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:

Motor Planning Spider Web Maze: Fine Motor Eye-Hand Coordination

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This is an updated post from years back.  Create a life-size indoor (or outdoor!) spider maze that kids can climb in, on, around, and through. This is just one of our favorite spider activities for building skills. Add a fine motor portion to the activity and work on vision activities like visual motor planning and hand-eye coordination as kids play this Fall and Halloween.  Happy climbing! 


Visual motor planning and hand-eye coordination with a Halloween or spider theme using this room-sized maze that kids can build and get into and climb around. This is a fun indoor play activity for kids who have a lot of energy. A great fine motor activity for kids too!

Hand-Eye Coordination and Visual Motor Planning Spider Maze

Motor Planning Spider Web Maze with Fine Motor and Eye-hand coordination
(This post contains affiliate links.) Little Guy asked one afternoon, if we could make a Living Room Spider Web.  We made one of these last year, and he remembered.  He remembers every time he sees the skein of red yarn
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He says he has to work on his “skills” when he’s crawling over, under, and between strings.  All the better to get the bad guys!
We pulled out some chairs and started spinning our web!
Motor Planning Spider Web Maze with Fine Motor and Eye-hand coordination
This time, we added a twist to our Spider Web.  We strung a few Halloween spider rings
along the web.  Little Guy had so much fun pulling the rings along the length of the yarn
, around chair legs, down the slopes, and up and over other pieces of yarn.

Motor Planning Maze:

Moving over, under, and around requires gross motor skills and motor planning to plan out, organize, and carry out an action.  With the added twist of moving the ring along the length of the string, we added a could of extra developmental skills…

Eye-Hand Coordination Maze:

This was a life-sized puzzle for him as he crawled over and under the string to manipulate the plastic ring along the length of the yarn.  What a great visual motor activity for him!  He had to visually scan where the ring would go next, and manage his hands to work the ring along the yarn.

Fine Motor and Bilateral Hand Coordination Maze:

Working both of his hands together in a coordinated manner was essential for this activity, and to move that little spider ring along.  He had to hold the yarn with one hand and string the ring along with the other hand.  All while moving over and under strings below him and above him.
Little Guy LOVED the spider web in our living room.  And asked to make another the next day.  Try this one…you’re little guy or girl will have so much fun!
Visual motor planning and hand-eye coordination with a Halloween or spider theme using this room-sized maze that kids can build and get into and climb around. This is a fun indoor play activity for kids who have a lot of energy. A great fine motor activity for kids too!
More Visual Perceptual Activities you will love:

Autumn Art Projects for Kids

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 Share It Saturday Time!
The link ups this week were so fun to look through!  We love seeing all of the fun Fall creativity, posts on learning, art, and play!  You guys are seriously talented.  And for our readers, what a great resource this listing is each week.  Even if you’re not interested in the round-up theme we’ve featured for the week, there is always such inspiration to be had.  If nothing else, fun new blogs to check out! 

Autumn Art Projects

This week’s features are all about Fall Art.  These links share fun with paint to create leaves, trees, decorated pumpkins and more.  Wouldn’t these projects be perfect for a fall play date or a gift for family?  I’m thinking we’ll do some of these projects for Baby Girl’s birthday thank you notes!  Have you done any fall activities (or any other kids-related learning, play, or projects) this week? Link them up. We would love to check them out!  And, if you’re not a blogger, get ready to peruse the links below for creative fun!

Autumn Art Projects for Kids

Autumn Art Projects for Kids
Spin Painted Apples by Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds
Apple Printing by Simple Fun For Kids
Pumpkin Decorating with Melted Crayons by Gift of Curiosity
Fall Hand Print Art- Negative Space by Fun-A-Day

Salt Dough Apples

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We made these salt dough apples one day after we pulled out our Fall decorations.  We had made salt dough pumpkins two years ago and they are still in great condition.  So, we decided to make some more decorations with salt dough! 

Salt Dough Apples
Salt Dough Pumpkins

Salt Dough Apples

We used a variation of this recipe from The Imagination Tree for our salt dough: 
1 cup salt
1 cup flour
1/2 cup water
 
Mix together until combined.  We added a little more flour because the dough was a little sticky to work with.  Once nice and mixed, we added red food coloring.  And then a bit more flour because of the moisture from the food coloring made it sticky again!  I’m thinking gel food coloring would work a little better for the consistency.
 
Roll the dough out and cut with a cookie cutter.  We used a pumpkin cookie cutter for our apples and it worked just as well.
Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees.  Place the dough cut-outs on a sheet of aluminum foil on a cookie sheet.  Bake the cut outs for 2 hours. 
When we made our pumpkins, we didn’t add color.  Rather, we painted them after they were cooked and cooled.  With our apples, they didn’t need any painting, they were just right as is!

