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:
We love easy kids crafts. When you can add learning and crafting, it’s just bonus! We’ve made a few other easy shape vehicle crafts before: Our fire truck craft, school bus craft, and Backhoe craft were all big hits in our house. We continued the easy shapes learning with a Big Rig Truck craft. This one was easy and fun!
Easy Shapes Big Rig Truck Craft
This post contains affiliate links.
We used a few materials to make this big rig craft. We used a sheet of
orange cardstock, black cardstock
, and a piece of white printer paper. This craft was so easy to throw together. I cut out the simple shapes to build the Big Rig truck, but older kids could do the cutting for you and work on scissor skills at the same time.
The nice thing about using card stock is that it is more resistive and slows down scissor snipping. It’s a great resistance for new scissor users to practice with while working on line accuracy and controlled scissor use.
For this truck craft, you need three black circles, three smaller circles, a rectangle, a square, and a small white square.
This craft was almost like a puzzle and a little brain booster for Little Guy to build. I showed him the truck shape and then took apart the pieces. He had to recall the image and build the truck on his own. Younger kids would require more verbal cues or a visual example of the truck craft.
This simple craft was a big hit and a fun continuation of other easy shape vehicles we’ve crafted. See them all here:
This bottle cap math activity doubles as a fine motor activity to develop precision, in hand manipulation skills AND counting by tens using bottle cap math!
Bottle Cap Math
Big Sister is working her way through first grade and loves when she has math homework. She works hard at math but when she “gets” the concept, she rocks it. Sometimes, we need to work a bit on some of the math ideas. (I think she gets her math skills from her mom). So, when we get worksheets for math homework, I like to put together hands-on activities to build on the concepts she learns at school.
The extra work helps a lot and it is more fun for her to practice math ideas with manipulatives rather than worksheets. We practiced 10 frames activities with bottle caps one day and worked on a few first grade math ideas that Big Sister’s been practicing in worksheet form.
This was fun!
First Grade Math Activity
I love using things like bottle caps in OT kids crafts and activities. It’s something that you’ve got around the house, and it’s free! You can’t really find an item that is more perfect for sorting, letter play, art, or crafting!
This post contains affiliate links.
I pulled out our stash of bottle caps, but only grabbed a couple of colors. I wanted this activity to focus on what was IN the bottle caps vs. the color of the cap.
We used some (Amazon affiliate link) dried chickpeas and a few other dried items to fit right into the caps. I had Big Sister count out the chickpeas into piles of 10. We popped them right into the caps.
Big Sister counted the bottle caps in groups of tens and I added a handful of chickpeas to the side. She then had to figure out the total number, counting the tens and the ones.
Counting out the 10 items is a great beginning math concept for first graders. She’s counting the manipulatives with one-to-one correspondence and placing them into groups of tens. We practiced counting by tens as we moved the bottle caps around on the paper.
I also pulled out a bag of dried black beans and she counted out groups of tens of those, too.
Big Sister counted by tens to add the caps with chick peas and the caps with black beans to get a total number of items. When we had 10 bottle caps of 10 items, we stacked them into a pile to make a hundreds column.
Looking for a few fresh sensory play ideas? These sensory activities are full of fun and creative ways to explore the senses while learning through taste, touch, sight, smell, the auditory sense, and even proprioception and vestibular sensory systems! One of our favorite ways to explore and learn with kids is through sensory play. There’s a reason why…when we encourage our kids to participate in sensory play, they learn! Getting kids involved in messy sensory play, sensory play dough, sensory tables, or slime sensory play encourages gross and fine motor skills, motor planning, and so much more.
Check out all of the sensory play ideas here…You will see edible sensory play and sensory activities that promote learning. There are just SO many sensory activities that kids love! Below, you will find some of the top sensory play ideas that we’ve shared here on The OT Toolbox, in different collections over the years. In fact, there are over 130 different sensory play ideas that promote learning and sensory challenges through various sensory experiences!
Sensory Play Ideas that kids will love
130 Sensory Play and Learning Ideas
Check out these sensory bins and sensory play ideas that can be used in learning and play:
These 60+ Sensory Bin Ideas are great for exploring sensory experiences through play. Sensory bins can be fit to any theme based on the child’s interests and sensory learning experiences.
