These Fall Leaf Auditory Processing Activities are great for addressing listening skills in kids with or without auditory processing difficulties. Try this creative leaf idea at home or in the school yard to easily strengthen auditory abilities for better learning. Perfect for children of all ages and developmental levels, it’s a Fall themed activity that will help kids learn to listen to details!
For example, we love cutting Fall leaves to practice scissor skills. Another fun (and free) ideas is doing our leaf hole punch activity (also very good for working on scissor skills). Here are more hole punch activities to try.
Let’s get started with the auditory processing info and how we can support this area of development with a handful of leaves…
Fall Auditory Processing Activities
Listening isn’t easy for everyone. For children with auditory processing disorders, learning is difficult. Imagine identifying and localizing sounds in a classroom that is filled with chattering children, scooting chair legs, pencils scratching on paper, and moving, sound-making children. The process of localizing sounds, recognizing sound patterns, discriminating between different letter sounds, and interpreting auditory information can be less than optimal for the child with difficulty processing the sound information that is coming in.
When there are auditory processing difficulties present, a child may tend to have the following problems that interfere with learning:
Poor direction following
Appear confused
Distractibility
Short attention spans
Sensitive to loud sounds
Inconsistently aware of sounds
Poor listeners
To build and strengthen auditory skills, try using leaves this Fall. The crunchy, dry leaves that cover the ground are nature’s sensory tool when it comes to auditory processing needs.
We first talked about the fall leaves that are covering our lawn and read through this month’s Virtual Book Club for Kids book, (affiliate link) Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. We talked about how the leaves of fall are all different colors, shapes, and sizes but have one thing in common: a great crunch when they are dry!
To do these sensory Fall Leaf Auditory Processing activity, you’ll need a bunch of leaves that have fallen from trees. Dry leaves will work best, so if the leaves are newly fallen, you will want to gather leaves up in advance. Let them dry indoors for several hours or overnight to get a great “crunch”.
Next, spread out the leaves in a big bin. An under the bed storage bin works great for this activity.
Show your child how to squeeze and crumble the leaves using their hands. Ask them to listen to the crunch of the leaves. Notice how the leaves crumble and give off a satisfying noise as they are shifted around in the bin.
Use the dry leaves to address auditory sensory needs:
Where is that leaf? Ask the child to sit in front of the bin (or if you are outside, sit in front of the adult. Ask the child to close their eyes. Using one hand to crunch leaves, ask the child to say or point to the side that the leaf crunch is coming from. Add a high/low and front/back component by moving around to crumble the leaves, too.
Leaf Pattern- Ask your child to gather a bunch of dry leaves. Using a pile of leaves of your own, complete a crunching pattern as you crumble leaves at different speeds and in each hand. The child can then repeat the pattern.
Sound Stop- Crumble and crunch the leaves. At intervals, stop crunching leaves and wait for a moment. Ask the child to say “Now!” when the leaves stop crumbling.
Falling Leaf Sounds- With the child’s eyes closed, crumble leaves high and low above and below the child. Ask the child to determine if the leaves are above them or below them as they determine the location of the sound.
Lots of Sound Leaves- Add other sounds to the background noise: talking, music, rattle toys, birds chirping, etc. Ask the child to determine when the sound of crunching leaves stop. You can also add a localization dimension to this activity to work on auditory figure ground awareness.
Kids can complete these activities on a one-on-one basis or in a group setting. For kids with sensory issues, or those that are sensitive to crumbling leaves, try using gardening gloves while crumbling.
How would you use Fall’s leaves in a sensory or auditory processing activity?
Add this Fall leaves breathing exercise to these Fall themed activities in therapy:
Address sensory needs while experiencing all that the Fall season has to offer! Grab your free copy of the Fall Sensory Experiences Booklet to create sensory diet activities that meet the needs of individuals in a Fall-themed way!
Looking for more sensory motor fun with a leaf theme? Get a copy of our free Fall Leaves slide deck AND printable Fall leaves visual motor skill worksheets. Get those Fall Leaves worksheets here.
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.
Grab a box of alphabet noodles for a fun multisensory learning activity that builds skills in many areas. We used letters pasta to create a sensory bin that incorporates fine motor skills and a letter learning activity.
Alphabet Noodles
You might remember eating alphabet noodles as a child in soup. But if you have a box of letter noodles on hand, it’s easy to create a sensory play activity that builds skills.
This easy dyed pasta activity combines learning with fine motor development. From the scooping to the neat pincer grasp activity, this is a great way to build many skills! Younger children can use scoops and spoons to develop coordination needed to scoop and pour while gaining exposure to letters. What a fun way to build so many areas!
Alphabet Pasta Activities
So, in addition to the ideas we shared above, we love using dry alphabet pasta in other activities to support fine motor and visual motor skills. I love that you can incorporate the tactile sensory play in learning and skill development.
Some of my favorite ideas for alphabet pasta:
Alphabet Sensory Bin Search: Fill a sensory bin with dry alphabet pasta and small items like pom-poms, beads, or toy animals. Hide letter cards or small objects in the bin, and encourage kids to search for specific letters or objects. This activity helps improve pincer grasp and hand-eye coordination while engaging their sense of touch.
Letter Pasta Sensory Bottle: Create a “Alphabet Seek-and-Find” Sensory Bottle by filling a clear plastic bottle with dry alphabet pasta. Add a few small, colorful beads or buttons to make it more visually stimulating. You can also include a few small trinkets or themed charms to match a specific letter (e.g., a tiny apple for “A”). Seal the bottle tightly with glue to prevent any spills. Here are other sensory bottle ideas to use, like adding scrabble letter tiles to the sensory bottle as an I spy activity.
Pasta Art and Letter Matching: Have kids glue dry alphabet pasta onto construction paper to create letter art or spell out simple words. For an extra challenge, provide them with a printed word and have them match the letters using the pasta. This activity develops both fine motor skills and visual-motor integration as they match letters and manipulate the small pieces. It’s a great letter recognition activity!
This was such a fun activity! I found a bag of alphabet pasta at a local grocery store on sale for a dollar and couldn’t pass it up! We used a little from the bag and used the rest in wedding soup. (Little Guy’s most often request and favorite meal!) Because the only thing that makes wedding soup even more awesome is fun shaped noodles 🙂
How to dye alphabet Pasta
We dyed the pasta in a baggie…added a few drops of red food coloring and 2 Tbsp of vinegar. We dyed this batch back in May and the color is still going strong. The vinegar doesn’t leave an odor when playing with the pasta, but helps the coloring to “stick” to the pasta.
Have the kids shake the bag (or use a lidded plastic container for a fun auditory component!) and get their wiggles out.
I put up a few strips of masking tape on our easel and put out the bowl of pasta. Baby Girl had the job of scooping letters from the bowl onto a plate. She loved using my measuring spoons to scoop. Toddlers seem to love scooping any little bits…peas/beans/rice/sand…and it’s such a great fine motor task for them.
Pinching those little letters was a fun fine motor exercise for working on their tripod grasp and pincer grasp.
I positioned the tape strips high up on the easel to encourage an extended wrist. This wrist position allows for efficient use of the fingers in such a small motor activity.
Big Sister worked on locating letters as I told her how to spell words.
