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Colleen Beck

Spring Worksheets for Fine Motor Skills and Handwriting

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Spring worksheets

How would you like some free Spring worksheets? Today, I have a fun freebie that I’m excited to get into the hands of little ones. Here’s why: These Spring worksheets are a powerhouse in building fine motor skills. Kids can use play dough to build the fine motor strength they need to hold and write with a pencil, color, and complete fine motor activities all with more dexterity, precision, and endurance!

Spring worksheets to help kids with fine motor skills, handwriting, and letter formation.

Spring Worksheets

These printable worksheets are great for using in school based occupational therapy sessions, because you can cover a variety of OT goal areas:

  • Fine motor skills
  • Eye-hand coordination
  • Handwriting
  • Letter formation
  • Letter spacing
  • Letter size
  • Coloring

Spring Worksheets for Fine Motor Skills

Here’s how these Spring printable pages work: Kids can first roll a die (Great for in-hand manipulation, arch development, and separation of the sides of the hand!)

Then, they can use play dough to create that same number of balls of play dough. Be sure to ask kids to use just the fingertips for this part of the activiyt. Using the fingertips to roll balls of play dough is a powerful strengthening activity.

Using the finger tips and thumb of one hand at a time to roll a play dough ball is an intrinsic muscle workout that builds the muscles of the thenar eminence, hypothenar eminence, the interossei, and the lumbricals. All of these muscle groups make up the intrinsic hand muscles which are those located within the hands.  

We talked about this more in a post on building intrinsic hand strength using play dough.

Read about more fine motor activities using play dough here.

Spring worksheets for Handwriting

After working out the hands and getting them warmed-up for writing, the page asks kids to then write on the lines. I’ve left the writing portion open-ended so that kids can write words, letters, numbers, or sentences, based on their level, skills, and age.

The Spring themed worksheets come with a flower style and a fun snail activity page. But, each printable sheet is available in three different writing lines styles:

  • Double ruled lines
  • Single ruled lines
  • Double ruled lines with a highlighted bottom space

Print off these worksheets, slide them into a page protector sheet and start building those fine motor skills!

Free Spring Worksheet Set

Want to add this set of worksheets to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below to access. NOTE- Due to changes in security levels, users have reported trouble accessing free resources when using a school district or organization email address. Consider using a personal email address.

FREE Spring Worksheets for Fine Motor and Handwriting

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    For more play dough activities and fine motor worksheets, grab the Spring Fine Motor Kit:

    Spring Fine Motor Kit

    Score Fine Motor Tools and resources and help kids build the skills they need to thrive!

    Developing hand strength, dexterity, dexterity, precision skills, and eye-hand coordination skills that kids need for holding and writing with a pencil, coloring, and manipulating small objects in every day task doesn’t need to be difficult. The Spring Fine Motor Kit includes 100 pages of fine motor activities, worksheets, crafts, and more:

    Spring fine motor kit set of printable fine motor skills worksheets for kids.
    • Lacing cards
    • Sensory bin cards
    • Hole punch activities
    • Pencil control worksheets
    • Play dough mats
    • Write the Room cards
    • Modified paper
    • Sticker activities
    • MUCH MORE

    Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

    Spring Fine Motor Kit
    Spring Fine Motor Kit: TONS of resources and tools to build stronger hands.

    Grab your copy of the Spring Fine Motor Kit and build coordination, strength, and endurance in fun and creative activities. Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

    Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20 years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

    What are Primitive reflexes?

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    what are primitive reflexes

    Have you even heard the term reflexes and wondered what are primitive reflexes? One of the many things that your newborn’s pediatrician will check periodically is their primitive reflexes. The existence of reflexes can be a great marker for neurological health in people of all ages, as they are controlled by the nervous system – the brain, spinal cord, and nerves. Primitive reflexes develop in the womb and are integral to an infant’s survival and future development. Below we will break down each of these reflexes and their purpose. 

    what are primitive reflexes

    Related: Books About Primitive Reflexes 

    What are Primitive Reflexes?

    As infants develop into toddlers, these reflexes should do what health care professionals call “integration”. The response that comes with the primitive reflex should integrate into a more mature or voluntary movement. If they are still present long after they should have integrated, the child will display certain characteristics specific to the retained reflex, many of which hold back their development and academic skills. 

