If you love Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and of course, Rudolph, then you’ll love all of these fun reindeer activities! The reindeer crafts and movement activities you see here will get kids grasping, pinching, jingling, buttoning, writing, sniffing, moving, creating, and partying. All of these developmental skills are included with the completion of these fun and festive reindeer activities. Kids will be engaged and motivated to do even the most difficult of tasks. These reindeer play ideas cover a variety of skills. So, let’s get to it!
Reindeer Activities
I’ve broken these holiday activities up into sections: sensory activities, fine motor activities, movement, and reindeer crafts. These should help you with therapy planning this time of year. These reindeer fine motor cards will be a fun way to play, too.
Reindeer Sensory Activities
First, are some fun SENSORY activities, do you need some sensory tools with a festive reindeer theme? Then here ya go!
Chocolate Scented Reindeer Play Dough gives you the recipe to create a yummy smelling play dough and when it’s in use as part of an invitation tray, children work on fine motor strengthening as well as tactile tolerance while building fun reindeer faces and more.
Rudolph Jingle Bell Sticks gives you a fun way to incorporate music jingling into your daily activities. The sticks include the creation of a unique musical instrument that can be used when working on dance moves, gross motor exercise, or even as a fun reading tracking stick.
Reindeer Food Writing Tray provides you a recipe for reindeer food that children create while working on eye-hand coordination to pour, shake, scoop, and stir while creating the food mixture. Once made, it provides a fun sensory tool for children to work on letter, number and shape formation.
Christmas Sensory Bottles includes a reindeer-themed sensory bottle that can be used as a calming tool for use in a sensory or calm down corner. Super cute!
Reindeer Crafts
Next, are some fun FINE MOTOR and ART and CRAFT activities that can help if you need festive ideas for building fine motor strength, pincer grasp, bilateral coordination, hand dominance, fastener manipulation, tool use, and sequencing skills. Use these reindeer crafts to help kids develop fine motor skills in a big way. Take a look:
Add these reindeer fine motor cards to your therapy toolbox to work on a variety of areas: pencil control, writing lines, coloring, scissor skills, precision, hand strength, spatial skills, and more.
Olive, the Other Reindeer Book Ornament is a cute ornament craft that uses a recycled toilet paper roll to create a set of antlers. The ornament is based on the book, Olive, The Other Reindeer, who is a dog-reindeer, that’s right a dog-reindeer. She thinks she’s a reindeer and goes to the North Pole to help Santa and the reindeer save Christmas. Olive earns her own set of antlers from Santa, so, why not create her antlers after reading the book?
Reindeer Antler Match includes matching and clipping multi-colored, miniature clothespins onto foam reindeer heads with the matching nose color. Works on pincer grasp and color recognition.
Reindeer Buttoning involves the use of felt and buttons to build a reindeer’s face while working on buttoning or unbuttoning skills, sequencing, and following directions.
Feed Rudolph the Reindeer will work on pincer grasp and eye-hand coordination while children pinch small pieces of pipe cleaner to push through the holes of a recycled spice bottle.
Cocoa Pebbles Reindeer Craft includes the use of Cocoa Pebbles to fill a reindeer outline. Have kiddos pinch small piles of pebbles from a bowl and sprinkle onto the outline to work on fine motor pinch skills. Note: With the yummy smell of this cereal while doing the activity, it just might make it a little difficult not to sneak a nibble while creating this cute craft!
Toilet Paper Roll Reindeer includes the tracing of hands and cutting them out to create antlers for pasting onto a recycled toilet paper roll. Finish with adding cute googly eyes and a red pom-pom nose. Easy, but really cute and what great skills are worked on with tracing and cutting!
Yarn Wrapped Reindeer Craft is really a fine motor activity that turns out to be a cute craft when completed. Children wrap yarn around a cardboard triangle, add googly eyes and a pom-pom nose, and then clip on two clothespins that are wrapped with pipe cleaners to create antlers.
Preschool Build a Shape Reindeer is a fun way to have prechoolers work on shape recognition by building a fun construction paper reindeer with use of precut shapes. You can easily have a child work on cutting skills with this activity, if you have them cut out the shapes and then assemble the reindeer.
Handwriting Reindeer Activities
Next, are some multisensory HANDWRITING reindeer activities that help children to work on handwriting mechanics along with other skills in a fun and unique way that will motivate them to engage in the task!
Reindeer Multisensory Handwriting Freebie involves a multisensory approach to handwriting that includes tracing, cutting, pasting, moving, scanning, visual discrimination, and handwriting. Check it out.
Meet My Pet Reindeer is a holiday craftivity that includes cutting, tracing, gluing and writing.
But, if you just need some festive holiday handwriting paper that is modified to help a variety of children with their handwriting needs, check out this Christmas Modified Handwriting Paper, by The OT Toolbox.
Gross Motor Reindeer Activities
Next, are some super fun GROSS MOTOR Reindeer Activities that could be used for transitions while building gross motor skills and working on motor planning too! Fun activities that can be used at home, at school, and during remote learning or therapy.
Try the pin the nose on the reindeer activity in our Reindeer Party Games for a gross motor game with the whole family.
Reindeer Brain Breaks is just that, a break for the brain with a reindeer theme! Each of Santa’s reindeer has a brain break card and children can use them while at home, during a transition, in the classroom, or while online. These brain break moves can easily be done in small spaces making them perfect for most anywhere!
Reindeer Testing will get kids moving as they perform some fun reindeer moves that may be needed when pulling Santa’s sleigh! This fun resource helps to get kids moving while testing their reindeer skills with running, jumping, stomping, and prancing.
Reindeer Boot Camp is an excellent source for gross motor activities and they are perfect for either a classroom, home party or just to get kids moving! The reindeer training activities include balancing, galloping, leaping, scooter pulling, and tossing bean bags at a target. Don’t have been bags? That’s okay, use some stuffed animals.
Reindeer Games Camp is a boot camp that works on a variety of gross motor skills. Children will pull sleighs, do agility drills, do hoop and cone training, practice reindeer moves, and work on present stacking. These skills are important when you’re a reindeer!
Lastly, do you need a resource that literally has all you need in one place? Try this fun resource by The OT Toolbox called, Reindeer Playdate Party. There is food, activities, snacks, and reindeer games! This will give you all you need to party like the Reindeer! Have fun!
Try these ideas for more Christmas activities that help kids develop skills…Just click on the images below for holiday fun!
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.
