Colleen Beck, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist and the owner and author of The OT Toolbox website. She manages all of The OT Toolbox social media accounts and runs the popular newsletter.
Read about Colleen's experience and career as an occupational therapist, including how The OT Toolbox began on our About The OT Toolbox page: https://www.theottoolbox.com/about-us/
Colleen created The OT Toolbox in 2011 and since then has written thousands of blog posts designed to support therapy providers, educators, parents, counselors, admin, and caregivers in promoting the healthy development of kids.
Check out Colleen's blog posts below:
Pencil grasp development is a common concern for many parents, teachers, and therapists. So often, we see children holding a pencil with all of their fingers wrapped around the pencil, or very awkward pencil grips and wonder what is a typical pencil grasp. But, did you know that children typically progress through pencil grasp development in a predictable pattern? It’s true! Let’s talk pencil grasp.
Secondly, it’s important to note that grasp development, while it can be predictable, can also vary in timing. And when grasp doesn’t follow the progression listed below…it can be ok! In fact, a functional pencil grasp is perfectly fine for children.
Pencil Grasp Development
Grasp development follows three main categories: primitive grasps, transitional grasps, and mature grasps.
Primitive Pencil Grasps
In this beginning pencil grasp, the whole arm moves the pencil. These grasps include two specific grips which are described below:
Palmer Supinate Grasp (a whole hand grasp)
Digital Pronate Grasp
1. Whole Hand Grasp/Palmer Supinate Grasp- (Typically seen between 12 months-1.5 years) Child holds the crayon with their whole hand, with the writing end of the crayon sticking out near their pinkie side of the hand. It looks like they are holding a paint stirrer or potato masher.
2. Digital Pronate Grasp/ Pronated Wrist Grasp- (2-3 years) Crayon is held in the hand so the tip of the crayon (or the drawing end) is held on the thumb side of the hand.
Transitional Pencil Grasps
In the transitional pencil grasp stage, the child’s forearm and/or wrist moves the pencil.
1. Quadrupod Grasp, or Four Fingered Grasp- (3-4 years)- Crayon is held between their thumb, and tips of the pointer finger, middle finger, and ring finger. As the child progresses, these four fingers may pull down to the tip of the finger into a quadrupod grasp.
2. Static Tripod Grasp- (3.5-4 years)- Child holds the writing utensil with the thumb, pointer finger, and rests the utensil on the last joint of the middle finger. The ring finger and pinkie fingers are tucked into the palm of the hand.
3. Other grasp patterns- There can be many variations of grasp patterns that occur in the transitional stage, marked by the use of the wrist or forearm to move the pencil.
Mature Pencil Grasps
In the mature pencil grasp stage, the child holds and maneuvers the pencil using mobility in the fingers or the hand.
Mature grasp patterns include:
Dynamic Tripod Grasp
Lateral Tripod Grasp
Dynamic Quadrupod Grasp
Lateral Quadrupod Grasp
1. Dynamic Tripod Grasp- (4-6/7 years) Thumb and pointer finger hold the pencil as it rests on the last joint of the middle finger. Pencil movements occur via manipulation of the fingers and hand. Note that a true dynamic tripod grasp may not be established up until around 14 years of age.
2. Lateral Tripod Grasp- Thumb is pressed in against the pencil (or adducted) to hold the pencil against the side of the pointer finger. The tip of the thumb may bend over (or flex) over the pencil in a “wrapped” position. This grasp is sometimes called a thumb wrap grasp because the thumb is not involved with the distal movement of the pencil. Distal mobility occurs, but it is the index and middle fingers manipulating the pencil.
3. Dynamic Quadrupod Grasp- Grasp is similar to the dynamic tripod grasp, but opposition includes the thumb, pointer finger, middle finger on the pencil shaft.
4. Lateral Quadrupod Grasp- Grasp is similar to the lateral tripod grasp, with its thumb wrapped positioning of the thumb, but uses the pointer, middle, and ring fingers are on the pencil shaft and manipulate the pencil.
Quadrupod Grasp
One thing that is important to mention is the quadrupod grasp. You might have noticed this term was mentioned a few times above, and in difference areas of development through the progression of pencil grasp development.
The quadrupod grasp is considered a four finger grasp, in which four fingers (thumb, pointer finger, middle finger, ring finger) are used to hold the pencil. Quadrupod grasp progresses from a static form to a dynamic form where there is fluid motion and repositioning in the joints of the hands.
Quadrupod Grasp- If the thumb opposes the pointer finger, middle finger, and ring finger this may be called a quadrupod grasp. A quadrupod grasp can also occur with the pencil resting on the side of the ring finger.
The quadrupod stage is an important part of grasp development as the fingers move into a dynamic position with pronation and extension of the wrist. However, don’t get stuck on a quadropod grasp if this type of grip is used with older children or if students are established with their quadrupod grasp!
Quadrupod grasp or Tripod Grasp?
Research tells us that the quadrupod grasp is a very functional grip and the use of one extra finger (as opposed to the traditional sense of a tripod grasp) is actually very functional in written work.
Some may say that the quadrupod grasp is more restrictive than the tripod grasp, however that extra stability can actually promote more mobility in the pencil and be used in very efficient and effective handwriting.
When the child that the uses a quadrupod grp on the pencil is forced to use a tripod grasp, you may see a decrease in written work legibility due to decreased stability. The arches of the hands may need to compensate for strength and dexterity in the fingers and that precise placement that the ring finger adds to the shaft of the pencil just isn’t as targeted with the arches of the hand and the stability offered through the ulnar side of the hand. For those who have the stability in the ulnar side and within the arches or intrinsic muscles, a tripod grasp can be more precise and lead to more refined pencil motions.
So you can see that it all is up to each individual when it comes to forcing a student to move from quadrupod to tripod. It just may not make sense to do so for some…and that’s ok and very functional!
Other Functional Pencil Grasps
There are other grasps that can be considered “functional” in which the child holds the pencil differently than described here, but can also write in an efficient manner.
These can include (but not be limited to) a thumb wrap grasp, thumb tuck grasp, inter-digital brace grasp, or a finger-wrap grasp.
Pencil Grasp Development and Fine Motor Skills
Pencil grasp develops gradually as part of overall fine motor development. In the earliest stages of pencil grasp development, a toddler typically uses a palmar grasp, wrapping the whole hand around a crayon or marker.
At this stage, movement comes mostly from the shoulder and elbow, and the child’s hands are focused on exploring rather than precision. When a toddler begins to scribble, the goal is not neatness but sensory feedback and control of large movements. These early scribbles lay the foundation for later fine motor skills.
As children gain strength and coordination, finger dexterity and distal coordination progresses. Instead of relying primarily on the elbow and shoulder, the child starts to move the tool using the wrist and eventually the fingertips. In occupational therapy, we like to say proximal stability before distal mobility.
This shift allows greater control over lines and shapes.
This is where we see grasp patterns really start to emerge.
During this stage, you may see variations such as a quadruped grasp, where four fingers help stabilize the marker or pen. The child’s hands are learning to coordinate small muscles, and core strength also plays a role in providing a stable base for refined hand control.
Over time, children typically progress toward a 3-finger grasp, sometimes referred to as a tripod grasp. In this more mature pattern, the writing tool is held between the thumb and index fingers, resting on the middle finger. The tips of their fingers guide the movement rather than the whole arm. This allows for precise control, endurance, and efficient letter formation. The fingertips become responsible for controlled, isolated movements rather than broad arm swings.
When Should Kids Use a Pencil?
Here’s how I respond to that question. Try to hold off on pencil and paper activities (worksheets) until kindergarten. When kids are handed a pencil or pen too soon, that’s when we see primitive grasps become “stuck”.
This happens in preschools where kids are tracing and writing on worksheets. Instead, use PLAY! We have a bunch ideas for fine motor activities using play that should come before pencils.
Children begin holding crayons or markers as toddlers, but how they hold them changes over time. Around age 2 to 3, children typically use a whole-hand or palmar grasp. By age 4 to 5, many children are developing more refined finger-based grasps. A functional 3-finger grasp often emerges between 5 and 6 years of age. Development is gradual, and there is a wide range of typical. It’s much better to use crayons in coloring to progress through these stages rather than a pencil. The crayon provides a heavier, more resistive feedback and strengthens the fingers, hands, and arches of the hands. Arch development is HUGE in a functional pencil grasp!
At what age should a child use a pencil grip?
One question we get a lot as pediatric OTs is when kids should add a pencil grip to their pencil.
Most children do not need a pencil grip in the preschool years. Pencil grips are typically considered when a child is school-aged, usually around 5 to 7 years old, and showing signs of fatigue, discomfort, or inefficient grasp patterns during writing tasks. Before that age, hands are still developing strength, coordination, and control. For younger children, it is more important to build fine motor skills than to add adaptive tools too early. It’s most important to work on the fine motor skills needed for strength and coordination to manage and manipulate the pencil. Try play dough, coloring, playing with beads, puzzles, tearing paper…SO many fun fine motor activities help with manipulating a pencil.
Tips to Help with Pencil Grasp Development
Providing opportunities for practice on a vertical surface, such as at an easel, can support this development. Writing or drawing on a vertical surface encourages wrist extension and strengthens the muscles needed for refined finger movements.
Using tools like a marker or pen in short, engaging tasks helps children build coordination and confidence. Activities that promote fine motor skills, along with attention to posture and core strength, support the natural progression through the stages of pencil grasp development.
Ultimately, pencil grasp is not just about how a child holds a pen. It reflects the integration of fine motor development, hand strength, coordination, and stability.
Supporting the child’s hands through purposeful play and developmentally appropriate expectations allows grasp patterns to mature in a way that promotes comfort, endurance, and functional writing skills.
One tool we love is the Pencil Grasp Bundle.
How to help with pencil Grasp
Want to know more about pencil grasp progression, development, and strategies to use to help children build a strong, efficient, and functional pencil grasp? It’s all in the Pencil Grasp Bundle!
The Pencil Grasp Bundle is for those struggling to help students with carryover of skills. It’s designed to make pencil grasp practice meaningful and motivating. The Pencil Grasp Bundle is 16 pencil grasp resources, guides, worksheet sets, and tools.
Pencil Grasp Success Was Never Easier.
It can be a real struggle to help kids address tricky pencil grasps. It is frustrating and difficult to weed through all of the information and pull out what will work for a child.
You struggle with kids who work on skills but can’t carryover handwriting and pencil grasp into the classroom.
Therapists may search for fresh ideas to address pencil grasp needs and wonder whether a grasp is considered functional or needs changing.
Therapists need pencil grasp screening and educational materials to address a huge influx of therapy referrals.
Parents wonder about development and skills.
Teachers will love the Centers activities to incorporate into learning to impact carryover of handwriting skills.
The Pencil Grasp Bundle includes 16 products and is valued at over $73. It’s bundled together and offered at just $24.
More pencil grasp help
Want to know how to fix a problem with pencil grasps? Need help knowing where to start when it comes to immature pencil grasps or a child hating to write because their hand hurts? The Pencil Grasp Challenge in open for you! In this free, 5 day email series, you’ll gain information, resources, specific activities designed to promote a functional, efficient pencil grasp.
The pencil grasp challenge is a free, 5 day mini course and challenge. During the course of five days, I’ll be teaching everything you need to know about the skills that make up a functional pencil grasp. You’ll learn what’s going on behind the inefficient and just plain terrible pencil grasps you see everyday in the classroom, clinic, or home. Along with loads of information, you’ll gain quick, daily activities that you can do today with a kiddo you know and love. These are easy activities that use items you probably already have in your home right now.
Besides learning and gaining a handful (pun intended) of fun ideas to make quick wins in pencil grasp work, you’ll gain:
5 days of information related to pencil grasp, so you know how to help kids fix an immature pencil grasp.
Specific activities designed to build a functional pencil grasp.
Free printable handouts that you can use to share with your team or with a parent/fellow teachers.
You’ll get access to printable challenge sheets, and a few other fun surprises.
And, possibly the best of all, you’ll get access to a secret challengers Facebook group, where you can share wins, chat about all things pencil grasp, and join a community of other therapists, parents and teachers working on pencil grasp issues.
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.
Inhibitory control is one of the foundational building blocks of executive function. Executive functions are the higher-level cognitive processes that allow a person to plan, organize, problem-solve, regulate emotions, and engage in goal-directed behavior. Among these processes, inhibitory control acts as the mental “brake system” that makes all the others possible.
At its core, executive function requires three primary components: (1) working memory, (2) cognitive flexibility, and (3) inhibitory control.
Inhibitory control allows an individual to pause before acting, resist distractions, and suppress automatic responses. Without this pause, the brain cannot effectively use working memory to hold instructions in mind or apply cognitive flexibility to adjust strategies. In other words, inhibition creates the space for thoughtful decision-making.
In everyday life, inhibitory control supports the ability to ignore irrelevant stimuli, delay gratification, regulate emotional reactions, and choose behavior that aligns with expectations.
For a child in school, this may look like raising a hand instead of blurting out, completing an assignment carefully rather than rushing, or staying seated during instruction. These behaviors are not separate from executive function; they are visible outcomes of it.
From a developmental perspective, inhibitory control often emerges as one of the earliest executive function challenges observed in young children. Difficulties may initially appear as impulsivity or hyperactivity.
As children grow, the outward behaviors may decrease, but the executive demand remains. Adolescents and adults with inhibition challenges may struggle more internally, with racing thoughts, distractibility, or impulsive decision-making.
In occupational therapy, understanding inhibitory control as part of executive function shifts the focus from managing behavior to strengthening cognitive processes.
When we support inhibition, we are strengthening the broader executive system that enables purposeful participation in learning, social interaction, and daily routines.
What is inhibitory control?
Inhibitory control in occupational therapy refers to the ability to suppress an automatic, impulsive, or dominant response in order to engage in purposeful, goal-directed activity. It is a core component of executive functioning and supports participation in daily occupations across home, school, and community environments.
From an occupational therapy perspective, inhibitory control is not simply about behavior management. It is a cognitive process that allows an individual to pause, filter distractions, regulate emotional responses, and choose actions that align with task demands and social expectations. This skill underlies successful performance in occupations such as classroom learning, self-care routines, social interaction, and play.
