maintain sustained attention while fending off those distractions. We are able to maintain several schedules, a job, tasks of the home, responsibilities, and those of children and family. In this stage of life, we are able to to understand and seek out tools for making executive functioning skills easier such as planners, organization strategies, minimizing of distractions, calendars, etc.
Looking to build executive functioning skills? Follow our new Executive Functioning Toolbox Facebook Page for strategies, ideas, and tools to help build executive function.
More tools for addressing attention in kids
There are so many strategies to address attention in kids and activities that can help address attention needs. One tactic that can be a big help is analyzing precursors to behaviors related to attention and addressing underlying needs. The Attention and Sensory Workbook can be a way to do just that. The Attention and Sensory Workbook is a free printable resource for parents, teachers, and therapists. It is a printable workbook and includes so much information on the connection between attention and sensory needs. Here’s what you can find in the Attention and Sensory Workbook:
Includes information on boosting attention through the senses
Discusses how sensory and learning are connected
Provides movement and sensory motor activity ideas
Includes workbook pages for creating movement and sensory strategies to improve attention
A little more about the Attention and Sensory Workbook:
Sensory processing is the ability to register, screen, organize, and interpret information from our senses and the environment. This process allows us to filter out some unnecessary information so that we can attend to what is important. Kids with sensory challenges often time have difficulty with attention as a result. It’s been found that there is a co-morbidity of 40-60% of ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder. This workbook is an actionable guide to help teachers, therapists, and parents to help kids boost attention and focus in the classroom by mastering sensory processing needs. You will find information on the sensory system and how it impacts attention and learning. There are step-by-step strategies for improving focus, and sensory-based tips and tricks that will benefit the whole classroom. The workbook provides tactics to address attention and sensory processing as a combined strategy and overall function. There are charts for activities, forms for assessment of impact, workbook pages for accommodations, and sensory strategy forms.
Grab the Attention and Sensory Workbook below.
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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Any questions? Contact us at theottoolbox@gmail.com
Information about the upcoming and anticipated Sensory Lifestyle Handbook
Thank you for wanting to know more about the upcoming book all about sensory lifestyles and creating sensory diet strategies that work!
The book is NOW complete and I’m excited to share more information with you about the book.
Here are a few facts and a brief description of the book:
*It took over a year to write the book…it’s a comprehensive resource when it comes to setting up a sensory lifestyle!
* This book has everything you need to know about getting started with a sensory lifestyle, including what a sensory diet is, who needs a sensory diet, the various layers of a sensory diet, and much more!
*The book contains tactics to make sensory strategies authentic and meaningful and tips to ensure carryover of sensory lifestyle recommendations.
*There are a bunch of data collection sheets and resources related to the stages of setting up a sensory life, monitoring sensory diet strategies, and education.
*There are strategies for using the components of a sensory diet in developing co-existing developmental areas like fine motor skills, gross motor skills, bilateral coordination, motor planning, handwriting, etc…the areas that so many sensory kids struggle with!
*There are specific sensory strategies that can be incorporated directly into functional tasks in a child’s day such as riding the bus, completing school work, participating in community events, etc.
*This book is a HUGE resource for anyone who lives with, works with, teaches, or loves a child with sensory needs!
I will have much more information to share very soon…including the title, release date, and a few fun free offers for you just because you signed up to learn more about the book.
Did you arrive at this article and want to learn more about the book? Sign up at this link on sensory diets in the classroom to join the list of thousands of others who want to learn more about sensory diets and how they can help kids with sensory needs.
For now, you may be interested in some of the sensory resources available on The OT Toolbox:
There are so many ways to work on handwriting without actually using a pencil. You probably know the face your child makes when you suggest a little handwriting practice. It’s a cross between “NO!” and “Why???!!!” Anyone who has worked with a child who struggles with handwriting knows this face. But, what if I told you there were ways to work on the skills needed for handwriting and pencil grasp that don’t actually require a pencil?
It’s true! Kids can strengthen the fine motor skills and bimanual skills needed for handwriting legibility and written work through activities that develop skills such as fine motor strength, precision, bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, and even posture and core stability.
Handwriting Activities that Don’t Need a Pencil
Want to get a printable handout that contains creative activities to develop these skills? You can grab the handout packet here and pass it on to therapists, teachers, and parents who are looking for fresh ideas to improve handwriting in fun ways.
Try some of these non-pencil handwriting activities to work on the skills needed for handwriting:
Tweezer activities
Eye-dropper play
Using playdough to address Pencil Grasp
Sorting beads by color
Dropping coins into a piggy bank Hand and finger aerobics
These are just a FEW ideas that you can try to work on handwriting and pencil grasp skills.
Print off the printable handout for a checklist-type list of activities that can be used as a home program for therapists. School-based OTs will love to add these checklists to their toolbox of resources that can be shared with teachers and parents. It’s a great explanation sheet for helping parents and teachers understand the underlying skill areas that go into handwriting and pencil grasp.
