This hand-eye coordination activity is one that uses an item we had in the house (and you may too!) We love to use recycled and upcycled materials in occupational therapy activities and this eye hand coordination activity is no different! Working on the coordination skills needed for tasks like handwriting, self-dressing, managing clothing fasteners, and other skills.
This hand-eye coordination activity doubles as a learning activity while matching letters and working on visual motor skills needed for tasks like handwriting, management of fasteners, coordination, and many functional tasks. Looking for more eye-hand coordination activities?
Try this easy eye-hand coordination activity using paper or a scooping and pouring eye-hand coordination activity.
For younger kids, this hand eye coordination activities for toddlers is a great resource,
Hand-Eye Coordination
First, let’s define hand-eye coordination. Coordination between the visual input our eyes perceive and process and the coordinated motor movements are an integration of the visual and motor systems. This is eye-hand coordination as it is used in functional tasks. Eye hand coordination is necessary for every functional skill.
Hand-eye coordination activity
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This activity used a recycled cookie cake pan that we washed out and used in a bilateral coordination eye-hand coordination activity. Besides the cake pan (save that lid, too!), we used just two other items:
Small foam ball (A sports ball works great, but a ping pong ball would work for this activity too.)
Can’t find a pan like we used? A disposable container with a clear lid (like this one) would work too!
Related: Need some indoor bilateral coordination activities like this one? Try our list of Winter Bilateral Coordination Activities that kids will love!
How to set up the hand-eye coordination activity:
1. Peel the stickers from the sticker sheet and randomly place them around the cake pan.
2. Place the foam ball in the cake pan and pop the lid into place.
That’s it! This is a super quick set-up and an activity that can be used by so many clients or students to work on a variety of areas.
Hand-Eye Coordination Activity with Letters
Ask students to roll the ball from letter to letter as they look for specific letters.
Roll the ball to letters in alphabetical order or ask he child to spell out spelling words.
Older students can spell words in sentences.
Call out random letters as students roll the ball as they visually can for each letter.
Roll the ball from one letter to another to match letters.
Incorporate handwriting by asking the child to roll the ball for 4 seconds. When a timer goes off, they child can write a list of words starting with that letter.
Hand-Eye Coordination Activity for Kids
This eye hand coordination activity addresses so many other areas as well:
Gross motor skills
Form constancy
Visual discrimination
Looking to work on the visual skills that play into motor output, motor planning, and eye-hand coordination activities? Our Visual Screening Tool may help.
More on eye-hand coordination skills:
For even MORE information on eye-hand coordination and the visual skills needed to complete visual motor and eye-hand coordination, or to better understand visual processing, you will want to join our free visual processing lab email series. It’s a 3-day series of emails that covers EVERYthing about visual processing. We take a closer look at visual skills and break things down, as well as covering the big picture of visual needs.
In the visual processing lab, you will discover how oculomotor skills like smooth pursuits make a big difference in higher level skills like learning and executive function. The best thing about this lab (besides all of the awesome info) is that it has a fun “lab” theme. I might have had too much fun with this one 🙂
Join us in visual processing Lab! Where you won’t need Bunsen burners or safety goggles!
Click here to learn more about Visual Processing Lab and to sign up.
In the visual processing lab, you will discover how oculomotor skills like smooth pursuits make a big difference in higher level skills like learning and executive function. The best thing about this lab (besides all of the awesome info) is that it has a fun “lab” theme. I might have had too much fun with this one 🙂
Join us in visual processing Lab! Where you won’t need Bunsen burners or safety goggles!
Click here to learn more about Visual Processing Lab and to sign up.
If you are unsure when to refer or having a hard time getting a parent on board, check out my OT Vision Screening Packet for more information. It contains a screener for therapists and useful handouts for parents on why addressing vision is important to their child’s success.
This is a digital file. Upon purchase, you will be able to access the 10 page file and print off to use over and over again in vision screenings and in educating therapists, teachers, parents, and other child advocates or caregivers.