In practice, inhibitory control supports:
Waiting before acting or speaking
Ignoring irrelevant stimuli
Following multi-step directions without rushing
Managing emotional reactions during challenging tasks
Regulating motor output, such as controlling force and movement speed
When inhibitory control is impaired, children may demonstrate difficulty with impulse control, task persistence, attention, and social participation. These challenges can interfere with fine motor tasks, classroom routines, peer interactions, and independence in daily living skills.
Occupational therapy intervention targets inhibitory control through structured routines, environmental modifications, movement-based strategies, cognitive scaffolding (such as “stop and think” cues), and activities that promote self-regulation and flexible thinking. The goal is to strengthen the child’s ability to pause, evaluate, and respond intentionally in meaningful occupations.
Inhibition is one of the most important, and most misunderstood, executive functioning skills in children and teens.
It is the brain’s ability to pause before acting, speaking, or reacting. In young children, difficulties with inhibition often look like constant movement, blurting out answers, grabbing toys, or acting without thinking about consequences.
As kids grow into adolescence, the outward hyperactivity may decrease, but the challenge does not disappear. Instead, it often shifts inward, showing up as racing thoughts, impulsive decision-making, difficulty filtering distractions, or reacting emotionally before considering the bigger picture.
Understanding inhibition across development helps parents, educators, and therapists recognize that these behaviors are not simply willful misbehavior, but reflect a maturing executive functioning system that supports purposeful activity, learning, and relationships.
What Does Inhibitory Control Look Like?
Inhibition is a core executive functioning process. It refers to the brain’s ability to suppress or delay an automatic response. It is the mental “brake system” that allows a person to pause before acting, speaking, or reacting.
Emotional inhibition – moderating an emotional reaction
Inhibition is the internal neurological mechanism that allows regulation to happen.
Is Inhibition the same as Impulse Control?
Impulse control is the observable behavior that results from effective inhibition.
When someone demonstrates impulse control, we see that they:
Wait their turn
Think before speaking
Resist grabbing something they want
Pause before reacting emotionally
Impulse control is what we see on the outside. Inhibition is the brain process that makes it possible.
One way we explain this from the OT perspective…
Inhibition is the internal skill. Impulse control is the external outcome.
You could think of inhibition as the brake pedal in a car. Impulse control is the car actually slowing down when the brake is pressed.
If the braking system (inhibition) is weak or immature, the car (behavior) does not slow down effectively.
Why the Difference Matters for Parents and Therapists
When we say a child “has poor impulse control,” we are describing behavior. When we talk about “inhibition deficits,” we are describing executive function development.
This distinction matters because:
Punishment alone does not strengthen inhibition.
Skill-building strategies can improve inhibition over time.
Movement, structure, visual supports, and scaffolding help build the internal pause.
They are connected but not identical.
In younger children, inhibition challenges may look like hyperactivity, blurting, or grabbing. In adolescents or adults, it may show up as difficulty filtering thoughts, interrupting others, or making quick decisions without considering long-term consequences.
Inhibition is the brain-based executive function. Impulse control is the behavioral expression of that function.
Understanding this helps shift the focus from “Why won’t they stop?” to “How can we strengthen their ability to pause?”
Inhibition and Executive Functioning: Why It Matters
Inhibition is the ability to pause before acting, speaking, or reacting. It allows a child to stop, think, and then choose a response that fits the situation.
This skill is foundational for purposeful activity at home, in school, and in social settings. When inhibition is weak, children often act before thinking, respond impulsively, or struggle to manage their physical and verbal behavior.
For parents and occupational therapists, inhibition is often one of the earliest executive functioning challenges noticed in preschool or kindergarten.
How Inhibition Challenges Show Up in Young Children
In early childhood, difficulty with inhibition may look like constant motion or exaggerated energy. A child may move quickly from one activity to the next, rush through fine motor tasks, or handle materials with excessive force. Their grasp may appear immature or inefficient because they are moving too fast to refine their motor control.
Verbal inhibition may also be affected. Some children interrupt frequently, call out answers, yell, or make noises during quiet activities. They may struggle to wait their turn, maintain personal space, or respond appropriately in group settings. Socially, this can lead to grabbing toys, acting without considering consequences, or reacting physically during frustration.
These behaviors are not intentional misbehavior. They reflect difficulty slowing down long enough to evaluate what is happening and what response is most appropriate.
The Impact on Purposeful Activity and Participation
Inhibition supports successful engagement in daily tasks. When this skill is underdeveloped, it can interfere with:
Completing schoolwork carefully
Participating in group learning
Following classroom routines
Managing peer interactions
Making thoughtful choices
For example, a child may take something they want without considering the outcome. They may begin a task before listening to directions fully. They may rush through assignments and make avoidable mistakes. Each of these challenges affects participation and learning.
Occupational therapy intervention often includes strategies to build body awareness, incorporate movement before seated work, and teach structured “stop and think” routines to support impulse control.
Restlessness and the Need for Movement
Some children with inhibition challenges appear constantly in motion. They may fidget, tap their feet, shift in their seats, or seek movement opportunities. Even when seated, their bodies may appear busy.
Movement-based strategies can be helpful. Activities that involve heavy work or structured physical effort before academic tasks may improve focus and engagement.
While supports such as lap weights or movement breaks can reduce visible restlessness, the need for internal regulation may still be present. Research has shown that structured physical activity can improve attention and learning outcomes for students with attention and inhibition challenges.
How Inhibition Changes Over Time
As children grow, overt hyperactive behaviors often decrease. By adolescence, many are no longer climbing furniture or running through rooms impulsively. However, the difficulty with inhibition may shift internally.
Instead of constant physical motion, older students and adults may experience racing thoughts, difficulty filtering distractions, or trouble prioritizing what deserves attention. This internal distractibility can affect academic performance, work productivity, and relationships.
Understanding this developmental shift helps parents and therapists recognize that inhibition challenges do not simply disappear. They evolve.
What Does Lack of Inhibitory Control Look Like?
Because impulse control and inhibitory control are so similar, we want to reiterate that this executive function skill is the piece that lets us suppress automatic or dominant responses to stimuli.
This helps us to manage those impulsive actions and maintain focus, so we CAN do daily functional and purposeful tasks.
Impulse control refers to the ability to resist an immediate urge or temptation. Inhibitory control, on the other hand, is the broader executive skill that allows a person to regulate attention, thoughts, and actions in order to pause and prevent an automatic or inappropriate response.
Here is a developmentally organized list of examples showing how difficulty with inhibition may present at different ages. These examples focus on functional participation at home, school, and in social situations.
Preschool (Ages 3–5)
Grabs toys from peers without waiting
Runs in indoor spaces despite reminders
Has difficulty stopping when told “freeze” or “wait”
Blurts out unrelated comments during group time
Touches everything within reach
Struggles to keep hands to self
Moves quickly between activities without completing tasks
Hits or pushes when frustrated
Climbs on furniture impulsively
Has trouble sitting for short structured activities
Early Elementary (Ages 6–8)
Calls out answers without raising a hand
Interrupts conversations frequently
Rushes through schoolwork and makes careless errors
Leaves seat repeatedly during class
Difficulty waiting in line
Invades personal space of peers
Acts before fully listening to directions
Reacts emotionally before thinking
Difficulty stopping preferred activities
Grabs materials without asking
Upper Elementary (Ages 9–11)
Talks excessively in class
Struggles to filter comments that may be socially inappropriate
Begins assignments before reading all instructions
Difficulty delaying gratification
Acts on dares without thinking through consequences
Interrupts group discussions
Trouble managing frustration during games or competition
Makes impulsive online comments or messages
Difficulty resisting distractions during independent work
Overreacts quickly to peer conflict
Middle School (Ages 12–14)
Interrupts teachers or peers during discussions
Reacts emotionally before considering social impact
Makes snap decisions in friendships
Difficulty prioritizing important tasks over immediate interests
Engages in risky behavior without fully weighing consequences
Struggles to ignore phone notifications
Has trouble regulating tone or volume in social situations
Blurting sarcastic or inappropriate remarks
Difficulty pausing during disagreements
Rushes through homework to get it done quickly
High School (Ages 15–18)
Impulsive decision-making in social or academic situations
Difficulty filtering thoughts before speaking
Reacts strongly in arguments without reflection
Trouble managing digital communication appropriately
Difficulty prioritizing long-term goals over short-term rewards
Acts before evaluating risks
Struggles with emotional restraint in relationships
Makes quick commitments without planning
Difficulty resisting distractions during studying
Feels mentally restless with racing thoughts
young Adulthood
Interrupts colleagues or dominates conversations
Impulsive spending decisions
Difficulty filtering thoughts during meetings
Reacts quickly to stress without reflection
Trouble distinguishing important from unimportant information
Difficulty waiting before responding to emails or texts
Struggles with emotional restraint in workplace settings
Makes snap career or relationship decisions
Experiences constant mental chatter that interferes with focus
Occupational therapy Interventions for Inhibitory Control
Supporting Inhibition Through Occupational Therapy
Intervention focuses on helping children build the ability to pause, reflect, and respond intentionally. Strategies may include:
Structured movement before seated work
Visual reminders to stop and think
Clear, consistent consequences paired with teaching moments
Explicit teaching of problem-solving steps
Practice waiting, turn-taking, and flexible thinking
Inhibition is not about forcing compliance. It is about strengthening the mental pause that allows a child to choose purposeful action over impulsive reaction.
When children learn to pause, they gain greater independence, stronger relationships, and improved participation in the meaningful occupations of daily life.
Next, let’s go over some ideas to support this executive functioning skill.
Preschool (Ages 3–5)
At this age, inhibitory control is emerging. Therapy should focus on playful, movement-based activities that require stopping, waiting, and shifting.
Session ideas:
Freeze dance or “stop and go” games
Red light, green light
Simon Says
Turn-taking board games
Obstacle courses with built-in pause points
“Wait hands” practice during snack prep
OT focus:
Teaching the concept of pause
Practicing waiting for a cue
Supporting motor inhibition
Using visual signals (stop signs, colored cards)
Short, repetitive practice builds the brain’s braking system in a fun and structured way.
Early Elementary (Ages 6–8)
Children at this stage can begin connecting inhibition to school performance and social participation.
Session ideas:
Games requiring impulse control (Uno, Spot It, Jenga)
Timed tasks where the goal is accuracy over speed
“Think it or say it?” social scenarios
Writing tasks that require slowing down and self-checking
Movement breaks followed by structured seated work
OT focus:
Teaching “stop–think–do” strategies
Increasing awareness of rushing
Practicing waiting before answering
Building emotional pause skills
This is the age to introduce simple metacognitive language: “What does your brain need to do before your body moves?”
Upper Elementary (Ages 9–11)
Students can now reflect on behavior and connect inhibition to consequences.
Sessions may include brief discussion about how pausing improves performance in school, sports, and friendships.
Middle School (Ages 12–14)
Inhibition shifts more toward emotional and cognitive control.
Session ideas:
Goal-setting and reflection activities
Social problem-solving tasks
Structured debates with pause rules
Mindfulness exercises
Executive functioning planners
OT focus:
Teaching cognitive filtering (Is this helpful? Is this important?)
Managing emotional reactions
Practicing response delay in conversations
Using self-talk strategies
Movement may still be necessary, but discussion and insight become more central.
High School (Ages 15–18)
Inhibitory control at this age often involves decision-making and long-term planning.
Session ideas:
Scenario-based decision mapping
Time management planning
Risk vs reward analysis tasks
Stress-management routines
Study strategies that reduce distraction
OT focus:
Strengthening delay of gratification
Improving digital impulse control
Developing internal pause strategies
Building independence in executive functioning
This stage emphasizes applying inhibition to real-life responsibilities.
Across All Ages: Sensory and Regulation Supports
Because inhibition is closely tied to regulation, sessions should include:
Heavy work before seated tasks
Deep pressure activities
Structured movement breaks
Visual cues for pausing
Calm-down strategies
Supporting the nervous system strengthens the brain’s ability to inhibit impulses.
Inhibitory Control: The Big Picture in Occupational Therapy
Working on inhibitory control is not about telling a child to “try harder.” It involves:
Teaching the pause
Practicing it in meaningful occupations
Strengthening regulation
Embedding support into real tasks
When inhibition improves, participation improves. Children can think before acting, manage frustration, and engage more successfully in school, play, and home routines.
The Impulse Control Journal…a printable resource for helping kids strategize executive functioning skill development. When saying “calm down” just isn’t enough…
When a child is easily “triggered” and seems to melt down at any sign of loud noises or excitement…
When you need help or a starting point to teach kids self-regulation strategies…
When you are struggling to motivate or redirect a child without causing a meltdown…
When you’re struggling to help kids explore their emotions, develop self-regulation and coping skills, manage and reflect on their emotions, identify their emotions, and more as they grow…
Grab the Impulse Control Journal to build organizational strategies, planning, prioritization, habits, and mindset in kids.
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.
Coming up with fun occupational therapy activities for the winter months can be tricky, but this winter paper contains a whole winter theme making activity planning easy. This can be a dark and dreary time for many. Take this time to create amazing lesson plans for your learners! Add this activity to your winter occupational therapy ideas.
Today’s free downloadable PDF, Mitten Paper – Color and Find Modified Paper, will be a great addition to your winter themed lesson plan.
Looking for a consistent way to support fine motor skills all year? This yearlong fine motor system includes seasonal activity kits and monthly data collection tools to support planning and progress monitoring.
If fine motor planning and data collection feel overwhelming, you’re not alone. This done-for-you yearlong bundle organizes seasonal activities and monthly screening tools in one system.
The Mitten Paper printable packet is simple in design, yet provides countless activities and skill building opportunities. Did you get a chance to read (Amazon affiliate link) The Mitten by Jan Brett? This story, featuring one amazing mitten, and a forest full of animals, is a great starting point to a great treatment plan.
“When Nicki drops his white mitten in the snow, he goes on without realizing that it is missing.
One by one, woodland animals find it and crawl in; first, a curious mole, then a rabbit, a badger and others, each one larger than the last. Finally, a big brown bear is followed in by a tiny brown mouse and what happens next makes for a wonderfully funny finish.”
