bilateral coordination

Sensory play activity with rocks

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We are huge fans of sensory play around here.  This super simple rock activity kept the kids occupied for a long time one day.  It doesn’t take much to keep a couple of toddlers and preschoolers busy when you give them a bin of soapy water and something to clean!  Sensory play and fine motor play go hand in hand with this rock activity.


Sensory play with rocks

 

Sensory play with rocks

{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.  You can read our full disclosure policy here.  As always, we thank you for your support and community here at Sugar Aunts.}
sensory and fine motor fun with rocks
We started with a bin of river rocks
that we’ve had for ages.  These little rocks were a little dusty from spending the winter outside.  before we could play with them, they needed a scrub down.  
A bin of warm soapy water, a colander, and clean water and we all we needed  to set up this easy activity.  Throw in a scrub brush and sponge and we were ready to go.
sensory activity for kids using rocks and soapy water.
Little Guy loved this activity.  He scrubbed the rocks clean!  Using the scrub brush is a great way to work on bilateral land coordination to hold the brush and the rock…and tripod grasp to hold the little rocks.

playing with rocks and a soapy bin of water is a great fine motor and sensory activity for kids.
Baby Girl got in on this soapy fun too.  This sensory activity was so neat to play with the suds and find the rocks at the bottom of the bin.

squeezing a sponge is a great fine motor exersice for kids.

Squeezing a sponge is a great way to work on gross grasp of the hands.  Little Guy said, “this is the best fun, Mom!” …success!

washing rocks is a great fine motor and sensory activity for kids.

Our rocks were nice and scrubbed clean and ready for play.  And now to get them doing dishes…

Soda Dough Snowmen Sensory Bin

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Did you see our Soda Dough Snowmen post from last week?  We’ve been using our snowmen in all kinds of pretend play with loads of imagination!  They came in handy one day for this Soda Dough Snowmen Sensory Bin. This is a Winter sensory bin that supports fine motor skills and tactile sensory input.

Snowman Sensory Bin

We love this snowman sensory bin because you can involve kids in several aspects of setting up and playing with the sensory bin:

  • Making the fake snow
  • Molding the fake snow into snowmen
  • Manipulating and exploring items in the snowman sensory bin
Sensory Bin with Soda Dough Snowmen
We loved creating this snowman sensory bin on a cold winter day.
Items that you can add to a snowman sensory bin include:
  • Container
  • Cotton balls
  • Tinsel
  • Cotton batting
  • Gems or other small objects and items to manipulate and explore
Child manipulating loose parts in a sensory bin with Soda Dough Snowmen

Loose Parts in Sensory Bins

We used cotton batting left, cotton balls, our soda dough snowmen, bits of tinsel, and some glass gems.  A few clothes pins were added for fine motor exploring, too.  This was a fun little world for Baby Girl with loose parts.  All those little pieces are fun to explore and examine. 

Language is developed.  As your child plays, ask her questions.  “What color is that?” “What can we do with this?” What is this called?”  Their imagination will blossom and learning is encouraged.  You can add colors, scents, textures to sensory bins with little loose parts pieces.

Hand Strengthening with Clothes Pins

Pinching items with clothes pins is a great way to strengthen the intrinsic muscles of the hands.  Strength in the arches of the hands is needed for endurance with coloring and handwriting.  Starting in the toddler years with fine motor strengthening activities is a fun way to play and work on pre-handwriting skills.   Not to mention, it’s just fun!

Looking for more sensory bin ideas?  Check out our Sensory Play page for lots of fun activities!

Easy Last Minute Advent Calendar for Families

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 Use these easy last minute Advent calendar ideas for families as a way to connect this season. This advent calendar is a craft the kids will love to create each year while developing fine motor skills and making memories! 

For Christmas activity ideas with a therapy punch, use these 25 days of Christmas play ideas. Paste them onto the Christmas lights in the Easy last minute Advent calendar below.