…Baby Girl couldn’t let her big sister do something and NOT get involved…
We also used the alphabet letter pasta to work on a little reading/spelling activity: I stuck on the -AT letters and asked Big Sister to find the letter we needed to spell different rhyming words. Fun!
Alphabet letter pasta can be used in many ways! How do you use this sensory activity to learn and play?
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:
As a pediatric occupational therapist, I’ve used wooden building blocks in occupational therapy many times. For my own children, I’ve used regular wooden blocks as a fine motor tool too! In fact, building with blocks is a fine motor skills that kids need in order to fine motor development many, many, (MANY) times. Wooden blocks are a tool that are used for development of goal progression in treatment activities and in assessment of fine motor developmental level. They are used in visual perceptual skills, and are the perfect open-ended play item.
Occupational therapy practitioners use block toys to support fine motor skills and visual motor skills.
How to Support Fine Motor Skills with Blocks
Also be sure to check out our activity using cardboard bricks as a tool for developing many areas.
Blocks are a great toy for development because you can use different types of blocks for different ages.
Many parents ask “is stacking blocks a fine motor skill?” The answer is YES! As a Mom and OT, I’ve made sure my kids have a lot of wooden blocks (and a couple of varieties of toddler large blocks of the foam and plastic blocks, too!)
Today, I’m sharing how to use wooden blocks in fine motor skill development with kids…all while they play and don’t even realize their fine motor skills are being assessed or worked on! This is a great way to address skills for children and adults…anyone who needs to work on fine motor skill development.
Stacking blocks supports grasp development with various grasp patterns.
Fine Motor Skills and Building Blocks
Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
Stacking blocks is a fine motor skill. And, when children stack blocks, they develop and refine fine motor skills. Check out the list of benefits of playing with blocks that are described below. Each area of development can be developed using a set of building blocks.
Looking at various building blocks from the perspective of an occupational therapist, my favorite wooden blocks are Melissa and Doug Wood Blocks Set. The set is huge and comes with a variety of bright colors in solid wooden blocks, which are sized just right to help kids build fine motor skills.
Fine motor skills and building blocks go hand-in-hand…literally! There are SO many benefits to playing with blocks. Let’s break down all of the benefits of playing with blocks…
There are many benefits of building blocks!
Benefits of Playing with Blocks
Building with blocks help kids develop grasp- From the time toddlers can grasp a block with their whole hand, grasp development begins. Blocks are a fine motor power tool when it comes to working on grasp development! Read below for the specifics of small kids playing with blocks. By picking up on block, manipulating it in the hand, and placing it on a stack of blocks, children progress from a gross grasp to a radial palmer grasp and then to a digital palmer grasp, followed by a tip-to-tip grasp using the pointer finger and thumb.
2. Building with blocks helps kids develop graded fine motor skills- As small children progress through typical grasp progression, they begin to gain more control over those motor skills. This occurs on a stability basis (use of the core and shoulder to stabilize the arm) and on a dexterous basis (precise, small, and graded movements of the fingers). By gaining these skills, children are able to pick on one block from a stack without toppling the entire block tower. They are also able to place a block onto a stack of blocks without knocking over the entire tower. These graded movements are essential for precision and dexterity in functional tasks as children gain a sense of personal awareness and how their body moves through space in order to pick up and manipulate objects.
This blog post on fine motor precision and graded release explains more on this skill and has a fun fine motor activity to develop graded precision in fine motor skills.
3. Building with blocks helps children develop eye-hand coordination- From a very young age, when babies develop the ability to see and move their arm to reach for a block, those eye-hand coordination skills are beginning to develop. Visual motor integration is a main piece of the visual processing skills puzzle, and coordinating movements with visual information is essential for so many functional tasks in learning and play. Catching a ball, writing with a pencil, cutting with scissors, are just a few examples of eye-hand coordination tasks that rely on the baseline skills developed from a young age. Toddlers can manipulate and build with blocks while developing this skill through play. Stacking, knocking blocks over, building a block train, making towers, and using blocks in constructive play are powerful tools to developing eye-hand coordination skills.
4. Building with blocks helps children develop bilateral coordination– Establishing a hand dominance and laterality is an important fine motor skill that transfers to tasks like writing with a pencil and holding the paper with the nondominant hand. Another example is mastering a zipper while stabilizing the material with the other hand. Still another example of bilateral coordination is cutting with scissors while holding and manipulating the paper with the nondominant hand. All of these tasks requires one hand to manipulate objects with more precision and dexterity while the other acts as a stabilizer. Building with blocks builds bilateral coordination as children stabilize a stack of blocks with one hand and use the other hand to release a block at the top of the stack with graded precision.
5. Building with blocks helps children develop motor planning skills– Motor planning is a physical action that requires observing and understanding the task (ideation), planning out an action in response to the task (organization), and the act of carrying out the task (execution). Building with blocks is a great way to build these sub-skills as kids attempt to build with blocks to construct with blocks.
6. Building with blocks helps children integrate the proprioceptive sense– Proprioception is one of our sensory systems that focuses on awareness of how one’s body moves through space, and how much effort is needed to move in certain ways. The proprioception system receives input from the muscles and joints about body position, weight, pressure, stretch, movement and changes in position in space. Our bodies are able to grade and coordinate movements based on the way muscles move, stretch, and contract. Proprioception allows us to apply more or less pressure and force in a task. Instinctively, we know that lifting a feather requires very little pressure and effort, while moving a large backpack requires more work. We are able to coordinate our movements effectively to manage our day’s activities with the proprioceptive system. The brain also must coordinate input about gravity, movement, and balance involving the vestibular system. Building with blocks is a great way to develop and refine this skill. How much effort is needed to pick up a block and place it in a specific spot without moving other blocks while building a tower of blocks or a block building?
To take this a step further, use larger blocks that require gross motor skills, and more awareness of proprioception skills. Here are DIY cardboard blocks that we’ve made for this very purpose.
7. Blocks help children integrate midline awareness– Crossing midline can be developed from a young age when playing with blocks. This is a great way for babies and toddlers to work on crossing midline, by reaching for blocks, building, and creating.
8. Blocks help children develop visual motor skills- Visual motor skills (and visual motor integration) are needed for coordinating the hands, legs, and the rest of the body’s movements with what the eyes perceive. Visual motor skills are essential to coordinated and efficient use of the hands and eyes. Visual motor integration is a skill we require for functioning. There is more that plays into the integration of visual motor skills into what we do and how we use our hands in activities. Building with blocks helps children develop skills in visual perception, eye-hand coordination, and visual processing skills play a part in the overarching visual motor skill development so we can perceive and process visual information and use that information with motor skills to manipulate and move objects in tasks and activities.
By building with blocks, areas like form constancy, visual attention, visual discrimination, spatial relations, visual memory, visual sequential memory, and visual figure ground are developed in accordance with eye-hand coordination, and visual efficiency.
9. Building with blocks develops learning too! Beyond fine motor skills, building with blocks helps kids develop other skills too. What will your toddler learn by picking up Wood Blocks Set, placing them into a container, and stacking towers? (Among other skills):
Did you know there are developmental milestones for stacking blocks?