Many students, who already dread writing, have difficulty coming up with stories from their imagination. Writing prompts can help students start their stories. Add a story like The Mitten to this writing activity and hopefully the ideas will come easier. What kind of prompts could you write from this story?
Upcoming posts to the OT Toolbox are going to be featuring writing prompt ideas for each month and season. Keep following social media, and check your inbox to keep track of these posts.
How does this support differentiated instruction?
Differentiation means adjusting the content, the process, the learning environment according to the student. OT professionals are really good at using one craft or activity to do this and meeting the needs of their whole caseload.
Adjusting line size and structure
Modifying task expectations
Allowing multiple entry points into the activity
Targeting one or two goals at a time rather than everything at once
Some students may focus primarily on scanning and counting. Others may focus on spacing and letter placement. Advanced learners may write paragraphs or create graphs.
You are meeting students where they are, while moving them forward.
HOW TO USE THE MITTEN PAPER WORKSHEETS
Writing prompts and handwriting are not the only ways to use these cute Mitten Paper Color and Find Worksheets.
Test your learner’s visual perceptual skills by having them find all of the matching items, and circle or color them. Learners can scan for multiple items at once, or one at a time. Dot markers would be a great tool for young learners to stamp as they find the hidden mittens.
Learners can count how many mittens they find of each variety, or the total number of mittens, then write the number and key words on the lined paper (example: 4 snowflake mittens).
Create a graph of all the mittens found. A pie chart, bar graph, or line graph would be a great way to add STEM to this activity. Learners can cut out mittens to glue onto their graph, or use numbers.
Use the pages to practice sight or spelling words
Create a winter journal using the writing pages
Three different types of paper to use with levels of learners
Make this part of a larger lesson plan including gross motor, sensory, social, executive function, or other fine motor skills
Write a report about mittens, types of mittens, the history of mittens, different memories or stories about mittens
Make a gross motor game of running around collecting matching pairs of mittens
Practice sorting with real mittens
Work on self help skills by practicing donning mittens
Do challenges while wearing mittens
The list of possibilities is virtually endless. Build onto your lesson plan each year, fine tuning what works and what was not as fun as you had imagined
SKILLS ADDRESSED USING THE MITTEN PAPER ACTIVITY WORKSHEETS
Kinesthetic awareness – learning by doing
Hand strength and dexterity – staying on the lines builds hand muscles and develops muscle control
Visual motor skills –Combining what is seen visually and what is written motorically. This takes coordination to be able to translate information from visual input to motor output. Coloring, drawing, counting, cutting, and tracing are some visual motor skills.
Pasting using glue stick or drippy glue with accuracy
Visual Perception – Developing figure ground to see where one item starts and finishes, discrimination to pick out slight differences, scanning to find all answers, and form constancy to determine an object is the same if it is smaller or turned.
Sequencing – Will your learner scan in a haphazard pattern all over the page, or be more methodical?
Proprioception – pressure on paper, grip on pencil
Social/Executive Function – Following directions, turn taking, task completion, orienting to details, neatness, multi-tasking, attending to task, and impulse control can be addressed using this Warm Winter Clothing Printable PDF.
Handwriting: Letter formation – correctly forming the letters top to bottom. Letter sizing – correctly fitting the letters into the size boxes. Spacing, line placement, directionality, and spelling are also addressed
Bilateral coordination – remembering to use their “helper hand” to hold the paper while writing. Using one hand for a dominant hand instead of switching back and forth is encouraged once a child is in grade school or demonstrates a significant strength in one or the other
Executive function, following directions, attention, attention to detail, focus, sequencing, planning, task completion, compliance, behavior, and work tolerance are all important skills to learn
Remember, you can address all of these skills at once, or focus on one or two. Some of the skills above will be addressed without your conscious knowledge, while other skills will be directly attended to.
What skills are addressed beyond handwriting?
Differentiated paper activities like this support far more than letter formation.
Visual Motor & Visual Perception
Eye-hand coordination
Figure ground discrimination
Visual scanning
Form constancy
Visual discrimination
Fine Motor & Strength
Hand strength and dexterity
Proprioceptive input through writing pressure
Arch development
Bilateral coordination (using the helper hand)
Executive Function
Following directions
Task completion
Sequencing
Attention to detail
Work tolerance
Handwriting Skills
Letter formation
Letter sizing
Spacing
Line placement
Directionality
Spelling
The beauty of differentiated materials is that some skills are addressed naturally, while others can be intentionally targeted.
How can one worksheet address multiple developmental levels?
The Mitten Paper Color and Find Worksheets include three different types of writing lines, making it easy to differentiate based on student needs.
But writing prompts are only one way to use them.
You can:
Have students scan and find matching mittens to work on visual perception
Use dot markers for younger learners to stamp hidden items
Count and record how many mittens were found (example: “4 snowflake mittens”)
Create a bar graph, pie chart, or line graph to incorporate STEM
Practice sight words or spelling
Build a winter journal
Write a report about mittens or winter clothing
Integrate gross motor by collecting matching mitten pairs around the room
Practice donning mittens for self-help skill development
One printable becomes a full differentiated lesson plan.
Why does modified paper matter in handwriting instruction?
Modified paper supports visual boundaries, spatial organization, and motor planning. For many learners, standard lined paper provides too little structure. When lines are unclear or spacing is inconsistent, letter size, alignment, and placement are affected.
Modified paper can help with:
Letter sizing
Line placement
Spacing between words
Directionality
Visual organization
Providing differentiated paper options allows students to build foundational handwriting skills with appropriate supports.
MORE WINTER RESOURCES
If winter has you in a slump, and it takes all you have just to get out of bed, the OT Toolbox has you covered with premade lesson plans and activities. The hard part is executing and documenting your treatment, let the OT Toolbox resources make planning a snap.
While it is no secret that I hate winter, I do like fun lesson plans to get me through it.
Victoria Wood, OTR/L is a contributor to The OT Toolbox and has been providing Occupational Therapy treatment in pediatrics for more than 25 years. She has practiced in hospital settings (inpatient, outpatient, NICU, PICU), school systems, and outpatient clinics in several states. She has treated hundreds of children with various sensory processing dysfunction in the areas of behavior, gross/fine motor skills, social skills and self-care. Ms. Wood has also been a featured speaker at seminars, webinars, and school staff development training. She is the author of Seeing your Home and Community with Sensory Eyes.
Our sensory system is very complicated. A lot of times when we hear about sensory, we think about our 5 senses (taste, touch, sight, smell and hearing.) This blog will take us into a deep dive of early intervention for sensory differences and the definition of different sensory processing areas. Early Intervention services provide supports for children birth through age three who demonstrate developmental delays.
These delays could be caused by a variety of reasons, from autism, chromosome abnormalities, drug exposure, prematurity, motor impairments, language delays and more.
Early Intervention for Sensory Differences
One of the areas that is always assessed when determining if a child is eligible for Early Intervention services is the area of sensory processing. These areas include Low Registration, Sensation Seeking, Sensation Sensitivity, and Sensation Avoidance. Also addressed are the areas of Sensory and behavioral including general, auditory, visual, touch, movement, oral and behavioral differences.
We will explore these areas in more detail throughout this blog post. Sensory diets are one of the most common and impactful ways to support children with sensory differences.
This article describes sensory diets as “A sensory diet is a set of activities that make up a sensory strategy and are appropriate for an individual’s needs. These are specific and individualized activities that are scheduled into a child’s day and are used to assist with regulation of activity levels, attention, and adaptive responses. Sensory diet activities are prescribed based on the individual’s specific sensory needs.”
There are four quadrants in a sensory profile. This visual clearly defines the similarities and differences between seeking, sensitivity, registration and avoidance.
The infant/toddler sensory profile is a common assessment used to determine the needs of a child in the following areas If a child is over-responsive to sensory input, they would fall in the sensory seek or slow to register sensory input sections. If a child is under responsive to sensory input, they would fall in the sensory sensitive or sensory avoider sections.
What are sensory differences?
These areas of sensory diversity make up the term sensory differences. Beyond the four quadrants, however, there are other sensory differences to consider. These are described below.
All of these sensory differences described are part of the neurodiversity of human life. We all are different when it comes to sensory, and we are all sensory. Just like the diversity of physical attributes, personal preferences, characteristics, sensory differences are just one more difference that makes us who we are.
Sensory Seeking
This area determines if a child seeks out sensory input. If a child is scored higher than most in this area, you may see them move around more, look at items that spin (such as fans or toys with wheels) be attracted to fast paced and brightly colored television shows.
Sensory Seeking Patterns
Children with sensory seeking patterns often appear highly active, impulsive, or constantly in motion. These children are not simply “busy.” Their nervous systems may require stronger or more frequent sensory input to feel regulated and organized. As the quote reminds us, “Some children need more input to feel organized.” When sensory input is insufficient, children may increase their movement or intensity to meet that internal need. In early intervention, the goal is not to suppress movement but to structure it in ways that promote regulation and participation.
A child who seeks sensory input may:
Move constantly or have difficulty sitting still
Jump, crash, spin, or climb frequently
Touch objects and people often
Use excessive force during play or writing
Early intervention may include:
Planned heavy work activities (carrying, pushing, pulling)
This area determines a child’s ability to notice different senses. If a child scores higher than most in this area, you may see a child always needing a routine to stay calm, startle to certain sounds, become upset during routine hygiene activities (such as getting hair brushed or nails trimmed) and significant preferences on types and textures of foods.
Here are some ways to support children in a controlled way, who show needs in the sensitivity area.
Sensory Registration
This area determines how a child responds to sensory input from others or their environment. This article by the pediatric development center explains how important registration is for a child’s functioning and learning.
It describes registration as: “Sensory registration is the process by which children respond or attend to sensory input in their environments. The nervous system must first notice the sensory information, once registered the memory compares it to things they have heard or seen, and thus gives new information meaning. Children who fail to respond or have delayed responses to sensory information have diminished sensory registration. Diminished sensory registration is often associated with one or two weaker sensory systems, such as the auditory or vestibular system. Without sensory registration, no other learning can take place.”
If a child scores higher than most in this area, you may see a child miss sensory input more than others do. A child in this section may miss eye contact, pay attention to only specific tones, and ignore most sounds. These children are harder to engage or seem uninterested in activities. They may need tactile, auditory and visual cues to initiate engagement in conversation or an activity.
Low Sensory Registration
Children with low sensory registration may not consistently notice or respond to sensory input in their environment. They are not ignoring directions; they may not be fully perceiving them. As the quote states, “Sometimes the world needs to be turned up.” These children often benefit from clearer, stronger, or repeated input to support engagement and responsiveness. Early intervention focuses on increasing the salience of sensory information to improve participation.
A child with low registration may:
Not respond when their name is called
Seem unaware of food or dirt on hands and face
Appear slow to respond to instructions
Seem lethargic or difficult to engage
Here are some ways to support children with low registration:
Early intervention may include:
Gaining eye contact before giving directions
Pairing verbal cues with visual supports
Increasing movement before seated learning
Using clear contrast and structured materials
Sensory Avoidance
This area determines how a child’s need to control the amount and type of sensations at any given time. If a child scores higher than most in this area, you may see a child resist playing with other children due to overwhelm, resist being cuddled when it’s not on their terms, frequently become upset if their hands are messy, have a hard time calming down in new settings and isn’t interested in trying new foods.
Sensory Avoiding Patterns
Children with sensory avoiding patterns may experience ordinary sensory input as overwhelming or unpredictable. Avoidance behaviors are protective responses, not oppositional behaviors. As reflected in the quote, “What feels small to us can feel overwhelming to them.” Their nervous systems may quickly shift into fight, flight, or freeze in response to certain sounds, textures, or busy environments. Early intervention focuses on creating safety and predictability while gradually increasing tolerance.
A child who avoids sensory input may:
Cover ears in noisy environments
Refuse messy play or certain foods
Resist specific clothing textures
Withdraw in crowded or stimulating settings
Early intervention may include:
Environmental modifications to reduce sensory load
Predictable routines and visual schedules
Gradual, supported exposure to new sensory experiences
General Processing items measure the child’s responses related to routines and schedules. This could include daily schedules, routine schedules or task related routines including how children respond to questions, others actions, busy situations, sleeping routines, eating patterns and hygiene needs, daily transitions and other schedule related activities.
Tactile and auditory sensitivities are common in early childhood and can significantly impact emotional regulation and participation. The nervous system may interpret certain textures or sounds as threatening rather than neutral. As emphasized in the quote, “Regulation begins with feeling safe.” When a child feels safe, learning and social engagement become more accessible. Early intervention prioritizes environmental adjustments, gradual desensitization, and parent education to support comfort and resilience.
A child with tactile or auditory sensitivities may:
Refuse specific clothing fabrics
Gag or refuse foods due to texture
Cover ears in loud environments
Cry or startle easily with sudden sounds
Early intervention may include:
Providing softer clothing options
Using noise-reducing headphones when appropriate
Gradual introduction to new textures
Teaching calming and coping strategies
Auditory Sensitivity
This area addresses how children respond to things they hear. Auditory input includes responding to their name, how easily it is for someone to get their attention and how distracted they become in noisy settings. The brain processes the sounds in our environment and according to this article, sensitivity to sound could be a reaction to a part of our brain that pays more attention to sounds then it needs to. One article explains it this way:
When there is no medical reason to explain the auditory sensitivity, researchers think that the brain is not processing sounds adequately. Researchers suggest that the part of the brain that receives and filters noise and sound, the amygdala, is working differently. The amygdala decides on how important noises are. It decides and which sounds we should attend to and which ones to ignore. When someone experiences sensitivity to sounds, it is thought the amygdala pays more attention to sounds than it needs to.
Visual Sensitivity
This area addresses how children respond to things they see, including bright objects, such as lights and toys. It describes how they respond to reflections in mirrors and their responses to objects that spin or move suddenly. According to this article our brains interpret the light we see through our eyes, and:
“The visual system uses light to detect information through our eyes and then interprets or makes sense of that information in the brain. It works closely with our vestibular and auditory systems to help us safely navigate our environment by orienting us to where we are in relation to other objects. The ability to cognitively process information we take in through our eyes can be broken down into several categories, called visual perceptual skills. Those with trouble in one area of visual perception may present with strong skills in another area, meaning that deficits in processing of visual information can take on many forms.”
