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:

Toddler Red, White, and Blue Easel Art

July 21, 2019July 3, 2013 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Use this toddler red, white, and blue easel art activity to address skills needed for fine motor skill development, visual motor skill, bilateral coordination, and visual processing. An easy easel activity like this one is a vertical surface activity that can be done indoors or outdoors for a low-prep developmental activity for kids.

We have been doing a few red, white, and blue crafts and activities this week. Baby Girl had fun with this

Easy Patriotic Activity for the 4th of July.

I put a piece of contact paper on our easel (sticky side out) and took it outside. How is it that an “inside toy” brought outside is immediately super cool and new and fun??

We have a bunch of construction paper scraps in our craft supplies and I pulled out the red and blue ones. We had some white tissue paper pieces in the bag too, and they were added to the easel trays, too.

I stuck a couple of pieces on the contact paper and left it there in the yard for a while. The big kids were busy playing and I was pulling a few weeds. When Baby Girl saw this set up, she knew just what to do.

She got busy making art work!

(While her big brother camped out under the easel. There are Bad Guys everywhere!!)

This is a great Fine Motor activity for toddlers. They manipulate the small pieces of paper, and grasp the edges with a tip to tip grasp (think about the tips of their pointer finger and thumb grabbing at the paper). While they are holding onto the scrap paper, they must use an extended wrist to place it on the elevated slope of the easel. This is so good for fine motor dexterity and development of the small muscles in their little hands.

We had fun enjoying the sunshine and making art. Have you done any Red/White/Blue crafts?

Relaxing Lavender Water Bin

March 9, 2022July 1, 2013 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

We have big plans for our Summer Play series this month! You may have seen our post Play The Summer Away: Water Bin Play by The Sugar Aunts post last week where we let everyone know we are joining Jaime over at Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails in this fun water bin play series. Each Monday in July we are planning a different themed water bin. You will be able to see Jaime’s version and ours. We are very excited to see the two different versions of a same theme and by the end of July, share 10 different water bins with you.

Relaxing Lavender Water Bin

We started July off right with a Relaxing Lavender Water Bin.

This was very easy to throw together:

water

purple finger paint

purple glitter

beads

scraps of purple plastic table cloths

clear plastic cups for pouring and transferring…and scooping, and dumping…

dried lavender/cloves/rosemary

and a few drops of lavender oil

The scent was the best touch for this! Completely relaxing and we all played in the water loving the smell of lavender and cloves! We just used an under the bed storage bin and it was perfect for scooping and pouring the water. Baby Girl loved dumping the water, scooping it up, and pouring the purple water into cups.

scooping and transferring water with sensory play

We’ve used this storage bin before for water play and Baby Girl knows where the fun is…getting right in the water!

I love the glitter on Baby Girl’s little legs 🙂

And the driveway is only slightly glittery.

You also might like:

Calming Waterbead Sensory Bin

Sensory Water Bin Play

Learning Through Play with 60+ Sensory Bins

September 25, 2024June 29, 2013 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Looking through the features for this week, we noticed a running theme. It seems lots of folks are enjoying their days with their kiddos by doing fun and educational…

Sensory Bins!

If you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time, you probably know that we love any sensory inspired play and sensory bins are one of our favorites! We’ve done holiday themed bins, educational learning bins, color themed bins… There is no limit to the type or learning aspects you can develop through sensory bins.

So what is so great about Sensory Bins?

Sensory bins are a fantastic way for young children to explore their senses. Kids, especially the younger set, learn through touch…picking up an object, manipulating it’s weight, exploring it’s color, texture, and size…and comparing the object to others. Sensory bins allow a child to use all of their senses when exploring objects. They can feel the different textures, see the contrasting colors, smell rice/corn/paper/whatever, hear the crunch of materials, even taste the objects. And then there is the proprioceptive and kinesthetic senses that come into play when the child picks up and manipulates the items in relation to his body.

While all of this sensory stuff is completely awesome for little ones, don’t forget the learning that happens when a sensory bin is explored: colors, shapes, matching, comparing/contrasting, language development, sorting, counting, and fine motor skills, language development, and imagination skills.

The topics of sensory bins are limitless. You can build a bin around a science theme, a specific letter of the alphabet, a holiday, or just throw some black beans in a bowl and add a few spoons and cotton balls…FUN!

Let’s see what super fun and imaginative sensory bins our featured linkers came up with this week:

(we love playing in a bin of bird seed in this house!!)

Ocean Sensory Table by Stir The Wonder

(oh, our kids would love this one!)

(perfect edible sensory play for babies!)

Zoo Sensory Bins by Fantastic and Fun Learning

(Such fun with this collection of sensory bins!)

40+ Farm Sensory Bins by Living Montessori Now

(…we made the list…YYYEEAH! Seriously, there are great ideas in this post!)

