bilateral coordination

Visual Motor Scanning Activity to Color Match

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Visual Motor Integration is also known as eye hand coordination.  Essentially, this skill is the ability to coordinate the hand in an effective manner directed by vision.  When relying on visual motor skills, a person coordinates their movements based on what they see.  A child requires effective visual motor skills in order to do so many tasks…forming letters, writing on a line, coloring within lines, cutting along a line, catching a ball, completing puzzles, reading, and so much more. 
This fun (and colorful) activity is easy to create at home and a fun way to work on visual motor integration.  We added a color matching component to our activity, but you can adjust this activity to include what ever best keeps your child’s attention.
Visual scanning and visual motor color matching activity for kids

Visual Motor Color Matching Activity

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I started by drawing small circles all over a sheet of construction paper.  I used a bunch of different colors that matched the colors of stickers we had.  These rainbow stickers are the perfect size for little fingers to peel and work on fine motor skills.
Use stickers to color match and work on eye-hand coordiantion, fine motor skills.
I had Baby Girl (aged 2 and a half) peel off the stickers and place them on the circles.  Scanning for the matching color works on those eye-hand coordination abilities and also works on color identification. 
This was also a great way for Little Guy (age 4) to work on his visual motor skills.  He’s working on letter formation and ability to write in a smaller space with better control.  The fine motor and visual motor work in the activity are perfect for the new hand writer.
Eye hand coordination is tested and practiced with this easy color matching activity for kids.

This is such an easy way to work on so many skills.  We’ll be doing this activity again, for sure, with a few modifications.  Instead of matching colors to colored circles, try matching letters, numbers, emotions, and more!

What are other ways you can work on visual motor skills at home?

 

    • Tic Tack Toe

 

    • Copying shapes/drawings

 

    • tracing paper

 

    • mazes

 

    • dot to dot pictures

 

    • pegboard designs

 

    • copying lite brite designs

 

    • rolling and catching a ball

 

    • flashlight tag

Fireworks Art

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Summer brings cookouts, backyard parties, swimming pools, and fireworks!  We were in the mood for some summer fun and creating these fireworks painting art did the job.  A little bit of sparkle made the artwork really pop.  And what art isn’t better without a little glitter, right??
 
Stamped fireworks art! This is perfect for fourth of july, memorial day, and any day with fireworks!
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Fireworks Artwork Craft

We started with blobs of red paint
and blue paint on a Styrofoam tray.  Add a handful of
cotton swabs
and we were ready to go.

We used the cotton swabs to stamp the red and blue paint onto white paper into our fireworks shapes.  Stamping the paint covered cotton swabs was a super messy and sensory painting experience.  We mixed the colors for some of the fireworks to get a nice red and blue mixture into purple.  This was a great time to talk about the colors and how they mix to make purple.

The fireworks painting needed a little something.

GLITTER!

Fine Motor Fireworks Activity

We used clear glitter
and sprinkled it on while the paint was still wet.  It stuck right onto the paint and made our fireworks really pop. 
Pinching the glitter was such a good way to work on fine motor strength during a fun craft activity.  Using the index, middle finger, and thumb to grab up the glitter and sprinkle it around is a great tripod grasp task.  Using those three fingers to manipulate a material like glitter in a controlled manner strengthens the intrinsic muscles of the hand.  Intrinsic muscles are those little muscles within the hand that are essential for controlled pencil manipulation and many other fine motor tasks.
This fireworks painting craft was just right for some easy sensory summer fun.  Celebrate the season with fireworks art! 
You may be interested in more patriotic crafts and activities.  Try these:
red, white, and blue goopy dough
 red, white, and blue easel art | fine motor auditory fireworks activity

Pipe Cleaner Busy Bag

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This pipe cleaner busy bag is a creative way to use pipe cleaners while helping preschoolers to develop fine motor skills and visual motor skills. Add this pipe cleaner busy activity to your list of preschooler activities!

Pipe Cleaner Busy Bag

I have been trying to think of activities to keep my 3-year-old son busy lately. He is a busy little guy a
 
nd always wants to be involved in what we are doing in our homeschool. I typically have little busy-bag activities for him to do and needed to add in some new ones.
 