Building Blocks and Development
From developing a palmer grasp transition to a radial grasp to a tripod grasp and precision with graded release of motor skills, building with blocks help kids develop so many skills. For today’s activity, we pulled out the one inch square blocks from the set and we used classic Alphabet blocks. (This set has been chewed on and played with by all four of my kids so they look well loved aka have chew marks!)
First up in developing fine motor skills with wooden blocks is the grasp. This is important in fine motor skills in toddlers. Blocks, for toddlers are a fine motor tool that builds on so many areas.
There is a developmental progression of playing with blocks…aka stacking blocks milestones.
Stacking Blocks milestones
One resource that is helpful for occupational therapy providers and parents is knowing stacking blocks milestones. This is because we can help kids achieve fine motor and visual motor skills through play based on the level they are at and based on their age.
We’ve listed the progression of stacking blocks and included the typical age after each task.
The developmental ages of this progression are as follows:
Grasps a block with whole fist, lifting it off a table surface without dropping: 5 months
Grasps a block with all fingers: 6 months
Drops one block when given another: 6 months
Brings hands together when holding a block: 6 months
Grasps a block between the thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger (radial-palmer grasp): 7 months
Transfers a block from one hand to the other: 7 months
Bangs to wooden blocks together with both hands: 9 months
Grasps a block between the thumb, and the pads of the pointer and middle fingers with space between the block and the palm (radial-digital grasp): 11 months
Places wooden blocks into a container: 11 months
Builds a tower of three wooden blocks given a visual example: 15-16 months
Copies and builds a tower of 5 blocks: 19-20 months
Copies and builds a tower of 6 blocks: 21-22 months
Builds a tower of 8 blocks: 25-26 months
Copies a four block “train”: 29-30 months
Builds a 10 block tower: 29-30 months
Copies a three block pyramid or “bridge”: 31-32 months
Copies a four block “wall”: 35-36 months
Builds “steps” using six blocks: 51-52 months
Builds a six block pyramid: 53-54 months
Stacking blocks milestone development happens in natural play. Some ways to foster this skill include:
Modeling shapes and using them in floor play.
Using block creations in pretend play with small toys, and using toys that the child prefers like specific cars and figures.
Starting with easier block forms and then working up to more complicated forms.
The one thing to keep in mind about all of these activities listed below is to consider DIR Floor Time. Blocks are a natural tool to use in this technique because most often, blocks are used on the floor.
Step 1- Make a block line.
This might look like making a single line of blocks in a pretend play activity. You can tell the child that you are making a fence for animal figures or a house for doll figures. They might join in and help you build the line of blocks. If not, invite them! When you are making a line of blocks the goal is to make the blocks touch but not knock over or push blocks when setting them up. You also want to make sure there isn’t too much space in between the blocks or if the blocks don’t line up in a straight line. This is a great fine motor coordination activity and wonderful floor play.
The block line is horizontal on the floor and there is not height to the line of blocks.
Step 2- Stacking blocks: After you place blocks in a line you can work on stacking one block on top of another block. When you move to stacking two blocks, you have a few other components happening that require more developmental progression of fine motor and visual motor skills:
Grasp pattern and type on the block- As grasp is developed, you’ll see more precision and dexterity meaning more complex block designs and stacking.
Thumb web space which is needed for precision in grasp and release. If you see a child holding the block with a closed web space and little precision in the distal joints of the thumb and index fingers, you’ll see less graded precision in both placement and release of the fingers on the block.
Stable wrist needed for proximal support and distal mobility. When the wrist is in a flexed position, you don’t see as much dexterity and refined movements. The neutral wrist positioning with slight extension in the wrist is key.
Step 3- Make a block train. To move from a line of blocks to creating a block wall in progression, we can ask the child to copy a block train. This is a combination of a line of blocks with two stacked blocks to create the stack of the train. Typically, you’ll want to do this step after stacking two blocks because of the combination of skills.
Step 4- Begin stacking blocks. After you have a block train, you can create higher and higher stacks of blocks. The more blocks you add to the stack, the more precision skills and graded release of the hands (arch development, grasp, eye hand coordination, and open thumb web space). More blocks require more precision, because of the placement of the blocks on a higher stack of blocks. If the wrist isn’t stable or the distal joints of the fingers aren’t mobile, you’ll see less precision in placement.
Step 5- Make a block wall. For this stage you want to stack up two or more lines of blocks to make a wall. Start with just two levels and work up from there. You can tell the child that you are making a wall for a castle or a house. The goal here is to stack the blocks with precision to place the blocks on top of one another and not over placing the block so that it’s not stacked up on the bloc below it. You also want to make sure their blocks are not going over the edge so that you end up with a leaning wall. This can be more challenging for little ones, especially when it comes to precision in placing the block and in graded release of the block in its place in the wall.
Step 6- Make a block pyramid. For this stage of stacking blocks milestones this stage requires more complex fine motor precision and visual motor skills. There is a combination of placement of the blog in a line with aligning blocks to the one beside it as well as on top of the block below it in the stack. Additionally, there is placement of the blocks with shift to create steps on each side of the block pyramid.
From here, we can create higher and higher block pyramids.
Activities to Reach Stacking Blocks Milestones
So, now that you know the ages that kids can typically stack blocks, let’s talk about how to support these skills with different block activities.
We love using alphabet blocks because you can incorporate different areas of learning like letter identification, form constancy (different letter fonts are on the different sides of the blocks), and handwriting.
A baby can hold blocks to work on grasp and release.
This Radial Palmer Grasp of wooden block is a beginning grasp in toddlers.
After a radial palmer grasp, children progress to using a Digital Palmer Grasp of a Wooden Block. When children progress in development is the digital palmer grasp of holding a block, fine motor skill development speeds up fast. By holding a block with the pads of the thumb and pointer and middle fingers, kids are working on the in-hand manipulation skills they will need for manipulating a pencil. Make it fun while working on this area: Spin the block around with the tips of the fingers.
How does rotation in the hand help with functional skills? You need simple and complex rotation to complete these tasks:
Rotating a pencil when re-positioning while writing
Opening a toothpaste lid
Turning a paper clip
Turning knobs
Rotating the dial of a combination lock
Use colored blocks in block stacking games in OT sessions.
Block Stacking Games
Now that you’ve read through the benefits of playing with blocks, and the stacking block milestones that impact fine motor skills in children, let’s cover ways to play with blocks while building these essential skills.
While stacking blocks and knocking them down are a fantastic way to help small children build essential skills, there are so many more ways to play with blocks, too.
These block stacking games and block activities can be used for fun block ideas while building skills at home or in occupational therapy sessions.
With my toddler, we used the blocks to build small towers. So, how can you make this a fun activity? Usually, just playing with your kiddo and showing them how to build a tower and knock down a tower makes building with blocks fun at this age.
These Alphabet blocks are great for working on rotation of the fingers. Have your child look for specific shapes and letters on the sides of the blocks.
3. Add small toys like animal figures. Have the animals walk up and down the block steps.
4. Add play dough. Have the child create “mortar” using the play dough between each block.
5. Create a train track and push coins around a masking tape track.
6. Build a wall to divide animal figures into a miniature zoo.
7. Build a small bridge for small doll or animal figures.
8. Build a pyramid and place a coin on each level.
9. Sort the blocks into piles according to shape or color. Create patterns with colors or shapes. Make lines of the blocks and see which line has the most.
