Occupational Therapy Activities for the End of the School Year

End of the school year OT activities

School-based OTs are often-times looking for occupational therapy activities for the end of the school year. Here, you’ll find fun occupational therapy interventions for the end of the year! We all need a little boost at the end of the school year to get through to the summer, especially after a year like this one! Whether your kids were in person or online, they deserve a fun and engaging activity that will help them transition into summer break. Before we get into Summer bucket list making, it’s important to get through the end of the school year (and that IEP goes on hold for the summer break)!

end of the school year OT activities

end of school year ot activities

End of the school year is a time to celebrate everything that was accomplished during the school year, and in the therapy room, that can be a huge progression! Simply by comparing beginning of the year OT samples to end of the year OT samples, and you can see the progression that was made over the year. This is a great time to look at the progress a child has made!

We have some great end of the school year OT activities to make this time of year both fun, and skill-building. Sometimes therapy sessions can go right up to the last day of school, and making sessions extra fun is essential!

An end of the school year OT must-do…Wherever you treat your clients, treat them to a super fun last day of therapy with a party! Rip up tissue paper to make confetti, blow up balloons, pick sprinkles out of putty, and make a quick fun-fetti cake in a mug. They can eat their dessert with the perfect grasp on their utensil of choice. Did you notice all the therapeutic benefits in that list? Because they won’t!

Some extra-fun ideas to change up the therapy routine:

  • Make a craft- We have many occupational therapy crafts that support a variety of motor skills, sensory needs, fine motor skills, scissor skills, and more.
  • Sidewalk chalk- Grab some sidewalk chalk and head outside. Drawing on the sidewalks around the school is a great activity and one where you can target a variety of skills. Draw a sensory path, a hopscotch board, tic tac toe, or just draw for fun. There are so many benefits to sidewalk chalk.
  • Make a bead bracelet- Ask the student to select a word that represents their school year. Words like happy, proud, growing, or learning, or many others can be used. Then use letter beads to thread onto a pipe cleaner or string. Here is a list of student strengths to help come up with encouraging words.
  • Make a sensory bin- Sensory bins can be used to target a variety of skills and they are fun to play with! Kids love to walk into the therapy room and see a sensory bin ready for them. Materials like dry corn, beans, cotton balls, sand, shaving cream, pool noodles, or any materials! Here is a list of sensory bin bases ideas to get your creativity started.
  • Use paint brushes to paint water on a chalkboard on a vertical surface. 
  • Play dough and cookie cutters- There are many benefits of play dough and you can target so many skills. Pull out a few cookie cutters for an open-ended play activity that builds motor skills. Make the play dough activity extra fun by cooking up an extra large batch of homemade play dough. Then, hide small objects or coins in the dough for a fun surprise.
  • Make a Tie-Dye T-Shirt-How long has it been since you’ve tie-dyed? For me, it’s been over a decade, but I still remember the excitement of creating wearable, one-of-a-kind art. Depending on what the child’s needs are in therapy, you can use this tie-dye activity to address their needs.
    1. The first step for tie-dying is to get your material wet and ring out the access water. My OT brain jumped for joy at the opportunity to have my clients ring out a wet shirt! This action recruits the gross grip strength and bilateral coordination required to move the wrists in opposite directions. Not only that, but they have to hold the position and continue twisting as necessary for the water to be released – what a perfect activity for
      action-reaction!
    2. The second step is to form the shirt into a design. Fine motor coordination and finger isolation can be encouraged by using only the index finger and thumb to begin twisting the shirt. Eventually, the twist will become too thick to reach with one hand, and that’s where bilateral coordination comes into play once more. Maybe do this a few times until the twist is just right!
    3. Now my favorite part – breaking out the rubber bands. Rubber bands are often used in therapy for fine motor strengthening and bilateral coordination. This will be such a fun, new way to use them in your sessions! Use different resistance rubber bands based on their abilities, and use as many as you’d like. This task is also great for developing ADLs
      that require strong, coordinated fingers, like donning socks.
    4. Squeezing the bottles of dye can be a great workout for small hands! Use a fine-tipped bottle to increase the challenge and decrease the mess.
    5. Once the process is complete, they will have followed multiple steps and benefited from sustained attention and practice with proper sequencing. 
  • Nail Polish: Could your client benefit from visual motor integration and fine motor coordination? Have them paint your nails! Or, save your fingernails and offer them a small wooden car to paint – either way, it will be a blast.
  • Gardening: Working on self regulation, social skills, or sequencing? Planting is a perfect time to have conversations with your client, all while doing a refreshing, seasonally appropriate activity.
  • STEM: Have a little scientist on your hands? Use recycled materials to engineer catapults, cars, mazes, and more! Adjust the craft based on their therapeutic needs. You can learn all about recycled STEM ideas here.
  • Fresh Air: Is it a beautiful late spring day? Take therapy outside and let everyone soak up the good-feeling of vitamin D. Here are some great outdoor sensory ideas.
Need occupational therapy activities for the end of the school year?