    Let’s begin with the most easily noticeable reflex that babies have: the palmar reflex. This is also known as the grasping reflex. You will see this when you place your finger into the palm of an infant’s hand, and they hold on tight. This is an adorable response that can make you feel pretty special, but it is involuntary up until about 6 months of age when the reflex should disappear. 

    PALMAR REFLEX

    The palmar reflex is important for the development of purposeful grasping, something that an infant is learning throughout their first year of life. 

    Fun Fact: if your baby is holding your hair in a death grip because of this reflex, stroke the back of their hand with your finger – it should initiate a release of the grasp. 

    ROOTING REFLEX

    The rooting reflex is one of the main “survival” reflexes. The rooting reflex can be elicited by stroking an infant’s cheek with your finger, or more likely, a bottle or breast nipple. This is because when the cheek is stimulated, the infant will turn his or her head towards that stimulation. 

    If you ever need your baby to pay attention to their feeding, try giving their cheek a little stroke or tap so they turn towards the feeding source. This response should be seen in infants up until about 4 months of age. 

    SUCKING REFLEX

    Similar to the rooting reflex, the sucking reflex is necessary for an infant’s feeding abilities. To stimulate the sucking response, touch the roof of the infant’s mouth and they will automatically begin sucking. 

    Most infants learn this skill very quickly (they do get tons of practice, after all!) and the reflex will disappear by about 2 months old. 

    MORO REFLEX

    This reflex is the first of three on this list that is a response to a change in body position. Also known as the startle reflex, the Moro reflex can be seen by gently dipping a baby’s head and neck backward, as if they are falling. It can also be elicited by other stimuli like a startling noise or a drastic change in temperature. 

    The response that you will see in the baby is that of fear – their arms, legs, and head will reach out and then tuck back in – jerking their body back and forth. They may also open and close their hands and may even cry. The movement that is created by a startling stimulus is to protect your baby and allow them to move away from the stimuli even before they can control their own movements. Pretty cool, huh?

    You may notice the startle reflex really kicking in around 1 month old. If your baby is inconsolable and moving around their body in this way, securing supporting their bottom and their head should help them realize that they are safe. By six months old, or as early as two months, this reflex will disappear. 

    TONIC LABYRINTHINE REFLEX

    The tonic labyrinthine reflex (TLR) is used for head and postural control. We know that baby has poor control of their head and neck when they are born, and this reflex is part of what helps them gain control over this part of their body. 

    The TLR can be seen when moving the head and neck forward and backward. When the head moves forward toward the chest, the arms and legs bend and the baby assumes the fetal position. When the head moves back away from the chest, the arms and legs straighten. You can see this really well during tummy time! 

    The TLR will disappear by about 4 months old so that more advanced reflexes and movements can begin development. 

    ASYMMETRICAL TONIC NECK REFLEX

    Last on the list of movement-based reflexes is the asymmetrical tonic neck reflex (ATNR). As the name suggests, this reflex has to do with the neck. You can see the reflex if you turn a baby’s head to one side while they are laying on their backs. They will reflexively straighten their arm and leg on the side that they are looking, and bend the arm and leg of the other side. That is where the asymmetrical part comes in: their left side and right side of their body are opposite. They look a bit like an archer, about to shoot an arrow. 

    This reflex is important in the birthing process, as the motions of the head can control the movement of the rest of the body help the baby through the birth canal. It is also important to the initiation of crawling, as the arms and legs move as a baby turns their heads while on their belly. For this same reason, the ATNR is crucial to the development of hand-eye coordination. 

    The ATNR disappears around the time an infant is gearing up for crawling, around 6 months old. 

    MORE ON PRIMITIVE REFLEXES

    There are a few more infant reflexes that we did not mention, and you can check them out if you are looking to learn more! The Spinal Galant Reflex, the Babinski Reflex, the Landau Reflex, and the Symmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex (STNR) are some that we missed in this article. The Landau and the STNR are actually not primitive reflexes, as they develop after the baby is born, but they are developmentally important nonetheless! 