Tactile/Touch Sensitivity
This area addresses how children respond items that touch their skin. This includes bath/water play, getting their nails trimmed and hair brushed, touching different sensory rich objects, being messy and receiving hugs. When children have a tactile sensitivity, their skin reactors are feeling the object more intensely. According to this article:
The tactile system, or sense of touch, refers to the information we receive though the receptors in our skin. It alerts us to pain and temperature and helps us discriminate the properties of things we come in contact with, i.e. texture, shape, size, and weight. From very early on in development this sense plays a crucial role in helping us gain awareness of our own bodies and understand everything we come in contact with. And how frustrating it must be to learn new skills when you can’t adequately feel the objects you’re using!”
Movement Seeker
This area describes how children move within their environment, including if they enjoy movement activities, seem accident prone or clumsy, seek out spinning and/or preferring to walking on their tip toes. Movement is how our bodies know where we are in space and how we respond to a variety of movement activities. This article explains movement seekers as “someone who has a high threshold for vestibular input. The vestibular system is housed in our inner ear, and is responsible for sending messages to our brain about the position and movement of our head. The vestibular system is activated anytime our head is tilted, upside-down, inverted, if we spin, if we run fast or run slow, when we’re on a swing or going down a slide.
We need vestibular activation and an efficient vestibular processing system in order to maintain an upright position, feel balanced, have a full sense of our body in space and focus. Some people have low thresholds, in which they perceive vestibular activation at much higher rates (e.g. hypersensitive to movement). Others have high thresholds, which means that they need more intense, more frequent and longer duration of movement in order to register it and activate their vestibular system.”
Oral
This are addresses how children respond to new foods and different textures, if they tend to overstuff their mouths, how they control chewing/swallowing foods and liquids and if they tolerate their teeth being brushed. Our oral system is based on how our sensory receptors in our mouth recognize what is in our mouth. Some people have increased sensitivities for foods while others have decreased sensitivities to food. There are differences and optional interventions explained in this article:
“We have sensory receptors in our mouths that allow us to recognize information about temperature, texture (e.g. smooth like yogurt, hard like chips/pretzels, or a mixture of textures like cereal with milk), and taste (e.g. sweet, salty, bitter, sour). They may be over responsive or have increased sensitivity to oral input, causing them to be resistant to oral sensory experiences like trying new foods or brushing their teeth.
Other children may have decreased sensitivity to oral sensory input and therefore seek more oral input in order to help them organize their behavior and pay attention. Our brains receive further proprioceptive input from the joint of the jaw as we bite and chew on foods with different types of resistance (e.g. a crunchy carrot or a chewy sweet/gum). Oral sensory processing also contributes to the way we move our mouths, control our saliva, and produce sounds for clear speech.”
Behavioral Differences
This area describes children’s behaviors such as how frequently they have meltdowns, if they are clingy, how hard it is to redirect them, if they are upset in new surrounds and how hard it is to help them calm down. Teaching children how to calm down using a variety of sensory input, will benefit every child. Soothing Sammy provides opportunity for a child to create their own behavior support tool that is tailored to their specific needs. Weather they respond better to auditory, visual, tactile or others, Sammy the Golden Dog can make redirection to a calm down corner a positive experience for the child and the adult.
Creating a sensory diet is one of the most important ways to support children with any type of sensory difference. These sensory diet cards is a must have resource if you are working with or have a child with a sensory need.
If you are concerned about your child, you can contact an Early Intervention provider to complete an evaluation from the day they are born all the way until they turn three years old.
Early intervention occupational therapy services support children in all areas of sensory needs, and can help caregivers create sensory diets that will help children in a variety of situations. Visual, tactile, auditory, oral and movement interventions that are supported in a controlled environment, can help every child learn how to adapt and respond to different situations and environments.
Jeana Kinne is a veteran preschool teacher and director. She has over 20 years of experience in the Early Childhood Education field. Her Bachelors Degree is in Child Development and her Masters Degree is in Early Childhood Education. She has spent over 10 years as a coach, working with Parents and Preschool Teachers, and another 10 years working with infants and toddlers with special needs. She is also the author of the “Sammy the Golden Dog” series, teaching children important skills through play.
Lemon STEM is such a fun way to explore concepts and this lemon battery science fair project is a winner! By using a lemon and a few other materials, you can discover the chemical process of moving electric current through a lemon to create a lemon battery. This lemon battery is a discovery activity that makes a great science fair project because the experiment is a powerful tool for discussing science and exploration in kids. Plus, this lemon science experiment is easy to do (and clean up)!
Lemon Battery Science Fair Project
One of the best benefits to making this lemon battery science fair project is that it’s an easy way to learn about electrodes, electrons, and the chemical reaction required to fire up a battery. As an occupational therapist and mom, I love the other skill-building opportunities with this project too:
When kids build the lemon battery, they are building so many skills!
Introduce them to creativity through STEM? Sounds great! Encourage my children to get excited about science and math? YES! Unleash natural potential in my girls by experiencing science projects? I like it.
And the best for me, was watching my girls do this together. The baby saw her big sister in safety goggles as she learned about cathodes and electrolytes…and has been wearing the goggles every day since. Seeing them inspire each other was just awesome.
We were making lemon powered batteries!
What is a lemon battery?
A lemon battery is a simple science experiment kids can do to explore concepts of conduction and reaction.
In the lemon-powered battery experiment, kids can see how electrolytes are conducted through the lemon and wires in order to power a light or clock.
The experiment is simple set up, easy, and a fun way to explore science!
Lemon Battery Light Bulb Science Experiment
The lemon lightbulb experiment is a classic hands-on activity that demonstrates how citrus fruits can generate electricity. This lemon and light bulb science project is a powerful way to engage kids in STEM learning by transforming a simple lemon into a working fruit battery.
By inserting zinc and copper electrodes (such as a galvanized nail and a penny) into a lemon and connecting them with wires, you create a small electric current. Connect enough lemons in series, and you can even power a small LED light bulb, showing how chemical energy is converted to electrical energy in a tangible, visual way.
How the Lemon Electricity Experiment Works
In this lemon electricity experiment light bulb setup, the lemon juice acts as an electrolyte. When the copper and zinc electrodes are inserted into the lemon, a chemical reaction occurs that releases electrons.
This flow of electrons is electricity, and when wired correctly, it can power a low-voltage light source. This process demonstrates core concepts in physical science, including circuits, voltage, current, and chemical energy.
It’s a great introduction to alternative energy and an excellent lemon battery science fair project idea for elementary or middle school students.
Using the Lemon Battery for STEM Learning
This lemon STEM activity supports multiple domains of science, technology, engineering, and math.
Students can experiment with variables like the number of lemons, the size of the electrodes, or the type of fruit used to observe changes in voltage output. Try comparing a lemon battery to other fruit battery options such as potatoes, limes, or oranges to expand learning through data collection and hypothesis testing.
This type of lemon science experiment is engaging, messy, and memorable.
Making the Lemon Science Project Work for You
To get the most out of this lemon electricity project, document your steps with photos and a results chart. Use a multimeter to measure voltage between lemons in series versus parallel configurations.
This makes your lemon battery science fair project more advanced and competitive for older students. Encourage kids to write a conclusion reflecting on why the light bulb did or didn’t light up, and how changing variables influenced the outcome.
This critical thinking component strengthens understanding of cause-and-effect and scientific inquiry.
Food Battery Experiment
When I first showed the girls the items and explained what we were doing, they were very excited about lemon electricity!
I was surprised to read that only 1 in 1,000 girls pursue STEM careers, especially considering that out us us three sisters, two of us are in the health/science field.
Encouraging my girls to explore interests in science is important to me and I was super pumped to get my girls excited about our science experiment…and the enthusiasm was catchy!
We used a lemon in our fruit battery, but you could use any citrus fruit to make a citrus battery…oranges, grapefruit, lemons, and limes all work equally well in this kid-made battery experiment.
More Lemon Science Experiments to Try
Beyond lighting a bulb, try creating a lemon clock, powering a digital watch, or exploring how long your lemon battery will last. These lemon science experiments promote engineering design skills, allowing students to improve upon their models and test new solutions. Whether you’re creating a lemon and light bulb science project or just doing a fun weekend activity, this is a great entry point into electricity and circuitry.
Other fruits and vegetables can be used in this experiment too. It might be fun to explore which food is the best conductor for passing electrical energy. Try these fruits and veggies:
Lemons
Oranges
Grapefruit
Limes
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Apples
Bananas
Which food battery works fastest? Which is the strongest conductor? Which food battery will work the quickest? These are all fun science fair experiments to try!
Lemon Battery Science Experiment
We created the lemon-powered battery, but then used the battery in a STEM activity by adding engineering and math to the mix.
Lemon Battery Materials List
To get started with your lemon battery experiment, you’ll need a few simple materials:
LED Bulb or a small clock, light bulb, etc.
4 Lemons
Knife to cut the lemon
Alligator Clips on Lead wires
Zinc Nails
Copper Wire (or a penny)
Goggles
Gloves
Alcohol wipes
Recording sheet
You can also try different metals instead of the copper penny. Try a galvanized nail, copper electrodes, Aluminum foil, metal strip, or other types of metal material.
Also note that you should have adult supervision for this activity because cutting the food with a knife can be tricky!
And we got started on our STEM project. The instructions are easy to follow images below.
How to make a lemon battery:
Start with a clean surface.
Use the knife to make a small cut in the lemon’s surface. This will be used to push the nail and copper penny into the lemon more easily.
Use an alcohol wipe to clean off the lemon or other food item used for the battery.
Press the nail and copper item (penny, copper wire, etc.) into the lemon. Make sure the metal goes all the way past the peel if using a citrus fruit. You can use more than one lemon too: Push a nail into one lemon and the copper into the other lemon.
Attach the alligator clips to the nail and to the copper item. Connect the ends of one alligator clip wire to a galvanized nail in one lemon and then the other end of the alligator clip wire to a piece of copper in another lemon. When you are finished you should have one nail and one piece of copper unattached.
Finally, connect the unattached piece of copper to the unattached nail to the positive and negative connections of your light. The lemon will act as the battery.
Following the instructions, my eight year old build a lemon powered battery that lit up a light bulb. We tried a few more experiments, like the mini fruit clock that came in the kit. We used it to make a lemon clock with the circuits!
Lemon Stem
This Lemon STEM activity is a great fine motor STEM idea. By pushing the nails and pennies into the lemon, cutting with a knife, and clipping alligator clips, you are building fine motor strength in a functional task.
Add a few other ways to support lemon stem too: Use wooden skewers to build an elevated lemon battery.
Provide a handful of wooden skewers and ask the children to build a contraption that is strong enough to hold a lemon up off the ground. This can take a bit of creativity and trial and error, so be sure use plenty of paper towels or a wash cloth to wipe off lemon juice.
We pulled out some bamboo skewers and created a sky high lemon battery and lit up the light bulbs using engineering in our STEM activity.
Try building a clock tower with the skewers and a lemon. Explore how to make electricity run the clock even when it’s elevated or in different weather conditions like rain or freezing temperatures.
With all of the zinc nail-punctured holes in our lemons, we HAD to squeeze the juice. We tried to see if we could create a lemon clock using just the lemon juice in a cup. It worked!
After the lemons were juiced, we tried to make another light bulb glow using the rinds. This time the lights did not brighten and we decided it was because the electrolytes were squeezed away into our lemon juice and the current stopped at the rind.
Next, we used wooden skewers to create a clock tower. Press the skewers into the lemons and create a tower. You’ll need to figure out how to get the clock tower to stand without toppling, and using lemons as the base or at the connecting points. These lemons can also be connected to one another with the alligator clips, wires, and pennies or nails to conduct through the whole tower.
After all of these experiments, we were feeling a little thirsty. Non-lemon powered light bulbs went off and so my four year old had a bright idea to make lemonade. We added water and sugar and drank away the electrolytes!
It was so much fun to see my girls working together, encouraging each other, (not fighting), and being inspired in science. Someday they might look back at our experiment day and laugh at drinking their science experiment, but I’ll remember the sticky crumbs on the table, the goggles on the one year old, and the fun we all had learning together.
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.
Here, you’ll find Valentine’s Day Occupational Therapy Activities that you can use this time of year to help kids develop skills. This is the time of year that red and pink hearts are everywhere, so why not use the theme of love and friendship in therapy interventions with fun Valentines day activities? Add these heart crafts, and love ideas to your therapy toolbox to work on things like fine motor skills, regulation, scissor skills, and more, all with a Valentine’s Day theme!
There are so many love and heart themed activities here on The OT Toolbox. Over the years, we’ve done a lot of fun activities that double as a skill building strategy. Check out these ideas and pick a few to add to your therapy line up and plans over the next few weeks. Some of these hear crafts and sensory ideas or games would make great additions to a Valentine’s Day party that builds skills, too!
One great tool is our Valentines Day I Spy activity for visual motor and fine motor skill-building.
Valentine’s Day Occupational Therapy Activities for Kids
Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to weave meaningful sensory and motor activities into classroom lessons or therapy sessions.
These Valentine’s Day occupational therapy ideas can build skills like fine motor precision, emotional regulation, sensory processing, and more, all while celebrating the season of love and connection. I like these ideas for school based OT, or outpatient clinical services. You can use them with early intervention or older ages, as well. We tried to pull together ideas that blend fun with functional development.
Valentine Sensory Bin Ideas for Therapy and Play
A well-designed Valentine’s Day sensory bin is a classic tool that supports tactile exploration, calming sensory input, and fine motor development.
Try filling a bin with red and pink rice or shredded paper, then add small heart-shaped erasers, mini clothespins, plastic rings, or paper hearts for sorting and tweezing.
For a valentines sensory bin that encourages self-regulation, include soft textures like felt hearts, fuzzy pom-poms, and scented items like lavender sachets.
These are good ideas for valentine activities for preschoolers are great for early learners working on grasping skills and visual scanning. Add clues or tiny hidden objects for a scavenger hunt twist.
