Colleen Beck OTR/L

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:

Space Play Dough Mat

January 23, 2024January 11, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

If you are working on building intrinsic hand strength and the fine motor skills kids need to improve tasks such as maintaining a pencil grasp or coloring with endurance, than this space play dough mat is perfect for you.

Kids can use play dough mats to strengthen their hands and develop essential skills needed for writing with a pencil, dexterity in fine motor tasks, and precision in fine motor coordination tasks. This free play dough mat has a space theme and you can print off the printable play dough mat and add it to your therapy toolbox.

This space play dough mat is just one tool to use when looking for playdough activities for fine motor skills.

Kids love play dough mats like this space worksheet. When they roll play dough to fit in the spaces on the printable sheets, they don’t always realize they are working on intrinsic hand strength or hand strengthening in general. Even better, this outer space play dough mat is a free printable playdough mat that will go perfectly with a space theme!

Space Play Dough Mat

Working on intrinsic hand strength is a task that doesn’t need to be difficult…with a simple play dough activity like this one, building hand strength is easy!

We’ve shared a few play dough strengthening activities before. There is a reason why: Kids NEED more hand strength. It’s evident in the increased pencil grasp issues that teachers, parents, and therapists are seeing every day!

Looking for more strengthening activities using play dough? Try this flower play dough activity.

Intrinsic Muscle Strengthening Activity

The thing about this outer space play dough mat is that it works on a specific set of muscles in the hand. The intrinsic muscles are those within the hand that enable dexterity and endurance in fine motor tasks. They are the ones that allow the arches of the hand to be used in fine motor tasks like manipulating objects with in the hand.

They are the muscles of the hand that contribute to separation of the sides of the hand and create the thenar and hypothenar eminences. Specific exercises can strengthen these muscles and one of the biggest ones is rolling small balls of play dough with just the fingertips of the hand.

That’s why we’ve created a series of free play dough mats that encourage small balls of play dough of various sizes.

Space Activity

Print off this free play dough mat and add it to your toolbox for a fun fine motor activity that kids will love.

You can enter your email into the form below and watch your email to find the printable outer space playdough mat. After printing, you may want to cover it with a plastic or laminated surface that allows you to use the playdough mat over and over again. Some of our favorite tricks for this include: (Amazon affiliate links are included below.)

Laminating the paper
Slipping it into a sheet protector sleeve
Sliding the play dough mat into a dry erase marker pocket
Covering the paper with clear contact paper

Grab your free printable outer space play dough mat here and start working on that intrinsic hand strength!

Print off this free outer space play dough mat to help kids increase their hand strength and the intrinsic hand strength needed for fine motor tasks, all with a space theme!

More play dough activities you will love:

Play Dough Farm Activity | Play Dough Activity Color Match | Play Dough Cupcakes

More Free Play Dough Mats

Here are more free play dough mats that you can print off and use to work on hand strength endurance, and fine motor skills:

Free Ice Cream Play Dough Mat

Free Bird Play Dough Mat

Free Toys Play Dough Mat

Free Astronaut Play Dough Mat

Free City Skyline Play Dough Mat

More Space Activities

Pair this free outer space play dough mat with hands-on fine motor activities or virtual therapy activities for a themed therapy experience. Try these space activities that build skills:

Free Space Play Dough Mat

Want to add this space play dough mat to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below to access.

Know a kiddo that loves all things space, astronauts, and planets? The Outer Space Fine Motor Kit is your chance to develop fine motor strength, dexterity, and coordination skills.

Addressing hand strength, endurance, and precision is out of this world fun! The Outer Space Fine Motor Kit includes:

Fine Motor Mazes
Fine Motor Ten Frames for motor activities
1-20 Star Counting Cards
Bead Copying Strips
Space Alien Directed Drawing Sheets

This fine motor kit includes 24 pages of printable resources. Included in this printable pack are:

Two pages of color coded bead copying strips
Two pages of blank bead copying strips
Four pages of “draw and write” directed drawing activities with a space theme (Includes 3 styles of handwriting lines: highlighted lines, single rule, and double rule)
Nine pages of fine motor mazes
1-20 Outer Space Counting Cards
Four pages of fine motor ten frames activities

These printable activities extend to work on a variety of other functional areas, too: handwriting skills, numbers, math, adding, subtracting, one-to-one correspondence, scissor skills, coloring, and more.