We have lots of pipe cleaners so I decided to make a pipe cleaner shape matching activity. I created some simple pictures for him to use to create shapes with pipe cleaners or yarn. You could really do this with any shapes, but I thought it would be fun to make it a more creative picture with nature scenes.


pipe cleaner shape matching
 
 
 
pipe cleaner busy bag
 
I made several different printable pages that can be used in a busy bag or just for anytime. 
 
shape matching busy bag
 
We tried doing the activities with yarn as well and it is a little easier to shape them for younger kids.
 

 

 

Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.

Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:

Letters Fine Motor Kit
Kit de motricidad fina de verano
Summer Fine Motor Kit
Outer Space Fine Motor Kit
Space Fine Motor Kit
Spring fine motor kit
Valentines Day fine motor kit
winter fine motor kit
Winter Fine Motor Kit

Or, grab one of our themed Fine Motor Kits to target skills with fun themes:

Want access to all of these kits…and more being added each month? Join The OT Toolbox Member’s Club!

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom letter learning activity

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This week’s post in the Preschool Book Series is featuring one of our all time favorite books.  We started reading this when Big Sister was just a little one and have enjoyed it with each of the kids over the past six years.  We LOVE Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
by Bill Martin, Jr. for it’s rhyme, rhyme, and fun story.  It’s so catchy and I’ve caught the kids singing the words to the story aloud many times.
We decided to make a palm tree to go along with the story as we read the book and identified letters.
This was such a fun activity for all of us!
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom book activity to combine letter learning with gross motor.

Chicka Chicka Book Boom Letter Activity

{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.  You can read our full disclosure policy here.  As always, we thank you for your support and community here at Sugar Aunts}
I started by making a palm tree on a huge piece of cardboard.  I will admit…  this tree turned out WAY bigger than I was planning.  I drew the palm tree and the next thing I knew, it was pretty much life sized. 
A few pieces of clear contact paper were taped to the tree, sticky side out, and we were ready to go!

Baby Girl LOVED this activity.  I threw a bunch of foam letters
from our foam puzzle and she started going through them.  This is a great way to work on letter identification, visual scanning, and crossing midline with little ones. 

We read the book and looked for the letters in alphabetical order as they went up the coconut tree.

Baby Girl is not able to identify letters yet, but Little Guy is, and he liked this letter learning activity too.  He thought it was pretty cool that the letters could stick on the tree as they climbed the coconut tree.  But, he was quick to point out that I forgot the coconuts on our tree.  Ooops.

Of course we had to make our tree fall down after all of the letters were in the tree, just like in the book.  And hilarity ensued.  This is one activity that we will be doing again and again!  the palm tree has taken residence in our basement and we have been sticking all kinds of fun things to it. I mean, maybe the next installment of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom could include feathers 😉

Be sure to stop by and see what the other fabulous bloggers in the Preschool Book Club series did to go along with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Letter Learning Activity
Get the Book here:

You also might like our Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons snack post.

Grow a Garden with Play Dough Flowers

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We love making these play dough flowers with paper clips, paper flowers, and rocks. It’s such a fun fine motor activity that kids absolutely love, and so do I as an occupational therapist who loves easy and simple fine motor activities that build skills through play.

Play Dough Flowers with paper clips and rocks

We are loving all things Spring these days.  One rainy morning, Baby Girl and I played with this play dough fine motor activity while Little Guy was away at preschool.  She loves play dough and was very excited to Grow a Garden with a few extras thrown in there to make a fun flower garden.
 
Play dough is such a great way to work on fine motor skills and this garden activity hits the mark when it comes to strengthening those little muscles in the hands.  Not only that, it’s totally fun and happy!
 
 
 
 
This post contains affiliate links. 
 

I started by making a bunch of flowers.  I used my circle paper punches and glued circles together to make flowers.

Baby Girl and I stuck them onto green paper clips.  It was a great way to get started on the fine motor work in this activity.  She was really focused on putting the paperclips onto the flowers.

 
Next, I pulled out the green play dough and we started planting flowers!
 