    Sydney Rearick, OTS, is an occupational therapy graduate student at Concordia University Wisconsin. Her background is in Human Development and Family Studies, and she is passionate about meeting your family’s needs. After working as a nanny for the last decade, Sydney is prepared to handle just about anything an infant, toddler, or child could throw at her. She is also a newly established children’s author and illustrator and is always working on new and exciting projects.

    Evaporation Experiment

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    Evaporation experiment

    This evaporation experiment uses recycled materials to explore evaporation. Kids can use the recycled materials projects as a science science experiment to explore how evaporation works with different sized containers.

    Evaporation experiment for kids. This is a great fine motor activity, too!

    Evaporation Experiment

    This was SUCH a fun way to explore science with my kids.  We talked about water evaporation while engineering a few different water containers and working in a bit of math, too.  Getting outside to play is something we do everyday, so this outdoor STEM activity was a perfect way to bring a little bit of learning outdoors on a sunny day.

    Evaporation experiment using recycled materials

    Evaporation Experiment with Recycled Materials

    Use bottle caps and recycled materials in an evaporation experiment for kids.

    To complete this science experiment, we used all items from our recycle bin.  You’ll need a few items to do this evaporation experiment at home:

    • Lids from various containers. (We used lids of various sizes to explore how fast water would based on container size. Some lids you’ll want are deep lids, bottle caps, and low lids like one from a play dough canister.) If you have a recycled materials craft bin started, just pull from there.
    • Other recycled materials to see if we could adjust the lids that were alike.
    • Tape (This was the only non-recycled material that we used in this science experiment.)
    • Eye-dropper, small spoon, or a straw to drop water into the cups and containers.
    Use these recycled materials in an evaporation experiment with preschoolers.

    Evaporation Activity for Kids

    To set up this evaporation experiment, we worked on a bit of fine motor skills and visual perceptual skills. First we expored each container, lid, and cup to determine which was biggest, smallest, and which we thought would hold more water.

    This is a great evaporation activity for preschoolers!

    Determining the containers by size allows preschoolers to explore visual perceptual skills and size concepts.

    Next, you’ll need to add the same amount of water to each cup or container. There are several ways you can do this: by using an eye dropper, small spoon (like a teaspoon), or the end of a straw. We used a dropper to fill each lid with the same amount of water. Each lid had 10 ml of water.  

    You can use the end of a straw to drop water drops into the cups. When you use the straw, kids are working on so many fine motor skills. We talked about how to do this (and why using a straw to drop water into the cups) is such an awesome way to build precision and dexterity in this butterfly painting craft.

    My preschooler had fun scooping water into the lids and counted the measurements.


    We then noticed how we had four containers that were all the same size.  The other lids were various sizes.  

    To the four lids of the same size, we modified the containers slightly to see how the top would affect rate of evaporation.  We covered one with foil.  Another was covered with plastic wrap and poked with small holes. The third was covered with mesh. The fourth container was left open to the air.


    Related: You could take this evaporation experiment further and use ice cubes that then melt and evaporate. Here is information on the motor benefits of scooping ice. The ice cubes would then have to melt to a liquid and then go through the process of evaporating to a gas state.

    Evaporation Experiment Predictions

    I asked my kids from which lid they thought water would evaporate more quickly.  


    My preschooler said she thought the smallest lid (the bottle cap) would evaporate first because it was the smallest lid.  She thought the play dough lid’s water would evaporate slowest because it was the biggest lid.  She hypothesized that of the four containers that were the same size, the open container would evaporate first and the covered container would evaporate last. 


    I thought her answers were interesting and clearly following Piaget’s conservation theory.  In this case, she thought the bottle cap appeared to have more water because it was filled to the brim, where the large and low play dough lid was only slightly covered with water.

    Recycled materials water evaporation STEM Science experiment

    My older kiddos had different answers:  They thought the play dough lid would evaporate first because it had less “deepness” (or depth).  We decided that the sun would shine and evaporate this lid’s water first.

    They agreed with my preschooler when they said they thought the uncovered lid would evaporate before the covered lid. 