Click HERE to grab the Outer Space Fine Motor Mini-Kit.

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.

Fish learning activity

January 10, 2021January 10, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

We had some fish learning activities based on a penguin theme going on for a while around here. Penguin activities are so much fun for learning and play! This fish learning activity was a fun way to explore letters, words, and numbers AND incorporate our penguin theme. We did this learning and counting activity one day after we made our penguin themed snacks. Add it to the penguin yoga activity and penguin deep breathing activities to round out full-body movement and learning.

Use these fish learning activities to work on sight words, math, letter identification, or spelling words with whole body learning.

Fish learning activity

Penguin math is fun when it comes to catching fish for penguin food! Use these ideas for a polar bear theme, too.

We used sheets of scrapbook paper and construction paper to make fish shapes. Kids can cut these out to work on scissor skills.

Make a fish learning activity and kids can fish for words or fish for math problems. Great for kinesthetic learning.

Next, we drew a pond on a large sheet of crafting paper. I wrote words, letters, or numbers on the fish. On some, I attached a paperclip or clip. We used a net (from a Bug Net toy) or a fishing pole from a puzzle set
to scoop up the fish like a penguin would.

fish learning activities for math, sight words, numbers, or letter identification.

You could also use a magnetic fishing pole from a puzzle set to catch the fish with clips on them. We scooped them in numerical order or in alphabetical order and then in random order too.

How fun would this be to read a few fun penguin books and then do some fishy counting to continue the penguin theme?

Penguin Emotions Game

June 14, 2021January 10, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Emotions game for social emotional development with a penguin theme

Today, I have a very fun virtual therapy slide deck to share. This emotions game is designed with a penguins theme, and can help kids identify emotions based on facial expressions, specifically the eyes. There is a lot of emotion in the eyes! Kids may or may not pick up on this emotional expression, depending on their development in social emotional learning. I created a penguins gross motor slide deck this week, and got a little carried away with the penguin theme…but how cute are these little guys, right? Use them for helping kids identify feelings and emotions based on expressions, and a few other skills that are addressed in therapy. Let’s break this activity down…

This emotions game has a penguins theme and helps kids learn about identifying emotions and feelings.

Teach Emotions with a Game

Ok, this therapy game is very fun to play, and it will be a huge hit, depending on the testers in my own home. But first, let’s break this down on the various skills that this emotions game addresses:

Identifying emotions
Naming feelings
Identifying facial expressions
Exploring emotional expression in the eyes
Social emotional learning

Then, there are the other skills that are addressed, because of the way that this therapy slide deck is presented and organized:

Visual discrimination
Visual scanning
Visual attention
Visual memory
Form constancy

This game is such a fun way to build skills in a variety of areas. Games for emotions and feelings are sometimes difficult to find, and so this free resource should be a great starting point for helping children with the areas listed above.

Emotion Matching Game

To play this emotional expression game, you’ll just need to load the slide deck onto your Google drive. Then, you can play in virtual therapy sessions with clients, or in home therapy programs, or even as a fun brain break in the distance learning classroom.

Kids can identify emotions and facial expressions in this emotions game using a penguin theme.

Next, ask children to complete the first slide in the deck. You’ll notice that there are text boxes on the slide where kids can identify the feelings or emotions based on the penguin’s expressions. Kids can type them into the box or they can say or write the feelings words.

On the next slides in the deck, kids can find the matching facial expressions for each penguin. Each slide has four penguins with different emotions expressed with their eyes. There are only penguins that match between the two circles.

This slide deck is so useful in helping kids work on visual perceptual skills, too. By visually scanning for the matching penguins, they are using visual discrimination, form constancy, visual attention, and visual memory. All of these skills are important not only in social emotional skills, but handwriting, reading, math, and other learning tasks as well.

Kids can move the ice cube to cover the matching penguins. The ice cube is an interactive piece on the Google slide deck. You will notice that there are two ice cubes. One is over top the other, so once you move the first ice cube to cover one of the penguins, the other ice cube is right below that. Kids can slide both ice cubes to cover the matching penguins.

