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:
This one was super easy and Big Sister gave a big “OOOOOoooo, Cool, Mom” when she saw it, so I think that means it is pretty fun…
AND it helps with teaching beginning math, so bonus!
I had her start by putting the correct number of clips on each decorated circle. This is a great activity for fine motor strengthening. Pinching the clothes pins works the small intrinsic muscles of the hands.
Then we did a little simple math…I put two of the circles on the left and asked her what they added up to.
She did pretty well, without needing to count the pins for most of them!
We also had some Christmas-y fun taking pics for our Christmas card…with lots of out-takes!
It is reeeeeallly hard to get THREE children to look at the camera, smile, and not move for a split second!
There is not much you can do, besides laugh! I think I got one good shot, though. Will work on the card and try to share it here, soon 🙂
Fun Times! Looking for more fun ideas to stop, take a minute, and play with the kids this season? Check the Christmas Play tab
to follow along each day with Christmas themed play!
I’ve had this batch of salt dough mixed up (only the dry ingredients just waiting for a great day to make some ornaments. I wanted to try Gingerbread Scented Salt Dough for an added Christmas-y smell. We had the chance to mix this up yesterday and luckily, my niece and nephew was here to help us play…
Babies love playing in dough!
Little Guy was so excited to help me mix it all together.
Use your basic salt dough recipe and add the extra spices to make it extra special 🙂
2 cups of flour
1 cup of salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp allspice
1 cup of warm water
mix the dry ingredients together (store it for a week like us, if you need to!). Stir in the water. Knead the dough on a flat surface for 10-ish minutes ( less is ok if babies/Little Boys are anxiously waiting to play 🙂
I’ve seen recipes that say let it stand for 20 min before rolling, but we dove right in.
I got the cinnamon allspice, and nutmeg at the dollar store to use just for (inexpensive) scented projects like this one…
Mix it all up…
And knead it for a few minutes.
I had lots of help on the kneading 🙂
Roll it out…
I had the babies make their hand prints for ornaments. So cute!
Little Guy looooved using a straw to poke holes to hang the gingerbread men. A few of them have a couple of extra holes…
It does look pretty fun, doesn’t it 🙂
All ready to go into the oven…
I baked them on 300 for 3 hours. The house smelled AMAZING!
We strung it on pretty ribbon and hung in the tree. I love our little many-holed Gingerbread man garland!
We tried the garland strung along our banister where our stockings are, too (no fireplace in our house!)
Big Sister gave it her seal of approval…”That looks very awesome, Mom!”
This was a fun multi-sensory Christmas Play activity for all ages. I, for one, loved the cinnamon-ey smell in the house all day!
This easy sensory bin ideas is a Christmas sensory bin, using something you might have around the home during the holiday season: Christmas tinsel and bows! Let’s explore how we used this sensory play activity to develop skills.
Christmas Tinsel and Bows Sensory Bin
Day 13 of 25 Days of Christmas Play
I wanted to put together a sensory bin for the babies on a day that my nephew would be with us. I knew this is something that him and Baby Girl would love playing in.
This sensory play bin was so easy and quick to throw together.
The babies loved playing in this. They had a fun time taking the cookie cutters out and then putting them back in over and over (and over) again!
Be sure to keep an eye on the kids with this sensory bin!
This was such an easy and entertaining activity. Perfect for a little pre-nap play!
Stop by tomorrow, we have a great salt dough recipe that we’ve been working on! Have you seen the
Looking for done-for you therapy activities this holiday season?
This print-and-go Christmas Therapy Kit includes no-prep, fine motor, gross motor, self-regulation, visual perceptual activities…and much more… to help kids develop functional grasp, dexterity, strength, and endurance. Use fun, Christmas-themed, motor activities so you can help children develop the skills they need.
This 100 page no-prep packet includes everything you need to guide fine motor skills in face-to-face AND virtual learning. You’ll find Christmas-themed activities for hand strength, pinch and grip, dexterity, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, endurance, finger isolation, and more.
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 are busy preparing our house for Christmas and getting ready to Celebrate Baby Jesus’ birthday. The littlest girls in our house need to prepare their house too…their Doll House!
I pulled out this glitter foam tree cut-out and a bunch of stick on decorations for Big Sister to decorate for her doll’s house. She LOVED the idea and was sooooo excited!
