This Christmas Suncatcher craft has been something we’ve been thinking about for a while. This Christmas craft for kids is a fun one to add to your holiday line-up. With the sun streaming in through the dining room window, it’s the perfect place for sun catchers. And this Christmas themed craft is the perfect addition to our big dining room window. We went a little crazy with the sequins on this craft. Our Christmas suncatcher craft is very sparkly, and just right for the season! Big Sister loved making this project and the fine motor work involved was just right for her age.
Christmas Tree Sun Catcher
This Christmas fine motor activity is a fun craft for working on specific fine motor skills such as pincer grasp, in-hand manipulation, and precision, including distal mobility. While we used sequins for our Christmas tree suncatcher, you could use practically any crafting material, from tissue paper, to foam stickers, to pressed flowers or pine needles. Use your imagination and make it an open-ended craft for the kids.
How pretty are these sequins?? LOVE the colors and sparkles in this Christmas craft!
I cut two triangles of Clear Contact Paper, just slightly smaller than the green triangles. Big Sister started placing the sequins on the contact paper.
This was such a great fine motor activity for that Neat Pincer Grasp. To pick up the sequins from the table surface and place them onto the contact paper requires tip to tip grasp of the index finger and thumb. All of those sequins was a great workout! She did a ton of them, but we ended up sprinkling even more sequins on to the contact paper to give our sun catcher a REALLY sparkly look.
Next came Big Sister’s favorite part. Do all Kindergarteners love tape as much as she does? This girl loooooooves tape! We stuck the two pieces of contact paper together to sandwich the sequins in the middle. Then we taped the contact paper onto on of the green triangles.
A little glue held the top triangle in place and our sun catcher was complete! Let us know if you do this craft. We love to see our projects come to life with your kids!
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 tag craft we made one year after making Christmas tree art with homemade stamps. I love these homemade gift tags that the kids made last year, and so did everyone on our Christmas shopping list! The process to make the personalized bag tags is super easy, and once the Christmas tree stamps are done, it’s an exercise in scissor skills, too. When the gift tags are made by kids, they are extra special. The fun part about these Christmas Tree Stamps are that you can use them for so many things besides gift tags: wrapping paper, Christmas art, or just for fun!
Tag Craft
This tag craft starts with Christmas tree stamps, and is one of a series of toilet paper art activities we did. First, we made the Christmas Tree toilet paper stamps as shown below. Then, once they dried, my kids cut out the Christmas trees and we turned them into holiday tags!
You’ll need just a few materials to make this tag craft.
This post contains affiliate links.
To make your gift tags, you’ll need a few supplies:
When children make these Christmas tree name tags, they are also building fine motor skills.
Christmas Tree Name Tags
To start out, bend your paper tube into a triangle shape. Dip it into a plate of green poster paint. Stamp this onto the paper in rows.
Next, use the cotton swabs to stamp red paint onto the Christmas trees. You can dab ornaments onto the trees or paint garland with the red paint. …or color the whole tree red, like Little Guy did. It’s creative expression, here!
This is a great way to work on tripod grasp with the cotton swab. It’s also an exercise in separation of the sides of the hand, and eye-hand coordination.
Cut the cotton swab into a smaller piece to really work on hand strength and tripod grasp.
We used the brown paint to paint little trunks on each tree. This part of the craft is a great way to sneak in some fine motor skills. Work on pre-handwriting skills with the cotton swab by encouraging a tripod grasp, neutral or extended wrist, and pinkie and ring fingers tucked up into the palm for support. This is a fun way to encourage an appropriate grasp on writing utensils.
Make Christmas tree name tags using the tree stamps.
Next allow the Christmas tree stamps to dry overnight or for several hours. Admire the cuteness.
Cut tag shapes from the crafting paper. Punch a hole at the top and strengthen it with hole reinforcement stickers. Cut the Christmas trees from the white paper with a little edge. Glue onto tags. I threaded the tags onto ribbon with help from Big Sister. This part is a little difficult for younger kids, but older children can assist.