Creative Valentine Crafts for Skill Building
February crafts offer so many ways to support motor planning, bilateral coordination, and visual motor integration.
For kindergarten valentine crafts, try a torn-paper heart collage using tissue or construction paper to strengthen hand muscles.
Another fun project: use lacing cards shaped like hearts to practice bilateral coordination and dexterity.
Add a twist by turning the craft into a personalized scavenger hunt, kids find materials based on color, texture, or size, then use them in their final creation.
Valentine STEM Activities for All Ages
We love the multisensory learning that happens with STEM activities and incorporating this into the holiday with Valentine STEM activities will spark curiosity and coordination.
Use candy hearts to build towers or bridges, count and graph colors, or create heart-themed mazes with magnets and paperclips.
These activities challenge executive functioning, planning, and sequencing while offering a creative way to integrate academic concepts.
Add ingredients like baking soda and vinegar to explore fizzy heart experiments. These hands-on activities are ideal for preschoolers through early elementary ages.
Valentine Party Games with a Therapeutic Twist
Turn typical valentine party games into skill-building opportunities. Try a heart bean bag toss to target gross motor coordination and core strength.
Play musical hearts with a playlist of songs to practice motor timing and auditory processing.
Use card games like memory matching with heart symbols or emotion faces to build cognitive and social-emotional skills.
Add a blanket fort in the living room for calming play or a personalized scavenger hunt with heart-shaped paper clues to encourage movement and direction-following.
Creating Meaningful Valentine Experiences at Home or School
Valentine’s Day is a chance to create memorable valentine’s day experiences that foster connection.
A cozy picnic on the floor with heart-shaped snacks, pizza, and dessert can turn into a fun bonding moment.
Use fairy lights, soft blankets, and candles (battery-operated for safety) to set the tone for a movie night that feels like a special event.
These ideas provide quality time, encourage emotional bonding, and offer calming sensory input.
For mom or caregivers, setting aside space for self-care, even five minutes of deep breathing or stretching, can be a powerful model for children learning to regulate themselves.
Free Valentine’s Day Printables
We love to create multi-purpose free worksheets and printable activities that support development. Worksheets can get a bad rap, but we at The OT Toolbox attempt to create occupational therapy worksheets that focus on play as a function.
When we can use a printable founded in play, the user is performing a daily occupation that is important to them, and the play is both the tool and the skill that is being developed. That’s why these Valentine’s Day worksheets are so loveable!
Conversation Heart Sort– Print off this sorting worksheet for a fine motor activity with conversation hearts.
Valentine’s Day Hat Craft– Print off this hat template and work on coloring skills, scissor skills, and executive functioning to build and create the Valentine craft.
Valentine Hole Punch Cards– These free pintables are perfect for occupational therapy Valentine parties. Use the printable activity to build skills in eye-hand coordination, hand strength, bilateral coordination, arch development, visual scanning, and more.
Heart Deep Breathing Exercise– Print off this heart poster and use it to develop skills in mindfulness, self-regulation, and even proprioception through the chest and upper body. It’s a very calming activity that can be a great addition to the sometimes chaos and unexpected situations in a classroom Valentine’s Day party. use it to support sensory needs at a Valentine’s Day party!
Valentine’s Day Activity Sheet– This printable tool is a great activity that can be used to develop many different skills depending on the needs of the individual. Use a single activity sheet to target: visual scanning, visual memory, visual peripheral skills, form constancy, fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, dexterity, pencil control, motor planning, coloring and more.
Valentine Matching Alphabet Cards– Cut out these love letter cards and match uppercase to lowercase letters. These cards are used for cursive letters to build skills in letter recognition, visual discrimination, and more.
Valentines Fine Motor Worksheet– Print off this Valentine worksheet and build motor skills in many ways. have fine motor races with small objects like beads or mini erasers. Use tweezers to move items along the path. Work on pre-writing lines by using the paths on a vertical or diagonal. Work on a vertical plane to build core strength and shoulder stability. Use the sheets to practice letter formation by writing in the circles. There are so many ways to play and develop skills with a heart theme!
More Valentine’s Day Activities
That’s not all! Use the activity ideas below in planning OT sessions, or in Valentine’s day parties that also build skills.
One thing I love about holiday events this time of year is that kids are excited about Valentine’s Day activities. It’s fun, friendly, and full of kindness and empathy. However, there are so many ways to develop skills with the old-fashioned Valentine fun:
Cut out paper hearts- Cut hearts from cardstock or construction paper for more resistance
Fold paper hearts in half- This is great for bilateral coordination, hand strength, pinch strength, eye-hand coordination, motor planning, and visual perception.
Stick heart stickers on paper- Add small targets by drawing dots and placing the heart stickers on the dots. This is great for fine motor precision and eye-hand coordination. Place the paper on a vertical surface and further develop core strength and balance.
Write on Valentine’s Day cards- what a functional and fun way to work on handwriting and to teach kids to write their name.
Make a Valentine’s Day box- Don’t worry about the fancy Pinterest V-Day boxes! Some of those require way too much parent help. Help a child wrap the box in wrapping paper (anther great functional life skill!) and then cut out hearts or draw right on the box.
Make a Valentine’s Day snack– Work on executive functioning skills, direction following, fine motor skills, and more.
Valentine’s Day Therapy Slide Decks
Working virtually? Use a done-for-you therapy slide deck. These are therapist-created and designed to meet the needs of a variety of levels of users. Adjust the slides and therapy activities to meet your needs and the needs of the learners you are working with.
If you are needing occupational therapy teletherapy resources, check out the hands-on Valentine’s Day activities below. They are great for February parties and therapy at home activities for this time of year, too.
Valentine’s Day Sensory Activities
From sensory bottles, to discovery activities, to heart painting and more, these sensory play activities can be a fun way to help kids develop skills through the senses. How can you use these Valentine’s Day occupational therapy activities in sessions or at home?
Valentine’s Day Sensory Bottle– Use this sensory bottle activity as a way to build fine motor skills while kids help to create the sensory bottle and add materials. Then use it in self-regulation, sensory processing needs as a calm down bottle. Sensory bottles are fantastic to work on visual processing skills like visual discrimination, figure-ground, and other visual perceptual skills.
Olive You Thumbprint Craft– Fingerprint art is a great way to work on finger isolation, an essential fine motor skill that kids need to manipulate items and improve pencil grasp. Here is more information on how fingerprint art improves fine motor skills. Add this artwork to a card or Valentine’s Day craft for fine motor fun.
Valentine’s Day Play Dough Activity– Use a recycled chocolates box in a play dough activity that builds skills like strengthening of the intrinsic muscles and arches of the hands. This is a fun Valentine’s Day activity that can be used in classroom parties or in the therapy room to build skills.
Bilateral Coordination Heart Sensory Tray– Use sand, rice, or other sensory bin material to create a bilateral coordination and visual motor activity for kids. They can work on eye-hand coordination, motor planning, and other skills. The point of the activity is to establish direction and orientation relative to the child’s body. The movement activity addresses hand-eye coordination in different visual fields, promotes spatial awareness and visual discrimination, addresses left and right awareness, improves peripheral vision, promotes body awareness and coordination with specialization of the hands and eyes, and works on gross motor movement skills.
Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Activities
Try these Valentine’s Day fine motor activities in your occupational therapy interventions or home programs. The activities here are fun ways to help kids develop hand strength, dexterity, precision, grasp development, and motor control.
Be sure to check out the Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Kit. In the 25 activity printable kit, you’ll fine hands-on activities to build fine motor skills. Activities include coloring and cutting cards, pencil control sheets, heart crafts, Valentine’s Day write the room activities, hole punching exercises, and so much more. Grab the Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Kit here.
DIY Heart Maze- Look out visual motor skills…this heart maze is one you can make and print off for your whole caseload. Adjust the use according to your kiddos. Children can place objects like paper hearts, mini erasers, etc. on the hearts in the maze to double down on fine motor work, or color in the hearts to work on pencil control. This maze is a visual processing powerhouse. Find more information on visual processing here.
Teeny Tiny Sprinkle Heart Activity– This is a fine motor activity that builds precision and dexterity in the hands. It’s a fine motor workout kids can use to build hand strength and endurance for fine motor tasks. Use it in math centers to work on one-to-one correspondence and counting or sorting.
Heart Eye-Hand Coordination Activity– Work on eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills tongs and heart s cut from cardboard. If you are like me, you have a ton of delivery boxes coming to the house. Use those boxes in a fine motor skills building activity. Write numbers or letters on the hearts to make it a sorting, math, or spelling activity.
Salt Dough Keychain– This is a fun heart craft that goes along with the children’s book, “The Kissing Hand”. Use it to help kids work on fine motor skills, and hand strengthening. This keychain craft makes a great Valentine’s Day gift idea too!
One Zillion Valentines Book and Craft– Pairing a book with therapy or when working on skills with kids is a fun way to open up conversation, problem solving, and strategizing to create a project or activity based on the book. This Valentine’s Day book for kids is just that. One Zillion Valentines is one children’s book that pairs nicely with a fine motor craft for kids. Kids can work on fine motor skills, motor lanning, direction following, and executive functioning skills while folding and making paper airplanes, and the cotton clouds in this fun craft idea.
I Love Ewe Handprint Craft– Use a handprint art activity as a tactile sensory experience. Pair scissor skills, pencil control, direction following, and copying skills to work on various areas needed for handwriting and school tasks. Pls, this makes a great Valentine’s Day craft or addition to a card!
Valentines Day Color Sorting Fine Motor Activity– Grab a couple of cookie cutters and some beads. This is a fine motor activity that kids can use to build skills like in-hand manipulation, separation of the sides of the hand, finger isolation, open thumb webspace, and more.
Love Bugs Crafts– Work on fine motor skills, scissor skills, direction-following, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, and more with these cute bug crafts for kids.
Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin– There are so many benefits to using a sensory bin in building fine motor skills. Pour, scoop, and stir with the hands for a tactile sensory experience. Using a sensory bin can be a great way to work on visual perceptual skills like figure-ground, visual discrimination, and other essential visual processing areas. Find and ovate objects or add a learning component by writing sight words or math problems on hearts. This is an open-ended activity that can be used in so many ways.
I Love You Books for Kids– These Valentine’s Day books for kids are a fun way to combine books with crafts or love themed activities. Use them to work on copying words or sentences for handwriting practice. The options are limitless. What love and heart themed books would you add to this list?
Valentine’s Day Crayon Play Dough– Use play dough to work on so many areas: hand strength, arch development, separation of the sides of the hand, endurance, eye-hand coordination…But have you ever had trouble getting a a really vivid red play dough when using food coloring? The answer to the red play dough problem is using vivid crayons! Here is our crayon play dough recipe that gives you the brightest colors, perfect for using in Valentine’s Day play dough activities!
Heart Bookmark Craft– This is such a fun and easy Valentine’s Day craft to use when working on scissor skills with kids. The strait lines of the bookmark and curved lines of the heart make it a great activity for kids just working on the basics of scissor skills.
Heart Butterfly Craft- Work on scissor skills, handwriting, and fine motor skills to make this fun card. The directions to make this Valentine’s Day craft are over here on a guest post we did for Hands On as We Grow. Use this fun craft with a group. It’s a great Valentine’s Day party idea!
Valentine’s Day Tea Craft– This Valentine’s Day craft is a fun way to work on scissor skills, handwriting, and fine motor skills. Kids can make this craft as a gift for friends or parents and work on skill development, too.
So, what are your favorite ways to work on skills with a holiday theme? Try some of these heart activities at Valentine’s Day parties, at home when making cards for loved ones, or in therapy planning! Have fun!
Want to add more Valentine’s Day activities and movement tools to your skill-building?
he Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Kit is here! This printable kit is 25 pages of hands-on activity sheets designed to build skills in pinch and grasp strength, endurance, eye-hand coordination, precision, dexterity, pencil control, handwriting, scissor skills, coloring, and more.
When you grab the Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Kit now, you’ll get a free BONUS activity: 1-10 clip cards so you can challenge hand strength and endurance with a counting eye-hand coordination activity.
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.
This blog post on Zones of Regulation, self-regulation strategies, and activities to support the Zones of Regulation curriculum was originally written July 20, 2020. It was most recently updated on February 11, 2026.
The Zones of Regulation® program is a self-regulation tool to help kids identify, address, and use strategies to achieve self-control and emotional regulation in a non-judgmental and safe way. Using interactive Zones of Regulation activities in the actual program can be helpful for kids who struggle with self-regulation. Here, we’re covering information on this program as well as activities to support self regulation.
Today, we are covering more information on this regulation tool as an option to add to your toolbox of strategies. In this blog post, we are not sharing activities as a replacement for the actual Zones of Regulation® program, but rather, a resource to direct individuals toward the program’s website as a resource for self regulation needs.
Zones of Regulation Activities
Have you ever had a meltdown or bad day and not been able to describe it? Self regulation is complicated. Our world is full of sounds, sights, smells, and experiences that can throw us off balance.
It is easy to say, “I am mad” because I just got hit with a baseball, or “I am sad” because my ice cream just fell on the ground. It is much more difficult to express being overstimulated because of the amount of children sitting near you during circle time. How does a four year old describe their feeling of disappointment when it is raining and they can not go outside? A person can have an excellent emotional vocabulary, but still have significant difficulty expressing these more complex feelings.
Here, you will find self-regulation activities (emotional regulation, internal regulation, and physical regulation strategies) and tips to work on self-regulation of emotions through fun and interactive activities. These can be used in a curriculum designed to support specific needs, or you can incorporate these strategies into a regulation station, or calm down area. Other ideas are using a variety of calm down toys in these spaces.
All of us can use what we learn from the self regulation activities found in the innovative program to monitor, maintain, and change our level of regulation.
These are DIY self-regulation activities that you can make as part of your occupational therapy treatment and can be used over and over again!
All of us can use zones of regulation activities to monitor, maintain, and change our level of regulation. Plus, the DIY Zones activities that we show below are not intended to replace the program’s curriculum, but they can support individual needs based on the child. We offer these ideas not as interventions, but as tools you can make as part of your occupational therapy treatment to supplement the Zones of Regulation® program and can be used over and over again!
