This fine motor apple seeds activity was a hit when we first did it back in 2016. My kids loved dissecting apple seeds from a sliced apple…and then eating the apple slices. Little did they know, but they were also working on quite a few fine motor skills with this little apple activity! We decided to explore an apple’s seeds noticing it’s details and talking about how every little thing that we do can be inspiring. We cut an apple in half and practiced a little fine motor skills (something we LOVE adding to creative play and learning activities!) and used tweezers to pull the seeds from the apple.
Here’s what we did to build hand strength with apple seeds…
Fine Motor Apple Seeds Activity
Using tweezers to pull out the seeds is a great way to practice tripod grasp that is needed for proper grip on a pencil. The action of squeezing and holding tweezers requires use of the intrinsic muscles of the hands, which are needed for endurance in coloring, writing, and manipulating clothing fasteners (all school-based activities that our kids will be doing this school year!)
This activity supports intrinsic hand strength to manipulate the tweezers with precision. Work on an open thumb web space and distal thump IP joint flexion when manipulating the tweezers. This activity also supports bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, and life skills: washing hands, cutting with a knife, slicing, etc.
Parenting and all of the details that goes into it is kind of like an apple and it’s seeds. They are so small but they are very much there. They are something small that grows into that huge and productive apple tree.
Fall and back-to-school seem to bring with it an apple theme. There isn’t a classroom out there that probably doesn’t have an apple in it somewhere, whether on a bulletin board, a desktop pencil holder, or a door decoration. Fall means back-to-school and back-to-school means an apple for the teacher!
Apple Fine Motor Seed Activity
While manipulating the tweezers to pick up and position the seeds from the apple, kids can develop and build their eye-hand coordination skills which are needed for reading, writing, performing hands-on learning activities, and performing tasks like turning the pages in a book or manipulating papers and books in a desk.
What a great Fall themed occupational therapy activity for back-to-school this apple activity is!
While my daughter and I worked on this fine motor apple activity, we chatted about the seeds and how they grow from tiny little things into big apple trees. Here’s another apple tree activity that kids this age will love.
We talked about our family and how it’s grown and how each of us in the family continues to grow. We even talked about the jobs and responsibilities that each of us has in our family. I asked her about what she thought about how we do those jobs. There were some funny responses: “Moms work hard. You do a lot of laundry”, and “She does a lot of making messes” (referring to her two year old sister)!
They notice every little thing. It’s those little details of life that don’t go unnoticed. They pick up on words, facial expressions, phrases, feelings, and social interactions. Then there are the routines. If one little detail of a typical daily routine is omitted, they notice. When day to day household jobs and activities happen, they notice.
Our kids are perceptive. They see all and they are learning. They are watching us and they are learning from us. It can be overwhelming as a parent to have these little people who are growing and learning based on what they see us do. It can be a hard job to raise children who are kind, truthful, and generous. Being a parent is a big responsibility.
It can also be amazing and beautiful to know that our littlest actions are inspiring our kids to be great.
Knowing that back-to-school means a change in routine from the lazy days of summer to even more “jobs” for parents (Helloooo, packing lunches, washing school clothes, preparing school supplies, signing 235 school forms, and helping with homework!), it can be even MORE overwhelming to head back into the school year.
More Apple Fine Motor
After you’ve dissected your apple seeds, why not extend the fun? Use our Apple Therapy Kit to work on fine motor dexterity, coordination skills motor planning, patterns, coloring skills and much more.
Grab a copy of the Apple Therapy Kit here.
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.