Online Therapy Activities for the end of the school year

Working in teletherapy at the end of the school year? Check out these teletherapy activities for occupational therapy for the end of the school year:

  • Show and Tell- If you haven’t done this already, a great way to encourage engagement during telehealth is to have the child give you a tour of their home. Most kids love to show off their things, and you can get a better sense of what items and space they have for planning their home programming. This time can be used to work on social interaction skills, descriptive skills, and you can address their deficits by having them interact with specific items they may find.
  • Scavenger Hunt– Another way to boost motivation in telehealth is to do a scavenger hunt! Ask them to find something blue, something yellow, something rough, something soft, something long and something short… you get the picture!
  • Make Play Dough– Making play dough with students is a great way to work on following a recipe and build skills. Then, each student can get their own set of play dough to send home at the end of the year for summer fine motor activities. These play dough recipes have you covered. Pair the play dough with some of these free play dough mats:
    1. Free Ice Cream Play Dough Mat
    2. Free Outer Space Play Dough Mat
    3. Bird Play Dough Mat
  1. Microwave Clean Mud for sensory play (not edible)
  2. Fruit Snack Train (to pair with a book)
  3. Outer Space Snack Mix (for an easy recipe idea)
  4. Tiny Sandwiches with peanut butter and jelly, bananas and honey, nutella and strawberries, hummus and cucumber – the possibilities are endless!

Interactive Slide Decks for the end of the school year

Bored with your current selection of Boom Cards? Check out these spring and summer themed slide decks! Staring at the screen just got way more therapeutic.

Celebrate at the end of the school year

Happy End-of-the-School-Year!

Sydney Thorson, OTR/L, is a new occupational therapist working in school-based therapy. Her
background is in Human Development and Family Studies, and she is passionate about
providing individualized and meaningful treatment for each child and their family. Sydney is also
a children’s author and illustrator and is always working on new and exciting projects.

Fine Motor Home Exercise Program

fine motor home exercise program

One thing that therapy providers often come across is the the issue of needing a fine motor home exercise program to support the skills that are targeted in therapy sessions. The fact is that 30 minutes of therapy intervention, once a week, is not likely to improve dramatic changes. The need for a fine motor home exercise program is even more necessary for an area such as grasp strength and finger strength.

Get your child’s fine motor skills moving with this easy, 6 month fine motor exercise program! All you need are common household items to get 6 months worth of daily fine motor activities. Your child will love seeing the progress they make each day and you’ll be in awe of the accomplishments they can make with just a few simple items.

Fine motor home exercise program
A fine motor home exercise program for kids is engaging and motivating!

Fine Motor home Exercise Program for Kids Using Household Items

For kids, fine motor skills are essential to everyday life. From tying shoelaces to writing neatly with a pencil, these activities require control and coordination of the small muscles in their hands and fingers.

Unfortunately, many children struggle with developing their fine motor skills and can lag behind their peers. This resource on fine motor milestones has a list of ages aligned with fine motor developmental progression.

To help your young ones develop these important skills, I’d like to share a 6 month fine motor exercise program for kids that can be completed with simple household items! This is a great exercise program for working on hand strength, pencil grasp, or carrying over therapy goals at home.

So often the fine motor skills needed at school need extra work at home, and this home exercise plan will do the job, in a fun way. These ideas are fun and engaging each day…and aren’t your typical grasp exercises.

Your children will need some basic supplies for this program:

  • Craft pom poms (or a bag of cotton balls)
  • Paper clips
  • Play Dough
  • Playing cards
  • Clothes pins
  • Pipe cleaners
  • Slime
  • Tweezers
  • Bottle caps
  • Yarn or string
  • Coins
  • Foil
  • Tissue paper
  • Paper cups
  • Rubber bands
  • Dry pasta
  • Mini erasers
  • Tape
  • Blocks
  • Golf tees
  • Chalk
  • Paint
  • Craft sticks
  • Googly eyes
  • Toothpicks (Also use them with our toothpick activity to build precision skills)
  • Squeeze glue
  • Spray bottle
  • Cardboard scraps

We selected these items because most therapy providers have them in their therapy bag or available in a therapy clinic. For those working in teletherapy, they are common enough items that families will have them in the home and can pull them out for the child to use in their online therapy session.

Of course, you could always substitute the materials with different supplies. Or, you could write in your own home program tasks on the blank page.