Watch this video for more info about the handout:
This printable handout is a tool you need in your therapy binder to copy and share again and again!
What are your favorite ways to work on the skills needed for written work and pencil grasp? Share them in our private handwriting Facebook group, Sweet Ideas for Handwriting Help.
Kids with sensory needs can benefit from a themed intervention. The child that craves sensory input can benefit from a set of sensory activities that are designed around their special interests. The same holds true for the child who pulls back from sensations. A set of sensory activities with a special theme can be motivating for the child who avoids specific sensations, positions, or textures.
This post is one in a series of special-themed sensory activity sets. You can find all of the special interest activities on our Sensory Interests Series. Maybe there is a set of activities that is perfect for your child’s individual interests. You’ll find everything from sports to dolls to cooking, with more special interest sensory themes coming soon!
These activities and interest-led sensory-based ideas can be a great addition to a sensory diet. Read more about sensory diets.
If there is a special theme you are looking for, shoot me an email at www.theottoolbox.com and I will do my best to come up with a set of activities based on that theme.
Does your child LOVE trains? These sensory activities are designed to meet sensory needs in a motivating manner.
Train Themed Proprioception Activites
Push 2×4 wood pieces or wooden blocks with both hands down a driveway or sidewalk. There is a lot of history and research based on using sanding as a means of therapeutic intervention. Pushing a wooden block along a resistive surface applies proprioceptive input through bilateral resistive wrist, elbow & shoulders. Add additional blocks of wood to create a train.
Fill a cardboard box with books or other heavy items. Push it along a carpeted room. Add other boxes to the train. Try to keep them in a line. This is a great way to work on motor planning and core strength as kids balance to keep the boxes in the train aligned. Try this with books or crates.
Blow a train whistle.
Draw tracks on a paper with pencil. Children can use a rectangular school eraser as a “train” to erase the train track lines. Draw the lines with heavier pressure for more required proprioceptive input. Drawing with lighter strokes requires less heavy work. Also try a kneaded eraser.
Fill a laundry basket with books, blocks, or other heavy items. This can be a train cargo car that needs loaded and unloaded in order to set off on a delivery. Kids can act like a crane with whole body movements.
Fill a plastic sandwich bag with dry beans. Reinforce the edges and sides with heavy duty tape like duct tape. Cover the entire plastic bag to create a DIY bean bag. Stick train stickers to the outside of the bean bag. Use them to play target games.
These train beads would come in handy for heavy work to the hands. Hide them in silly putty, slime, or thera-putty. Hide them in play dough and then freeze the dough to add more resistance. Kids can find and hide the train beads for proprioceptive input through the hand and finger joints.
Tape pieces of paper to the floor in a line. These are the “tracks” of a train. Kids can hop, leap, or jump from paper to paper as an indoor heavy work activity.
Use sidewalk chalk to create train tracks on a large sidewalk or driveway. Hop, run, leap, skip, or jump on the track from stop to stop.
Stick masking tape to the floor of a carpeted floor. Ask kids to send animals on the train! They can do different animal walks along the tracks to get from train stop to train stop. Animal walks that add proprioceptive input include: bear walk, crab walk, frog hop, or donkey kicks.
Vestibular Train Themed Sensory Activities
Make a train with friends and walk over couch cushions and outside down slopes and on slanted grassy surfaces.
Use a therapy scooter board to pull the child using therapy band or a hoola hoop. The child can pretend they are on a train as they ride in various directions.
March along a path or balance beam like a train.
Oral Sensory Motor Train Themed Sensory Activities
Make a Train Whistle to address oral motor and proprioceptive needs. Kids can use a recycled cardboard tube such as a paper towel roll. Using a sharp pencil, punch a hole in the middle of the tube. Cover one end with a small piece of wax paper and attach with a rubber band. Use the tube like a kazoo. When kids blow into the hole, a buzzing noise like a train whistle is produced. Use this DIY train whistle craft as a tool for sensory needs.
Auditory Train Themed Sensory Activities
Use a train whistle to create loud or soft whistles. Listen for the volume of the whislte and play a matching game where kids need to copy the intensity of sound. Try this with patterns, too.
Tactile Train Themed Sensory Activities
Make an easy train themed busy bag. Ask kids to guess the items in a bag without looking and just using the sense of touch to identify shapes and items. This activity is based on the children’s book, Steam Train Dream Train.
These activities are designed to be taken out of the home or classroom. Use them while out in the community, while in the car, or when traveling.
Create a travel sensory bag with fidget toys, train activity cards, sensory snacks, or weighted tools. This train key chain is a great fidget tool that can be attached to backpacks, jackets, binders, or belt loops.