Save the Angel for last!
Now, we are ready for Christmas!
One last picture…I found Big Sister and Baby Girl’s shoes together and lined up on the steps. Baby Girl loves being like her Big Sister and this was just so sweet to see.
Love Sisters!
We are getting ready for another week of fun Christmas Play!
This homemade Nativity Set is entirely kid-make, and uses things you probably already have around the house. We love this Nativity for it’s creativity inspiring craft, and imagination play that is sure to follow. This would be a great group craft too-for a Sunday School class. Make this DIY Nativity now and play all Christmas season!
With my 19 month old, anything under the Christmas tree is in danger of being broken. I wanted my 4 year old daughter to be able to play with a Nativity Set, but not have to worry about it getting broken by her brother. We decided to make a project out of this…here is the result:
To make a DIY recycled Nativity Set with your kids:
This cute little Nativity Set was made out of an empty cardboard box that my daughter painted green and brown with a little white on top to make the roof look textured like straw. We gathered some clothes pins covered with cloth and felt to make Mary, Joseph, and the Three Wise Men.
She did all the painting herself! She was so happy with the way it turned out and I think she did a pretty awesome job 🙂
We cut out a foam star to glue on the top, then we let the box dry for a few days.
For the people, she painted the clothes pins and gave them cute little faces.
Who couldn’t love this cute little face?
Mary was clothed in some scrap fabric that I collected at a fabric store. You know the little squares they have samples of? I have a TON that I have collected just for little projects like this.
Baby Jesus’ cradle was more of a raft, but that is ok! I am so impressed with all the creativity my little girl had when making this.
I was listening to my daughter as she was playing and heard her say “Jophes, I think we should call him Jesus”. Guess we need to work on the pronunciation of Joseph with her,lol!
Mary and Joseph did a little dance on the roof while Baby Jesus was sleeping.
We had so much fun working on this together and now we have a cute little Nativity Set that is easy to pack up (put all of the pieces into the box) and keep out of the way. But…if someone decides to trample under the tree and break everything in sight…this is something we could easily make again!
This was super easy to make, considering we used the Scented Snowman Play Doughthat we already had in the house…I do have to say though, that since somebody (cough, Little Guy, cough) put the bag of Dough into the freezer…it was a liiiitle dry after thawing out. Not too badly, though…nothing a tablespoon of vegetable oil didn’t fix!
I split the dough into halves and made a little well with my finger in one of the halves. After putting some red food dye in, and mixing up a bit, it started to look pretty neat!
A tip: Use a plastic shopping bag to mix the food coloring in. Unless you want reeeeally red hands!
Getting there:
Getting closer:
This is how I had it set up for the kids this morning. They were so excited to play with the Peppermint Dough! Oh, and also, mixing the dough around so much makes the scent pretty much non-existent. The scent just gets mixed in the more it is used. I do think it would be pretty cool to add some peppermint extract to this for an added sensory experience!
It has been so much fun coming up with fun play ideas and sharing them with our readers. We are truly having a blast with this! Thank you, readers, for all of your kind words and encouragement with this blog that has so far, been really fun and rewarding to do. We love knowing that our ideas have inspired you!
Looking for done-for you therapy activities this holiday season?
This print-and-go Christmas Therapy Kit includes no-prep, fine motor, gross motor, self-regulation, visual perceptual activities…and much more… to help kids develop functional grasp, dexterity, strength, and endurance. Use fun, Christmas-themed, motor activities so you can help children develop the skills they need.
This 100 page no-prep packet includes everything you need to guide fine motor skills in face-to-face AND virtual learning. You’ll find Christmas-themed activities for hand strength, pinch and grip, dexterity, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, endurance, finger isolation, and more.
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.
These Christmas Stampers were a big hit with Big Sister. And seriously so easy to put together. We did this little project while the potatoes for our dinner were boiling! We are big fans of EASY art. Simple is better in our house. And these Christmas stampers were definitely easy! They would be the perfect kid-made Christmas card (and simple to knock out enough cards for the whole extended family in one crafty afternoon. Wouldn’t Grandma love to receive her gift wrapped in paper with these Christmas stampers? A sheet of dollar store wrapping paper with these stamped on the back side would make a great wrap for anyone! A page of these Christmas stampers would even make a great gift as a piece of art for someone special!