And, when using our fine motor program for a home exercise program, it’s possible that the family will have these items available. Some therapy clinics or companies may even want to offer a small kit of these items along with the home program instructions for the children receiving therapy services.

All of these items should be available in your home or from a local dollar store. With these items, you can provide your children with a variety of activities designed to enhance their fine motor development.

The great thing about this 6-month program is that it’s easy to customize the activities to the age level and skill level of the child. For example, younger children may require more guidance and assistance with the activities while older children may be able to complete the activities independently.

weekly fine motor plans for kids
The Weekly Fine Motor Home Exercise Program targets different skills every day of the month using the same 5 items.

Here is a sample of the types of activities you can do with your child each day:

• Drop craft pom poms into an empty water bottle- This skill targets open thumb web space, eye hand coordination, bilateral coordination, tripod grasp, pincer grasp, separation of the sides of the hand, finger isolation, and more.

• Connect paper clips to make chains. Then use the chain lengths to create letters on a table top. This activity targets eye-hand coordination, separation of the sides of the hand, hand strength, finger dexterity, pinch strength, motor planning, visual motor skills, and more.

• Make a play dough pie. Pinch the crust. Use scissors to cut the pie into slices. This activity targets several areas: hand strength, motor planning, pinch strength, bilateral coordination, motor planning, separation of the sides of the hand, and more.

• Clip clothes pins onto a string hanging from under a table. This activity works on many areas: core strength and stability and upper arm strength, which are both necessary pre-requisites for fine motor control and precision. The activity also targets intrinsic muscle strengthening, motor planning, eye-hand coordination, grasp strength, and more.

This is just five of the activities in the plan. Users can work through the activities (presented Monday-Friday) using a different fine motor tool each day. This is designed to keep the tasks fun and engaging while also targeting a variety of skills. Every child we’ve used this strategy with has looked forward to the day’s activity because it’s fun and new!

Click here to get your copy of the Weekly Fine Motor Home Exercise Plan.

Tips for Making Fine Motor Home Exercises More Fun

To keep your child engaged in the activities, here are some tips to make them more fun and exciting! Read about hand strengthening for more insight.

Create a competition – Create a game out of the activities by allowing your child to compete against you or another family member. For example, have a race to see who can thread the most straws onto the string in one minute.

Add a timer – Adding a timer helps to ensure that the activities are still challenging. For example, give your child one minute to thread the straws or two minutes to pick up the cotton balls with the toothpick.

Incorporate music – Music can help to make the activities more fun and enjoyable. For example, play a song while your child is picking up the cotton balls or cutting out shapes with the scissors.

Involve the whole family – Invite the whole family to participate in the activities. You can have a contest to see who can thread the most straws onto the string or who can cut out the most shapes with the scissors. This is a great way to get everyone involved and keep the activities fun!

Use the daily challenges in the Weekly Fine Motor Home Exercise Plan to create games, family events, and build those motor skills!

Why Use a Fine Motor Home Exercise Program

In addition to making the activities more fun, there are also many benefits to this 6-month fine motor exercise program for kids. When your child engages in the activities, they are developing important skills such as hand-eye coordination, manual dexterity, and visual-spatial awareness.

These skills are essential for everyday tasks such as writing and tying shoelaces. The activities also help to strengthen their fine motor muscles which can help to improve their handwriting and drawing abilities.

Another great benefit of this program is that it can be done anywhere! All you need are 6 household items and you can provide your child with 6 months worth of daily fine motor activities. This makes it easy to fit in time for practice no matter how busy your schedule is.

With these activities, you can help your child develop their fine motor skills in a fun and engaging way. So, grab some cotton balls/craft pom poms, paper clips, play dough, deck of cards, and clothes pins, get your copy of the Weekly Fine Motor Plan, and start working on those fine motor skills today!

With this easy 6 month fine motor program, you can give your child the opportunity to experience the world through movement, exploration and play. Plus, it’s an economical way to provide them with a creative outlet and help them to develop their physical abilities. Don’t wait another minute – get started today and unleash the potential of your child’s motor skills!

NEW ITEMS ADDED. This purchase now includes:

  1. SIX MONTH Weekly Fine Motor Program
  2. Clothes Pin Exercise Cards- Use in games, home programs, brain breaks, fine motor challenges, and more.
  3. Clothes Pin and Paper Clip Activity Cards- Print off the activity cards and challenge eye-hand coordination, precision, dexterity, bilateral coordination, and hand strength.
  4. Play Dough Letter Match-Ups- These upper and lower case letter cards are mini play dough mats to challenge hand strength and coordination skills as well as hands-on, sensory-based letter formation skills.

Grab your copy of the Weekly Fine Motor Plan (and get the extra motor activities included!)