 
Rocks were needed for our flower garden, of course! 
 

 

PaperClip Play Dough Activity

We tried clay and play dough for this activity.  The clay was more resistive to press the paper clips into, and a better strengthening tool…but it seemed to stick more to the paper clips.  Play dough worked better for us, and was just as good a fine motor strengthening work out. 

Pressing the paper clips into the play dough is a great way to encourage a tripod grasp while strengthening the intrinsic muscles of the hands.  The small muscles within the hand are so important for arch support and control in many fine motor tasks (coloring, zippering, buttoning…)

We’ve done another paper clips and play dough color match activity recently that hit on the fine motor work in this activity.  Check it out…your little play dough fan will love it!

This was a fun way to pretend and play as we grew our little garden!

More play dough ideas you may like:

 
Play Dough Farm | Play Dough Color Match | Play Dough Cupcakes
 
 
 

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.

Color Sorting Scissor Activity

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If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know how much we love to do fine motor activities.  Scissor activities for kids is one of our favorite fine motor topics and we’ve got a bunch of creative ways to practice them!  This fun fine motor color sorting activity was part of prep for another activity we were doing (watch this space to see these foam squares again!), but we had so much fun with it, that we had to share! 

 

Scissor Skills Activity for Kids

{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.  You can read our full disclosure policy here.  As always, we thank you for your support and community here at Sugar Aunts} 

We started with the wooden crates from our Melissa & Doug Food Groups.  Besides being a totoally fun pretend play toy, the packaging is completely re-usable and perfect for sorting activities.  We shared the picture of our four crates on Instagram and had some great comments about how awesome these crates are for all kinds of play.

I lined the bottom of the four crates with different colors of foam sheets, and drew thick lines on matching colors of foam sheets.

This was a great way for Little Guy to practice his cutting with scissors.  The thickness of the foam sheets is great for new scissor users because it provides greater resistance and therefore slows the scissors more than regular paper.  The thickness of the lines is another way to grade down the cutting task for new scissor users. 

Slower cutting speed is good when the little one needs verbal and physical prompts to hold the scissors correctly, and how to position their assisting hand on the foam. 

Little Guy is working on his scissor skills and needs prompts to hold the foam/paper close to his body and to move the scissors when he’s cutting, and not hos whole upper body.  Strait lines are a good start for him for practice.  Older kids or those who are doing a little better with their scissor skills would benefit from thinner lines, curved lines, or even using construction paper instead of the foam sheets.

Once we had all of the foam squares cut out, we were ready for our sorting.  This interested Little Guy for a little while, but Baby Girl was the one who was really into this part of the activity.

She was able to sort the colors into the correct bin.  We worked on naming the colors along the way.

Sorting the squares was a fun way to play and learn!

We had a great time with this cutting and sorting activity.  Let us know if you do this at home, we would love to hear about it!

Looking for more scissor activities?  You may like some of these:

Scissor Skills with Play Dough | Cutting foam beads activity | Using stickers to help with scissor use

Stop by our Scissor Skills Pinterest board for more ideas. 

Follow Sugar Aunts’s board Scissor skills on Pinterest.

Play Dough Color Match Learning Activity

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Play dough is such a fun way to play and learn.  We are big fans of the fine motor fun to be had with play dough.  In fact, we’ve done other fine motor color matching activities with play dough before.  Color matching with play dough is a fun way for preschoolers and toddlers to learn colors and so much more.
 This play dough activity was great for the Toddler age range.  Learning colors, matching, sorting, and fine motor work were all involved.  Baby Girl was a big fan!  

Color matching and learning activity for Toddlers and Preschoolers

 

 {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.  You can read our full disclosure policy here.  As always, we thank you for your support and community here at Sugar Aunts}  
Kids can identify colors of play dough.

Color identification activity for Toddlers

We started with a bunch of colors of play dough.  We used modeling dough, but you could also make your own play dough for learning and play.   We worked on naming all of the colors of the play dough.
Kids can work on many fine motor skills with play dough and paper clips.