 
 

 

Does your family made an Advent Calendar each year?  We love to fill our Advent Calendar with activities for the whole family, and designed to make memories.  This year, we were a little late getting our calendar filled with activates and figured there are so many other busy families who are in the same boat!  We needed an Easy, Last Minute, and Home-made Advent calendar.   This calendar does just that.  This was so easy to throw together, and with a little help form the kids, hang in our home for festive Christmas décor!  We chose activities that are part of are usual Holiday traditions, so that it would be easy to add into our days leading up to Christmas.  We really don’t need to have a huge to-do list every day and make more work for our selves.  This Christmas Advent Calendar is perfect for busy families and will make lasting memories!
 
{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.}
 
 

 Easy Last Minute Advent Calendar

To make our calendar, I cut light shaped pieces of red and green  Construction Paper , and little black squares.  These were by no means exact AT ALL!  Just easy and quick.  A little Glue
to hold the black squares in place, and the lights were done.

 

 
 

Advent Calendar Activities for Families

The kids and I came up with fun Christmas activities that we normally do every year to write on our lights.  This is memory making right here, folks!  With a black Marker, I wrote out our favorite traditions…
 
Decorate the Christmas Tree
Eat a candy cane
Donate toys
Visit Santa Claus
Watch Frosty the Snowman movie
Make cookies
Play with Christmas Play Dough
Make Christmas cards
Drink hot cocoa
Deliver treats to neighbors
 
…What holiday traditions are part of your family?
 
A little tape and Red Yarn, our lights were strung!  We used clothes pins to attach our activity lights for ease and for the one reason that may make our holiday very simple…
we can easily change the activities around based on what our day looks like.  Maybe on a certain day, Christmas play dough is just NOT going to happen.  Switch it out for Reading a Christmas Book.  
 
See, this really is the easiest Advent calendar for busy families!
 

Our Christmas Advent calendar ends with a star and a special activity…Singing Happy Birthday to baby Jesus!

So, we’re heading into the Christmas season with our last minute, home-made Advent calendar all ready to go!

Color Shape Sorting, Patterns, Counting

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This sorting and pattern activity is a great fine motor and visual motor task for young learners. I love that the fine motor aspect builds pre-writing skills as well as math skills. You’ll also want to grab our color and count worksheet for more fine motor work with math and patterning as well as sorting objects.

Moldable Color, Shape, Sorting, Counting, and Patterns!

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Color Shape Sorting, Counting, Patterns with Wikki Stix

We love playing with Wikki Stix.  We’ve used them in so many fun ways.  One day, Little Guy and I made some shapes and did a little sorting.

Color Shape Sorting, Counting, Patterns with Wikki Stix
 
Little Guy was sure to tell me if the shape didn’t quite look right.  “Mom, that square doesn’t look square-y”.  We counted how many of each shape we had.
 
Color Shape Sorting, Counting, Patterns with Wikki Stix
 
Little Guy made up a subtraction game as he put them into the box.  He counted each time he took a shape away and said “…minus one iiiiiiiiissss….”  He had so much fun doing this little game!
Color Shape Sorting, Counting, Patterns with Wikki Stix

After we finished with the shapes, he said we should do a pattern.  We pulled all of the wikki stix into strait lines and he came up with the pattern.  This was a fun quiet time activity for both of us!

 

Motor Planning Spider Web Maze: Fine Motor Eye-Hand Coordination

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This is an updated post from years back.  Create a life-size indoor (or outdoor!) spider maze that kids can climb in, on, around, and through. This is just one of our favorite spider activities for building skills. Add a fine motor portion to the activity and work on vision activities like visual motor planning and hand-eye coordination as kids play this Fall and Halloween.  Happy climbing! 


Visual motor planning and hand-eye coordination with a Halloween or spider theme using this room-sized maze that kids can build and get into and climb around. This is a fun indoor play activity for kids who have a lot of energy. A great fine motor activity for kids too!