    Recycled materials water evaporation STEM Science experiment

    While we made good hypotheses with this experiment, we ran into a bit of bad weather luck following our outdoor science.  Our sunny day turned into several days of rain and gloomy skies.  We’re still waiting for our water to evaporate and will update this post when we have some results!

    Outdoor STEM ideas

    This post is part of the 31 Days of Outdoor STEM Activities series.  Stop by and see all of the ideas shared.

    Recycled materials water evaporation STEM Science experiment


    You will love these STEM activities that we’ve shared:
    Recycled materials Fulcrum and Lever
    Lemon STEM science experiment ideas
    Tinker Toys STEM Pulley

    Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20 years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

    Virtual Visual Motor Room

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    Visual Motor Skills Virtual Therapy Room

    If you are looking for online games to target visual perceptual skills, and ways to build visual motor skills when working virtually, then this virtual visual motor room (or virtual visual perceptual skills therapy room) is for you. This virtual therapy room is based on our virtual sensory room and is designed to develop and strengthen visual motor skills, visual perceptual skills, and eye-hand coordination. Let’s play!

    This Visual Motor Skills Virtual Therapy Room is going to be a hit with your caseload.

    Free virtual visual motor activities for online occupational therapy activities

    Online Visual Motor Activities

    For therapists working in teletherapy, online puzzles, virtual games, and remote therapy games are one way to help kids build the skills they need for visual perception, visual motor, eye-hand coordination, and even executive functioning.

    That’s where this virtual visual motor room comes in.

    Therapists can access the free virtual therapy room from their Google drive and use the tools in teletherapy sessions.

    This slide deck is just one of the many free slide deck collections available here on The OT Toolbox.

    For more teletherapy games and tools that can be done remotely with kids on your therapy caseload, check out this resource on virtual therapy games.

    Virtual Visual Motor Activities

    There are so many awesome visual motor resources that can be used in occupational therapy teletherapy. In the virtual therapy room, you can find games and activities like these:

    • Online Sudoko
    • Virtual Connect 4 game
    • Online Snakes and Ladders
    • Virtual Bingo
    • Qwirkle
    • Uno
    • Yahtzee
    • Online Tic Tac Toe
    • Tangrams
    • Connect the dots
    • Geoforms
    • Shape building activities
    • Counting and graphing activities
    • Visual memory activities
    • Mazes
    • Word searches
    • What’s missing puzzles
    • MUCH more

    All of these virtual therapy activities can be used to challenge kids’ visual perceptual skills, visual motor skills, and motor skills.

    You’ll also see links to hands-on visual motor activities listed here on The OT Toolbox as well as a link to our free visual perception packet. Use these hands-on and printable therapy tools along with the virtual games and activities.

    Virtual therapy room for visual motor skills.

    When you click on the images in the virtual therapy room, you’ll be sent to links to videos, exercises, and resources to promote visual perception activiites and visual motor activities. T

    This therapy room is a great resource for kids of all ages. You’ll find therapy activities for all levels of visual perceptual skills and visual motor integration.

    Free virtual therapy room slide deck

    Want to add this therapy slide deck to your OT toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below and you can access this resource from your email.

    NOTE: Lately email addresses from school districts, organizations, and those with strict security walls have had our slide decks blocked. Consider using a personal email address to access this slide deck.

    Free Virtual Visual Motor Room!

      We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.
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      Add heavy work with these heavy work exercises to incorporate many themes into therapy and play.

      heavy work cards for regulation, attention, and themed brain breaks

      Click here to grab these heavy work cards.

      Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20 years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

      Cupcake Liner Butterfly

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      cupcake liner butterfly

      This cupcake liner butterfly is a scissor skills craft to build fine motor skills and scissor skills. Use this cupcake liner craft in therapy with a butterfly theme or in Spring occupational therapy activities. Spring is here (whether the weather agrees or not!) and this butterfly craft is a fun way to celebrate!  With how easy this cupcake liner butterfly craft is, we’ll be sure to make a few batches of these all summer long.

      Cupcake liner butterfly craft for kids

      How to make a Cupcake Liner Butterfly

      You’ll need a few materials for this craft: 

      Butterfly craft made with cupcake liners!

        This post contains affiliate links.  