10. Build blocks in water. Use foam blocks or plastic blocks in a low tray of water. How does the water impact stacking? Can you add soap foam? What happens then? There is so much cause-and-effect happening with water and block play! Here you can see how we used water and foam blocks for fine motor skills.
Let your child use their imagination! The best thing about blocks are the open ended-ness that happens when playing. You can create houses, roads, animals, and any imaginative scene possible with just a set of blocks!
Copying Block Designs in Occupational Therapy
Beyond the fine motor skills listed above, there are visual motor skills that develop as well. This was covered briefly above, but to expand, copying block designs in occupational therapy is a skill that builds visual motor and visual perceptual skills needed for handwriting, reading, math, finding items like a utensil in a drawer, and so much more.
When children copy block designs, occupational therapists are working on areas such as spatial awareness, visual discrimination, visual attention, visual sequential memory, visual memory, form constancy, position in space, and other areas.
From top right and going clock-wise: 3 block pyramid or bridge, wall, pyramid, steps, and train.
You can also include the colored blocks to work on skills.
Copying specific shapes works on the eye-hand coordination, grasp, precision, and visual perceptual skills needed for functional tasks like handwriting, cutting with scissors, manipulating small items, managing clothing fasteners, and tying shoes, among so many other tasks.
To make copying shapes with blocks fun, try these ideas:
Build a block design alongside the child.
2. Build a block design using only one color of blocks.
3. Build a block design and then cover it with a small dishtowel. Can the child remember the design and build the same design?
4. Build a design and describe the blocks positions. Is one color on top or next to another? Use positioning words like next to, above, below, beside, to the left, to the right, etc.
5. Build bridge block designs and use small figures to cross the bridges.
6. Use different types of blocks. Try using LEGO, duplo blocks, rock blocks, or other three dimensional shapes. The part to focus on is coping forms in the three dimensional aspect, regarding position in space. There are so many different types of blocks on the market that work well for developing these skills.
7. Try building a small block form and then drawing it on paper.
8. Play “What’s Missing”. Build a block design and ask the child to look at the design for 20 seconds. Then, cover the design with a small dishtowel and remove one or more of the blocks. Can the child then look at the block design and figure out what is missing?
9. Make and build- Use colored paper to cut small squares that match the blocks you have in your set. Students can use the paper to “build” a two dimensional block design on paper or on the table top. Then, use real blocks to copy the paper design. This is an exercise in spatial concepts as students need to figure out any blocks that are out of view to hold up the block design.
10. Build block designs in a window or in a sunny place where the design creates a shadow. A flashlight or small lamp could also work as well. Then, place a piece of paper alongside the block design. Ask students to trace the shadow outline.
11. Create block forms that resemble real-life shapes, figures, and other relatable objects. Kids can copy block forms that resemble their favorite animals, people, and things like ice cream cones, presents, toys, vehicles, etc.
A Building Block Maze Activity focuses on gross motor skills and builds spatial awareness skills as well as body awareness and self-awareness to position in space.
This Building Tens Castles is a nice way to help preschool and kindergarten aged students with the concept of tens and place value as they group blocks into groups of tens.
This Word Family BINGO! challenges kindergarten and first grade students to build words by using blocks. It’s a hands-on learning activity that also develops visual perceptual skills, and visual scanning.
Letter matching with this Superhero Alphabet Matching Activity uses blocks to work on letter awareness, recognition, as well as visual perceptual skills.
This Sight Word ABCs with Blocks allows younger elementary school children to work on sight words as well as visual perceptual skills, eye-hand coordination, and motor planning.
For a gross motor activity that gets kids moving, use blocks to work on letters and sounds with this Letter Sound Scavenger Hunt.
Symmetrical awareness is a test of visual discrimination, form constancy, and visual memory. Work on symmetry with this Symmetry with Building Blocks activity.
This word building activity focuses on Building CVC words with Blocks and challenges children with visual perception and visual motor skills.
Working on visual attention, visual memory, and visual discrimination is easy with a block activity like this Making Patterns with Building Blocks idea.
How do you like to play with blocks? Have you tried working on fine motor skills using wooden blocks? Let us know!
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.
In this blog post, originally written on November 13, 2015 and updated on July 18, 2024, we are talking all about the benefits of playing with stickers. Occupational therapy providers love stickers as a fine motor tool! Let’s break down the benefits of sticker play with kids…
When you were a kid, did you have a sticker collection? Maybe it was a Trapper Keeper binder with paper, or maybe it was a sticker book with themed pages. Filling it’s pages were puffy stickers, scratch-and-sniff stickers, fuzzy stickers, and glossy glittery stickers.
Thinking back to those sticker collection can bring back memories of sticker trades. All you cared about back then was a complete collection of all the Care Bears or a page full of sticker-y rainbows.
But did you know that peeling all of those stickers has a bigger benefit that a full sticker book page?
Benefits of Playing with Stickers
Occupational therapy providers always have stickers on hand in their therapy toolbox and there’s a reason why…playing with stickers has many benefits!
Playing with stickers can help kids with so many skill areas! They can even be an Occupational Therapist’s secret weapon. School based occupational therapy providers love them for so many reasons. Pulling a fresh sheet of stickers from the OT’s treatment bag can bring on big smiles from kids of all ages. And the best news is, that the children don’t even realize they are working on important child developmental areas!
The Best Reasons to Play With Stickers
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When you see a sheet of stickers, what grabs your attention? Maybe it’s the brightest sticker on the sheet, or maybe it’s a special character. Whatever it is that brings you sticker joy, they all are great for developmental areas.
10 Reasons Why EVERY Kid Should Play With Stickers:
1. Neat Pincer Grasp. Stickers are a fine motor powerhouse. Peeling the sticky little pictures requires a neat pincer grasp in order to pull up the edge of a sticker from a sticker sheet. The very tips of the fingers are needed to grip such a small area. For some kids, grasping just the edge of a single sheet of paper is quite difficult. Working with stickers is a great way to practice neat pincer grasp for skills like picking up small beads, string, or a sewing needle.
Extend the skill: Work on pincer grasp by peeling stickers of different sizes. Smaller stickers will be more difficult to peel. Place stickers on strips of masking tape and other surfaces and and peel the stickers up. Then, work on grasp by placing the stickers down on different surfaces. Stick the stickers on paper taped to a wall to encourage an efficient wrist position.
2. Bilateral Coordination– It’s an essential skill for so many functional tasks. Zippering a coat, cutting with scissors, and handwriting are all activities that require bilateral hand coordination. Peeling stickers requires tow hands as you hold the sheet with one hand and peel with the dominant hand. Both hands are involved in the work and doing different tasks.
Extend the skill: Use stickers to work on bilateral hand coordination by using very large pieces of paper and very small sheets of paper.
3. Visual Scanning. Visual scanning is required for skills like reading, writing, searching for an item in a crowded room, and visually scanning the environment. Kids can scan a sticker sheet to peel off the sticker that they want.
Extend the skill: Position stickers all over a page. Ask the child to look for a specific sticker that you describe. They can connect stickers with a crayon, or cut the paper along a line stickers. Position stickers all over a wall and work on visual scanning on a large scale as they look for specific stickers. Add in a flashlight and have the child scan for stickers with the light.