Hand-Eye Coordination and Visual Motor Planning Spider Maze

Motor Planning Spider Web Maze with Fine Motor and Eye-hand coordination
(This post contains affiliate links.) Little Guy asked one afternoon, if we could make a Living Room Spider Web.  We made one of these last year, and he remembered.  He remembers every time he sees the skein of red yarn
.
He says he has to work on his “skills” when he’s crawling over, under, and between strings.  All the better to get the bad guys!
We pulled out some chairs and started spinning our web!
Motor Planning Spider Web Maze with Fine Motor and Eye-hand coordination
This time, we added a twist to our Spider Web.  We strung a few Halloween spider rings
along the web.  Little Guy had so much fun pulling the rings along the length of the yarn
, around chair legs, down the slopes, and up and over other pieces of yarn.

Motor Planning Maze:

Moving over, under, and around requires gross motor skills and motor planning to plan out, organize, and carry out an action.  With the added twist of moving the ring along the length of the string, we added a could of extra developmental skills…

Eye-Hand Coordination Maze:

This was a life-sized puzzle for him as he crawled over and under the string to manipulate the plastic ring along the length of the yarn.  What a great visual motor activity for him!  He had to visually scan where the ring would go next, and manage his hands to work the ring along the yarn.

Fine Motor and Bilateral Hand Coordination Maze:

Working both of his hands together in a coordinated manner was essential for this activity, and to move that little spider ring along.  He had to hold the yarn with one hand and string the ring along with the other hand.  All while moving over and under strings below him and above him.
Little Guy LOVED the spider web in our living room.  And asked to make another the next day.  Try this one…you’re little guy or girl will have so much fun!
Visual motor planning and hand-eye coordination with a Halloween or spider theme using this room-sized maze that kids can build and get into and climb around. This is a fun indoor play activity for kids who have a lot of energy. A great fine motor activity for kids too!
More Visual Perceptual Activities you will love:

Salt Dough Apples

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We made these salt dough apples one day after we pulled out our Fall decorations.  We had made salt dough pumpkins two years ago and they are still in great condition.  So, we decided to make some more decorations with salt dough! 

Salt Dough Apples
Salt Dough Pumpkins

Salt Dough Apples

We used a variation of this recipe from The Imagination Tree for our salt dough: 
1 cup salt
1 cup flour
1/2 cup water
 
Mix together until combined.  We added a little more flour because the dough was a little sticky to work with.  Once nice and mixed, we added red food coloring.  And then a bit more flour because of the moisture from the food coloring made it sticky again!  I’m thinking gel food coloring would work a little better for the consistency.
 
Roll the dough out and cut with a cookie cutter.  We used a pumpkin cookie cutter for our apples and it worked just as well.
Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees.  Place the dough cut-outs on a sheet of aluminum foil on a cookie sheet.  Bake the cut outs for 2 hours. 
When we made our pumpkins, we didn’t add color.  Rather, we painted them after they were cooked and cooled.  With our apples, they didn’t need any painting, they were just right as is!

 
Be sure to poke holes in the bottom of the dough before baking.  This allows the dough to bake flat and not rise.  Maybe it rises more with self-rising flour? I forgot to add the fork holes on our apples and they puffed up.  You can see how flat the pumpkins are compared to our apples in the bottom picture.
Slat Dough Pumpkins
We’ve been using our Salt Dough Apples for decorations, pretend play in our play kitchen, patterns with Little Guy and Big Sister, and counting.  We’ll keep these little cuties with our pumpkins and pull them out year after year!
Salt Dough Apples

Cereal Box Fine Motor Coordination Activity for Kids

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Push straws in holes in an empty cereal box

Cereal Box Tripod Grasp, Bilateral hand Coordination, Visual Scanning
We love to use things from the recycle bin in play.  This cereal box was on it’s way out of the kitchen one morning, but first we had a little fun!
While the kids were playing, I used scissors to poke holes all over all sides of the cereal box.  I cut up a couple of straws into little pieces and put both on our train table for the kids to discover. 
This is a recycle bin project that focuses on fine motor skills.
Cereal Box Tripod Grasp, Bilateral hand Coordination, Visual Scanning
Baby Girl was the first to see this and knew right away what to do.  She started pushing the straws into the little holes.
Cereal Box Tripod Grasp, Bilateral hand Coordination, Visual Scanning