These 8 Messy Sensory Play Ideas are awesome to use as a sensory challenge or to help kids play and experience the tactile sensory input they need to develop a functioning tactile sensory system. Use these sensory play ideas and experiences in therapy or at home.
These 18 Creative Art Projects incorporate a variety of senses in sensory art play! They are perfect for using in art lessons or in creative fun at home or in the occupational therapy clinic…while working on the underlying skills kids need!
These 9 Olfactory Sense of Smell Activities incorporate the sense of smell in play and sensory input. Use them to address the calming or stimulating experiences kids need through sensory play.
These 14 Recipes for Sensory Play promote messy sensory play experiences through goop, play dough, edible sensory play ideas, and other sensory ideas that encourage playing through the senses!
These 7 Visual Scanning Activities are perfect for addressing the skills kids need for reading, writing, puzzles, and so many other functional skills using the sense of vision.
Try these 9 Easy Sensory Bin ideas to incorporate sensory play in a variety of ways. Sensory bins are so versatile and can address any learning need and any interest!
These 10 Summer Sensory Play Ideas will be a huge hit over the summer months or anytime that outdoor sensory play is needed. Use the summer sensory ideas as a way to encourage messy sensory play and tactile and proprioceptive sensory experiences that kids will love!
Need more sensory play ideas? Try some of these favorites:
When we looked at our top ten posts of 2014, we noticed a funny thing. A few of our most popular blog posts were homemade play dough recipes. You must like play dough as much as we do! We had to put together a collection of our top play dough recipes of the year to put them all in one place and to have little look back at the year of fun we’ve had with homemade play dough!
The best homemade play dough recipes:
Our most popular post this year was our Make crayon play dough recipe and it was by far our favorite. If you haven’t tried this recipe yet, it’s a must-make! This dough is smooth, soft, and very bold in color. We’ve got plans to make a few more versions of this dough in 2015, so stay tuned!
Going through our list of play doughs from this year, these were most popular:
Wow, what a year 2014 has been! It’s been a blur of a year with a new baby, three kids in three different schools, play dates, volunteer positions, activities, and lots of fun and play around here. It’s so hard to believe that this year has gone by at lightning speed. When you are a mom, the days go by so slowly, but the weeks and months (and years) FLY! Every seasoned mom can tell you that…and it’s still a surprise when the year wraps up and we head into a new year.
It was SO much fun to look back at this year’s most popular posts. It’s fun to see what you’ve been here to see. We’ve certainly had a blast with learning activities this year. Here are our ten most popular posts.
This New Year’s Countdown Chain is a fun way to count down the hours leading up to the New Year. Use this as a New Year countdown activity for kids leading up to the hours right before midnight. This countdown chain activity would be great for a noon years eve activity, too! Use the New Year’s Eve activities we shared right on the paper chain activity links for themed fun that builds skills.
New Year’s Eve Countdown Chain
Celebrate New Year’s Eve with kids by making a customizable activity countdown chain!
New Year’s Eve sure has changed since having kids. Gone are the days of glamorous parties with friends and family, heels and dresses to ring in the new year. Now, we celebrate another year with dance parties with the kids and movie marathons.
Celebrating New Year’s Eve with kids is a different life and one that I wouldn’t trade for all of the little black dresses and strappy heels in the world. With four young kids, we are in the thick of diapers, learning to tie shoes, and band-aides.
Being up all night has taken on a new definition with this stage of life!
New Years with kids is about snacks, music, games, and family time. We made this New Year’s Eve Countdown Activity Chain to celebrate each hour leading up to the ball dropping with a child and family friendly activity. This is a fun for the whole family!
This is a quick and easy New Year’s Eve craft and activity that we threw together this week. We made an activity chain to help the kids understand the passage of time to reach midnight (or a little earlier in the evening). Kids can tear off a chain link as the hours pass to reach the new year.
We’ve made a paper chain countdown as a visual reminder of time before, and it was such a hit with my kids, that I knew they would love to celebrate New Year’s Eve this way, too!
New Year’s Eve Activity for Kids to Countdown
This post contains affiliate links.
Write activities on each paper chain link, based on the child’s age or the family!
New Year’s Eve ideas for Young Kids
We started with some fun shades of cardstock. This is a great cutting activity for older preschoolers to cut straight lines through the paper from one end to the other end of the paper.
You’ll want to make marks on the paper so the child (or you) can cut the paper into one inch strips.
Next, add age-appropriate activities onto each paper strip.