This blog post is an independent resource and is not affiliated with, nor has it been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Think Social Publishing, Inc. or by Leah Kuypers, author of The Zones of Regulation.
First, let’s cover what self regulation means.
What is self regulation?
Well, let’s break it down.
“Self” means you or me. “Regulation” means the process of being in control or to have management. So, add these two terms together and you get “self-regulation”.
Self-regulation means you or me being in control and having management of ourselves.
Self-regulation is a skill that many children have a difficult time learning and achieving without help. In a given day, a child (and an adult) encounters multiple situations and circumstances that require an awareness of self and others as well as the ability to have or gain self-control.
Self-regulation is the ability to attain, maintain, and change one’s arousal level, emotions, and behaviors. This ability to self-control relies on impulse control, working memory, and generally speaking, the ability to keep oneself “in check”. For example, using a regular emotions check in activity or a feelings check in activities can help with this ability.
The ability to experience feelings and desires and make decisions based on those concepts requires motivation, willpower, higher level thinking.
Generally speaking, a child should achieve an optimal level of self-awareness and mindfulness to identify their inner feelings and emotions and be ready to regulate themselves when the time comes. They need to learn strategies and techniques that work for them to assist them in leaving a less optimal level in order to get back to a “ready-to-go” level of regulation.
Here are more mindfulness activities that kids can use in addition to their “Regulation Toolbox”.
Using interactive zones of regulation activities can be helpful for kids who struggle with self-regulation.
Zones of Regulation Activities
The Zones of Regulation program was born out of necessity to help people describe their senses and feelings in a more understandable and effective way. It makes more sense to a child to describe their mood as the red zone, than to try and explain their disappointment at a change in schedule.
Activities to support emotional regulation and coping skills can come in many forms. In this resource, you will find specific activities to add to a zones of regulation toolbox, so that monitoring and maintaining a functional level of regulation is possible in any situation.
There are zones of regulation posters, worksheets, self-regulation checks, zones of regulation games, and even cootie catchers. All of these regulation tools are strategies to help kids become more aware of their self in order to function.
Let’s break it down further…
What is self-regulation?
Well, let’s break it down. “Self” means you or me. “Regulation” means the process of being in control or to have management.
So, add these two terms together and you get “self-regulation”. Self-regulation means you or me being in control and having management of ourselves.
Self-regulation is a skill that many children have a difficult time learning and achieving without help. In a given day, a child (and an adult) encounters multiple situations and circumstances that require an awareness of self and others as well as the ability to have or gain self-control.
What is regulation?
Self-regulation is the ability to attain, maintain, and change one’s arousal level, emotions, and behaviors.
This ability to self-control relies on impulse control, working memory, and generally speaking, the ability to keep oneself “in check”. The ability to experience feelings and desires and make decisions based on those concepts requires motivation, willpower, higher level thinking.
In order to complete tasks like learning, playing, interacting with peers, completing daily self care, etc. a child should achieve an optimal level of self-awareness and mindfulness to identify their inner feelings and emotions and be ready to regulate themselves when the time comes. They need to learn strategies and techniques that work for them to assist them in leaving a less optimal level in order to get back to a “ready-to-go” level of regulation.
Emotional Regulation Therapy
Generally speaking, there are many activities to support emotional regulation. These coping skills can come in many forms. In this resource, you will find specific activities to add to a self-regulation toolbox, so that monitoring and maintaining a functional level of regulation is possible in any situation.
There are emotional regulation posters, worksheets, self-regulation checks, regulation games, and even cootie catchers.
Other emotional regulation therapy strategies can include using the traffic light emotional regulation concept where the red light, yellow light, and green light of a traffic light are considered for emotions and behavioral responses.
All of these regulation tools are strategies to help kids become more aware of their self in order to function. Let’s break it down further and look at how and why this program works, but also where to go next when it comes to regulation strategies.
thoughts emotions behaviors = self regulation
It requires the ability to self-monitor our thoughts, actions, feelings, internal body processes (interoception), and then make choices. These decisions can sometimes occur in a moment. For some, this instantaneous decision-making can lead to poor regulation.
Self-regulation can refer to emotional regulation or behavioral regulation. Self-reflection of feelings, emotions, and our response to situations is the ability to use emotional regulation.
Emotional regulation can look like a bad decision based on inner thoughts, or being in a grumpy mood and as a result being mean to a friend. Emotional regulation has to do with inner decisions related to emotions and moods. We cover more on the specifics of mood and affect and how this is impacted by regulation needs.
Behavioral regulation refers to decisions related to actions and what we say, do, or think in response to inner thoughts and desires.
I think we can all say that one time or another we had something that we were expected to do but we really did NOT want to do.
Examples of behavioral regulation include:
Maybe that was mow the lawn when we really wanted to watch a movie inside.
Maybe we wanted to sleep in when we actually had to get up for an early meeting.
Knowing that those tasks needed to be done and making the decision to do them rather than giving into impulses is a form of self-regulation.
A self-regulation program like the ones listed above are a helpful strategy for supporting self-control skills and self-regulation that impact behavioral responses. These strategies can be helpful for our children (and us adults!) to use during everyday tasks in our daily lives, whether that be schools, work, community, and homes.
These self regulation tactics help kiddos to identify, address and use strategies to achieve good self-control and emotional regulation in a non-judgmental and safe way. Using the zones helps to take the focus off of the child as being “good” or “bad” and places the focus on obtaining control to get back to the “green zone.”
A self-regulation blueprint can be created that includes helpful strategies and self regulation activities that can be used when needed to support children.
These strategies actually teaches the child and their parents or teachers how to recognize the relationship between emotions, feelings, and their internal “state of being” with the behaviors and actions that we see.
This self awareness relationship impacts attention, learning, and emotions.
Self Awareness and Self Regulation
When students understand the connection between their arousal states and their ability to self-regulate, they can identify different zones or levels which they are currently in at any given time.
This is the ability to have self awareness, body awareness, and make choices that impact self regulation.
They can then use regulation tools or strategies to impact their arousal so they can appropriately and efficiently respond to the demands of a given task.
These different levels of regulation help a child recognize, categorize, and communicate their feelings or emotions based on a specific knowledge of how one’s body and mind respond to situations. This is self awareness and self regulation in action!
One of the most important steps to self-regulation is having the self-awareness that something is “off” and we need to do something physically emotionally, or cognitively and that a change must happen. This is where understanding the nervous system is important for the adult in the situation. Understanding what is happening behind the limbic system, the vestibular system, proprioceptive system, and overall sensory processing systems are key.
This makes a self-regulation strategy an effective and fluid tool for a child to understand, learn, and achieve without feeling judged or different.
One tool to support these skills is by using self awareness games. Games can help to support the individual in using self-reflection skills as a tool for beginning the internal processes needed for functional use of self-regulating strategies “in the moment”.
Let’s quickly review the various aspects of self-regulation and different feelings or emotional experiences that occur along a spectrum so you can have a better understanding of the reason behind my fun tool creations.
I designed the regulation tools shown below for individual children to help them better understand and navigate their emotions while identifying strategies that help them shift from a less desirable zone to a more calm and focused space, which is better for participating and learning at school, home, community, church, therapy, or any environmental location where the individual participates.
We have a few blog posts here on the website that explain self-regulation in greater detail.
This article on using the Mightier program for self-regulation shows how to use the application and game to help a child identify their feelings and utilize coping strategies that impact those various emotional regulation changes. The games adjust to challenge the child as they become more proficient in coping strategies.
In this self-regulation craft and activity, we used a lion and a lamb concept to bring the abstract meaning of regulation to a concrete place of learning and exploration, by helping kids to see that self regulation strategies can make a huge difference in paying attention and learning in the classroom or completing tasks that need to be done at home.
Here are more mindfulness activities that kids can use in their Zones of Regulation Toolbox.
Self-regulation CurriculA
There are many different programs that offer self-regulation curriculum. These are regulation programs and interventions that can assist a child (and adult) to learn the skills necessary to achieve emotional regulation fit for every situation, circumstance, and environment.
Other Curricula with Sensory Integration Components
Besides the Zones of Regulation, other self-regulation approaches also incorporate sensory strategies:
The Alert Program (“How Does Your Engine Run?”) teaches students to recognize and adjust their “engine levels” with sensory activities (fast, slow, just right).
Social Thinking® programs may use sensory strategies alongside social-emotional learning techniques.
The Interoception Curriculum by Kelly Mahler focuses on internal body awareness (like hunger, heart rate, or the need to use the bathroom), which is critical for self-regulation and recognizing when sensory input is needed.
Amazon affiliate links are included below.
Many programs, curriculum or interventions are created by occupational therapy professionals. These include:
The Alert Program– Another program I like is The Alert Program. This helps describe feelings in terms of an engine. The informal name for this program is “How does your Engine Run?” Children can describe their emotions like a car engine. An engine running too fast often does not make the best choices. A slow engine does not make it to the finish line in time. I teach this system like the characters from the Cars movie. Lightning McQueen was a very fast car who got into a lot of trouble. Once he learned to slow his engine down, he made better choices.
This article on using the Mightier program for self-regulation shows how to use the application and game to help a child identify their feelings and utilize coping strategies that impact those various emotional regulation changes. The games adjust to challenge the child as they become more proficient in coping strategies.
One of the common self-regulation programs is the Zones of Regulation.
Zones of Regulation Information
The Zones of Regulation® is a self-regulation program created by occupational therapist, Leah Kuypers, who founded the framework program in 2011.
The program supports children and families in better understanding how self-regulation works through concreate concepts, colors, and strategies.
Zones of Regulation framework created by Leah Kuypers, but rather are sharing this resource as a way for families and therapists to get started with specific activities and a plan to support regulation needs.
One of the common self-regulation programs is the Zones of Regulation.
What are the zones of regulation
Well, in brief summation, the Zones of Regulation program is a curriculum or framework created by an occupational therapist, Leah Kuypers, which is designed to help a child navigate their sometimes confusing emotions. The curriculum helps a child to achieve self-regulation and emotional control by gaining skills in self-control and problem-solving based on targeted zones that are identified with colors.
The Zones of Regulation program is what most of our children use in their schools and homes. This program helps kiddos to identify, address and use strategies to achieve good self-control and emotional regulation in a non-judgmental and safe way. Using the zones helps to take the focus off of the child as being “good” or “bad” and places the focus on obtaining control to get back to the “green zone.”
The self-regulation program teachers children and their parents or teachers how to recognize the relationship between emotions, feelings, and their internal “state of being” with the behaviors and actions that we see.
This relationship impacts attention, learning, and emotions. When students understand the connection between their arousal states and their ability to self-regulate, they can identify different zones or levels which they are currently in at any given time.
They can then use regulation tools or strategies to impact their arousal so they can appropriately and efficiently respond to the demands of a given task.
Brief Summary of the Zones of Regulation
In a brief summation, the Zones of Regulation program is a curriculum or framework created by an occupational therapist, Leah Kuypers, which is designed to help a child navigate their sometimes confusing emotions. The curriculum helps a child to achieve self-regulation and emotional control by gaining skills in self-control and problem-solving based on targeted zones that are identified with colors.
These zones help a child recognize, categorize, and communicate their feelings or emotions based on a specific zone. This makes the program an effective and fluid tool for a child to understand, learn, and achieve without feeling judged or different.
The Zones of Regulation framework teaches students to categorize how they feel (physically and emotionally) into four colored “zones” and build strategies to move between them:
Blue Zone – tired, sad, bored
Green Zone – calm, focused, happy
Yellow Zone – silly, excited, anxious
Red Zone – angry, overwhelmed, out of control
Sensory tools can support students in identifying their zone and choosing the right regulation strategy. For example:
A student in the blue zone might use heavy work or movement breaks to “wake up” their system.
A student in the red zone may benefit from deep pressure (e.g., fidgets, weighted items) to calm down.
Zones becomes more effective when paired with sensory supports, including visuals, proprioceptive input, and calming routines. Tools like sensory diets or classroom calm-down kits are often used in combination with this curriculum.
Sensory Needs and Regulation
Sensory needs are deeply intertwined with self-regulation, especially in school-aged children. For many students, sensory input (such as sounds, movement, touch, or even visual stimuli) can significantly impact their ability to remain calm, focused, and ready to learn. Addressing these needs is often the first step in any effective self-regulation curriculum, including approaches like the Zones of Regulation.
Sensory Registration
Sensory needs arise when a child’s nervous system either craves or is overwhelmed by certain types of sensory input. For example:
A child with low registration may need more intense input (e.g., jumping, deep pressure) to feel alert.
A child with sensory sensitivity may become dysregulated by bright lights or noisy environments.
Others may seek vestibular input (e.g., swinging, spinning) to stay calm or feel organized.
These sensory processing patterns directly affect emotional regulation, attention, behavior, and participation in classroom routines.
By aligning sensory processing strategies with self-regulation teaching, OTs, teachers, and caregivers can provide individualized support that empowers students to recognize what they feel and what they need to thrive.
What do the Colors in the Zones of Regulation Program Mean?
Let’s quickly review the zones so you can have a better understanding of the reason behind my fun tool creations (see below). I designed these tools for individual children to help them better understand and navigate their emotions while identifying strategies that help them shift from a less desirable zone to a more calm and focused zone, which is better for participating and learning at school, home, church, and in therapy.
In the Zones of Regulation program, there are different colors to break up different types of emotions into categories. The colors don’t mean good or bad emotions or emotional/behavioral responses, they are simply a categorizing tool.
The colors in the Zones of Regulation are:
Red
Blue
Yellow
Green
What is helpful is that these colors can be associated with different emotion names and tools to be used to support those emotions.
Activities to support self regulation for extreme feelings can be calming and regulating activities.
The Red Zone is an extremely heightened state of alertness with intense emotions and is typically viewed as the child being “out-of-control.”
Red Zone feelings might include:
Anger
Rage
Out of control
Mad
“Hands on” physical reactions
Terror
Extreme feelings
Feel “ready to explode”
Devastation
Regulation Activities to support anger, physical reactions, extreme feelings, and “out of control” feelings may include:
The Yellow Zone is entering a heightened state of alertness and elevated emotions typically viewed as heading toward the red zone, but the child still has some control.