 
Be sure to poke holes in the bottom of the dough before baking.  This allows the dough to bake flat and not rise.  Maybe it rises more with self-rising flour? I forgot to add the fork holes on our apples and they puffed up.  You can see how flat the pumpkins are compared to our apples in the bottom picture.
Slat Dough Pumpkins
We’ve been using our Salt Dough Apples for decorations, pretend play in our play kitchen, patterns with Little Guy and Big Sister, and counting.  We’ll keep these little cuties with our pumpkins and pull them out year after year!
Salt Dough Apples

Halloween Play Dough

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Halloween Play Dough
Little Guy and I had some fun with play dough one day last week while Baby Girl was napping.  We pulled out a bunch of Halloween things and pressed them into play dough.  Simple. Fun.

We like to use this recipe for our homemade play dough.

Halloween Play Dough

Halloween Play Dough

He liked using the Beware flags the best and said it was scary play dough.  This was a fun little fine motor activity for quiet time.

This guy had fun too 😉

Do you have any spider rings, bats, or other little Halloween things that would be fun to add to play dough?  We got our last year at the after-season clearance sales.  If you don’t have any little “things” to add to your play dough, try pine cones, acorns, little pumpkins…anything Fall will make it special!  See how we did that here.

Pumpkin Stamp Art Toilet Paper Roll Art

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This pumpkin stamp art craft is perfect for Halloween or your Fall play date with the kid’s friends.  It’s a creative way to use up recycled toilet paper rolls while creating festive harvest-themed art.  You know we love coming up with crafts for kids, especially crafts that use recycled materials and this one is no exception! It’s actually a fun kids’ craft that was on the blog for a long time and we decided to fix up to share again!

 
Pumpkin stamp art with toilet paper rolls to make halloween or fall themed art with kids.

Pumpkin Stamp Art Toilet Paper Roll Art

 
Recently we made these Toilet Paper Roll Apple Stamps. 
 
Thinking about them, we decided to make a similar stamp art project, this time creating pumpkins!


You’ll need these materials for your pumpkin stamp art:

Affiliate links are included in this post.
 
Paper tubes
 
Pumpkin Stamp Art Toilet Paper Roll Art
 
Starting with the paper roll, I pinched it just a little bit to make a heart-ish shape.  Add a little orange paint to a paper plate, and start stamping away onto paper.
 
Pumpkin Stamp Art Toilet Paper Roll Art
 
We took this art project outside to enjoy a nice Fall afternoon.  Right on the driveway worked for us!
 
Pumpkin Stamp Art Toilet Paper Roll Art
 
 
For the stem, I curled a pipe cleaner into a curly-Q shape and poured a little green paint onto a plate.
 
 
It worked pretty well for a green vine stamper to add to our pumpkins!
 
Pumpkin Stamp Art Toilet Paper Roll Art
 
Pumpkin stamp art with toilet paper rolls to make halloween or fall themed art with kids.

MORE Fall Crafts for Kids

  
Fall Leaves Craft | Back To School Morning Routine Story Stones | School Bus Craft | Sunflower Craft  
 
Paper Roll Apple Stamps | Gratitude Leaf Garland | Paper Roll Turkey Stamp Art

Kid Friendly Halloween Party Ideas

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Share It Saturday link up and features
If you’ve read our blog before, you know we love a fun kid’s party.  We love the themes, the party details, and the excitement that our kids have when they see all of the special parts of a fun party.  It’s not hard to make and create parts of these special parties.  It doesn’t take tons of time or money.  Most of these creations can be done on the cheap…or free!  This week’s features for Share It Saturday are all about creating a fun kid-friendly Halloween party.  The snacks, games, activities, crafts, and even décor are fun and easy.  Most involve the kiddos in the prep.  So, if you are thinking about that pre-school party details, a fun play date, or birthday party this month, look no further for everything you need to create a…



 

Invites:

Crafts for the kids to do during the party:

Scratch Art Pumpkins by Sow Sprout Play
Handprint Spider On a String by Handprint and Footprint Art

Activities for Party Day:
Halloween Toss Game by We Made That
Silly Pumpkin Game   by What I Live For
Fall Sensory Bin by Wildflower Ramblings

Party Food and Snack Ideas:

Spooky Orange Faces by Danya Banya
Mini Candied Apple Bites by Juggling Food, Family, and Chaos
Party Decorations:
Easy Kid Made Bunting by Picklebums
Party favors:

Re-Usable Fabric Gift Bag by Crafty Journal
More Ideas:
Halloween Party Ideas by Homegrown Friends

Halloween I Spy Game

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Halloween I Spy game

Halloween is a favorite holiday for many children, with its spooky decorations, costumes, and candy. However, it can also be a great opportunity to promote learning and development through fun activities. In this blog post, we will introduce you to a Halloween I Spy game that can help children develop their visual perceptual skills, attention to detail, and counting skills. It’s a great addition to our Halloween occupational therapy activities!