I love this game for the emotions matching. It’s set up as an “I Spy” game for emotions and facial expressions, and kids will LOVE it!

More Emotional Learning Resources

This activity goes really well with some of the other emotions and feelings tools here on the website. These emotional learning tools can be used together:

Identifying emotions can be hard for kids who are early in social emotional learning development. Try this identifying emotion faces worksheet. It’s another free resource, so you can print it and begin using the printable right away.

2. Kids respond well to the stories in children’s books. Pair social emotional learning with popular kids’ books and hands-on activities. Here is information on how to teach social emotional development with children’s’ books.

3. Emotions and empathy are very closely related. Use this hands-on activity to teach empathy.

4. What is social emotional learning? Here are resources and information to help.

5. Emotional development occurs through play. This blog post includes examples of social emotional development and strategies to help kids develop these essential skills. Check out the comments on that post for strategies that The OT Toolbox community uses to develop social emotional skills.

6. Emotional regulation and executive functioning skills go hand-in-hand. Here is information on executive functioning and emotional development. You’ll find information on these connections, the research involved, and strategies to help.

Emotions Game for Teletherapy

Want to add this emotions game to your therapy toolbox?

You can grab a copy of this Google slide deck and use it to work on specific skills.

Enter your email address below and you will receive a PDF containing a link to copy the slide deck onto your Google drive.

Google Slide Deck TIPS:

Save the PDF file that you receive once you enter your email below, because you can come back to it again and again and send it to the kids on your caseload (or classroom) so they can make their own copy on their Google drive.
You will be prompted to make a copy of the slide deck. Before clicking that, be sure that you are logged into your Google account.
Make a copy for each student’s Google Drive. When you share it, make sure you enable edit capabilities for users.
The pieces will be moveable in “edit” mode. If you click “present”, the movable ice cubes won’t work.
Be sure to make a copy of this slide deck and not change the url to indicate “edit” at the end. When you make a copy of the slide deck onto your Google drive, you will end up with your own version that you are free to adjust in order to meet your student’s needs. By changing the url to “edit”, you can potentially mess up the original version that many other therapists and The OT Toolbox users are given.
To easily start a new game- Once you’ve gone through all of the slides, go to “history” on the top of the Google dashboard. You will be able to revert the slide to it’s original state using the history option, so all of the ice cubes go back to their original place. The history option is located on the top dashboard by clicking the link that says, “last edit was…”. When you click on that, you will see a list of edits made on the right side of your screen. Click on the edit titled, “New Game (Revert slides to their original state)”. This should move all of the movable ice cubes back to their original location on the slide deck. The typed in emotions on the text boxes will disappear as well. Note that you can delete edits from that list, so if several students are using the slides, you can keep the organization simple and delete edit versions that you no longer need.

Enjoy!

Penguin Deep Breathing Exercise

January 8, 2021January 8, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This penguin deep breathing exercise is another coping tool that kids can use as a self-regulation strategy. It follows several others in our series of image-based deep breathing exercises. These were originally created here on The OT Toolbox and you’ll be seeing many more breathing exercise tools coming your way! I think you’ll love the recent polar bear self-regulation activity. It’s a deep breathing exercise, too. Scroll on to access this printable worksheet.

Penguin Deep Breathing Exercise

I love this deep breathing activity for part of a penguin theme. This time of year, penguins are all the rage in preschool and younger elementary grades. This penguin-themed breathing activity is a powerful way to work on self-regulation using that theme.

More penguin activities:

Penguin yoga– This penguin yoga slide deck is another penguin activity that you can use along with the self-regulation tool.

Penguin Activities– For more ways to use a penguin theme, check out this penguin activities post full of penguin crafts, movement activities, and sensory play ideas, and even snacks.

Grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit, with 100 pages of done-for-you therapy activities, including penguin themes. There are lacing cards, crafts, pencil control strips, scissor skills activities, and much more. Grab it now before January 9th and you get a bonus of 3 fine motor slide deck activities.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE WINTER FINE MOTOR KIT.

Want to grab this free printable? Enter your email in the form below. You’ll receive the deep breathing worksheet immediately in your email inbox.

