It’s that time of year when we just want to go to the apple orchard…
…or pick up a 3 pound bag of apples at the grocery store 🙂
Apple crisp, apple painting, apple pie, apple cider…We love fall and all things apples!
Our round-up today on Share It Saturday features activities, play, crafts, learning, and cooking all with an apple theme. Perfect for this time of year!
We’re ready to try some of the activities shared this week and enjoy the season of apples!
We’ve been having a ton of fun with clay recently. One sunny afternoon, Big Sister and Little Guy got creative and covered a big rock with clay. It sat out in the sun and got pretty soft.
It’s a great way to encourage development of fine motor skills and hand strength in a fun way!
This post has been sitting as a draft for weeks! We made a clay rock a while ago and before this was published, I wanted to see what our rock would do in the rain. It worked!! Check it out:
Sensory Play with Clay and Rocks
What great sensory play! Pressing that clay around was such a neat sensation. They could smear the clay around into such a pretty design!
Fine Motor Play with Clay and Rocks
Pressing the clay was a great fine motor strengthening activity. They could isolate individual fingers, press and push the clay into the other colors. The resistance of the clay worked their little hand and finger muscles.
So, after the rock sat out in the HOT sun for a while, we noticed that the clay was becoming warmer. We wondered what would happen if we baked the whole rock and clay.
Mom put the rock on a piece of aluminum foil and baked the rock on a cookie sheet at 350 for about 15 minutes. When this rock came out, the color was spread all over the rock! What a pretty rock for our yard.
I wanted to wait and see what would happen to our rock after it was out in the rain and sun for a few weeks. It is still looking very bright and pretty! The clay hasn’t seemed to come off at all in the elements.
This was such a fun experiment. Every time Little Guy sees the rock he says: “Hey Mom, Look at that rock, that was SO FUN!”
This was a child-led activity after …someone… emptied a bunch of our sensory bottles into the little play sink! I had super glued the lids shut, but a bigger cousin had a great idea to cut the bottles open. Super good problem solving, right? We had all kinds of things in this little sensory sink…pieces of straws, bits of yarn, glitter, foam snowflake stickers, crafting poms…It was very sensory!!
So, what does a mom do…don’t stress the mess, roll with it 🙂
Fine Motor Sensory Play
I added a few utensils from my kitchen to scoop, transfer, and stir…and a couple of containers from our recycle bin. Baby Girl had a blast with this while the big kids were at school.
Using the Turkey baster to squeeze is such a great hand strengthening activity! Transferring the objects with a spoon really works on her visual motor skills. Scooping up crafting poms from that sensory water is a great task for an almost 2 year-old.
Sensory Sorting
Baby Girl sorted the objects into sections of a muffin container, with a little verbal cueing from Mom. This is a fun way to incorporate sorting into sensory play…and she loved pretending to cook in her little kitchen!
It was a pretty fun way to recycle our sensory bottles!
Putting ball pit balls in a baby pool is a great sensory room DIY ball pit that kids love. Whether you play inside or outside with the baby pool full of water, this sensory play activity is one of our favorite ball pit activities!
Baby Pool Sensory Play
We’ve been loving these last days of summer before the school starts up again. One super nice and sunny day, we had the baby pool out and added a colorful twist…all kinds and shapes, and colors of different balls.
Baby Pool with Balls
We threw in ball pit balls, ping pong balls, whiffle balls, and every other kind we could find. This was such a fun way to play in the pool. Everyone had fun throwing them in and out of the baby pool and grabbing at the different colors.
We had all preschool-aged and toddlers at our house today, but, this would be great for sitting babies too! The eye-hand coordination and visual tracking skills really develop with this one.
They can visually track the different colored balls as they scoot around in the water and grasp at them. We had so much fun with this. Let us know if you try this activity, we would love to hear how it goes in your house!
Try putting something different in your baby pool while the weather is still warm, or pin it for next summer 🙂
Looking for more eye-hand coordination activities? Try one of these:
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.
This was a super easy and very fun fine motor activity we did one day. Perfect for the littlest ones who find dinner-prep time is time for Mom to hold her while sautéing chicken
…cough, Baby Girl, cough…
Pull out one color of play dough and one matching color of Legos. Baby Girl loves her mega blocks and we play with them daily. This was perfect for her because she could press the blocks into the dough and see an imprint of squares and circles. Great for language development, as well as color identification.
She liked that she could press the little circle “buttons” (and this works those little muscles of the hand and index isolation).
We’ll be pulling out the play dough and Lego blocks again, for sure!