Color matching activity for Toddlers

I pulled out a bunch of colored paper clips
and showed Baby Girl how to press them into the matching color.  She did pretty well with the matching of colors.  The identification is a little harder for her.  She’ll name some of the colors but stumble on others.  (Baby Girl is 2.5 years old).  She’s getting there, though!  I love that she loves activities like this.  She was really into it.

 

I love the colors of this dough!

 

Fine Motor Activity for Toddlers, Preschoolers, and School-aged Children

Pressing those paper clips into the dough requires a tripod grasp.  The resistance of the dough is a great way to strengthen the hand, especially the arches of the hand.  This is so important for manipulating objects in self-care tasks like buttoning.  This is a great pre-handwriting activity, too.  Definitely, it’s a good warm-up activity for kids who are at the writing stage.  Pressing those paper clips into the dough would get the hand “awake” and ready for a coloring or handwriting task for older kids.  I would recommend this activity for the school aged range, too.

Picking up paper clips from a flat surface is a great way to work on fine motor skills.

Picking up the paper clips from a flat surface like the table is a great way to work on finger dexterity with children.  You’ll need a tip to tip grasp to pick up the paper clip and manipulate it within your hand.  What a work out for those little hand muscles!  In-hand manipulation is essential for tasks like managing coins, rotating a pencil in handwriting tasks, putting small objects like pegs into peg boards, and so much more.  Scatter those paper clips around the table…this is a great way to play and work on fin motor skills!

Toddlers can work on fine motor skills with play dough.

If you’re doing this activity with a younger child, be sure to keep a close eye on them.  As always, use your judgment in what works best for your child or group of children in a school setting.  The paper clips could be a choking hazard of course so if you are working with kids who may put them in their mouth, either work on one clip at a time or put this activity away for a few months.  Better yet, pin it to your Pinterest boards for safe remembering 😉

How many other ways can you think of to make this activity a learning opportunity?  Try sorting the paper clips by color or size.  Pattern the colors of dough or paper clips.  Count the paper clips as your child presses them into the dough.  Ask him or her to press a certain number of clips into each dough ball.  Sequence the number of paper clips that you’ve pressed into the dough.  There is SO much learning happening here!

Looking for more play dough activities?  We’ve been having a blast pinning to our play dough, clay, goop, and more board:

Why You Need Bunny Tongs for Developing Scissor Skills

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Bunny tongs activity for fine motor skills

When I worked as an Occupational Therapist with pediatrics, I did a ton of work on scissor skills and pre-scissor skills. It was one of my favorite things to work on with school-based kiddos. There was an item in my therapy bag that I (and the kids) LOVED for scissor practice: bunny tongs. These are a great Easter activity for occupational therapy sessions, but we actually use them all year round. Here’s my OT tip: if you see a pair of these bunny tongs in the egg-dying section of stores around Easter time, GRAB THEM!

You’ll also want to check out our other Bunny Activities:

Bunny Tongs for Scissor Skills

Now being at home with my own kids, it’s so much fun to pull out my OT stash of supplies and play.  We pulled out a few things recently and the kids had a blast playing.  And if you follow this blog, you know we do a ton of fine motor activities! 

This is the ONE item you want to pick up from the Dollar Store this spring.  It’s a must-have for OTs working in the schools or with kids on scissor skills.

You’ll want to check out our resource on how to hold scissors for more tips on the grasp aspect. The one thing I love about using the bunny tongs as a tool to support scissor skills is that it is a fun way to work on the mechanics of holding scissors.

 
 
Beginner scissor skills using bunny tongs
 

Scissor Skills with Tongs

 
If you see these Bunny Tongs at the store this Spring, GRAB them up!  These are awesome for scissor skills and besides being completely cute, they are SO fun to play with. 
 
Adorable bunny + working on developmental skills= AWESOME!
 
These bunny tongs are out this time of year because they are really intended for dipping Easter eggs. 
 
We’ve never actually used them for egg dying, but I’m guessing it’s a pretty cool way to dye eggs, too.  I did find them on amazon (affiliate link), so if you can’t find these guys in the store, they are always available online. 
 
New scissor users will love to sort and manipulate crafting pom poms with bunny tongs.