Don’t forget your copy of the Winter Fine Motor Kit!

Penguin Yoga

April 6, 2022January 7, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Did you ever wonder if a penguin can do yoga? Well, today we’re not talking about penguins doing yoga…we are talking about penguin-themed yoga exercises! These are brain breaks for kids that are a great addition to a penguin theme in the classroom or home. Last week, we had a polar bear therapy slide deck full of yoga and gross motor activities for you. It goes well with this penguin yoga slide deck. Use it in virtual therapy, in home programs, or as a brain break in distance learning or therapy at home!

Penguin Yoga gross motor slide deck for teletherapy or brain breaks.

Penguin Yoga Exercises

This slide deck is a fun way to get the kiddos moving along with the penguins. Like many of our other slide decks, you’ll find the movements include heavy work exercises for proprioceptive input that can be calming and centering.

Other slides are vestibular activities that encourage movement in various planes.

These slides can be part of a sensory diet for scheduled sensory activities throughout the day. Read more on how to start a sensory diet.

Add these slides to brain breaks or other movement activities throughout the virtual classroom or teletherapy day.

Yoga and Balance

This slide deck has two options for each yoga movement. The nice thing about yoga exercises is that each movement can be modified to meet the needs of the individual while challenging abilities and strength at a “just right” level.

You’ll notice that each slide has one penguin on it. As you progress through the slide deck, the penguin does a move, and then it does that same move on an iceberg or piece of ice. This can be a way to challenge kids and work on core strength, coordination, motor planning, and upper or lower body strength depending on the yoga position.

Kids can use an object they have in the home and pretend they are a penguin posing on the slab of ice. Some ideas to use include:

Couch cushion
Folded towel
Washcloth or flat fabric
Paper plate
Hoola hoop
Any object in the home!

Ask the child to complete the yoga move and then complete the yoga exercise concentrating on balance.

This slide deck is not interactive. There are no moveable pieces on this particular slide deck.

Penguin yoga exercises for brain breaks for kids

Winter Activities for Kids

Use the penguin yoga along with these winter activities for whole-body movement and development activities that are effective in building skills in kids:

Winter Fine Motor Kit– Use this printable kit to help kids develop and strengthen fine motor skills. The 100 page kit includes penguin theme activities, polar bears, and other arctic activities, as well as all-things winter.

Indoor winter activities for kids– Try these fun and effective ways to to incorporate movement during the winter months.

Winter Brain Breaks– Just like our penguin brain breaks, these winter theme movement activities will get brains and bodies developing!

Penguin themed snacks– These cute snacks are easy to make and get the kids developing skills in the kitchen.

Get the Penguin Slide Deck for Teletherapy

You can grab a copy of this Google slide deck and use it to work on specific skills.

Enter your email address below and you will receive a PDF containing a link to copy the slide deck onto your Google drive. Next, save that PDF file, because you can come back to it again and again and send it to the kids on your caseload (or classroom) so they can make their own copy on their Google drive.

Please use the copy of the slide deck and do not change the url.

Bear Brain Breaks

January 9, 2023January 6, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

These bear brain breaks are perfect for winter time movement, or using in a bear theme in school or in therapy. Sometimes, brain breaks are the perfect tool to can help with movement or sensory needs in the classroom. We used a favorite childhood book to come up with bear themed brain breaks that can be used alongside the book in a movement and learning activity or in a bear-themed classroom activities. Not long ago, we shared more brain break ideas that you might like to add to your classroom.

Use these bear brain breaks along with ideas from our hibernation activities for more winter fun!

Bear Brain Breaks

Looking for brain break videos for the classroom or home? Here are the best brain break videos on YouTube.

This post contains affiliate links.

Have you read the book, “Time for Sleep” by Denise Fleming? My kids loved to hear about all of the animals as they prepared for sleep over the winter. We decided to try a few bear gross motor moves based on the book.

Bear Theme Brain Breaks

Stretches and whole-body movements that happen in a calm manner are a great way to prepare for sleep, so these activities went along nicely with the bear in the book as well as the getting ready for sleep theme.

If fidgeting, wiggling, or just a break from screens is needed, try these movement breaks to help.

We created these themed brain breaks to go along with the book, Time to Sleep, but they are perfect for any day (or when paired with other bear books)!