We used a variety of ribbon types to package up our gifts. The Gift tags made the presents!
Let us know if you make these gift tags, or Christmas Tree stamps this season. We would love to see them!
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.
Turkey Activities are the theme here today, and boy, do I have some fun turkey themed ways to play and help kids build skills! Check out the Thanksgiving occupational therapy activities and different ideas listed below for fun Turkey activities to keep the kiddos occupied up through Thanksgiving! Some of these may be just the craft or activity you are looking for to help children develop fine motor skills or visual motor skills. Need a turkey craft for a play date or preschool party? How about an easy little activity on Thanksgiving while the dinner is cooking? So many options here for turkey inspired fun!
Turkey Activities
Be sure to stop by the following pages first, and fill your toolbox with turkey themed activities:
If you are looking for quick turkey crafts to use in teletherapy or in the classroom or home, check out these quick and easy turkey crafts.
You’ll also love this turkey slide deck for teletherapy or distance learning. It’s a free interactive slide deck with a Thanksgiving theme.
And, this turkey mindfulness activity is a free printable that you can use with kids to help them discover the benefits of deep breathing as a coping mechanism for self-regulation.
Plus, recently added to The OT Toolbox shop is this Thanksgiving Fine Motor Kit. It’s loaded with fine motor activities, scissor skills activities, handwriting activities, pencil control cards, lacing cards, glue activities, and much more…all with a turkey and Thanksgiving theme.
Turkey Activities for Kids
1. Fine Motor Turkey for Tots from Twodaloo (website no longer exists) Work on fine motor skills including pincer grasp and an extended wrist to create bead feathers. Try this turkey activity with play dough, spaghetti noodles, and beads.
2. Turkey Felt Board Matching from Teach Beside Me helps with visual discrimination, scanning, and eye-hand coordination.
4. Pine Cone Turkey Place Cards from Homegrown Friends can help kids with tactile sensory exploration and direction following.
5. Turkey Tissue Paper By Number Craft by Crayon Box Chronicles (website no longer exists)- Crumble tissue paper to work on fine motor skills and hand strength.
6. Thanksgiving Turkey Play Dough from Fantastic Fun and Learning uses play dough to build hand strength and fine motor endurance, as well as precision and tripod grasp.
7. Fine Motor Turkey Craft is a great way to work on scissor skills, pincer grasp, tripod grasp, and eye-hand coordination.
9. Our printable Thankful Turkey Templates are turkey crafts you can modify based on the individual’s skills and abilities. Plus, it includes a thankful turkey craft, too to help with handwriting.
10. Handmade Turkey Puzzle from KCEdventures is a fun way to work on visual discrimination, visual memory, and other visual perceptual skills.
11. Recycled Paper Roll Turkey Stamp Craft is one of our favorite turkey crafts that doubles as turkey art! Work on eye-hand coordination with a preschool turkey craft the kiddos will love.
12. Turkey Print Crafts from House of Burke is another fun preschool turkey art activity that is great for the younger age range.
13. Turkey Cardboard Tube Juicebox Cover is one of our favorite ways to work on fine motor skill, oral motor skills, and oral sensory processing. Use proprioception as a calming and organizing tool for kids with this cute turkey activity.
14. Soda Bottle Turkey from Stir The Wonder helps children develop fine motor skills and bilateral coordination as well as eye-hand coordination with turkey fun.
16. Clothespin Feathers Turkey from Stir The Wonder develops hand strength arch development, separation of the sides of the hand, and more.
17. Turkey Fine Motor Craft and Activity from Fantastic Fun and Learning is a fine motor powerhouse with cute results in this Thanksgiving activity that would look great at the kids Thanksgiving table!
19. Thanksgiving Turkey Silverware Napkin Ring is my personal favorite for a turkey activity that helps kids build fine motor skills, including precision, tripod grasp, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, and more.