4. Spatial Awareness. Difficulties with spatial awareness can make reading writing, and functioning in all daily tasks practically impossible. Kids may write with sloppy handwriting or have trouble with organizing their body in space. Use stickers as a visual cue for spatial awareness. Kids can see the sticker’s bright color and can use it as a visual cue for where to start writing on a page, how big to form letters, where to stop in the hallway of lockers, where to place folders in a desk, where to place coats in the closet. The use of stickers in this area are limitless!
Extend the activity: Position stickers on the left margin of a paper for kids who need help with writing. Stickers can provide a cue for letter size, too. Use stickers in a large scale maze by sticking them on chairs, walls, and floors. Kids can hop or jump over stickers or go around, and touch stickers while working on spatial awareness.
5. Sensory Exploration. Explore scents with scratch and sniff stickers. Discover textures of smooth, puffy, scratchy, and fuzzy stickers. Kids are very motivated by stickers, too. A sticker can be used as a reward for a child who touches a messy sensory bin or participates in difficult therapy treatment activities.
6. Handedness. Kids often times have trouble learning which hand is which. They will switch hands when writing and can put their shoes on the wrong feet. Use stickers as a visual cue in learning left from right both on their body and off. One sticker can be stuck to just one shoe to help a child learn to put their shoes on the correct feet. You can put a sticker on the top of a child’s coat to teach them which way is up.
Extend the activity: When practicing scissor skills, place a sticker on the side of the paper the child should hold.
7. Separation of the two sides of the hand. Using the thumb side of the hand while bending the pinkie side of the hand in stability defines separation of the two sides of the hand. This is needed for tripod grasp and in-hand manipulation as well as gross grasp and power grip hand strength. Use stickers to work on this by placing a sticker in the child’s palm. They can bend the pinkie, ring finger, and middle finger down to cover up the sticker while using the pointer finger and thumb in fine motor tasks.
Extend the activity: Place a small object like a cotton ball in the hand while using the thumb and pointer finger to pick up stickers.
Stack stickers in a pile by placing them on top of one another. Use a sticker on the tip of a pencil to show kids where to pinch the pencil when sing a tripod grasp.
8. Hand Strength. How can something as small as a sticker work on hand strength? Children need strength in the small muscles of their hands in order to have endurance in coloring, using an open web space when holding a pencil, and when managing buttons and snaps on clothing. Kids can use stickers to build the strength of the intrinsic hand muscles by peeling stickers from resistive surfaces.
Extend the activity: Place stickers on cloth like couches or carpeting and ask your child to unstick the stickers without ripping them. They will need to use the intrinsic muscles and defined arches of the hand to pull them up.
9. Body Awareness. Toddlers can work on naming their body parts by sticking stickers on feet, and other parts. Children with difficulty in sequencing might have trouble knowing if a sock or shoe goes on their feet first. Use stickers to help with organizing and positioning on the body.
Extend the activity: Place stickers on feet, hands, arms, and back. Ask your child to touch certain body parts in a specific order. Work on getting faster. Toddlers can practice naming body parts by trying to peel off a sticker stuck to their wrist as you say “wrist”.
10. Gross Motor Development. Crossing midline, jumping, hopping, skipping, and jumping jacks are gross motor tasks that can be difficult or some kids. Use stickers as a visual cue or obstacle in practicing these areas.
Extend the activity: Place stickers on each knee. Ask your child to touch the right knee’s sticker with their left hand and the left knee’s sticker with their right hand.
Stick stickers high on walls as they try to jump up to touch them with outstretched hands.
MORE reasons to play with stickers:
Literacy
organization
sequencing
problem solving
self-confidence
language development
mathematics
creativity
sense of accomplishment
stress reduction
goal setting
socializing
What are your favorite ways to play with stickers?
So, get your child involved with sticker collections to work on all of these developmental areas. And, you’ll get to relive your childhood with the scratch-and-sniff, fuzzy, hologram, puffy stickers!
Best Sticker Gifts for Kids
We also have some ideas for sticker toys and sticker gifts that support development of these skills in kids.
I found some very fun sticker activities out there that I wanted to share. Play with your child using these sticker activities as you work on 10+ functional areas:
Every kid needs a sticker collection book! This My Sticker Album has illustrated pages for sticker collections.
Need stickers to add to your collection book? The 1000 Stickers for Girls and 1000 Stickers for Boys should have you covered! (Although who says a truck sticker is just for boys? Nope! I would get both books for my kiddos!)
There are stickers for every theme, character, or interest out there. From Dinosaur Stickers, to Cupcake Stickers …there is something for everyone! (including the Care Bears fans out there!)
I love these Alphabet stickers for name building, letter identification, and spelling word practice.
What stickers do you need in your sticker collection?
You will love our recent 31 Days of Occupational Therapy series where we shared free and almost free ways to work on Occupational Therapy goal areas. This post is a great way to work on functional skills using free or inexpensive items. Most of us have a couple of stickers around the house. Some of my favorite activities from the series include:
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:
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 is a fun activity we did many years ago, and I keep coming back to it. Using soap shavings as a fine motor tool can open the door to motor planning, bilateral coordination, and functional experiences for kids. At The OT Toolbox, we believe in hands-on activities that promote fine motor skills, sensory exploration, and creativity. As pediatric OTs, we know the power of using crafts to support development so this soap shavings craft is a great way to encourage these skills while making something functional and fun. Every parent, teacher, and therapist can benefit from having a collection of soap craft ideas to incorporate into play and learning.
The cool thing about using a vegetable peeler on a bar of soap is that you can use the soap shavings projects to make wax paper bookmarks to other creative soap crafts, and at the same time, you are supporting the development of functional life skills cooking tasks by using the vegetable peeler. If you’re looking for an easy bookmark craft, this simple yet effective activity is a great way to build skills while creating something useful.
Wax Paper Bookmarks
Today I wanted to share a fun kids craft that supports life skill development: using an iron and ironing board. To make the soap shavings, we also used a vegetable peeler, so this is a great way to incorporate fine motor skills into kitchen tasks needed for using kitchen items like the vegetable peeler. We also worked on a few different skills with this craft: cutting with scissors, fine motor skills, bilateral coordination, and executive functioning. Be sure to check out our music bookmark craft as well.
Soap Shavings Bookmark Craft
Today we are incredibly excited to share this Soap Shavings Bookmark craft with you!
Kids can get creative in their crafting using soap and a few materials from around the house. We made these soap shaving bookmarks and had a blast creating!
This soap craft is as beautiful as it is simple. Kids will love to use a vegetable peeler on bars of soap to create soap shavings.
Here are the steps to make this soap shaving bookmark craft:
To make the bookmarks, lay a sheet of wax paper out on a hard surface like a cookie sheet or cutting board.
Using a bar of soap to practice using a vegetable peeler is a great beginner step for kids learning to use kitchen tools, because the soap peels shavings much easier than an apple skin peels away from the apple.
2. Show your child how to grasp a bar of soap and using hand-over-hand guidance, help your child to slowly peel shavings from the bar of soap. Encourage them to peel away from their body for safety.