If you are looking for resources for sleep or bedtime relaxation stretches, we shared some based on another children’s book.

Time for Sleep by Denise Fleming and bear themed brain breaks for a bear activity.

This is such a fun book to read with kids. It would go along perfectly with a bear theme in your classroom. Try adding some gross motor movement activities based on the book.

Kids can then use the bear themed brain breaks throughout their day when it seems the classroom or individual students need a movement break.

Below, you can enter your email to access the free brain break printable that would go along perfectly for teaching the classroom about these bear brain breaks. They can be cut up and laminated for the children to pull out of a cup. Or, add them to a key ring for bear themed movement activities.

Try these Squirrel Themed Brain Breaks too.

Using these bear brain breaks, kids can stretch, roll, reach, climb, and crawl like a bear. There are eight bear themed movement activities included that allow kids to move with a bear theme.

Read the book Time for Sleep and try the movement activities!

Bear Activities

Looking for more bear themed activities? Try these hands-on ways to play with a bear theme based on bear books like “Time for Sleep”.

Polar Bear Gross Motor Ideas

Bear Craft

Fun and Therapeutic Polar bear Activities

Polar Bear Therapy Slide Deck– Free! Perfect for virtual therapy sessions

Polar Bear Self-Regulation Deep Breathing Activity

Bear Says Thanks Fine Motor Activity

Bear Oral Motor Exercise

LiTERACY BEAR THEMED ACTIVITIES

Bear Paw Names from Rainy Day Mum
Upper and Lower Case Bear Matching Puzzles from Sea of Knowledge
Bear Paw Alphabet Tracks from Inspiration Laboratories

NUMERACY BEAR THEMED ACTIVITIES

Sorting Bears Big, Medium and Small from My Storytime Corner
Colour Games for Kids from JDaniel4’s Mom

BEAR THEMED RECIPES

Teddy Bear Bread from Messy Little Monsters

BEAR CRAFTS AND IDEAS FOR PLAY

Three Easy Bear Themed Crafts and Activities for Kids from Toddler Approved
Preschool Bear Craft (Painting) from Preschool Powol Packets
Bear Themed Learning Activities from Mama Smiles
Printable Bear Number Game from Educators Spin on It

These brain breaks would be a great addition to our Winter Fine Motor Kit, loaded with winter theme and bear activities! It’s got all things fine motor in print-and-go activities. You’ll find lacing cards, modified handwriting sheets, pencil control strips, cutting activities, crafts, coloring exercises, and MUCH MORE!

Get the Winter Fine Motor Kit HERE.

Polar Bear Sensory Bin

January 18, 2024January 5, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This polar bear sensory bin is an old one from The OT Toolbox site archives. This tactile sensory activity is a fun way to challenge sensory exploration with a variety of textures and materials. But more than that, this polar bear activity can be used in a therapy theme to address skills. The next part of the polar bear gross motor activity included a Our Polar Bear Sensory bin was cotton batting, tinsel, a stuffed polar bear, and a seal toy. This is a Winter Sensory bin that can go along with an arctic animals theme.

Polar Bear Sensory Bin Materials

There are many ways to set up this sensory bin. Use items you have in your home or therapy space. Use some of the materials listed below. You DO NOT need all of these items. The nice thing about creating a themed sensory bin is that you can use what you have on hand. Some ideas for the sensory bin include:

Container or bin
Teddy bear
Tinsel
Cotton balls
Cotton batting
Tissue paper
Rice
Dry beans
Blue or white construction paper
Tape
Wax paper
Clear cellophane
Aluminum foil
Arctic animal figures

Make a polar bear sensory bin with figures, and sensory materials.

Other materials that you may want to add to the polar bear sensory bin to encourage fine motor skills and coordination skills:

Tweezers to pick up and manipulate materials
Small bowls
Tongs
Spoons or scoops
Chopsticks
Pickle picker
Containers
Counting cards (try the winter themed ones in the Winter Fine Motor Kit)

Fine Motor Skills in a Sensory Bin

Using the materials and tools above, students can work on fine motor skills to manipulate and explore the items in the sensory bin. Some ways to work on fine motor skills include:

Address in-hand manipulation by sorting items in the hands into containers or cups.