For even MORE turkey activities
Grab the new Thanksgiving fine motor kit. It’s a huge resource for occupational therapists, parents, and teachers looking to help kids develop fine motor skills, work on handwriting, scissor skills, cursive writing, letter formation, and so much more.
This 40 page digital file includes everything you need to help kids develop fine motor skills. The printable sheets are designed to work on themed Thanksgiving fine motor activities and can be used over and over again. Print off all of them or just the pages you need. With this Thanksgiving theme fine motor kit, children can develop the following areas:
Pencil control
Scissor skills
Hand strength
Pinch strength
Bilateral coordination
Eye-hand coordination
Visual motor skills
Handwriting and letter formation
Precision and dexterity
Separation of the sides of the hand
Coloring accuracy and endurance
Pre-writing line accuracy
Precision and dexterity
Pincer grasp
This festive Fall packet is designed to cover a variety of areas and skills. Toddlers can use the coloring and shape pages. Preschool children can work on pre-writing lines, cutting strips, coloring pages, I Spy activity, counting, fine motor pinch activities, lacing cards, and more. Kindergarten children can work on letter formation and copying skills along with the other fine motor activities. Elementary aged students can use all of the fine motor activities as well as the handwriting activities and lined writing pages.
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.
These toilet paper roll turkey stamps are a fun turkey craft that doubles as a fine motor activity and eye-hand coordination activity for kids. Use a recycled cardboard tube like a toilet paper roll or a paper towel roll to make a turkey stamp craft that kids will love. This toilet paper roll turkey craft becomes turkey art that is a different take on the typical toilet paper roll crafts that you normally see. This one uses a recycled cardboard tube to make a stamp!
Toilet Paper Roll Turkeys
This craft used a Recycled Toilet Paper Roll. We used a toilet paper roll, but a paper towel roll cut in half would work just as well. This craft started with a little prep work from mom, but nothing requiring too much work.
Paper Towel Roll Stamp Craft
You can use either a recycled toilet paper roll or a paper towel roll to make this turkey art. If you use a paper towel roll, you will need to cut it in half for easier stamping for children.
I started by bending on cardboard roll into a turkey body shape. The other roll was made into the feather stamp by cutting down the tube an inch and then snipping feathers.
Add a little paint into a tray and the craft is ready for creating!
Use the paper roll stamps to press into the paint and then stamp onto the paper. Big Sister first stamped the turkey bodies on the page and then added the feathers.
The red, orange, and yellow colors mixed together to make pretty turkey feathers!
Smoosh those colors together for pretty turkey wings!
We let our turkeys dry (loads of thick paint to let dry…) We love artwork loaded down with paint in our house 🙂
All they need are little beaks and eyes!
And done! Our Turkey Stamps are ready for Thanksgiving! Did you miss our other Paper Roll stamping crafts? Check them out:
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.
Turkey crafts are all around this time of year! This fun cardboard turkey is a great Thanksgiving activity that doubles as a therapy tool for kids. It is a juicebox cover, making it a fun way for kids to use their little cardboard turkey, but it also is a fine motor craft AND a way to help kids regulate by adding proprioceptive input through oral motor sensory input. We’ll get into more on this below.
Cardboard Turkey
While taking the time to run out and purchase craft materials can be difficult this time of year, and adding that extra expense isn’t always a possibility, using materials that you have on hand for kids crafts is the way to go. This cardboard turkey is a cardboard tube craft. We used a cut paper towel roll for the turkey craft and had some of the other materials in our craft closet.
For this cardboard turkey craft you’ll need just a few materials:
Amazon affiliate links included below.
Cardboard roll (paper towel roll)
Feathers (these are available at the dollar store, or on Amazon, but you could substitute these with paper cut feathers, too.)
Red and orange paper (or draw them on with a marker)
Glue those details onto the cardboard roll and this turkey is ready to make someone smile!
Colored feathers and googly eyes, along with a couple of little crafting scraps made a simple cardboard tube into a party-friendly turkey… just in time for Thanksgiving dinner!
If you are just making a cardboard turkey craft and skipping the juice box cover portion of this Thanksgiving craft, you could definitely use a recycled toilet paper roll to make a cute toilet paper roll turkey craft. But, if you are going to make this into a juicebox cover, I would go with using a paper towel roll instead.
So, let’s discuss the benefits to making this turkey craft into a Thanksgiving juice box cover…
Turkey Juice Box Cover
This cardboard turkey would work without the juice box part, but we added that as an oral sensory input opportunity to allow children to get a little calming sensory input through the straw. Plus, it’s a great way for children to see their handiwork in action right on the juice box.
To make the cardboard turkey into a juice box cover, cut the paper tube with one cut strait down. Wrap the cardboard tube around the juice box and secure with clear tape. Gather your colorful feathers and tape in place on the back of the juice box.
Oral sensory input with a straw
Sucking is a form of calming sensory input through the mouth, and it’s a way to offer children organizing sensory input in situations when they might have trouble regulating their sensory systems.
Sucking through a small straw like a coffee stirrer can be calming and provide organizing input, a juice box straw is an easily accessible sensory tool that might be overlooked.
When kids such through that small straw, they are getting heavy work, or proprioception through the mouth and jaw. This is very organizing for children as it allows them to become aware of proprioception (even if they don’t realize it). This deep pressure allows for resistive work in the mouth. It takes effort to suck in through a small straw, and that offers a quick way to add calming input.
Sucking in through a small straw is a way to offer sensory input for sensory seekers, but it’s also a way to support a child’s sensory needs by offering calming and resistive oral motor input.
Now, the parents reading this are probably thinking the same thing that I immediately think of when I see a small child with a juice box. What happens as soon as that child has a juice box in their hand? They squeeze it and juice streams out of the straw all over the place, right?
Here’s the thing about juice boxes- there is a contradiction on it’s benefits and detriments. The oral sensory input when a child sucks on a juice box straw is perfect for helping kids with sensory needs, and to help them develop oral motor control. However, that squeezable little cardboard box is so easy to squeeze the juice right into a toddler’s mouth.
So, using a juice box cover that invites children to gently hold the juice box, rather than squeezing it in a death grip of streaming, sticky juice is so powerful! Children can use the turkey juice cover we made and either not use their hands to squeeze the juice box OR, they can gently hold the turkey craft and use their mouth to suck the juice. They can gaining oral sensory input and oral motor skills. What a win-win!
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.
Looking for easy turkey crafts for therapy, the classroom, or at home? These turkey crafts for kids are ones that are not only fun ways to celebrate Thanksgiving with kids, they are also super simple Thanksgiving ideas for virtual therapy or hybrid lessons. This time of year, turkey crafts are the way to go when it comes to facilitating fine motor skills, executive functioning, motor planning, and direction following in occupational therapy interventions. The teachers who follow this site for developmental crafts and activities, love to find crafts that build skills. Parents might look a fun art project to create and want easy crafts that kids can make on their own. These easy turkey crafts are great crafts for teletherapy, too. Start with our thankful turkey templates and go from there.
These turkey crafts are quick and easy and perfect for busy mamas and papas.
I wanted to share super simple turkey crafts for kids that can be used in occupational therapy teletherapy sessions for the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Many of these turkey crafts use just a few materials, making them easy turkey crafts!
This turkey craft uses colored construction paper to make a turkey wreath. Children can cut the feathers and practice scissor accuracy.
Use a paper cup and construction paper to make a paper cup turkey. It’s perfect for working on fine motor skills with children.
Use a straw and cup to encourage oral motor skills or for proprioceptive input through the mouth. Better yet, add this turkey craft to the cup for a Thanksgiving craft idea!