Examples of Yellow Zone behaviors include:
Nervousness
Wiggly
Silliness
Anxious
Worried
Frustration
Excitement
Regulation Activities to support worried or anxious feelings, frustration, silliness, nerves, or the wiggles may include:
Stretching
Yoga
Enjoy nature
Drink a glass of water
Listen to music
Write in a journal
Activities listed under the other zones
The Green Zone is the optimal level of alertness and is typically viewed as the child being “good to go” and ready for leaning and social interactions.
Examples of the Green Zone behaviors include:
Positive responses
Calm
Ready to go
Happy
Focused
Content
Regulation Activities to support calm or focused feelings, feelings of contentment, happiness, positivity, and being ready to learn or join friends may include:
Write in a journal
List out accomplishments
Help someone
Reach out to a friend
Activities listed under the other zones
Note that when in the “green” zone according the the Zones of Regulation framework, that it’s not the end goal. This is a level of feelings that all may experience at one time or another, but it’s not necessarily considered “good” vs. “bad” when experiencing other feelings.
Strategies listed above for these feelings can be ways to journal about how one is feeling, talk to another person, expressing gratitude, or reaching out to others.
The Blue Zone is a low level of alertness typically viewed as the child running slow.
Examples of Blue Zone responses include:
Sick
Bored
Tired
Sad
Regulation Activities to support those who feel sad, tired, bored, or sick may include:
Talk to someone
Rest
Build a puzzle
Read a book
Color or draw
Think about positive mindset strategies
Activities listed under the other zones
No two kids will benefit from the same self regulation strategies
Just like there are no two children alike, and no two teens or adults alike, there is no exact blueprint to these self-regulation strategies.
Each individual will likely use different sets of mechanisms to support regulation needs.
What works for one individual may not work for another.
It’s also important to remember that emotional, cognitive, or physical regulation signs of sensory dysregulation or functional regulation can be different and change over time. Likewise, the coping skills that support regulation develop over time.
One of the key pieces to the a self regulation tool is the point that there is no one “right” level to be in. It’s OK to have emotions of all levels and behaviors that match…to a point (getting so angry that one breaks things or is destructive to property is not ok. Being so upset and frustrated that one is mean and hurtful to a friend is not ok).
We all have fluctuations of moods and behaviors. The part that is important for us as advocates for children is to offer strategies to help kids understand and identify their feelings and emotions. It’s important for kids to understand how their reactions impact others, particularly when they are not able to manage their emotional or behavioral response.
Remember the concept that there is no “right” level or regulation and there is no “wrong” level. We all have emotions that fluctuate and change and we all have physical responses, behavioral responses to these emotional levels. These responses are not right or wrong either!
Rather, it is appropriate and OK to have strategies to move from non-functional levels to functional levels, and in ways that work for the individual. If you or I are constantly in a depressed, down, or upset mood, that can have an impact on wellbeing. It can make us spiral into a deeper depression or anxiety that impacts social participation, health, functional participation. This is where it’s appropriate to have an “out” or a way to support the regulation needs.
Fun Zones of Regulation Activities
Once you have taught your students to identify their Zones of Regulation or Alert level, provide them with ample opportunities to self regulate. Everyone is unique in their needs to self regulate. Some people need to do heavy work, while others need to get away to a quiet space.
We use the term “self regulation” because that is the ultimate goal. The goal is to learn to regulate your own feelings, arousal level, and emotions. This is not easy. We often have to start by regulating the little ones we work with. They do not have the tools to determine that they are out of sync for a particular reason, or choose the appropriate activity to get them back into their just right zone. As you provide ideas for regulation, use consistent wording from the Zones of Regulation or Alert Program to help your learners understand what is going on. With enough repetition and consistency, your learners can begin to use these strategies or wording themselves.
A conversation might start like this: “I see you are having a hard time. Your engine is running very fast like Lightning McQueen. We can do some deep breathing to help your engine slow down.” After the upset has passed, you can discuss the situation further. In the middle of the meltdown, your learner is unlikely to be able to process much information, so keep discussion to a minimum.
What is the best part about the fun tools I created? YOU can create them and use them with most any regulation program based on the programs framework.
Look at the fun tools I created and take the general structure and design to build essential tools to go with whatever program you may be utilizing in therapy, the classroom, or at home.
Activity for Emotions and Coping Strategies
In this zones activity, kids can make the tools they need to work on self-regulation. Have kiddos fold file folders to create a pocket on the bottom.
Trim off the edges. Use hot glue to turn the large pocket into four sections (red, yellow, green, and blue). Color and label the sections based on zones. Have kiddos label craft sticks with either emotions or coping strategies and insert into the correct pockets.
This Regulation Pocket Play for Emotions and Coping Strategies Folders can be used in the home or classroom.
Regulation Check-In Tube
Have kiddos paint or wrap colored tape around paper towel tubes according to the zone colors. If painting, wait to dry.
Follow up with kiddos writing emotion words or even drawing emotion facial expressions onto the matching tube color. Place a hair band onto the tube to roll up and down as needed to perform check-ins with children throughout the day.
Self Regulation Check-In Frame
Hot glue colored craft sticks according to zone colors (red, yellow, green and blue) to create a square frame and then have child write the zone title on one side and zone emotion words on the other side OR have child write zone emotion words on one side and coping strategies on the other side.
Place a clothespin onto the frame to clip as needed to perform check-ins with children throughout the day. This tool can also be used to teach and review while learning the program zones as well.
Emotions Grab Bag Game
Have kiddos create an emotion identification grab bag game. This can be done in differentiated ways:
Draw emotional expressions as faces on matching color dot stickers and place on bottle caps (for younger children).
Simply draw emotional facial expressions on bottle caps directly with a black marker (for older children).
Draw emotional facial expressions on plastic spoons with matching colored markers (for younger children).
Draw emotional facial expressions on plastic spoons with a black marker (for older children).
Once these are created, toss only the caps or only the spoons into a grab bag or simply toss them all into one bag.
When children grab a cap or spoon from the bag, they decide which colored mat they belong on to identify the correct emotion and zone.
Zones of Regulation Craft
Use this Lion and lamb self- regulation craft to identify emotions and talk about “lamb” emotions and responses and “lion” emotions and responses.
Make a Coping Skills Toolbox
Identifying coping strategies that work for each individual can make all the difference in having a set of “go to” regulation strategies when the need presents itself.
This massive list of coping strategies for kids are perfect for filling a coping skills toolbox. Write them out on slips of paper, add them to a flip book, make them into coping skills Popsicle sticks, or add them to a coping strategies bulletin board.
Kids can go through the various calming and alerting activities and use them to self-regulate.
Make a Zones of Regulation Chart
Use a file folder or slide a paper into a page protector to create a Zones of Regulation chart using movement activities in the classroom. Kids can mark off their zone and pick from a coping mechanism to help them get to a zone in which they can learn and pay attention.
This is a helpful strategy for self control and self regulation.
Keep a Self-Reflection Journal
Using a printed journal like our Self-Reflection Journal or the Impulse Control Journal can help kids identify more about themselves, become more self-aware, while reflecting on their day and week.
They can write down their actions, emotions, and responses and then look back at what worked and what didn’t work. By using a written journal, children can describe good and poor choices that they’ve made and then write out tools that they can try next time.
Journaling is a conversation tool to use when talking about what works and what doesn’t work for a child with a variety of needs.
The Impulse Control Journal takes self-reflection a step further by working on the impulses that impact behavioral regulation or emotional regulation and the actions that we see. This tool is effective in helping kids and teens to identify emotions, reactions, responses, and learning strategies to change their regulation through self-awareness.
Kids can choose strategies independently and see progress by working through the Impulse Control Journal pages.
Identify emotions through Play
The first step of self-regulation is the ability to identify emotions. Social emotional learning begins with naming emotions, matching emotion names to faces and body language.
When kids identify emotions, they can begin to develop empathy for others but also become more self-aware of their own emotions, the things that impact those feelings, and how they respond. Some ways to identify emotions through play include:
Use pictures or video modeling to help kids identify emotions and label the terms.
Act out emotions with toys and name the emotions that the toys are demonstrating.
Explore self regulation skills
When kids explore self regulation skills by experimenting with sensory input, kids can identify the terms that their body feels when they are exposed to that sensory input.
If done during a calm time, when the child is at high alert and concentration, they are able to fully experience the input without distraction. Kids can then create a zones toolbox using the self-regulation skills that work for them.
Try these self regulation skills exploration with kids:
Try a variety of sensory foods and ask the child to identify how their mouth feels with each food. Does the food taste salty, sweet, chewy, crunchy, or sour? How does their mouth feel after trying each food? Awake, sleepy, happy, calm, alert? Ask the child to put a name to each food. Mark these down on a chart and use this as a regulation tool.
Try different types of movement using Sensory Diet Cards. Kids can try the sensory activity and identify how their body feels. Mark it down and add those calming or alerting activities to their regulation toolbox.
Self Regulation in the Classroom
Self regulation in the classroom can impact learning, attention, focus, and student interaction.
Now that you know some zones of regulation activities, you can use them in the classroom or learning environment. Whether that be in the traditional school setting, in homeschooling, or in remote learning settings, the a regulation curriculum or practical self regulation strategies are effective to foster learning.
Go ahead and make these fun and easy Zones of Regulation tools to help your kiddos learn emotional regulation and self-control to help them succeed in their daily lives so they can feel good and remain cool. Kiddos will enjoy the interactive components and you’ll see learning and regulation evolve! They can be used at home or in the school environment.
In the learning environment, kids can identify how characters of a book or reading assignment feel.
Help students identify emotions in magazines or online.
Identify specific tasks that the characters could do to get to a zone that would help them in the situation they are in. This can be a great group activity for students.
Come up with group or small group coping tools that students can use as a brain break or movement break.
Have students make a DIY quiet fidget tool that they can keep in their pencil pouch or desk.
Explore these sensory strategies for school and come up with regulation activities that work for the learning situation.
While anger is a very good and normal emotion, when anger becomes too much for communication, functional tasks, and leads to meltdowns and tantrums that impact safety of oneself and others, talking about anger and this extreme feeling can be very beneficial.
One strategy is an Anger Poster, or an Anger Zone Poster.
An Anger Poster might include a space to draw or write about things that lead to uncontrollable anger. There can be pictures cut out of magazines or printed from online that show what leads to these intense feelings.
It’s important to include things on the poster like a social story of sorts that shows how not to act or behave, including dangerous consequences or hurting others as a result of angry feelings.
You can also include coping tools to support these intense feelings.
Self-Regulation Activities
What is the best part about the fun tools I created? YOU can create them and use them with most any regulation program based on the programs framework.
All of the specific self-regulation activities that are listed above can be interchanged, and used as able to help move from one zone to another. Each child will be different emotional levels that they need to move from or into so that functional participation can occur.
In this self-regulation craft and activity, we used a lion and a lamb concept to bring the abstract meaning of regulation to a concrete place of learning and exploration, by helping kids to see that self regulation strategies can make a huge difference in paying attention and learning in the classroom or completing tasks that need to be done at home.
As support for those struggling with self-regulation challenges, modeling is the strongest tool that we have as adults/parents/therapists to teach kids/teens/others how to cope.
Other self-regulation strategies can be anything that helps the individual feel centered, focused, and able to participate in everyday tasks. Some of these strategies can include:
One of the key pieces to the Zones of Regulation is the point that there is no one “right” zone to be in. It’s OK to be in the red zone or the yellow zone. We all have fluctuations of moods and behaviors. The part that is important for us as advocates for children is to offer strategies to help kids understand and identify their feelings and emotions. It’s important for kids to understand how their reactions impact others, particularly when they are not able to manage their emotional or behavioral response.
All of the Zones of Regulation activities that are listed above can be interchanged, and used as able to help move from one zone to another. Each child will be different in the zones strategies that works for them.
The resources in the Sensory Lifestyle Handbook really go into detail on this concept, in using movement and sensory tools as regulation strategies and coping tools to help kids function, within their daily functional tasks. For example, it is possible to incorporate regulating activities within the classroom, home tasks like self-care or chores, and the community. Check out the Sensory Lifestyle Handbook for more information on this concept.
There are so many options for zones of regulation activities for kids. What would you add to this list?
Has this ever happened to you? I distinctly remember being a child and crying “for no reason.” I could not explain why I was upset, but I remember crying. I was not really sad or angry, those were feelings I could identify. It was something else. Looking back I realize I was overstimulated and going into shut down. My emotions were overloaded, and crying was my body’s way of expressing this. I definitely did not have the language to be able to explain this, but remember feeling frustrated that I was upset and could not identify why. This is why programs such as Zones of Regulation and the Alert Program are so important.
This post was written in part, by The OT Toolbox contributor, Regina Allen. Read about Regina in her Contributor Author Spotlight.
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.
One of the big executive functioning skills is the ability to self-monitor oneself. Self-monitoring strategies play a part in the ability to notice what is happening in the world around us and what is happening in our own body. The ability to “check” oneself and monitor actions, behaviors, and thoughts as they happen play into our ability to problem solve. Use the tips below to help kids learn how to self-monitor and problem solve. These self-monitoring strategies for kids are applicable in the classroom, home, sports field, or in social situations.
Self monitoring is the ability to observe and regulate one’s own behavior, emotions, and responses in real-time. In the classroom, self monitoring allows students to recognize when they are off task, overstimulated, or emotionally dysregulated, and then take action to bring themselves back into an optimal learning state. This essential skill connects directly to executive functioning and emotional intelligence. Self monitoring supports independence, academic participation, and functional behaviors across school and home environments. Read more about how self-monitoring develops in the broader context of executive functioning skill
Self-monitoring is a process of metacognition. Metacognition is the ability to plan for and execute a task, monitor one’s actions, analyze a problem, apply a strategy, maintain attention, and evaluate or monitor completion of an activity. Ideally, metacognition should occur naturally and instinctively as we engage in an activity.
The ability to self-monitor is made up of two main areas:
1.) Observation- In this stage, a child is able to identify a specific behavior, thought, or action that occurred. This might happen during the action or afterwards.