Work on hand strength and arch development by moving items with tongs, tweezers, or pickle picker.

Work on open thumb web space by pinching and pulling cotton balls.

Work on finger isolation by moving materials and items around in the bin.

Work on grasp and precision by picking up small items such as tinsel, mini-erasers, crumbled paper or tissue paper, etc.

Use a Sensory Bin for Visual Perception

This polar bear sensory bin can be used to address a variety of visual perceptual skills: visual discrimination, visual memory, visual attention, figure ground, and visual closure.

Ask children to locate specific items by color or texture. They can also recall items that they found in the sensory bin. Ask kids to locate items that are partially hidden by other objects or sensory bin filler materials. These are all ways to work on visual perceptual skills with this polar bear sensory bin.

Use a Sensory Bin for Eye-Hand Coordination

A sensory bin like this polar bear theme can be used in so many ways to address eye-hand coordination:

Pouring materials
Scooping materials like beans or rice
Using tongs or tweezers to pick up and move items like mini erasers
Sorting sensory bin items into piles or containers
Picking up and exploring various sensory bin items

Polar Bear Imagination Play

My kids had fun just imagining stories for the items in the sensory bin. We used the stuffed bear as a polar bear and a seal figure who was trying to escape into the ocean…Imagination play!

Polar bear sensory bin with tinsel and arctic animal figures.

Little Guy glued some waxed paper to blue construction paper to make an ocean covered with ice. We had a striped Christmas pencil for our “North Pole”.

Baby Girl did NOT like the texture or “feel” of the tinsel. It got stuck to her hands and she would try to pull it off…The seal is another story. She carried that thing around all day 🙂

Kids of all ages can use the materials in the sensory bin to work on tactile sensory exploration, fine motor skills, and visual perception.

Looking for more Polar Bear play ideas?? We had fun with our first Polar Bear Theme activities day! We should have more ideas up tomorrow to go along with the Polar Bear theme.

You’ll also love all of the items in our Winter Fine Motor Kit. It’s loaded with coloring sheets, handwriting pages, puzzles, and crafts with a polar bear theme. There are sensory bin materials, polar bear finger puppets, lacing cards, and so much more.

Click here to grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit.

Polar Bear Game

January 5, 2021January 5, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

$polar bear math game$

Today, I have a hands on learning activity for second grade using a polar bear game. This number line games for 2nd grade could actually be used in any age or grade level math, however, the polar bear craft that we used for a second grade math game turned out to be a fun way to work on base ten operations and adding 10’s and 100’s to two and three digit numbers. In second grade, adding two digits is a big deal! This polar bear activity is a fun two digit addition games for 2nd grade (and other grades).

If polar bear crafts and activities are right up your ally this winter, try some of these other polar bear activities, including a polar bear slide deck for distance learning or virtual therapy brain breaks, and this cute polar bear self-regulation activity.

polar bear math game for teaching second grade place value and two digit addition with hands on learning.

Polar Bear Craft

You’ll need a few materials for the polar bear craft. Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

White crafting pom poms
(1 inch) White crafting pom poms
(1/4 inch) Black crafting pom pom
(1/8 inch) Mini googly eyes
Crafting glue

To make the polar bear craft, glue the small white crafting pom poms to the white pom pom. These will become the polar bear’s ears. Glue the black pom pom to the bear’s face. This will become the nose. Add the googly eyes and your polar bear craft is done.

There are a lot of fine motor skills being addressed in the making of this polar bear craft: pincer grasp, eye-hand coordination, in-hand manipulation, bilateral coordination, and separation of the sides of the hand.

Polar bear craft made with pom poms or cotton balls.

This polar bear craft would pair nicely with our snowball math activity, designed to inspire hands-on learning with gross motor skills. The polar bear math activity described here would also go well with our Winter Fine Motor Kit, which is loaded with polar bear themed fine motor activities and crafts designed to target and strengthen specific fine motor skills.

Polar bear math game for second grade base ten operations concepts like adding 10s and 100s to two and three digit numbers for hands on fun and creative learning with a fun polar bear craft!