      Related Read: Use this scented scissor skills activity to help kids learn graded scissor use in a fun way! 

      Use cupcake liners to help with scissor skills with kids.

      To make the butterfly craft, follow these directions:

      1. Cut the cupcake liners like the picture above.  Kids can work on their scissor skills by cutting a material like a cupcake liner.  It’s a lighter weight material than regular paper and a great way to address line accuracy and scissor control.
      Make a cupcake liner butterfly to work on scissor skills with kids.

      2. Cut butterfly bodies from the black cardstock.  

      3. Trim the butterfly wings to curved “C” shapes.   

      Cupcake liner butterfly craft for spring!

      4. Build the butterflies!  We loved mixing up the colors for this bright and cheery Spring craft.  

      Moving the pieces of the butterflies to build the insects is a challenge in visual motor skills.

      More butterfly activities for therapy

      More Cupcake Liner crafts

      Try these cupcake liner crafts to help kids develop precision and coordination in scissor skills using cupcake liners.  

       
       
       

      Spring Fine Motor Kit

      Score Fine Motor Tools and resources and help kids build the skills they need to thrive!

      Developing hand strength, dexterity, dexterity, precision skills, and eye-hand coordination skills that kids need for holding and writing with a pencil, coloring, and manipulating small objects in every day task doesn’t need to be difficult. The Spring Fine Motor Kit includes 100 pages of fine motor activities, worksheets, crafts, and more:

      Spring fine motor kit set of printable fine motor skills worksheets for kids.
      • Lacing cards
      • Sensory bin cards
      • Hole punch activities
      • Pencil control worksheets
      • Play dough mats
      • Write the Room cards
      • Modified paper
      • Sticker activities
      • MUCH MORE

      Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

      Spring Fine Motor Kit
      Spring Fine Motor Kit: TONS of resources and tools to build stronger hands.

      Grab your copy of the Spring Fine Motor Kit and build coordination, strength, and endurance in fun and creative activities. Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

      Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20 years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

      Coffee Filter Butterfly Craft

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      coffee filter butterfly craft for kids

      This coffee filter butterfly craft is a great fine motor and bilateral coordination activity for kids. If you are looking for butterfly life cycle crafts, this one is a great addition. Or, if you are seeking Spring OT activities, be sure to add this colorful fine motor butterfly craft to your list.

      Coffee filter butterfly craft to build fine motor skills in kids.

      Coffee Filter Butterfly Craft

      This coffee filter craft is a nice one to develop skills because it works on so many areas that are covered in therapy sessions:

      • Pinch and grip strength
      • Eye hand coordination
      • Bilateral coordination
      • Motor planning
      • Crossing midline
      • Precision and dexterity
      • Open-thumb web-space
      • Arch development
      • Separation of the sides of the hand
      • Finger isolation
      • Thumb IP joint flexion (great for pencil grasp!)

      How to make a coffee filter butterfly craft

      This was an easy set-up and fun craft we did one afternoon recently.  You’ll need the following materials:

      • Coffee filters
      • Water color paints/water
      • A straw
      • Clothes pin
      • Pipe cleaner
      • String (to make a banner)

      Directions: Use a paint brush to add a bit of water to the wells of a water color paint pallet. To really work on fine motor skills, use your thumb to drop water droplets into the paint tubs. Using the straw to drip water into the water colors can be a challenging fine motor task but one that really develops separation of the sides of the hands, thumb IP joint flexion, and motor planning skills. Read more about the thumb IP joint and thumb wrap grasp in pencil grip. This craft is a powerful way to work on this functional grasp skill!

      Make a coffee filter craft and build fine motor skills with kids using a straw to paint.

      Little Guy and Big Sister both loved dropping the water into the color wells.  Big Sister felt pretty good about showing her little brother how to drop the water into the color wells using her straw. 

      Use straws to paint with watercolors and work on fine motor skills with kids.

      This is a great activity to work on thumb isolation and control of the thumb during fine motor activities. 

      Next, dip the edges of the coffee filters into the colors so the water creeps onto the edges of the coffee filter.

      Other ways to add the color can use the straw end or the paint brush. This craft is nice because it can be adjusted for many different kids.