I set up this sorting activity for the kids one day using our bunny tongs.  Scissor skills were really worked on with the repetition of picking up lots of assorted pom poms and sorting them into crates.

Bunny tongs for working on scissor grasp in young kids
 
Baby Girl LOVED this activity. She went through and sorted pom poms at least three separate times.  You can see how she’s got her ring finger and pinkie finger extended out as she opens the tongs in the picture above. 
 
This is a great time to work on pre-scissor skills with her, so that as she does start with snipping with real scissors down the road, she maintains an appropriate and effective grasp on the scissors.
 
Tuck a crafting pom pom into the palm of the hand to improve scissor skills.

Tuck a small object into the hand when using the bunny tongs to work on grasp on scissors.

Tips for Cutting with Scissors

Not a great picture, but popping a crafting pom pom into the palm of her little hand is a great way to correct that grasp on the tongs (or scissors).  This way, the child opens and closes the tongs/scissors with the thumb and pointer/middle fingers in an effective and more controlled manner.  This will help with scissor control and line awareness.

If you’ve got a little one who cuts with scissors and snips all over the place, with their pinkie finger and ring finger extended out as they open the scissors, try this trick. 

You can use any small item like a little eraser or pebble in the palm of their hand.  It’s a good physical prompt to remind them to keep their hand closed as they cut with scissors.

Kids can sort and manipulate crafting pom poms to work on beginner scissor skills.

Little Guy wanted in on this action too, and once Big Sister came home from school, she sorted the pom poms too.  This was just fun!

Kids can sort pom poms using tongs for fine motor play

Baby Girl resorted to just using her hands to sort later in the day.  Still great for color matching and identification.   we’ll definitely be doing this activity again.  It was a huge hit for my kids as much as it was a hit for all of the school-based clients I’ve worked with over the years.  It’s the cuteness of that bunny!

Spring Fine Motor Kit

Score Fine Motor Tools and resources and help kids build the skills they need to thrive!

Developing hand strength, dexterity, dexterity, precision skills, and eye-hand coordination skills that kids need for holding and writing with a pencil, coloring, and manipulating small objects in every day task doesn’t need to be difficult. The Spring Fine Motor Kit includes 100 pages of fine motor activities, worksheets, crafts, and more:

Spring fine motor kit set of printable fine motor skills worksheets for kids.
  • Lacing cards
  • Sensory bin cards
  • Hole punch activities
  • Pencil control worksheets
  • Play dough mats
  • Write the Room cards
  • Modified paper
  • Sticker activities
  • MUCH MORE

Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

Spring Fine Motor Kit
Spring Fine Motor Kit: TONS of resources and tools to build stronger hands.

Grab your copy of the Spring Fine Motor Kit and build coordination, strength, and endurance in fun and creative activities. Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

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.

Rainbow Bead Bracelets DIY Dress Up Accessory

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Do your kids dress up in play clothes as much as mine do?  Any given day we’ve got knights, princesses, dancing stars, ninjas, superheroes, doctors, fancy ladies…the list of pretend play scenes go on and on!  And it is SO much fun to watch the scenes develop.  Oh yeah, there are fights and arguments that happen when someone wants to be the “star”.  And a lot of times the 6 year old, 4 year old, and 2 year old are just running around in total mishmash of costumes.  (Or totally naked in the 2 year olds case!)  But it is so much fun to see what character comes up from the playroom. 

These Rainbow Bead Bracelets are the perfect dress up accessories.  They started out as our Fine Motor Rainbow Pipe Cleaner craft and easily turned into colorful bracelets.

Fine motor craft with beads and pipe cleaners to make these rainbow bracelets.

 

Rainbow Bead Bracelets

Beading on pipe cleaners is a great fine motor activity for toddlers.
Beading the bracelets is a great fine motor activity that even toddlers can do.  Love those chubby little knuckles!

When we were done with our rainbow craft and pretend play, we just pulled them out of the Styrofoam and twisted the arches into bracelets.  Done!

Bead bracelets made with rainbow colors

There’s a color for everyone!  These bracelets are coming in handy for lots of dress-up fun!