This is important when teaching kids how to peel a potato or an apple, as well, so it’s great practice!
3. Peel long strips of soap and small shavings, mixing the colors of the different bars of soap on the wax paper. Managing the vegetable peeler and the soap is a great way to encourage bilateral hand coordination (the use of two hands together in a coordinated manner).
Children need bilateral hand coordination for functional skills like cutting with scissors, handwriting, tying shoes, and managing clothing fasteners. An activity like using a vegetable peeler on a soft bar of soap is a great way to work on using tow hands together effectively with a non-dominant assisting hand and a dominant hand with fluid and controlled motions.
4. Arrange the soap peelings on the wax paper and place the second piece of wax paper on top.
5. Carefully move the wax paper to an ironing board.
6. Place a dishtowel over the wax paper and using an iron heated to medium, slowly press down. The soap will slightly melt and flatten under the heat.
7. Check often to see if the wax paper is adhering. You can remove the dish towel and carefully heat the edges of the wax paper.
8. Cut the wax paper into rectangular book marks.
9. Punch a hole near the top of the book marks using the hole puncher.
10. Tie a piece of ribbon in the hole. This bookmark will smell great and would make a lovely gift!
*Note: This craft should be done under close supervision of an adult. Be careful with the use of a vegetable peeler with small children. For younger children, provide hand-over-hand assistance with the vegetable peeler. Adults may want to complete the peeling portion of this soap craft. Adults or responsible older children should manage the iron. As always, use judgement when it comes to completing this and any activity with your kids.
Using the vegetable peeler and an iron to make our soap shaving bookmark makes working on IADLs fun and engaging. Life skills tasks like cooking is an essential Instrumental Activity of Daily Living that occupational therapy professionals address.
Alternate activities:
Vary the scents and colors of your bookmarks with various soaps.
Add a personal message or quote to the bookmarks.
Add flower petals or scraps of paper to the soap shavings before ironing.
Arrange the soap shavings in a mosaic or mandala pattern.
Using a vegetable peeler to proactive the bilateral coordination and motor planning needed for peeling vegetables is a good way to grade down the activity because of the soft texture of the soap.
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.
We made this racoon craft many moons ago, when my oldest was in second grade. She’s now a sophomore in high school, and I have to say that those years went by like a flash. This post was originally written in October, 2015 and I’m just updating it now with some tips about how to use the racoon craft to support fine motor development. One thing is for certain; this fine motor math craft still remains as cute as it did all those years ago!
This is a clothespin activity that supports development of many areas of motor skills AND learning regrouping in math!
Racoon Craft
I love that this racoon craft supports fine motor skills. Not only by making the craft, but by playing with the racoon clothes pin, there are some big fine motor benefits. Plus, it’s a fine motor STEM activity that kids seem to love.
There are so many benefits to using the clothes pin as a fine motor tool in math (and in kids crafts)!
For example, when manipulating clothes pins, fine motor contributions include:
We made a video that shows how manipulating and pinching clothes pins promotes grasp development. Check it out here:
In the video, we show how to use the clothes pins to work on pinch strength and grip strength. You can use your racoon clothespin craft to do these things!
Regrouping Math Activity
Second grade. They say it’s the old third grade in public schools. My second grader is our oldest, so I’ve no previous school years to compare the class work or curriculum to. We are plowing through the first few months of school though. We are well into a routine with schedules, homework, and have only missed the bus once. (This is our best year so far in that area!)
While my second grader might be doing the stuff that third graders used to do, she is a trooper. She works hard and she loves her teacher and her friends. I mean, she even comes home from a long day of school and PLAYS school with her siblings. While they have zero interest in regrouping addition problems, they are cooperative little students.
Raccoon Craft
This Raccoon craft made the perfect tool to practice a math skill with my second grader: Regrouping Double Digit Addition Problems. It was a fun craft to make alongside my daughter and turned out to be a pretty fun second grade craft, too!
What is Regrouping Double Digit Addition?
So, we actually did a regrouping activity last year when my little future teacher was in first grade. That activity was about regrouping single digits in addition. Now, a whole year later, we’re regrouping double digits and feel like big shots. Ok, not really. But it IS a whole other column of numbers that we are adding, here!
Now, I’ve said it before. I am not a teacher by trade. In fact, I’m an Occupational Therapist. So I don’t have a huge understanding of teaching techniques or educational standards and the like. But, I do have the motivation that only a mom has when it comes to making homework fun, and easy. I am so over pulling teeth to get homework done. Let’s do a creative and playful activity to build on school-found skills and I’m good. And really, when we pull in my OT-ness to the play and fun, it’s even better. Fine motor skills, here we come!
Ok, ok back to what is regrouping question.
Essentially, regrouping in math is borrowing or carrying a digit to aide in a math operation. In addition, digits from the ones column are added to the tens column to add single or double digits.
My second grader is adding double digit numbers. When the ones column of those double digits add up to more than 9, there is another tens to add to the tens column.
Regrouping in Math Activity
Now, to practice regrouping double digit addition problems, you could do page after page of worksheets. But if your kiddo is like mine (and any other kid out there), that will not go over well. We made this sneaky little raccoon clothes pin craft to practice regrouping in math practice.
It’s a pretty easy craft that your second grader will love to try. You’ll need just a few materials: (These are affiliate links.)
Start by cutting a strip of newspaper to fit on the front of the clothes pin.
You’ll also want to cut a small circle for the raccoon’s head, and a tail-ish shape.
Glue the newspaper strip to the front of the clothes pin.
From the black cardstock, cut small strips to make the raccoon’s eye mask, tow triangle ears, and stripes for the tail.
Glue all of these paper pieces into place.
Add the googly eyes and draw on a cute little smile. That raccoon is done and ready to help with regrouping.
Regrouping Raccoon and Double Digit Addition
We decided that since raccoons are pretty sneaky and sometimes steal garbage from trash cans, that our Regrouping Raccoon would be the perfect buddy for stealing numbers from the ones column and placing them over in the tens column. We practiced with a problem or two and added up the ones column. If the total had 10 or more, than that sneaky little raccoon helped us move the ten over to the tens column. Fun, right?
Now, grab a sheet of regrouping addition problems. We used a homework page, but you could just write out problems on a piece of paper.
As my daughter did the double digit math problems, I had her clip the raccoon onto the edge of the paper if it was a regrouping problem. For the problems that did not require regrouping, we just left the raccoon in place.
We ended up making a few more raccoon pinch clothes pins and had a family of raccoons!
We have a few other resources that might help as well. These are free tools you can find on The OT Toolbox and all three include free downloads. These would go great with our racoon craft activity!
Use the forest sensory path with our racoon craft to support self regulation needs.
And, use our forest animal puzzles to work on scissor skills and visual motor skills.
I hope the racoon craft and all of the tips in this activity supports development! Have 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.
Welcome to a winter wonderland on the farm! In today’s blog post, we’re diving into the magical world of sensory play with a snowy farm sensory bin. This delightful activity combines the charm of a farm theme with the sensory joys of winter, creating an engaging and therapeutic experience for children. This is one of our favorite winter sensory bins because you can focus on so many different underlying skills through play.