Polar Bear Game

We played a polar bear game to boost second grade math skills by working on adding 10’s and 100’s to numbers along the number line. I showed my daughter how to use a straw to blow the craft pom pom polar bear craft across the table and along the number line.

We started the bear at zero and tried to see how far she could get the bear to go down the number line. I then asked her a few questions that I had written out on cards:

What is your digit?
Is your digit even or odd?
What is 10 more?
What is 10 less?
What is 100 more?

We played a few times and then tried a few different extension ideas for this activity.

Starting at where the polar bear lands, count on by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, and 100’s.
Start out by saying “We’ll add 100 to the number where your bear lands.” Then, practice counting backwards by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, and 100’s.
Use two polar bear crafts to practice single and double digit adding and subtracting.

Make a polar bear craft with craft pom poms and use it in a polar bear game in therapy interventions or the classroom.

This polar bear game would be a great way to work on aspects of numbers with a hands-on approach to learning. Use it along with this Snowman Math-Composing and Decomposing Numbers activity.

Polar Bear Sensory Activity

This activity doubles as a polar bear sensory activity as it offers oral motor skills work. By blowing the straw to move the craft pom poms, children experience proprioceptive input through their mouth and cheeks. This sensory input is calming and can be a regulating tool to help kids focus following the heavy work through their mouth.

Using the straw to blow the polar bear across the table requires some “oomph” because of the weight of the crafting pom poms. Blowing through a straw is a great way to provide proprioception through a winter-themed oral motor activity. This is a fun activity for sensory seekers, kids who seek out oral motor input, and children who tend to fidget during learning or homework.

Check out our January Occupational Therapy calendar for more winter-themed sensory activities.

Challenge oral motor skills with proprioceptive input through the mouth using this straw and cotton ball polar bear craft.

Polar Bear Therapy Activities

If blowing the straw requires too much effort for your child, or you would like to try a fine motor activity, practice flicking the polar bear across the table. Keeping the bear on the table requires precision of fine motor skills, making it another way to use the polar bear craft in therapy and hands-on learning.

Additional polar bear therapy ideas include:

Use this polar bear gross motor activity to work on balance, motor planning, movement changes, and strengthening.

This polar bear science activity challenges fine motor skills.

Use polar bear crafts, pencil control sheets, scissor skills challenges, and more in the Winter Fine Motor Kit.

This Polar Bear Food Chains activity focuses on handwriting.

This Polar Animals Facts Game and this Polar Animals True or False? activity challenges executive functioning skills and scissor skills.

This Polar Bear Footprint Multiplication activity builds hand strength, arch development, grasp, and coordination.

This Polar Animal Pattern Activity for First Grade focuses on visual perceptual skills.

This Arctic Animals Sight Words Game develops visual perceptual skills.

For some penguin fun, this Penguin Art Project inspires fine motor development with a penguin craft. This Penguin Addition to 100 with Hundreds Chart builds eye hand coordination and fine motor skills.

Grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit, with 100 pages of done-for-you therapy activities, including polar bear themes. Grab it now before January 9th and you get a bonus of 3 fine motor slide deck activities.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE WINTER FINE MOTOR KIT.

These reproducible activity pages include: pencil control strips, scissor skills strips, simple and complex cutting shapes, lacing cards, toothpick precision art, crumble hand strengthening crafts, memory cards, coloring activities, and so much more.

Play Dough Roll Mats- Use the 6 play dough mats to develop fine motor skills and hand strength needed for tasks like coloring with endurance, manipulating small items, and holding a pencil. Kids can roll small balls of play dough with just their fingertips to strengthen the intrinsic muscles.

Pinch and Grip Strength Activities- Challenge fine motor skills with polar bear and winter themed glue skills page, tong/tweezer activities, lacing cards, finger puppets, 1-10 counting clip cards, 10 toothpick art pages, find & color page, 5 crumble art pages.

Pencil Control Worksheets- Connect the arctic animals or winter items and stay on the pencil path lines while mastering pencil control.

Arctic Animal Cutting Strips and Scissor Skills Sheets- Work on scissor skills to cut along lines to reach the arctic animal friends or snowflakes, snowmen, and mittens. This is a great way to strengthen the motor and visual skills needed for cutting with scissors.