We’ve done the no-mess window painting a few times before (Seek-and-find, and Colored gel mixing to name a couple) and had a lot of fun with it. This time we added a spelling component to add a few Kindergarten sight words to the fun.
This is so easy and Big Sister had fun moving the letters around in the paint to work on some fine motor skills, too.
Pour a little bit of paint into a sandwich baggie. Add a few foam letters. Seal the baggie closed. Tape it to a window and start to play! We had a really rainy day recently and this was a fun indoor learning activity. (You can see the raindrops on the picture!)
You’ll also love our diagraph spelling word poem that helps children with learning commonly misspelled words.
Fine Motor Letter Learning
Moving the foam letters around in the baggie is resistive and a really great fine motor strengthening activity to work the fingers. The child is able to isolate her index finger to move the letters around.
Add a few extra letters to work on rhyming words. This is also great for just placing right on the table surface and better for smaller kids that way, too. Littler ones can just move the letters around and address letter identification and colors.
Do you have a preschooler or kindergarten aged child who loves fine motor activities with beads? We have evidence of our little bead lover all over the house: beaded necklaces, bracelets, and bent beaded pipe cleaners can be found in almost every room! We’ve beaded noodles, cereal, plastic beads, small glass beads…every type and option there is has been strung on string of all sizes and types.
String Beads under the table
So, once you’ve done it all with an activity or means, what else is there to do?
Change it up a little bit!
I taped a string to the underside of our dining room table and put out some beads for Big Sister. She loved this! The slight variation in the beading activity gave her something to really concentrate on. She had to hold the string in a way that the beads wouldn’t slide down off of the string while she went to grab and thread additional beads.
This type of variation on a typical activity really makes the brain work. Have you ever tried writing with your non-dominant hand? Your pace of writing really slows as your brain tries to right and then compensate for the variation. In the young child, there are so many brain connections being made with novel tasks every day. Beading this string was a real brain work-out for her!
Managing the string with both hands allows the child to use both hands together in a coordinated manner.
Bilateral coordination is an important skill children need for many tasks. While handwriting, they mush hold the paper with their non-dominant hand while writing with their dominant hand.
Together, both arms must work together to move the paper while writing and erasing. Other examples of bilateral coordination in functional skills of the child is cutting with scissors, tying shoes, and zippering a coat.
Beading is such a wonderful tool for fine motor development. Holding the bead requires precise tip-to-tip grasp and ability to manipulate the beads within the hand. A small object like a bead can be transferred from the finger tips to the palm without use of the other hand, working on in-hand manipulation skills. When a bead is held in the fingertips, the arches of the hands are strengthened.
If you see a child managing beads with a closed space between the thumb and index finger, they are compensating for weakness and attempting to stabilize their thumb against their index finger. They may fumble with the beads and give up quickly into the activity as the small muscles of their hands become fatigued. This child most likely, will have sloppy handwriting and an inefficient pencil grasp when writing.
We had fun with our new variation to beading. Try it, and let us know how it goes for you!
This was our last water bin in our Water Bins for Kids series with Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails. This was definitely the most fun water bin for us this summer! We ended the series with a splash!
(Yes, had to go there!!)
This is a great addition to a color by letter worksheet. Just print and go and work on so many areas of development.
Letter Water Bin
This week’s theme was Color Matching!
Two of us sisters got together one day this week and had SO much fun with the kids on a hot and sunny afternoon.
We started with a colorful plastic bin and filled it with water. We threw in our bin of colorful magnetic letters (see another fun letter sensory bin here), and egg dying cups in lots of colors.
We started by scooping the letters into the floating cups and trying to catch the matching letter. We asked the kiddos what letter they found, the color, and if the letter color matched the cup.
This activity is a good one for bilateral hand coordination, eye-hand coordination, and fine motor skills. They had to use both hands together in a coordinated manner, while visually tracking the letters as they flowed around in the water. Then, with both hands on the cups, scoop up the letters. How fun!
Of course, when these cousins get together, there is sure to be silliness. The two younger ones were the instigators in the splash down.
We pulled out a metal curtain rod and stuck a magnet to one end. It stuck to the curtain rod and was able to attract the magnets of the letters. Little Guy LOVED this!
We pulled all of the colored cups out of the water and had the kids “fish” for the letters and put them into the matching cups.
Little Guy could have done this for an hour, I think…if it were not for his fun-loving little Sister and cousin dumping water on everyone.
This pool noodle sensory bin is a water bin activity that uses one item…a dollar store pool noodle! We love the therapeutic benefits of ball pit activities, and using pool noodles cut into pieces is an inexpensive option with sensory benefits. This is a pool noodle game and a great summer activity for building skills in coordination and motor skills through water play and pool noodles! This might be one of our favorite easy sensory bin ideas because there are so many ways to boost creativity through a single material.