More Train Sensory Tools
There are other sensory tools that kids can have in their arsenal as a tool for self-regulation:
Mindfulness is an important part of self-regulation and the ability to regulate our senses, feelings, and body. It’s a skill that allows us to be aware of our body without responding rashly. Mindfulness for kids is important in the ability to pay attention and responding to input from the world around us, including emotionally and cognitively. The mindfulness for kids YouTube videos listed in this post can be a tool for many skills.
For kids, mindfulness is noticing their body and the things happening around them. It has a lot to do with impulse control. Just like any other skill, mindfulness is an ability that develops over time. There are ways to hone in on this skill to make mindfulness a tool for kids to use.
How to Help Kids Develop Mindfulness
We talked more about mindfulness in kids in our winter mindfulness activities for kids. Use the strategies there to help with self-regulation, coping skills, attention, focus, and more in our winter mindfulness for kids post.
Kids can use mental imagery to calm their body and pay attention to their body, their breathing, and their emotions. When kids slow down to notice these quiet functions, they can relax and build attention. There is growing research on integrating the mindfulness into the school environment to address needs such as attention and social emotional resilience.
Additionally, much research indicates the positive benefits of mindfulness in kids and in the school setting.
When helping kids to understand mindfulness, it can help to ask them to focus on the sensations they are experiencing. What do they see when they imagine a scene with their eyes closed? What do they feel as they calm down and take deep breaths? What do they hear at the moment?
When working with kids on paying attention to their body and the sensations around them in order to help with attention and self-regulation, a guided video can help. The Mindfulness YouTube Videos listed below are those that can be used in a small group or a classroom setting with kids. Use the videos to help bring attention and focus and how kids feel.
Mindfulness Meditation for Kids – This video focuses on bringing attention to specific parts of the body and how they feel while being present in the moment. At 5 minutes in length, this would be a great short video to have in your therapy toolbox or for use in the classroom as a mindfulness break.
3 Minute Body Scan Meditation– This video uses a three minute exercise to guide students through a body scan as a way to get in touch with the body. By following along, kids can relax and release pent-up emotions, while training attention.
Peace Out Guided Relaxation for Kids– This is another 5 minute video that allows kids to explore their thoughts and feelings as a way of calming themselves so that we can feel calmer and happier whenever we need to.
Guided Meditation for Children – This guided meditation video uses a rainbow waterfall theme and music to imagine they are visiting a magical waterfall that washes away stress and worry and replaces.
Soothing Sleep Music for Children– This video is a three hour selection of soothing tones and calming music to help kids fall asleep.
20 minute Guided Mindfulness Exercise– This video would be appropriate for older children or teens who are interested in following a guided exercise.
Videos to teach kids about mindfulness:
Kids Explain Mindfulness– This video is an interesting take on mindfulness from kids’ perspectives.
Mind the Bump– is another informative video that explains information on mindfulness, the brain, and the importance of mindfulness and meditation.
If your house is like mine, you have homemade slime filling containers and plastic baggies everywhere! The slime craze is very much still oozing over here! With all of the slime sitting around, I thought it might be fun to put it to work and use it to work those hand muscles. Here are creative ways to use slime to boost hand strength just by playing with slime. We’ve previously shared other ways to use slime in fine motor activities, so these hand strength exercises can be used in conjunction for your slime-loving kids!
Slime Workout
A slime workout might not be the type of hand strengthening that you are used to using to build fine motor skills…but using a few specific slime exercises can support pinch and grip strength, as well as dexterity.
Kids can boost the developmental skills needed for tasks like pencil grasp and clothing fasteners by playing with and manipulating slime. Grab a batch of slime and use it to strengthen the fine motor skills. Here are Slime Hand Strength Exercises that the kids will love!
You’ll want to check out this video to see how to use slime to develop and strengthen fine motor hand strength. You can use the slime exercises to target finger strength and grip strength.
Here are the exercises you’ll see in the video (Also available on YouTube):
First, it’s worth mentioning that stirring, scooping, and kneading are great hand and arm strengthening exercises! Encourage kids to make that slime. Despite the mess, it’s a powerful tool for strengthening fine motor strength.
Once the slime is made, kids can boost those fine motor skills! Try these slime hand strength exercises:
1.) Pull the slime with both hands, using the pads of the thumb in opposition to the pads of the extended fingers. This is an exercise that strengthens the lumbricals and intrinsic muscles of the hands. Developing this skill is great for the arches of the hands, which are needed for endurance and skills like using and maintaining a functional pencil grasp.
2.) Pull off a large chunk of the slime and squeeze it in the palm of the hand. This develops and strengthens the gross grasp of the hand.
3.) Using the thumb, pointer, and middle fingers, pull off small pieces of slime. Use one hand to roll the slime into small balls. Working the slime with just the one hand strengthens the tripod grasp and dexterity of the thumb in opposition. This is a fantastic exercise for addressing pencil grasp needs.
This slime hand strength exercise video should be a big help, too!
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:
