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Hand Eye Coordination Toys

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. 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:

Today, we’ve got just one of the many fun eye hand coordination toys to share. Occupational therapy toys like these hand eye coordination toys are powerful tools in child development. Let’s talk coordination skills needed for tasks like play and self-care.

hand eye coordination games and activities to promote eye hand coordination skills in tasks like handwriting and play.

What is Hand Eye Coordination

Working on hand eye coordination is part of play. It occurs from a very young age…in fact development of hand eye coordination begins in the first month. The early development of this essential skill serves as a building block for functional tasks occuring much further down the road in beyond the infant period.

Eye hand coordination is needed for tasks such as handwriting, tying shoe laces, managing clothing fasteners, catching and throwing a ball, reading, managing school supplies, and even walking through crowded hallways while managing items such as books, jacket and the backpack.

Other examples of eye-hand coordination include catching a ball, manipulating pegs into a pegboard, lacing a lacing card, etc. This is a skill that is an integral part of each day.

Poor hand eye coordination

When delays in coordination skills are present, children struggle in many ways.

While eye hand coordination plays closely with other visual processing areas such as visual perception and visual efficiency, visual tracking, convergence, etc., there is a motor component to consider as well. The visual portion and motor portion must be integrated in a coordinated manner, allowing for effective and efficient use of the hands so that we can manipulate and manage objects. This coordinated motor skill requires fine motor skill development equally as much as the visual skill component

These motor skills allow us to collect visual information and use it in a motor action. Eye-hand coordination requires fine motor dexterity, strength, shoulder stability, core stability, etc.

When there are difficulties with coordination of these areas, we see trouble with movement games, clumsiness, difficulty with sports, disorganization, and challenges with motor control in functional tasks.

Coordination Games and Activities

Hand eye coordination games and activities can be an effective way to work on these areas, even while addressing other areas such as sensory input, problem solving, and even learning. We’ve got many hand eye coordination activities here on the website:

Eye-Hand Coordination Activities using Paper– work on hand eye coordination using an everyday item…something you have in your therapy bag right now!

Bilateral Coordination Visual Motor Integration Clover– Work on the integration of visual processing skills with motor movements with this symmetrical drawing activity.

Jumbo Fine Motor Threading Activity– Threading and lacing is a great way to work on hand eye coordination.

Eye-hand coordination activity with letters– Sorting, manipulating, and organizing small items can be a way to boost skills with coordination exercises.

Feather Beading– Threading beads onto feathers is a creative and fun way to improve eye hand coordination skills.

Fine Motor color sorting– Encourage coordination skills for preschoolers and eye hand coordination in toddlers by sorting colors or shapes.

Hand Eye Coordination Toy

One such eye hand coordination toys that doubles as a tool for addressing sensory needs, motor planning, problem solving, and creative play is the Punkinfutz PunkinPitch Kit. This open-ended game uses a vest and soft, velcro “paint balls” that can be used to work on eye-hand coordination, motor planning, and more.

For example, we love to start with buckle toys as a tool to support eye hand coordination skills because they require integration of they eyes and hand movements and it’s a great clothing fastener toy to support self dressing goals!

Kids can wear the vest and move through an obstacle course or move from base to base as they dodge and avoid paint balls. They can then throw the soft balls at another player who is wearing the vest. The options are limitless, and part of the fun is coming up with creative ways to incorporate this coordination game into therapy needs or learning.

Kids can work on other skills beyond eye-hand coordination as well: Motor planning, gross motor skills, core strength and rotation, and social play are just some of the areas covered by this coordination activity.

Eye hand coordination activities

Some of the smartest and most creative folks I know are the readers of The OT Toolbox. I asked readers to tell me sensory strategies they personally love and use to address sensory modulation. Scroll through the comments…you might just find some new sensory strategies that will work for you! Hopefully we can learn from one another!

Also, check out these other soy suggestions based on therapeutic development through play.

  1. Fine Motor Toys 
  2. Gross Motor Toys 
  3. Pencil Grasp Toys 
  4. Toys for Reluctant Writers
  5. Toys for Spatial Awareness 
  6. Toys for Visual Tracking 
  7. Toys for Sensory Play 
  8. Bilateral Coordination Toys 
  9. Games for Executive Functioning Skills 
  10. Toys and Tools to Improve Visual Perception 
  11. Toys to Help with Scissors Skills
  12. Toys for Attention and Focus 
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116 thoughts on “Hand Eye Coordination Toys”

  2. Pingback: Therapy Tools Giveaway - The OT Toolbox

  5. I just bought a “Let’s Go Fishing” game that my kids love! I have a variety of stationery toys/activities as well, such as the good old blocks of various sizes, depending upon the level of the student.

  7. I like using this foam rocket shooter to knock down Melissa and Doug cardboard boxes. It’s great for both eye hand coordination and for bilateral coordination. If you put the child on a Bosu or a balance disk, you can also work on balance.

  9. Saw this in action at the AOTA conference this year- so fun! I like using lacing cards, chunky beads and Mr Potato head with my preschoolers.

  12. I have learned about many new items to use with the children in my class. We just did an investigation on balls, they’re favorite part was throwing them up in the air and at items to knock down.

  14. I play tennis with a suspended tennis ball and fly spatters. I grade this activity by asking the kids to perform it with one hand behind their back or with a bean bag under their chin.

  17. Bal-A-Vis-X is a fun way to work on eye-hand coordination. I also use S’cool moves posters. Ball toss with a partner is also a great “old-fashioned” way to address many skills including eye-hand coordination.

  28. Ball toss at targets or to knock objects down, balloon volleyball, and using a toy that you squeeze to pop a little ball out to knock a target over are my current favorites.

  32. I like playing connect 4 with students to work on eye hand coordination. It’s a classic game and students really enjoy it.

  33. Sorting with tongs to put small items in small holes. Cutting straws into small pieces and then stringing them.

  34. I have one of those nose popper toys and my kids love them. We’ll usually build a tower out of cups for them to aim at first and then go to town.

  35. Scarf throwing and catching with advancement to bean bags and balls to work on 2 handed use and eye/hand coordination. Lots of weight bearing tasks in prone before seated work.

  38. Balloon volleyball or bouncing a tennis ball off the walls (like handball). Great bilateral coordination, eye hand coordination, motor planning….the list goes on!

  39. I use mini straws or stirrers on my pegboard and have kids place cheerios, etc. on to build and make a pattern, beading crafts, suspended ball toss/catch/batting, targeting games such as “Snowman pong” Velcro darts, corn hole toss are great too.

  40. I let the kids bat at a suspended tennis ball with one hand then alternating hands; jumping up and down on a trampoline while reading letters or sight words; do-a-dot markers on circle pictures.

  48. I love doing obstacle courses- we do a lot of toss ball or item to target or catching items both when standing or when on the swing.

  49. I love to use beads for placement knot a string or pipe cleaner to build eye hand coordination as well as bilateral integration!

  53. I like to throw small scarves back and forth with students. Like balloons, they take longer to float down giving more time to motor plan catching skills. We also throw other safe objects too such as a rubber chicken (for my older students).

  56. I love incorporating bilateral coordination fm tasks such as building legos or stringing beads into animal walks or an obstacle course to add in some heavy work!

  58. Lying prone having students using little lite brite pegs and other games or crafts – assists upper body shoulder development as well and wrist and fine motor grasp.
    Also they love using large push pins (while prone) and push the pins onto predrawn pictures on construction paper place on soft surface on the floor. Student also engage for quite a long time with tongs or tweezers for good manipulative skill development – can use small letters, cotton balls, game pieces etc to transfer from place to place etc.

  63. I use a ring and bean bag toss and magnetic darts. I also have a small basketball hoop that my students love. When they do something great during the session, I let them have a shot at the hoop.

  64. Stickers! I love stickers to build hand eye coordination. Draw a shape or write the student’s name and let the child peel stickers and place on on the lines.

  65. Kicking stationary balls and progressing to kicking balls rolled toward them. Also, love games like Connect 4 and Farm Bingo to place discs in slots.

  67. Arts and craft games, sequencing games using seasonal objects, a game using things from Target dollar spot.

  68. I also followed Punkin Futz on facebook! I first heard about the company this year when Lisa and Shenik came to my school district to present. I love the story behind the brand and all of their awesome products!

  69. I love games that involve throwing, bouncing, and catching a ball, bean bag toss activities, bal-a-vis-x, and whatever motivates my kiddos!

  75. Draw a picture of a target (could be me, a dinosaur, favorite Paw Patrol character) then use either nerf guns or balls of varying sizes to aim at target.

  76. Marsden ball with letters written on it, and the student has to spell words, or touch specific letter written on the board with a pointer.

  77. Homemade container play. Empty water bottle and clothespins or baby food lids placed in a margarine lid with a slot cut in it.

  79. A favorite in our house is clothes pins and pom poms, and trying to get them into different sized bottle openings.

  80. I use beanbag tossing a lot. The students toss beanbags to word cards for the letter of the week and they catch beanbags during circle time. We have some beanbag toss games they play with during motor time.

  81. I love using the poppers where you squeeze the belly and shoot a ball at various targets, letters, numbers, etc.,

  85. I play lots of drawing and copying games with students. Many times we work on drawing how different emotional faces might look, so we are working on self-regulation and emotional control at the same time!

  87. My older kids like hitting a target with a stress ball or try to get squeegiz to stick on a target, scarf tossing, tabletop cornhole set, pong set into small cups.

  92. Using nerf gun to shoot down Moving targets, bean bag tossing , Sorting out different items by color, shape, texture, or use

  94. play, play, play. We may go outside an play on the playground. We may use the ball-a-vis-x program. Dart boards with velcro balls and a fabric target, badmitten with wooden rackets and a feather shuttle, wooden rackets and a balloon. Catch with a balloon.

  96. I use lots of manipulative and crossing midline to obtain them or holding them in various places so they have to look before grasping.

  97. Copying design of something – block design, playdough, wikistix, popcycle sticks, legos, magnatiles, drawing…
    popping bubbles!!

  98. Whilst sitting on a log swing, having the children collect weighted balls from the ground, focusing on bilateral coordination, core strength and balance, and then throw to bowling pins. Similarly, by throwing and catching on swing, hoops and even motor fine motor skills such as lacing and threading, its a great may to integrate hand eye co-ordination with further developmental areas.

  106. The old standby of “Pat-a-cake” is a great game for eye-hand coordination as are lacing cards and stringing beads, cut up straws, or cereal.

  110. Oh sooooo many!!! Balloons, blowing cotton balls into cup targets or pre-maze large like sheep into a barn but the most recent bit hit came from another site where in October, I made letter or word w ebs from painter’s tape and we used yarn balls or balloon to aim at words or letters and then write them. All ages of students from preschool- 3rd g rade loved it and got a lot of writing work done as well. I used the dry erase board and g radually made my dry erase crayon lines skinnier and skinnier with great results! MANY THANKS to Hands On As We Grow. I’ve used the floor mazes too but the spider by the webs may have been motivating. Just don’t use a glitter filled balloon if you have part-masking tape to finish yoour web!!

  111. My kids love ball popper animals. We set up cups and they shoot the ball at the cups. They also love themed bowling (Halloween-ghosts; Winter-Olaf) & I use Vos water bottles to make bowling pins with cotton balls inside. Also at Halloween, I like to make a spider web with tape (sticky side out) and a hula hoop & have the kids throw cotton balls at it while it hangs from the ceiling.

  113. Bean bag toss tic tac toe, bowling + having the kid set up the pins (or using cups and stacking them in a vertical pyramid to bowl!), Simon says

  116. We do body bowling, mirror movements, charades, follow the leader, obstacle courses, step by step drawings, puppets.

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