This game is easy to set up and can be customized to suit different age and skill levels. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or caregiver, this Halloween I Spy game is a great way to engage children in a fun and educational activity this Halloween season.

Halloween I Spy Game

 

 
halloween I Spy game
 
We’ve played “I Spy” with real toys before.  See the post here.   
This time, we tried a Halloween version of I Spy.
 

Little Guy helped me set out a bunch of Halloween themed objects: salt dough pumpkins, Halloween garland, pumpkin rings, plastic skeletons, cupcake toppers, googly eyes, and lots more.

After everything was laid out on the train table, we got started playing “I Spy”!  I asked him things like “I Spy with my little eye, 6 bat rings.”  Visually scanning all of these little items is a great exercise to prepare for school-aged activities, like handwriting, word searches, and puzzles.  He could find the items and then ask me to find some things.  We played this way for a while and then played the visual memory game where I would remove an item while his eyes were covered and he had to tell me what was missing.

This was a fun holiday themed game and activity.  We kept the “I Spy” table up until Baby Girl got up from her nap.  She thought this was a pretty awesome sensory table, with lots to explore and manipulate!

Cereal Box Fine Motor Coordination Activity for Kids

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Push straws in holes in an empty cereal box

Cereal Box Tripod Grasp, Bilateral hand Coordination, Visual Scanning
We love to use things from the recycle bin in play.  This cereal box was on it’s way out of the kitchen one morning, but first we had a little fun!
While the kids were playing, I used scissors to poke holes all over all sides of the cereal box.  I cut up a couple of straws into little pieces and put both on our train table for the kids to discover. 
This is a recycle bin project that focuses on fine motor skills.
Cereal Box Tripod Grasp, Bilateral hand Coordination, Visual Scanning
Baby Girl was the first to see this and knew right away what to do.  She started pushing the straws into the little holes.
Cereal Box Tripod Grasp, Bilateral hand Coordination, Visual Scanning

Tripod Grasp Activity for Kids

This was a fun activity for her and she played for the longest time.  She really worked her fine motor skills to grasp the little bits of straws…using a tripod grasp and tip to tip grasp to hold the straws and push them through the holes.
Cereal Box Tripod Grasp, Bilateral hand Coordination, Visual Scanning

Bilateral Hand Activity for Kids

She demonstrated bilateral hand coordination (using both hands together in a coordinated manner) to turn the box over and around looking for little holes. 

Visual Scanning Activity for Kids

This was a great way to practice visual scanning as she searched for holes to push the straw pieces into.

Note: always use caution when playing with one of the activities posted on this blog.  Adult supervision and caution should always be exercised and activities should be tailored to meet the needs and abilities of your child.

B is for Beads! Sorting, Line awareness, Fine Motor

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We are SO excited to participate in the ABCs of learning series hosted by All Done Monkey.    Each day for 31 days, a blogger will provide a craft or activity based on a letter of the alphabet.  And each blogger will have a linky at the end of their post inviting others to share activities based on that letter.  Link up your “B is for…” or “B-themed” crafts and activities below!  Be sure to follow the 31 days of ABC’s Pinterest Board for loads of inspiration and educational play…all dedicated to the ABC’s!

We are joining so many talented and creative bloggers in this series and are excited to see all of the ideas shared.  What a HUGE resource this will be! 

When we were choosing the letter that we wanted to provide an activity for, we knew we had to go with “B”.  Immediately, this Bountiful Bin of BEADS popped into our heads!

Don’t you just want to swirl your hands around in there and play??

We were gifted with this huge assortment of hand-me-down beads in every shape, color, size imaginable.  We decided to create an art project using beads where we could also work on a little sorting, line awareness, and tip-to-tip grasp!

We started by drawing some pictures on paper plates.  A sturdy background was necessary to hold all of the beads on our collages!  Mom took orders of what the kiddos wanted to create.  We had a request for a house, rainbow, and flower.

Fine Motor with Beads

A {ton} of glue later, we had a pretty good start on our collages.  Picking out the correct colors of beads from the bin was a great sensory experience.  Baby Girl definitely enjoyed the playing in the beads part of the project!  Grasping the bead that was wanted from the bin required fine motor dexterity and a tip-to-tip grasp to pick out an individual bead. (Tip-to-tip grasp uses the tips of the index finger and thumb when picking up very small items…like a single piece of paper, a needle, a bead!)

Sorting Beads

Sorting the colors is a good early math concept for the preschool and early Kindergarten age range.  The kids would decide what color they wanted to make a certain part of their picture and go on a search for all blue beads…or all yellow beads. 

Line Awareness with Beads

Keeping the glue (and the beads) inside of the lines is perfect for line awareness and pre-writing skills.  We used a sharpie marker to make nice bold lines for our pictures.

This little blue house turned out very sweet!
And this house may be more representative of the way our house looks on a daily basis 🙂