A pool noodle sensory bin can be used in outdoor sensory play, or as an indoor DIY sensory ball pit.
Pool Noodle Sensory Bin
A noodle sensory bin is a fun and creative way to encourage sensory exploration in children. One of the most versatile materials to use for a sensory bin is pool noodles, which can be found at most dollar stores or discount retailers like Dollar Tree or Dollar General. With a few simple steps, you can turn these pool noodles into a unique sensory play experience that your child will love.
This week’s theme was so much fun and EASY to throw together. We had a couple of pool noodles purchased from the Dollar Store that we used for our family reunion games (keep an eye out for the post on this!) These pool noodles were just asking to be played with!
How to make a Pool Noodle Sensory Bin
If you aren’t familiar with pool noodles, these floating pool noodles into sensory ball pit fillers is easy.
Pool noodles are buoyant so if you fill the sensory bin with water, they will float. However, you can make a dry ball pit as well, and they are a great foam filler that offers calming proprioceptive and tactile input.
You can typically find pool noodles at a dollar store and many other stores during the summer months. However, you can also get them on Amazon. (affiliate link) Here’s a set of 20 pool noodles that can be cut into small sections to fill a baby pool ball pit or any large container.
Making pool noodle sensory bin is very simple:
1. Use 2 pool noodles.
2. Cut the pool noodles into 2 inch slices using a sharp knife.
3. Place the cut pool noodles into a large bin. We used an under-the-bed storage bin.
4. Add water.
To set up a pool noodle sensory bin, you’ll need several pool noodles in different colors, textures, and sizes. You may also want to include some dollar store serving spoons or other utensils to help your child scoop and pour the sensory materials.
Start by cutting the pool noodles into small sections, using scissors or a serrated knife. The best way to cut pool noodles is to make sure they’re held securely and to use a sawing motion, rather than trying to slice straight through.
I cut up two pool noodles and added a couple of big serving spoons, slotted spoons, and a ladle for scooping fun. Baby Girl loved this. And of course got right in there in the water bin!
Thread a Pool Noodle
I added Big Sister’s jump rope for an extra large beading activity.
This was a great activity for large motor movements of both arms. With that huge string, and sliding the pool noodle “beads” down the rope, this really got the arms going in whole body motions.
This gross motor body motion and repetitive movements in a novel manner help brains develop new neural connections and long term learning abilities.
Not only that, threading the “beads” onto the jump rope was great for fine motor manipulation and bilateral hand control (bilateral coordination).
We did a nice pattern and had to grab the correct color as it floated along in the water bin. Reaching for and grabbing the intended color object in the water develops hand-eye coordination skills. (Eye-hand coordination!) So much learning and SO much fun!
Big Sister thought her super-sized necklace was pretty cool!
This water bin was perfect for a hot and muggy afternoon. Have you been doing any fun water play this summer?
You can use the cut up pool noodles again and again in other sensory bin activities. Add them to a dry sensory bin, too. One idea we love is to use dry rice or dry beans, or even shredded paper sensory bins as a base for hiding and finding objects like the cut up pool noodles.
You can use anything from sand and water to rice and beans as a sensory bin filler for the base for your sensory bin. Then, add the pool noodle sections on top of the base material.
Encourage your child to explore the different textures and colors of the pool noodles and to use their imagination to come up with new ways to play. Use tongs to grab the pool noodles for building hand strength, too.
One fun activity you can do with a pool noodle sensory bin is to create an occupational therapy obstacle course using the noodles. Stack them up into towers or weave them in and out of each other to make a fun and challenging course for your child to navigate. You can also use the pool noodles to practice counting or sorting by color.
If you’re looking for a bigger sensory experience, consider using an extra large pool noodle to create a sensory pool noodle tunnel. Simply cut a pool noodle in half lengthwise, and then cut off one end at an angle. This will create a tunnel that your child can crawl through and explore. You can also fill the tunnel with other sensory materials, like soft fabric or foam blocks, to make it even more engaging.
Overall, a pool noodle sensory bin is a fun and budget-friendly way to encourage sensory play in children. By using inexpensive materials from the dollar store, you can create a unique and engaging play experience that will stimulate your child’s senses and foster their creativity. Whether you’re setting up an obstacle course, building towers, or crawling through a sensory tunnel, there are endless ways to play with a pool noodle sensory bin. So grab some pool noodles and get ready to dive into a world of sensory exploration and 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.