I grabbed a marker and wrote out activities on each chain link. Add a number for each link. If the kids are older and will be staying up until midnight, you may want more numbers with activities for each hour.
A great idea for younger kids is to celebrate “midnight” at 7 or 8:00 pm. You can still do this activity chain, you just won’t need as many chain links and activities.
Our New Year’s Eve Countdown Activities included:
Make a New Year’s resolution.
Play charades.
Dance party!
Say something you are thankful for.
What is something you are looking forward to in the new year?
And for the midnight chain link…Band pots and pans! Celebrate the new year with family and friends!
Use a piece of clear tape to connect the rings. You’ll want to make sure they are in number order.
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.
There is just something about fun snowball activities that make learning fun! These snowball games and snowball ideas can be used in winter occupational therapy activities or in hands-on learning with a snowball theme. Winter fun and play is here, so snowball games are the way to go for learning activities with movement. With winter in full swing, we’ve got snowball themed math, science, art, sight words, and more!
Snowball Activities for learning
Winter learning activities can incorporate snowballs for themed, hands-on play. Whether you use paper crumbled into paper snowballs or printable snowball activities, there are so many ways to work on letter formation, handwriting, sight words, math facts, vocabulary, and much more.
Then, with snowball themed activities, there is the opportunity to add in gross motor skills, core strength, balance, coordination, motor planning, and movement.
Gross Motor Snowball Activities
Snowball Throwing Games– Incorporate learning with snowball throwing activities. If you have actual snow in your area, use that snow to scoop and make real snowballs. It’s a great way to strengthen the arms, work on bilateral coordination, and gain proprioceptive input.
Crumble Paper Snowballs- In this Snowball Fight Math, we wrote numbers on the outside of the crumbled snowball, then threw them at targets and into bins or buckets to incorporate coordination and motor planning.
Snowball Shotput Game– Kids can work on coordination, balance, AND add in movement-based sensory input in the form of vestibular sensory experiences with this snowball shotput activity. Work on visual processing skills such as tracking and convergence, too.
Adding an obstacle course is another gross motor idea for indoor winter learning or play. This idea from Toddler Approved is fun.
Snowball Fine Motor Activities
Crumble snowballs– Try crumbling paper or foam sheets to create snowballs. Inside, students can write math facts or sight words.
Scoop snowballs- Cotton balls make a nice miniature snowball. Use tongs, tweezers, or scoops to work on fine motor skills. This idea from Still Playing School can get you started.
Paint snowballs- Use colored water and some spray bottles to paint snow and improve hand strength in this painted snow activity.
For children that need to work up to tactile tolerance, this mess-free sensory play encourages kids to touch messy materials and build up their tolerance. It’s got a snow and snowball theme, so this sensory activity would work well with this theme.
Sensory Dough– Explore sensory tolerance and tactile experiences with this frozen snow dough recipe. It’s a fun one for messy sensory play. Just add sight words, math facts, or winter cards from the Winter Fine Motor Kit…or make it all about pretend play with some arctic animal figures or Frozen characters.
Snowball Art Activities- Making crafts and art is an easy way to help children develop fine motor skills and incorporate tactile sensory experiences. This Indoor snowball painting from Fantastic Fun and Learning is a fun idea.
Shaving Cream Snow- Tactile experiences can involve more than just snow! Try this Shaving Cream Snowball Big Art from Coffee Cups and Crayons.
Snowball Science
If taking the learning to multi-sensory experiences is interesting, try this snowball Science Experiments where we experimented with actual snow.
More Winter Learning Ideas
To take learning and motor skills further, add the Winter Fine Motor Kit to your toolbox.
Use the cards and sight words in the Winter Fine Motor Kit, to challenge kids in scissor skills, reading, sight words, sequencing, storytelling, and visual perceptual skills. The Winter Fine Motor Kit has simple and complex shapes with all kinds of Winter themed images including mittens, arctic animals, penguins, snowflakes, and more. These shapes and words can be hidden in the fake snow sensory bin for kids to hide, find, and hide again.
To up the fine motor work further, add tongs, scoops, small bowls and bins, and more.
For more ways to work on scissor skills, along with all of the fine motor skills needed for scissor use and handwriting, try the Winter Fine Motor Kit. It’s loaded with cutting activities, lacing cards, coloring, clip activities, fine motor art, and fun ways to help children develop pre-writing hand strength, dexterity, and motor skills.