Tripod Grasp Activity for Kids

This was a fun activity for her and she played for the longest time.  She really worked her fine motor skills to grasp the little bits of straws…using a tripod grasp and tip to tip grasp to hold the straws and push them through the holes.
Cereal Box Tripod Grasp, Bilateral hand Coordination, Visual Scanning

Bilateral Hand Activity for Kids

She demonstrated bilateral hand coordination (using both hands together in a coordinated manner) to turn the box over and around looking for little holes. 

Visual Scanning Activity for Kids

This was a great way to practice visual scanning as she searched for holes to push the straw pieces into.

Note: always use caution when playing with one of the activities posted on this blog.  Adult supervision and caution should always be exercised and activities should be tailored to meet the needs and abilities of your child.

Invitation to Pour. Scoop. Transfer: Fine Motor Play

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We’ve had a bag of mixed nuts with shells sitting out in our living room for days now.  A couple of bowls and spoons make for a fun play activity for all times of the day!

Use this fine motor activities to teach kids hand dominance while working on bilateral coordination, visual motor skills, and more! 





Invitation to Scoop, Pour, Transfer

Scooping Fine Motor Coordination
I gave the kids a couple of bowls and spoons with the walnuts, almonds, chestnuts…and a few other ones that I’m not sure of the names 🙂 …and they immediately started pouring from bowl to bowl.

Invitation to Transfer

Baby Girl (almost 2) and Little Guy (4) have been loving this!  Little Guy’s been sorting the chestnuts into a pile and gathering them all up into a bowl.  Baby Girl has been pouring and transferring nuts from bowl to bowl…and scattering the nuts allllll over the place 🙂

 Invitation to Pour

This is such a great fine motor activity for little ones, and they love playing with a novel item.  Pouring requires precise bilateral hand coordination or the nuts scatter all over the table…Although, they seem to enjoy that just as much!

Invitation to Scoop

Scooping the nuts with spoons allows for a great fine motor activity and fine motor coordination development, too.  Baby Girl is getting some great spoon practice with this activity!
 I’m thinking the walnuts, almonds, and friends will be out on the train table for a few more days for fun and exploring!

Paper Roll Apple Stamps

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These apple paper roll stamps are a fun fine motor activity for Fall occupational therapy sessions. It’s one our our apple themed activities that support development of several skill areas. This fine motor apple activity would go really well with our apple sensory bin and our Apple Therapy Kit.

 
We made this apple stamping art last week with one of our favorite things to recycle…Paper rolls! (we used a toilet paper roll but a paper towel roll would work too.)
 

Toilet Paper Stamps

Children may enjoy making toilet paper stamps because it is a fun and creative activity that allows them to explore their artistic side. Additionally, using toilet paper rolls to create stamps is a low-cost and easily accessible way for children to make art, as these materials are often readily available in most households.

Using toilet paper rolls as stamps can also provide a tactile sensory experience for children, as they get to touch and manipulate the materials while creating their artwork. The process of pressing the roll onto the paper and seeing the unique patterns and shapes that are created can be a source of fascination and excitement for children.

The act of stamping can help children develop important fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, as they need to use their hands and fingers to hold and control the stamp.

Toilet paper stamping can be a fun and engaging activity that provides children with a variety of benefits, both artistic and developmental.

 
 
Mom bent the cardboard tube just a little into a heart-ish shape.
 
Big Sister got busy stamping!  She covered her page with little red apples.
 
She painted little green leaves on the apples…
 
…and then drew stems on each apple with a brown marker.
 
This was such an easy and fun little project to do.  Let us know if you make apple stamps!
 
 

Grab a copy of our apple play dough cards for more fine motor skill building!