In a child who struggles with talking out in class, they may catch themselves as they are interrupting. Another child may realize they spoke out of turn only after the teacher mentions the interruption.
In both cases, the child is able to identify what behavior has occurred through self-assessment. This level of self-monitoring is a real struggle for some students and working on the ability to notice the behaviors or actions that are inefficient or inappropriate for the situation. The ability to observe and recognize behaviors or actions is a skill, and that self-monitoring ability requires a lot of reflection, as well as the ability to recognize an ideal response or appropriate behavior for a specific situation.
2.) Recording- This stage of self-monitoring is a means for moving from an awareness of actions and behaviors to function. In the recording stage of self-monitoring, children are able to note their actions and make changes based on what happened in specific situations.
Having a set of strategies in place to address self-regulation needs, attention needs, or emotional supports is beneficial for use in the moment. Jotting down deviances of targeted behavior can help kids to become more aware of what happened in a specific situation and how they can make adjustments in the future to avoid specific behaviors, or how they can use accommodations and self-regulation tools to respond and react more appropriately.
3.) Look at what needs addressed to get to a future that is desired- So often, kids know they are making poor choices, but don’t know how to stop the routine of those poor choices. If they can use introspection to identify how and what they are feeling and why, they can respond to those choices with a plan in place.
This letter to future self is a great tool to identify areas of change and to start breaking down goals. Follow up with our goal ladder as another strategy to make step by step progress toward that future visualization.
Self Monitoring for Students
In educational settings, self monitoring for students is often supported through checklists, self-assessment forms, and visual supports. These tools give students the language and structure to “stop and think” before reacting or continuing a behavior.
Strategies like Zones of Regulation tools or classroom self-regulation check-ins help children reflect on their internal states and decide what strategies they need to use next. With practice, this helps students learn to monitor themselves without external prompts.
Self Regulation and Monitoring Skills
There is a strong connection between self monitoring and self regulation. Both require internal awareness and the ability to pause and adjust behavior. Building these monitoring skills can be as simple as embedding brain breaks into the school day or offering access to a calm down corner at home. A designated space for calm down strategies in the classroom can also be part of this process.
Note that when we say “calm down” strategies or a space, it’s not to say that monitoring oneself always needs a calm down process. It’s another tool in the toolbox when self monitoring brings awareness for a need to regulate.
These safe zones allow children to step away from stimulation and practice strategies like deep breathing before returning to class. Over time, the consistent use of these tools strengthens a student’s ability to monitor themselves independently.
Low Self Monitor Support
Students who are low self monitors may struggle with impulsivity, emotional outbursts, or unawareness of their impact on peers. These children benefit from explicit instruction in self-awareness, movement breaks, and simple feedback loops like “stop-think-do.”
OT professionals can support this through embedded routines, visuals, and by teaching children how to recognize signals from their body, like increased heart rate or clenched fists, as signs they need to act. Pairing these cues with targeted tools like a calming strategy kit or movement-based interventions gives these students a path toward improved awareness and regulation.
Self-Monitoring Strategies
In talking about self-monitoring skills, let’s first discuss what exactly self-monitoring is and what it means for kids to self-monitor their actions, thoughts, and behaviors.
Observation, or self-assessment may require work in order for the child to understand targeted behaviors.
Recording or measurement of actions can occur through several methods:
Checklists
Parent/Teacher/Student communication sheets (where the child inputs behaviors throughout the day)
Effective self monitoring tools include sensory-based strategies such as heavy work activities and calming proprioceptive input. These interventions increase body awareness and support regulation by anchoring children to their physical experience. Incorporating a sensory diet into the day helps children know which tools they can use when they notice signs of dysregulation. When students understand what their body needs and how to access calming input, they become better equipped to monitor self in challenging moments.
The goal of this stage is to get students to move from a teacher/parent/therapist/adult support of self-assessment to a self-assessment status where the child identifies behaviors and actions that are off-target.
You can see how each of the executive functioning skills play into the ability to self-monitor and how self-monitoring skills play into the development and use of each of the other executive functioning skills.
The ability to self-monitor actions, behaviors, thoughts impacts learning, mindset, social and emotional skills, and functional participation in everyday tasks.
Self-Monitoring Impacts Function
There are also functional skills that are developed and improved through self-monitoring:
Learning
Communication
Behavior
Task initiation
Task completion
Social-emotional interaction
Follow-through on learned skills
Self-Monitoring Strategies
Below, you will find additional self-monitoring strategies that can help children with the ability to identify and self-assess and self-adjust behaviors that may occur within the classroom, home, or other environment.
There are many examples of self-monitoring strategies that can be used to help students develop this skill. One technique is to use text-to-self connections, which involves asking students to relate new information to their own experiences or prior knowledge.
This can help them to better understand the material and make connections that will improve their memory and retention. Another strategy is to focus on executive function skills, such as time management, organization, and planning. By teaching students how to self-monitor these skills, they can become more independent and successful in their academic and personal lives.
These strategies should be viewed as supports that can be used independently by the child following instruction and input to teach strategy methods.
Make an outline for writing tasks, homework assignments, or multi-step assignments in order to keep the child on task.
Utilize a self-monitoring schedule- Ask the child to stop and self-check their actions, behaviors, or thoughts to make sure they are on-task.
Try an index card or other visual reminder on desks for a list of appropriate behaviors.
Use social stories to teach appropriate actions and reactions to specific situations in the home or classroom.
Incorporate a schedule of self-regulation strategies to address sensory, attention, and focusing needs. A sensory diet can help with this.
Teach the child to check and recheck- Teach children to stop and check and then re-check their behaviors.
Teach students to look at their finished assignment from their teacher’s eyes. This can help them have an outside view of completed work or actions in the classroom and adjust as appropriate.
Sensory or coping strategies scheduled throughout the day for sensory input or movement breaks.
Use a timer for scheduled self-assessment and self-reflection of behaviors or actions and recording of data.
Work toward fading self-monitoring visual and physical cues as well as data collection means.
Teach the child to journal experiences. The Impulse Control Journal can be a helpful tool for children who are able to write or dictate to an adult.
Teaching kids to “monitor myself” involves much more than just adjusting their behaviors. Our goal as occupational therapy providers is to help individuals tune into what their body and brain are telling them.
As students grow in awareness, they learn to choose what tool they need in the moment, whether it’s a deep breath visual or a movement break to reset. This level of personal insight leads to empowered decision-making and functional participation across environments.
When a child can say, “I need a break,” “I’m starting to feel overwhelmed,” or “I need to do my calm breathing,” they are practicing real-world self monitoring and regulation skills.
Self-Monitoring Handout
Want to access this article as a printable PDF to use as a handout? Use the printable version in education to parents, teachers, therapists, and other professionals. Simply print off the printable version and add it to your therapy toolbox.
Note: In order to access this file, you will need to enter your email address. This allows us to send the PDF directly to your email. This is a 5 page printable self-monitoring strategy outline for educating those who work with kids with self-monitoring skills in kids.
The Impulse Control Journal…a printable resource for helping kids strategize executive functioning skill development. When saying “calm down” just isn’t enough…
When a child is easily “triggered” and seems to melt down at any sign of loud noises or excitement…
When you need help or a starting point to teach kids self-regulation strategies…
When you are struggling to motivate or redirect a child without causing a meltdown…
When you’re struggling to help kids explore their emotions, develop self-regulation and coping skills, manage and reflect on their emotions, identify their emotions, and more as they grow…
Grab the Impulse Control Journal to build organizational strategies, planning, prioritization, habits, and mindset in kids.
self-monitoring
Self-monitoring is an essential skill for individuals to develop, especially those working with executive functioning skills. It involves paying attention to one’s own behavior, thoughts, and emotions, and adjusting them as necessary. Self-monitoring can help individuals identify their strengths and weaknesses, recognize patterns of behavior that may be problematic, and develop strategies for improving performance. By using self-monitoring strategies to address behavior and academic issues, professionals and educators can help students become more self-aware and develop greater self-control.
Step-by-step self-monitoring
Step-by-step teaching of self-monitoring is an effective way to help students learn this skill. It begins with identifying the behavior or skill that needs to be monitored, setting specific goals for improvement, and teaching the student how to keep track of their progress.
This can be done using a self-monitoring checklist, which outlines the steps involved in the process and provides a clear roadmap for success. With practice, students can become more proficient at using self-monitoring strategies to track their own behavior and improve their academic and social skills.
For students with ADHD, a self-monitoring checklist can be a helpful tool. It can help them stay focused and on task, monitor their own behavior, and track their progress towards goals.
The checklist can include items like:
staying on task
following instructions
completing assignments on time
By checking off items on the list, students can see their progress and feel a sense of accomplishment. It can also be used to provide feedback to parents and teachers, who can provide support and encouragement as needed.
Self-monitoring can also be used as an intervention for students who are struggling with behavior or academic issues. By identifying the problem behavior or skill and teaching the student how to monitor and adjust it, professionals and educators can help the student improve their performance and develop greater self-control. Self-monitoring skills can be used in a variety of settings, including the classroom, home, and community.
There are many different self-monitoring tools available that can help students develop this skill. These tools can include visual aids, like charts and checklists, or digital tools, like apps and software programs.
The key is to find the right tool for the individual student and to provide ongoing support and encouragement as they develop their self-monitoring skills. With practice and persistence, individuals can become more self-aware, improve their behavior and academic performance, and develop greater confidence and independence.
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.
Fire truck crafts are a favorite for young children, especially preschoolers who love vehicles, helpers, and hands-on art projects. This easy fire truck craft for preschoolers uses simple shapes to create a bold, recognizable fire engine while quietly building foundational fine motor skills. With cutting, grasping, and bilateral coordination built right into the activity, this fire truck shapes craft is more than just a fun art project – it’s a purposeful way to support early scissor skills through play.
Whether you’re a parent looking for a preschool fire truck craft, a teacher planning a themed activity, or a therapist targeting cutting accuracy, this fire truck craft can be easily adapted to meet different skill levels.
This fire truck craft was a given after we made our easy shapes school bus craft. We love looking for trucks when we are out and about (what Toddler or Preschooler doesn’t??) This fire truck craft was easy to do and perfect for little fingers to build, like a lot of our kids crafts. We love the puzzle-like craftiness of this truck idea. Fire safety week would be a great time to make this craft…but if you’ve got kids like mine, it’s fun any time of year!
I love this fire truck craft because so many kids love fire trucks! But they don’t realize that they are developing skills by cutting the simple shapes when making this craft.
This post contains affiliate links.
Why Fire Truck Crafts Are Great for Preschoolers
A fire truck craft for preschool works especially well because it combines motivation with structure. Young children are often more willing to practice challenging skills like cutting when the end result is something exciting and familiar, such as a fire engine. This is a great preschool occupational therapy activity.
Using basic shapes also helps children begin to recognize how shapes come together to form a larger image, an important pre-writing and early math concept.
This fun craft invites children to explore the role of a firefighter (or fireman) through hands-on creativity while learning about community helpers and rescue work in an age-appropriate way. Designed for preschool and kindergarten, this fire truck craftivity uses simple templates that make cutting and assembling approachable and much fun for young learners. Children can add details like flames, a siren, or even use straws for added texture and engagement, encouraging imagination and fine motor development. This activity works well as part of a larger set of classroom or therapy resources, and many families and educators enjoy sharing finished projects on Instagram and Facebook to celebrate progress and inspire others.
Fire Truck Shapes Craft Using Simple Paper Materials
We like paper plate crafts for many reasons, one being that you can increase the resistance of the cutting surface to add proprioceptive input as a heavy work task. This slows down the scissors when cutting.
We like to make this firetruck craft on a paper plate for that reason.
This paper craft fire truck is created using basic shapes such as rectangles, circles, and squares. Each shape provides a different cutting challenge, allowing you to observe and support a child’s scissor skill development.
You can use:
Construction paper
Cardstock
Or even recycled paper for a lower-prep option
As children cut each piece, they practice opening and closing scissors with purpose while learning to rotate paper with their helper hand.
We started with basic shapes to make our fire truck: large rectangle, square, 3 black circles (trace a bottle cap), three smaller white circles, white square, 8-10 black squares, long white rectangle for the ladder.
Older children can work on cutting these shapes. Cutting from card stock is a great way to work on scissor skills, as it’s a bit more sturdy than printer paper or construction paper. The increased resistance provides more input when making snips with scissors.
For the Toddlers and preschoolers, be sure to work on shape identification. Point out the different shapes, the way that we know what they are (circles are one line and curve all around; rectangles have two long lines and two short lines with four corners).
These little fingers couldn’t wait to get started!
We started building our fire truck.
Count the squares as you build the fire truck ladder.
I cut a swirly curved shape for a fire hose. Our fire truck turned out looking pretty cute and a great way to start talking about fire safety during Fire Safety Month in October. Happy crafting!
For children who are just learning to cut or who need more control, a paper plate fire truck craft is an excellent option. Paper plates offer a more resistive texture than standard paper, which can naturally slow down cutting snips and improve accuracy.
This added resistance can:
Encourage better hand positioning
Reduce fast, choppy cutting
Support smoother scissor movements
Simply trace the fire truck shapes onto a paper plate and allow the child to cut along the lines at their own pace.
Easy Fire Truck Craft for Preschoolers at Different Skill Levels
One of the benefits of this easy fire truck craft is how easily it can be graded up or down.
To make it easier:
Use thicker lines
Cut shapes into smaller sections
Pre-cut some pieces for assembly practice
To make it more challenging:
Use thinner cutting lines
Add smaller details
Encourage cutting curves and corners independently
This flexibility makes it a great craft fire engine activity for mixed-ability groups.
Supporting Scissor Skill Development Beyond One Craft
If a child struggles with cutting accuracy, endurance, or hand positioning, it often helps to practice with consistent, structured scissor skill activities rather than one-off crafts.
This fire truck activity can be a great starting point, especially when paired with a broader set of cutting activities that progress from simple to more complex skills.
MORE fine motor and scissor skills tasks in our many Fine Motor Kits (also available inside The OT Toolbox Membership):
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:
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.
in red, yellow, and white
We love our Fiskars for kid use!