Use the fine motor activities, lacing cards, toothpick art, and crafts in the Winter Fine Motor Kit. It’s a 100 page packet with all winter themes, and you’ll find winter fun there!
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.
We’ve got a big collection of sight words. We started last year when Big Sister was in Kindergarten, and we’re continuing this year in first grade. The fun thing about our sight word activities is that they can be used and modified for all ages. When kids practice sight words, they need repetition to memorize the spelling of words that don’t follow rules of the English language. They are the tricky words that may be difficult to sound out. SO, making sight word practice fun is essential for kids!
We did this balloon sight word activity back in the summer months but are just getting around to sharing. This was such a fun way to practice first grade sight words, that we’ll be doing this one again!
Sight word activity with balloons:
I started by writing Big Sister’s sight words on the sticky side of masking tape, using a black marker. I taped these to balloons that were already blown up.
That’s it! When Big Sister saw the balloons with tape on them, she was very curious. It didn’t take her long to figure out that there were words written on the tape. Using the black marker makes it easy to see and read the words through the balloons.
She held the balloons up to her face to better read the sight words. This was a fun way to identify the the words.
We played a game where we put all of the balloons on the floor and kicked the words as I called out the sight word.
More ways to extend the play and learning using balloons and sight words:
Pop the balloons as they are read
Blow the balloons across a table. Call out a sight word and blow that balloon only. You can use a straw to make it even more difficult.
Balloon static games: Using static electricity, stick certain sight words the wall.
Balloon scavenger hunts
Balloon races-don’t drop the balloon.
Looking for more sight word activities? Try some of these:
This time of year is a busy season for families. There is a sense of rush, rush, rush to get everything done on time. The busyness of the Christmas season does not mean that kids can’t play and learn with creative activities. These are a few ideas that I found on my iphone camera. These are quick and easy ways to play and learn this Christmas.
You may want to follow along with us on our Instagram feed for tons of quick and easy activities year long. We’re also sharing fast ideas on our new site, Mommy Needs a Coffee Break where moms can catch a few moments to grab a cup of coffee and play along with their kids or just put their feet up for a mini me-time break while the kids play. Mommy Needs a Coffee Break has a great Instagram feed too, with fun ideas for quick and easy activities with the kids.
A few easy Christmas Ideas for the Kids…from my iphone:
Healthy Christmas Snack for Kids
Make a healthy Christmas snack for the kids with thick slices of green apples. Add cranberries to make a “green wreath” snack. The crisp & chewy and sweet & tart combos of this snack delicious as it is nutitious.
We made these one afternoon and the kids loved them for their Christmas-y cuteness. Easy to throw together and fun= a Christmas win for mom!
This was another quick and easy snack, that involved a little fun and learning too. Grab a large graham cracker and break it into shapes. I used a sharp knife to cut triangles. Press strait down on the cracker to get a nice strait edge andavoid breaking the corners of the cracker. I threw in a few gingerbread boy cookies for extra fun. The kids made shapes, houses, and trees with their cracker tangrams. Then snack time happened.
Sometimes baby needs a quick and easy activity while mom whips up dinner. Or wipes up spilled milk, or folds a quick load of laundry, or… you get the picture.
Give baby a few brightly colored bowls in Christmas colors and let them explore the textures as they reach, grasp, move, throw, taste, and explore. Put a few crackers or pieces of fruit (age-appropriate) into the cupes for more tasting fun for baby.
Quick Soda Dough Recipe
Use our baking soda dough recipe to mix up a batch of baking soda dough. This is a quick recipe to put together, but will be long on fun as the kids play and create with their soda dough.
Fine Motor Christmas Activity for Kids
Use a few items from around the house (garland, tinsel, ribbon, feather boa…you always need a reason to pull out the feather boa…) and something that you can thread. We used these foam snowmen and wreaths for fine motor skills, bilateral hand coordination, and visual motor skills with this quick and easy activity. You could thread ornaments, bracelets, pipe cleaners, or anything with a “loop”.
What are your favorite ways to play and learn when the kids need an activity and you are short on time?
and a few other dried items to fit right into the caps. I had Big Sister count out the chickpeas into piles of 10. We popped them right into the caps.
and she counted out groups of tens of those, too.
and we added these lids, too.
and pretended to feed the animals.
.jpg)
.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*)