Whether you’re a parent looking for creative winter activities or a therapist seeking effective tools for skill development, this farm sensory bin is tailored to captivate young minds while addressing various therapeutic areas. Read all about sensory bins in general as a therapy tool to support skill development.
Farm Sensory Bin
We love a great occupational therapy sensory activity because cold winter temps and less daylight hours mean you might not have a chance to get little ones outside as often as you might like. Plus, a farm sensory bin goes great with a Farm theme in preschool or in occupational therapy sessions.
This farm sensory bin has a winter theme, but you could actually set up a farm sensory bin any time of year. In fact, we loved this play dough farm activity that goes along with a farm theme and supports fine motor skills as well as sensory input.
The base of shredded paper sets the stage for a snowy landscape, providing a tactile experience that stimulates sensory exploration and fine motor skills.
This winter-themed sensory bin features a collection of farm toys and mini figures, turning the snowy setting into a farm scene ready for imaginative play.
Farm Animal Sensory Bin
The farm animal sensory bin takes the excitement a step further, introducing miniature figures of beloved farm animals. As children dive into the bin, they engage in hands-on exploration, feeling the textures of the shredded paper, maneuvering the farm toys, and creating their own farm stories.
This sensory-rich experience enhances tactile input, encouraging self-confidence as children express themselves through play.
Farm Theme Sensory Bin Setup
Setting up the farm theme sensory bin is a breeze:
Begin with a large container filled with shredded paper to create a snowy base. You could also use other sensory bin base materials if you don’t have shredded paper on hand.
Add farm toys such as barns, tractors, and mini figures of animals to bring the farm to life.
Encourage creativity by incorporating small props like faux trees or fences. This simple yet effective setup provides a canvas for endless imaginative scenarios.
Before this weekend, we’ve had a super cool spring. With a handful of days where it snowed. We are ready for outside play in short sleeves, running in the yard, and grass stained knees.
But, we have been loving this fun play activity too 🙂
We had a boat load of shredded paper from doing taxes recently. It came in pretty handy for a small world snowy farm scene!
We put some farm animals, the Little People barn, and of course, Little Guy’s construction vehicles.
(how else can the farmer move allll that snow??)
Little Guy went to farm-town with imagination stories and pretend play.
Baby Girl loves to make the animal sounds and had a blast finding them in the shredded paper.
Why This Farm Sensory Bin Helps Development
Beyond simply playing in the sensory bin, this farm sensory bin serves as a therapeutic tool to foster development in various areas.
Mindfulness- playing in a sensory bin can be calming and regulating for kids. Read about Winter Mindfulness Activities for more information.
So much more
Fine motor skills are particularly important in early childhood development, as they lay the foundation for more complex tasks in the future.
Tactile discrimination, exploration, and sensory desensitization are effectively addressed with sensory bins as they are playful and present in a non-threatening way. The playful nature of sensory bins allows children to control their tactile experiences, fostering confidence in their interactions with materials and gradually increasing their comfort with different sensations.
The hands-on nature of the activity promotes fine motor skills as children manipulate the farm toys and engage with the sensory materials. Communication skills blossom as they create farm narratives, fostering language development.
In addition, occupational therapy providers love sensory bins because they can offer a unique and enjoyable way to engage reluctant children who may initially be hesitant about engaging in the sensory elements of tactile defensiveness challenges.
Tactile input and sensory exploration contribute to a holistic sensory experience, supporting overall sensory processing.
My fun-loving Baby Girl instigated this little incident…
she just couldn’t help herself 🙂
What are we learning through play?
Imagination Play
Pretend Play
Learning Animals
Animal Sounds
Visual Scanning
Sensory Play
Farm Sensory Bin Ideas
You can pair this farm sensory bin with other therapy ideas, too. Use some of these tools and resources to support skills like gross motor skills, coordination, brain breaks, and more:
These Farm Brain Breaks can add movement and gross motor input to a child’s day and fit in great with a farm animal theme. Print off the cards and use them in the classroom or home.
These heavy work cards includes a set of 8 farm themed heavy work activities that can be used as a brain break or added proprioceptive input.
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.
Kids and occupational therapists alike will love this hand strengthening activity for kids. It’s a powerful way to build finger strength and increase grip strength using everyday materials. This fine motor activity is an old one…it’s one that we came up with years ago here on the website. It’s fun to look back at this super easy rubber band activity because the hand strengthening activity is not just fun, but it’s a great therapy tool, too.
Rubber Band Activity
This rubber band activity is a no-prep activity that you can pull out on a rainy day, while waiting at a restaurant, or when the kids are itching for something different to do. This building activity is a fun STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math) activity that can be modified to meet the needs and interests of your kiddo.
I pulled this rubber band activity out one day when a little niece and nephew were over, and he loved building with something that was a little different than typical building blocks.
A handful of rubber bands in different sizes. And that’s it!
How to set up this rubber band activity:
Creating a strengthening play activity or an opportunity for data collection using a specific number of repetitions with a rubber band exercise program is easy with just this one activity.
You can create an open-ended play activity by simply offering a box of Jenga blocks and a bag of rubber bands and asking the child to build anything. This provides an opportunity for creative expression and problem solving.
Or, you can set up an exercise program using a specific number of rubber bands and blocks and asking the child to complete certain exercises. (Read about these at the bottom of the blog post).
Show your kids how to wrap the rubber bands around the wooden blocks in different ways. Let them get creative with building and creating.
Finger Strength
My little nephew was so excited when I showed him this. Cool Aunt status! He sat and built creations for a long time. And watching those little hands building and working was fun for me! Manipulating the rubber bands is such a fine motor workout for kids. Intrinsic hand muscles are needed for so many functional tasks.
Hand and Grip Strength
When kids have a functional finger strength levels, they are able to write and color with endurance. They are able to manipulate small items. Finger strength looks like the ability to open and close plastic baggies and other meal containers at lunch time in the school lunch room. It looks like the ability to manipulate clothing fasteners like buttons, snaps, and even the buckle on a car seat.
Finger strength can be tested to see if grip and pinch strength are at typical levels for the child’s age, but if you are noticing that activities the child should be accomplishing like managing items is hard, you can look into hand strengthening and grip strength exercises in more depth.
More signs of hand weakness include:
Kids with weakness in their hands may have difficulty with coloring and complain that it hurts to color large areas.
You might see them color or write using their whole arm instead of just their wrist and fingers.
Hand weakness may be indicated by difficulty cutting a smooth line with scissors. Rather, you’ll see jagged snips.
Kids with hand weakness might have trouble managing a zipper or pushing a button through a button hole.
Weakness of the hand is indicated by a poor pencil grasp. Kids with intrinsic muscle weakness will write with a closed thumb web space and will use their thumb to stabilize the pencil.
And then, you’ll see poor hand writing.
Hand weakness is indicated by light pencil pressure that is almost illegible, or very light coloring.
Difficulty with manipulating small items and using in-hand manipulation in managing small parts.
Trouble with grasping tools like utensils. scissors, scoops, tweezers, and eye droppers.
Difficulty manipulating and grasping small toys.
Grip exercises for kIds
We know that kids primary occupation is play, right? Kids learn and develop skills through play! So when it comes to strengthening hands, improving grip strength, forearm strength, and pinch strength, the key is to use games and play!