Some of our favorite Sensory Bin posts:

Snowy Farm Sensory Bin

Multi-Age Letter Learning Sensory Bin

Rainbow Sensory Bins

Driveway Sensory Drawing: Wet Chalk!

February 17, 2023June 29, 2013 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Drawing with wet chalk on a driveway is such a fun sensory experience for outdoor play and one that develops so many areas of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, and visual motor skills through sensory play. Drawing milestones like coloring with chalk is part of childhood but this driveway chalk activity builds many skills!

Wet Chalk

We played outside one cool morning and discovered something really fun…We had left a couple of pieces of chalk outside during an overnight rainstorm.

The texture of wet chalk is so cool! It smears on the driveway so easily and is the neatest texture. For children struggling with tactile defensiveness wet chalk is a great sensory experience because you can grade the dryness or the wetness of the chalk texture.

There was only red and blue that were soaked through, but they combined to make a pretty nice rainbow!

How to make wet chalk

There are several ways to make wet chalk to use on a driveway.

Soak driveway chalk in a bucket of water overight or for a few hours.
Draw with chalk on a wet driveway. After a rain works or spray the driveway with water from the hose.
Crush chalk into a powder and mix water into the chalk dust to create a messy, thick chalk paint. This liquid chalk paint recipe explains more on this strategy.

You can select the wet chalk method that works best for you!

Once you have your wet chalk created, you can get started with the chalk art.

Wet Chalk Activities

We’ve created a list of chalk activities here on the website before so any of those ideas would work. But if you want to explore development of other skills, try these wet chalk activities:

Make a chalk rainbow
Make a driveway obstacle course
Create letters and use a wet-dry-try method of writing the letters
Mix colors
Use the wet chalk for body painting
Paint rocks
Write names or words

We played with this for a while…the chalk drawing even started to dry on the driveway.

I LOVE this picture!

Baby Girl loved this messy play. She got her hands right in there and covered them with the chalky mess.

Outdoor Sensory Play

What a great sensory experience! Check out how Baby Girl is on her hands and knees…She’s putting weight through her upper body and down to the hands, and strengthening her shoulder girdle which is so important for fine motor dexterity. All this while exploring the texture of the chalk, manipulating little pieces of chalk, and having fun with her sister!

We kept tracing over the rainbow lines until the chalk became so small…great for working on that tripod grasp!

Big Sister was really aware of the lines of the rainbow when she was tracing. This is fun for a new hand writer who is learning to place letters on the lines of paper ((line awareness)).

Tracing the big arch of the rainbow allowed her to cross midline on a fun activity. Why do kids need to cross midline?? One reason is so that hand writers efficiently allow the dominant hand to do the work during handwriting while moving left to right across the page in a smooth manner.

Play with wet chalk to make a driveway rainbow

And of course, you MUST add raindrops to the rainbow 😉

Rainbow Handwriting Kit– This resource pack includes handwriting sheets, write the room cards, color worksheets, visual motor activities, and so much more. The handwriting kit includes:

Write the Room, Color Names: Lowercase Letters
Write the Room, Color Names: Uppercase Letters
Write the Room, Color Names: Cursive Writing
Copy/Draw/Color/Cut Color Worksheets
Colors Roll & Write Page
Color Names Letter Size Puzzle Pages
Flip and Fill A-Z Letter Pages
Colors Pre-Writing Lines Pencil Control Mazes
This handwriting kit now includes a bonus pack of pencil control worksheets, 1-10 fine motor clip cards, visual discrimination maze for directionality, handwriting sheets, and working memory/direction following sheet! Valued at $5, this bonus kit triples the goal areas you can work on in each therapy session or home program.

Click here to get your copy of the Colors Handwriting Kit.

Patriotic Craft Fingerpainting Fireworks

May 3, 2023June 27, 2013 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This finger painting fireworks craft is a great July craft for toddlers that can be used to celebrate the Fourth of July with toddlers and preschoolers! Add this one to our favorite creative painting ideas!

Finger Paint Fireworks

This weekend I had 5 kids (ages 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) and I had to think of something to keep them all busy. Finger painting is a fun craft for kids all ages, the babies love feeling the different texture of paint on their fingers and playing with the paintbrushes. I pulled out the paper and let them go to town with the washable finger paints!

I helped my little guy (2) make hand prints in red and blue.

The big kids enjoyed mixing colors while my 2 year old enjoyed painting his hand…and mixing colors in the paint jars…ughh. I think every color is now brown.

This project kept the kids busy for about 30 minutes, enough time for me to put away the dishes and wipe down the table 🙂

Once the paint was dry we gathered up some black construction paper, gold tinsel from a gift bag and scissors. I folded the paper into a small square and helped the older kids cut out fireworks.

We glued the fireworks onto the paper and made the tinsel stream down from the fireworks. We talked a little about the 4th of July and I told my daughter it was the country’s birthday. The best part was hearing

my daughter recite the Pledge of Allegiance (so cute)!