{Note: This post contains affiliate links. In other words, this blog will receive monetary compensation when any purchases are made through the links in this post. Our opinions and ideas are in no way affected. As always, we thank you for your support and community here at Sugar Aunts.}
Christmas Stampers
I had a pack of foam stickers from the dollar store, or you could find them here. We always have a box of bottle caps saved up for crafting activities. If you’re not saving your lids, start now. There are so many fun activities and crafts that you can do with them!
Splat a little paint on some plastic wrap…
And Stamp away!!
We will cut these up and use them as gift tags…and Big Sister had a ton of fun while she waited for dinner!
There are a lot more fun Christmas Play ideas to explore in the 25 Days of Christmas Play tab at the top of our site.
I hope you are having as much fun with your kids this Christmas season as we are!
This Christmas Tree Sensory Play activity was fun for the senses, cutting, patterning, sorting, and even pre-handwriting!
Big Sister showed Little Guy how to cut shapes from foam sheets. We had these in our crafting bin just waiting for some fun Christmas play…
Each color was a different shape so they could be sorted and used in patterns on the tree.
While the Big Kids worked on the cutting and sorting, the Babies had a fun time fighting playing with some coasters 😉
I stuck the tree shape in the water and when the foam sheets are wet, they stick really well to a white board.
Everyone was so excited when they realized the shapes would stick and had a blast decorating our little tree.
We started out with the tray of water on the table and did some patterns on the tree, putting the colors or shapes one at a time on the Christmas Tree.
I wanted them to use the easel white board to promote wrist extension (bending the wrist back). This is so important in controlled use of those little fingers when they write, cut, tie their shoes…any fine motor dexterity task.
If a child has a flexed wrist (bent forward), they don’t have the control to manage skills using the small muscles of the hand. Think about holding a pencil. If the wrist is bent forward, it is so much harder to write with smooth and controlled pencil strokes. A slightly extended wrist is much more efficient in any fine motor task.
Working on a vertical plane (like the easel) is perfect for promoting an extended wrist!
The Babies just had sooooo much fun with this!
After a bit, we decided to put the whole water tray on the floor…
Oh yeah, that was fun!
They had so much fun with this! The mess really was not bad, with the small amount of water that was in the pan. Even still, the point of our Christmas Play Series is to have fun with your little ones, enjoy a moment of play, and slow down during this hectic, crazy month. If you’re too busy worrying about the potential mess inany play activity, it’s not worth it…put it away and try something else. The kids will sense your stress level and that affects them!
One important thing to keep in mind when doing a (fun) messy play activity… is the sensory inputs, educational aspects, and unique experiences you’re exposing your kiddos to. Not to mention the bonding experience and LAUGHS that will without a doubt result!
Don’t Stress the Mess!
And, at least with this play activity, you can mop up the floor a bit afterwords and combine some cleaning into it 🙂
Look at all those happy little piggy toes!!
I think we are missing the swimming pool days of summer 😉
Have a Fun Day!
More Christmas Play activities you may be interested in:
It was a beautiful 65 degree December day here…We spent it loving the outside this afternoon…Ate our lunch on the porch, played in the sandbox and backyard, did some sidewalk chalk…and decided to make a little Fake Snow!
These are the ingredients…Shaving cream left over from our Summer Messy Play Date, baby powder from the Dollar Tree, and glitter!
Big Sister and Little Guy were so excited to play in the shaving cream.
(Who wouldn’t be???)
We used about half of the bottle of shaving cream and half of the baby powder to get this consistency. It was pretty mold-able and Very Fun to play with!
Fake snow Snowman…
Big Sister had the idea to sprinkle the snow and sing “it’s snowing…it’s snowing…”
I enjoyed my coffee with Peppermint mocha creamer and a candy cane while the snow fell!
A few more pics of our other outdoor play today…Snowman Emotion Drawings: I drew the snowmen and asked for a happy snowman, a sad snowman, and a surprised snowman.
(They did a little Multi-step Direction Following, and Emotion Identification!)
Our Christmas Play series has been so much fun, so far! We have a lot more planned…Stop by tomorrow to see what we have been up to!
. We always have a box of bottle caps saved up for crafting activities. If you’re not saving your lids, start now. There are so many fun activities and crafts that you can do with them!