Handwriting Sensory Bin Materials- You and the kiddos will love these A-Z uppercase and lowercase tracing cards with directional arrows, 1-10 tracing cards with directional arrows, 1-10 counting cards.

“I Spy” Modified Paper- Includes: Color and find objects in two themes: winter items and arctic animals; 3 styles of modified paper for each theme: single rule bold lines, double rule bold lines, highlighted double rule.

Fine Motor Handwriting Sheets- Try the 4 Find/Color/Copy pages in different styles of modified paper, rainbow writing pages in 3 styles of modified paper.

Write the Room Activities- Using a winter theme, these Write the Room cards includes: 5 lowercase copy cards, 5 uppercase copy cards, 5 lowercase tracing cards, 5 uppercase copy cards, 6 cursive writing copy cards, 2 styles of writing pages.

Get the Winter Fine Motor Kit Here.

Polar Bear Gross Motor Activities

January 5, 2021January 5, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

We are continuing with our Polar Bear Theme with all kinds of play ideas. Check out the polar bear gross motor activities listed here and challenge kids to move, and develop coordination, balance, direction changes, movement patterns, core strength, stability, and more. These polar bear activities go well with our polar bear gross motor virtual therapy slide deck, too, so you’ll want to check that out as well. Add gross motor play to your winter line-up!

Polar Bear Gross Motor Activity

For this gross motor activity, you’ll need masking tape, some couch cushions, and other small items (cotton batting, polar bear figures, or other materials can be used).

Start by creating a path with the masking tape. We made a zig zag path across the room, but the options are limitless here.

The masking tape path is perfect for polar bear crawls, toe walking, walking backwards, and knee walking.

indoor obstacle course ideas with masking tape obstacle course

Masking Tape Balance Beam Ideas

Once the masking tape is positioned on the floor, there are so many ways to use this in therapy in a classroom, hallway, clinic, or therapy at home activity.

I put a couple of pillows at the end to make a “snow pile” for the polar bears. Your kids can jump or hop into the pillows, or use them as balance challenges.

We put some cotton batting along the path that the kids had to bend and stoop to grasp using one hand or the other. Then, they had to transport the “snow” to the other end of the path.

A balance beam is so great for gross motor skills including coordination and balance. You can start with normal toe to heel steps, and then increase the balance and coordination needed by asking your child to take bigger steps, side steps, backward steps, tip toe, go fast/slow.

Polar bear gross motor activity for therapy at home or in a clinic.

Kids can hold an object and transport it from one end of the path to the other. Ask them to hold the item in their hands, on their head, on their toes, or on their back as they bear walk. Objects can be large or small, heavy or light.

Use couch pillows as pretend ice blocks for the polar bears.

Use tongs and a small plastic ice cube to incorporate fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination skills. You can place buckets or bins along the path for obstacles to place the small objects in while challenging core strength, motor planning, and movement changes.

Add buckets or cones along the path for children to step over or hop over. If cones aren’t available, just use couch throw cushions as an obstacle.

Add a big duvet blanket or other large blanket at one end or both ends as a DIY crash pad for heavy work and proprioceptive input. Crawling into and under the heavy blanket offers heavy work, and that blanket makes a great “igloo” for your little polar bear.

Advance the motor planning and core development by asking kids to stand along the path as they try to catch/toss a ball, navigate turns, curves, hop…There is so much you can do with the masking tape balance beam! Add more fine motor skill work by using paper snowflakes along the balance beam.

Challenge kids in a masking tape obstacle course with a polar bear theme.

Use a polar bear sensory bin along the path to challenge kids to transport items from one end of the path and to place them into the sensory bin. This is a fantastic occupational therapy or physical therapy intervention that challenges so many skills.

Use masking tape to make an obstacle course in the living room, with a polar bear theme or other animal walks.

For more polar bear gross motor activities, (and fine motor work), grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit, with 100 pages of done-for-you therapy activities, including polar bear themes. There are sensory bin materials, crafts, and activities designed to boost fine motor skills. These would be great additions to a polar bear gross motor theme in therapy sessions.

Grab it now before January 9th and you get a bonus of 3 fine motor slide deck activities.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE WINTER FINE MOTOR KIT.

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