      When kids drip the color on with a paintbrush, or drop color with the straw, it’s fun to try different ways to color the filters and see the colors blend together.  

      Work on fine motor strength with clothes pins to make a butterfly coffee filter craft.

      Next, use clothes pins to pinch the middle of the coffee filter together in the middle. This is a great hand strengthening and eye-hand coordination task.

      Finally, add a pipe cleaner to the end of the clothes pin for the antenna of the coffee filter butterfly. Bend the pipe cleaner around the clothes pin and twist it up to make antenna.

      Coffee filter butterfly craft for building fine motor skills.

      If you like to create several butterflies in a variety of colors, you can clip them onto the string for an other bilateral coordination task.

      They look pretty!  Big Sister wanted to hang them on the ceiling of her room.  We strung the butterflies on yarn and taped them to her ceiling.  This would be a great way to display a whole client caseload of coffee filter butterflies and really show off those fine motor skills!

      Add this butterfly craft to a butterfly theme in therapy or home programing.

      These heavy work cards include a page of butterfly life cycle activities that incorporate calming heavy work activities for motor planning and proprioceptive benefits.

      Or, in the Spring Fine Motor Kit, you’ll find butterfly and caterpillar activities that are designed to build a variety of fine  motor manipulation, dexterity, and strengthening tasks.

      Butterfly coffee filter craft

      Spring Fine Motor Kit

      Score Fine Motor Tools and resources and help kids build the skills they need to thrive!

      Developing hand strength, dexterity, dexterity, precision skills, and eye-hand coordination skills that kids need for holding and writing with a pencil, coloring, and manipulating small objects in every day task doesn’t need to be difficult. The Spring Fine Motor Kit includes 100 pages of fine motor activities, worksheets, crafts, and more:

      Spring fine motor kit set of printable fine motor skills worksheets for kids.
      • Lacing cards
      • Sensory bin cards
      • Hole punch activities
      • Pencil control worksheets
      • Play dough mats
      • Write the Room cards
      • Modified paper
      • Sticker activities
      • MUCH MORE

      Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

      Spring Fine Motor Kit
      Spring Fine Motor Kit: TONS of resources and tools to build stronger hands.

      Grab your copy of the Spring Fine Motor Kit and build coordination, strength, and endurance in fun and creative activities. Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

      Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20 years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

       

       

      Butterfly Life Cycle Crafts Activities

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      butterfly life cycle crafts and activities

      Butterflies are on our brain right now.  We’re patiently waiting for the postman to drop off our batch of caterpillars that will be a part of our family for a little while as we watch their development through the butterfly life cycle.  Add these butterfly life cycle crafts and activities to your Spring occupational therapy activity themes and help kids develop the fine motor skills needed for function.

      Butterfly life cycle crafts and activities for therapy sessions

      The kids received a (and this is an affiliate link…) Live Butterfly Garden as a Christmas gift this year and we are SO excited to watch the butterfly life cycle.  We can’t wait to watch our new family members grow and develop and do a few butterfly life cycle activities as well!  (I can’t get over the cuteness of that Lego butterfly life cycle below!)

      Butterfly Life Cycle Crafts

      These crafts and activities are great to add to a life cycle of a butterfly lesson plan or to use in therapy planning in the clinic, classroom, or home. 

      This butterfly cupcake liner craft is a fun way to work on scissor skills and direction following, as well as fine motor work.

      Or, make a butterfly from a coffee filter and build hand strength and bilateral coordination skills.

      Create a caterpillar craft using an egg carton and build hand strength and fine motor development.

      This wooly bear caterpillar craft and handwriting activity helps kids with scissor skills, bilateral coordination, and includes a handwriting component.

       

      Butterfly Life Cycle Activities

      If you want to start with caterpillar and then move to butterfly activities, use this free bug and caterpillar slide deck to work on fine motor strength and development. The play dough and other fine motor tasks build hand strength in kids.

      Recently, we released a new therapy slide deck to use in virtual therapy sessions that explores the butterfly life cycle. The butterfly therapy slide deck encourages gross motor skills, motor planning, and heavy work movement.

      These heavy work cards include a page of butterfly life cycle activities that incorporate calming heavy work activities for motor planning and proprioceptive benefits.