Some other ways that are perfect for hand strengthening are toys and games that are typically recommended by Occupational Therapists. These are some of my favorites:
Toys and Ideas for Working on Hand Strengthening for Kids
Squeezing water bottles to water plants.
Therapy Putty or play dough. Roll the dough into small balls.
Tear paper.
Crumble small squares of tissue paper.
Cut cardstock.
clothes pins to match colors in games and learning activities
Squirt toys like these Munchkin Five Sea Squirts to aim at targets in the bathtub, sink, or plastic bins.
Small blocks such as LEGOs are perfect for strengthening the intrinsic muscles, with their resistance needed to push them together and pull them apart. The position hands need to be in to work LEGOS is perfect for strengthening the muscles in the hand.
Squeeze a hole punch to create lines of holes along an edge of paper.
Eye Droppers and Tweezers are a fun way to explore sensory play while working on fine motor skills.
A squeeze toy like this Squishy Mesh Ball is great for hand strengthening and a fun fidget too.
More grip strength activities that you will enjoy:
The rubber band hand exercises in this activity post are play-based. This means that you can set up an open-ended activity in an occupational therapy session by offering a tray of blocks and rubber bands. You can ask the student or OT client to just build whatever comes to mind.
Ask the child to create structures, build creative items like animals, figures, or anything that comes to their mind.
2. You could also challenge them to create a structure with the blocks and rubber bands using a certain number of items, like 10 building blocks and 10 rubber bands. Ask them how high they can build a structure or if they can build a structure that doesn’t fall over with that number of materials.
Both of these hand exercises are play-based and open-ended, but they are great fine motor STEM activities.
To make the rubber band hand exercises more quantitative, ask the user to use a specific number of rubber bands and blocks. Ask them to wrap 3 rubber bands around each block. When you ask a student to complete this, they are stretching out the extensor muscles of the hands to extend the rubber band around the block.
And, when they pinch and pull the rubber band, the flexors and muscles of the palm of the hand, or the intrinsic muscles, are active. These facilitate strong and refined arch development for endurance in fine motor tasks.
You can grade these rubber band strength exercises in several ways.
Grade the activity harder, or make the exercise more difficult by:
Increasing the number of rubber bands (increase the repetitions)
Increase the number of blocks that the user needs to wrap the rubber bands around (increase the pull and resistance of the rubber bands)
Increase the number of blocks that need to be wrapped with rubber bands (increase the repetitions)
Decrease the size of the rubber band or increase the size of the block (increase the resistance of the band on the muscles)
You can grade the activity down, or make it easier for other users by:
Decreasing the number of rubber bands (lower the number of repetitions)
Decrease the number of blocks that the user needs to wrap the rubber bands around (decrease the pull and resistance of the rubber bands)
Decrease the number of blocks that need to be wrapped with rubber bands (lower the repetitions)
Increase the size of the rubber band or decrease the size of the block (decrease the resistance of the band on the muscles)
Note that when you grade the activity down, you can also increase the overall number of repetitions, which can be beneficial for improving strength and endurance. In this case, you should note the number of repetitions that are completed, because doing the exercises each day with increasing repetitions builds muscle memory and endurance.
These rubber band exercise ideas are similar to a hand gripper workout, only they are play-based. Both offer resistance to the extrinsic flexors and extensors as well as intrinsic muscles.
Hand Exercises with Rubber Bands
Keeping in mind the ability to grade the exercises up or down depending on the unique needs of the individual, you can run through specific hand exercises with rubber bands. Include these rubber hand strengthening exercises in your documentation:
Wrap one rubber band around a block twice (increase or decrease the number of bands)
Wrap a rubber bad around the block lengthwise.
Wrap a rubber band around two blocks to connect the blocks.
Take the block creations apart when completed.
All of these fine motor pinch and grip strength exercises using rubber bands are a hit with kids and occupational therapy providers. You’ll find more ideas in our fine motor kits.
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:
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.
Today we have a tissue paper crumpling activity (or paper crumbling!) that builds many fine motor skills, including hand strength. In this easy tissue paper fine motor activity, we are working on pinching and crumbling paper is an excellent fine motor exercise for children. It is an activity that works the small muscles of the hand and really strengthens the arches of the hands.
There are many fine motor benefits of crumpling paper into small pieces!
Paper Crumpling
Paper crumpling (or paper crumbling) is a great way to play with paper that builds fine motor skills in the hands.
If a child has weak muscles in their hands and the arches are not defined, you may see them holding a pencil or small items between their thumb and the side of their index finger. The arches of their hand may not be defined and nice and round. You may also see them holding their hands close to their chest as they attempt to gain stabilization of their arms to do the small motor task.
To really work those muscles, you could have your child first tear the bits of tissue paper before they crumble them up.
Defined arches are very important in shoe tying, handwriting, and managing clothing like buttons and snaps.
You can see how to incorporate tearing paper into this activity using the video below. Towards the end of the video, you’ll see ways to build fine motor strength and finger dexterity using crumbled paper pieces. The tissue paper squares that we are using in our activity today can be used like shown in the video for more finger strengthening exercises.
Working on fine motor skill development through play supports functional tasks, plus it’s fun!
Paper Crumpling Activity
We came up with this tissue paper crumbling activity many years ago, and it still stands as a great way to work on skills:
We’ve talked about the benefits of tearing paper before, and this activity expands on the skills a bit, because after you tear the tissue paper, you can have your student crumble the paper and then push it into the mouth of a water bottle.
While this is a really simple fine motor activity, it’s great because you build so many skills, and kids typically enjoy this simple task.
Tissue Paper Crumbling Activity
For this activity, you really can use items you have on hand. We used empty plastic water bottles, and colorful tissue paper squares.
Cut tissue paper into small squares.
Remove labels from plastic water bottles.
To increase the fine motor work, you could have the student rip pieces of the tissue paper to really increase grip strength work.
Ask the student to take one piece of tissue paper, and crumble it up with their finger tips.
Then, they should push the crumpled tissue paper into the empty water bottle.
You can make this activity a game by asking them to roll a dice and place that many squares of tissue paper into the bottle. Or you could have them sort colors by filling each water bottle with a single color.
This was an easy and fun little activity to throw together.
We have a bunch of little tissue paper squares in our craft supplies. Put them next to a couple of empty plastic bottles, and the kids know what to do!
Pushing the tissue paper into the spout of the water bottle is great for encouraging a tripod grasp (using the thumb, index, and middle finger).
Holding the bottle with the non-dominant hand allows the child to work on their bilateral hand coordination (using both hands together in a coordinated manner…kids need this when they begin shoe tying and managing the zipper on their coat).
When you ask kids to crumble paper using just the tips of their fingers, you really isolate thumb IP joint flexion as they bend the tips of the fingers. This is needed for dexterity and precision skills in functional tasks such as writing with a pencil.
…And everyone loved the cool crunchy sound the bottle made when you squashed it!
There are so many ways to build skills with this simple tissue paper crumpling activity!
More fine motor fun…
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:
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.
to stick and re-stick stickers.
should have you covered! (Although who says a truck sticker is just for boys? Nope! I would get both books for my kiddos!) 
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…there is something for everyone! 
fans out there!) 
for name building, letter identification, and spelling word practice.