Share It Saturday

April 4, 2022June 22, 2013 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Playful Learning

Once again you brought us loads of fun and creative links. We chose a handful of posts to feature that just look like FUN to do with our kids. We only have our kids as little ones for such a short time. It so much fun to play with and explore new things. We can’t wait to try out these activities and PLAY with our children while learning and having fun.

Craftiments made these gorgeous Paint Sun Prints.

Little Bins For Little Hands explored baking soda and colored vinegar. How fun 🙂

Gift of Curiosity painted rocks (and their hands!) Two things that our kids LOVE to do!

Fantastic Fun and Learning made a block wrecking ball. How COOL!

Taco Empanadas

July 13, 2023June 18, 2013 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This taco empanadas recipe is a quick and delicious meal you can make using leftover ground beef, chicken, or ground turkey. Leftover taco meat is perfect for making taco empanadas! This Mexican empanada dish is a delicious one for all ages. If you are looking for a cooking with kids recipe that the whole family will love, this one is it!

Taco Empanadas

This recipe is just too easy not to share with you…and the best part is our kids love it (and love to help make it)! I made these one day last week for a play-date and the kids thought they were pretty neat.

You can improvise the filling with anything you think would be good…I have made them with chicken, ground turkey, and the traditional beef empanadas.

Taco Empanadas Ingredients

To make the taco empanadas, you’ll need to first gather your ingredients:

Mexican pastry shells
1-1.5lb ground beef
One package Taco Mix
6oz salsa of your choice

How to make taco empanadas:

Start out with these pastry shells, I get them in the local Mexican store in the refrigerator section. I usually pick up several packages and keep some in the freezer.

2. Brown the ground beef- I browned some ground meat in the slow cooker, added a package of taco mix and half a jar of mild salsa. Let this cook until the meat is browned and it is ready to fill the shells.

3. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray so the shells don’t stick.

Here comes the part the kids love helping with…

4. Fill the shells with the meat mixture and fold over.

5. Use a fork to press the shells together.

6. Wisk an egg and lightly paint the shells with the egg. My four year old daughter loves helping with this part.

7. Using the fork while pressing into the dough is great for her little fingers.

8. Bake in oven at 375 degrees F for approximately 20 minutes or until golden brown. Delicious!

Pair this recipe with other easy dishes:

Veggie Puffs Recipe

Homemade Pasta Recipe

Veggie Quesadilla Recipe

Vegetable Rice

Veggie Quesadilla Recipe

“I Spy” sight word sensory bottle

September 26, 2019June 17, 2013 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

We made this sensory bottle

and sight word “I Spy” bottle

for an easy little learning activity. Two of us Sugar Aunts were together one afternoon for a little play session with the kids and this was quick and easy to put together.

One bottle of sand.

A handful of foam sheet shapes (we wrote a few beginner sight words on front and back of each shape).

sight words written on foam sheets cut into shapes

It was perfect for the different age groups of the kids (5, 4, 3, 2, and 1!)

And these kids seem to LOVE anything they can put into something else. The little fingers were everywhere when we told them to drop the shapes into the bottle opening! This is Awesome for tripod grasp skills.

This was great for the 5 and 4 year olds who are learning their sight words. We used some beginner reader words that they recognize (Their current favorite book around here is “Sam I Am”. Seeing those words in a new place is pretty cool way to emphasize reading confidence, I think!)

The 3 year old knows most of his shapes (that rectangle gets him every time!) so this was good for his learning level.

The two year old could point to the colors (and with only three options in the bottle, it was not overwhelming for him).

And for the one year old, this was overall great for language development!

((and super fun to shake !!)

We had fun with our sensory sight word bottle. Have you done one of these? Link them up in the comments, we would love to see them!

Rainy Summer Day Activities

November 14, 2023June 15, 2013 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

These rainy summer day activities are great for play, encouraging movement, activity, and fun all while playing indoors.

Rainy Summer Day Activities!

This week was especially rainy and cool around here, so it was perfect timing for our special Rainy Summer Day play activity round-up.

Something as simple as no sew felt crafts are a fun rainy day activity.

There are a ton of amazing activities listed here…Check them out below!

You know those days when the kids are out of school, they are picking on (and at) each other for FUN…when you really need to get outside and RUN, or SWIM, or play at the park…But it’s raining or TOO HOT to stay outside any longer???

And these words are coming at you non-stop…”I’m boooooored!” “I’m toooooo HOT!” Or maybe you just need a break from the regular summer line up and you are looking for new play and learning activities.

This list is sure to blast the boredom and do it completely Screen Free!

Now, check out these links for some awesome summer play activities:

Peanut Life Adventures: Create a summer bucket list

Tots and Me: Butterfly play theme

Ice letter activity

Howling At The Moon: Make a Clay Cat