      This butterfly handwriting activity slide deck is another virtual therapy tool for using in teletherapy or even face to face sessions while working on letter formation and handwriting skills.

      In the Spring Fine Motor Kit, you’ll find butterfly and caterpillar activities that are designed to build a variety of fine  motor manipulation, dexterity, and strengthening tasks.

       

       
      Creative butterfly life cycle crafts and activities for kids

       

      More Butterfly Life Cycle Crafts and Activities

       

      Try these crafts that combine the full butterfly life cycle into crafts and activities: 

       

       

      Spring Fine Motor Kit

      Score Fine Motor Tools and resources and help kids build the skills they need to thrive!

      Developing hand strength, dexterity, dexterity, precision skills, and eye-hand coordination skills that kids need for holding and writing with a pencil, coloring, and manipulating small objects in every day task doesn’t need to be difficult. The Spring Fine Motor Kit includes 100 pages of fine motor activities, worksheets, crafts, and more:

      Spring fine motor kit set of printable fine motor skills worksheets for kids.
      • Lacing cards
      • Sensory bin cards
      • Hole punch activities
      • Pencil control worksheets
      • Play dough mats
      • Write the Room cards
      • Modified paper
      • Sticker activities
      • MUCH MORE

      Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

      Spring Fine Motor Kit
      Spring Fine Motor Kit: TONS of resources and tools to build stronger hands.

      Grab your copy of the Spring Fine Motor Kit and build coordination, strength, and endurance in fun and creative activities. Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

      Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20 years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

      Earth Day Activities

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      Earth Day activities

      These Earth Day Activities are great for occupational therapy activities because they are full of fine motor work, bilateral coordination, motor planning, and sensory experiences. Plus, when kids create these Earth day crafts and play experiences, they are learning about recycling, cleaning up the Earth, and nature.

      Earth day activities for occupational therapy

      Earth Day Activities

      Let’s get to the Earth Day fun!

      1. Make a recycled materials craft bin. Kids can gather recyclable materials from food containers, cardboard, artwork, and use them to make a DIY craft bin that is used for making more crafts and using in fine motor or sensory play activities. I love that the wax paper sleeves or egg cartons can be easily stored in cut cereal boxes. What a way to work on scissor skills with a variety of materials.

      Here are more crafts and activities using recycled materials.

      2. Use recycled materials to make a flower craft– Then, after that recycled materials craft bin is sorted, use the items to make a flower craft. Things like used egg cartons, cereal boxes, paper bags, can be cut and manipulated to craft and work on fine motor skills.

      3. Head outside. There are so many benefits to playing and exploring the outdoors. And, kids can learn about the earth, too.

      4. Read about recycling. These books about recycling are great to incorporate into therapy activities.

      5. Incorporate recycled materials into learning concepts. Use these strategies to integrate therapy goals into the classroom with a recycling theme. You’ll find math, reading, science, and more ideas here.

      This series on 31 days of learning using free materials will get you started on lots of ways to use recycled materials in classroom concepts.

      6. Plant something- Explore this post on sensory gardens to find ways to incorporate sensory input in the outdoors.

       

      I was surfing around on some other lovely blogs and trying to find some fun crafts that we could try.  Here are a few of our favorite ones we came across all geared towards children ages two through five.

       
       
       

       

      Itsy Bitsy Learners
      This is a fun activity for preschoolers using homemade textured paint.
       

       

      Repeat Crafter Me
      This Earth Day inspired felt counting book is such a great idea for toddlers.
       

       

      Imprints From Tricia
      What a fun idea- go on a nature hunt and create a Nature Book. Press plants, leaves, and flowers into paint and then write to describe the prints. It’s a great sensory based handwriting activity.
       
       
       
      Laugh Paint Create 
      Created some great recycled artwork with cardboard food boxes. Work on scissor skills, bilateral coordination, and more.

       

       

      Teach Beside Me These adorable Rock faces will make anyone smile and make a beautiful addition to a garden.

       

       
      All of these great posts have inspired us to go create something special out of recycled items or something Mother Earth has provided for us…we can’t wait to get our hands dirty!

       

      Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20 years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

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