To continue with the calming proprioceptive input using a straw, make a turkey craft juice box cover using a recycled paper towel tube. It’s a turkey craft that kids will get a kick out of, while working on fine motor skills.
Make a clothes pin turkey with the turkey cut-outs in this Thanksgiving Fine Motor Kit. You’ll love how easy it is to work on fine motor skills using the 12 number cards.
Using a recycled paper towel tube, kids can work on fine motor skills to make this fun cardboard tube turkey craft.
For those of us looking for super easy turkey crafts to use in teletherapy or when a quick craft is needed, these easy craft ideas are perfect:
Turkey Coloring Page- Print off these Thanksgiving mindfulness exercises and use the turkey coloring page as a craft that supports self-regulation.
Paper Towel Feather Turkey- This easy turkey feathers craft uses only paper towels, markers, and water to make watercolor turkey craft. This would be a great turkey craft for therapy, working on pre-writing lines, and cutting a simple shape.
Handprint Turkey- Sometimes the classic craft is best! Work on bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, motor skills, and more by tracing the hand and then decorating. Take the fine motor skills up a notch and ask children to color in the turkey and then cut it out.
Paper Plate Turkey Craft- Use a regular paper plate and cut along the edges to make feathers. Children can then draw a turkey right on the plate. try this paper plate turkey craft to work on scissor skills by cutting along the curved edge of the paper plate.
Coffee Filter Turkey- Cut along the edge of the coffee filter, add color with a marker, and draw a turkey face on the front. Try this coffee filter turkey to work on scissor skills and fine motor skills.
Paper Bag Turkey- Use a paper bag to make a turkey puppet craft. Use the materials you have on hand and really work on fine motor skills.
Leaf Turkey- Grab some leaves from outside and make a leaf turkey craft. This is another fantastic fine motor craft for kids.
Draw a Turkey- Using a guided tutorial is a nice way to work on visual motor skills and only requires a pencil, paper, and crayons. This turkey drawing guided tutorial is easy and fun.
Shape Turkeys- Work on scissor skills and cutting easy shapes by making these shape turkeys. Such a great turkey craft for preschoolers!
Need More Turkey Crafts?
The Thanksgiving Fine Motor Kit is ON SALE now! This 40 page printable kit has everything you need to work on all aspects of fine motor skills. The kit includes handwriting pages, pencil control exercises, scissor skill exercises, lacing cards, clothes pin/paper clip counting cards, coloring exercises, visual motor activities, and so much more.
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.
It’s Fall and time for football fun! Football is an American tradition. You can find football in middle school, high school, college, and professionally. It’s EVERYWHERE in the Fall, and if you are looking for an autumn activity that offers gross motor and proprioceptive sensory input, a game of football is it! If you’re not playing it, you’re watching it from the stands or sitting in front of the television set cheering on your favorite team.
Football Activities
Football is also a fun time theme for therapy sessions. If you want to score a touchdown during your therapy sessions take a look at these football themed activities that help to build fine motor, gross motor, bilateral coordination, and visual motor skills. These fun and engaging football activities can provide you hours of therapy exercise and skill building fun.
Add these football theme ideas to your therapy line-up or use them as part of therapy games to get kids interested in working on specific skills in themed therapy sessions. Using a fun theme like football can keep kids motivated and working in therapy!
So, scroll through these football crafts, football games, and football ideas and let’s get kids moving and building therapy skills!
Football theme
Football theme slide deck– Grab this free interactive football themed slide deck. Use it to guide therapy sessions through a football theme with fine motor, gross motor, mindfulness, handwriting, visual perceptual activities, and self-regulation.
Fine Motor Activity– Make paper footballs and use them in learning like we did with this Paper Football Sight Words activity. You not only work on creating the paper football and field, you can write sight words on the field lines and then have the child read the words, and after reading the words, have them write a sentence with that word. While you’re having them write, you can address letter size, letter placement, spacing, and letter formation.
Fine Motor Craft- This Football Craft for Preschool is a fun way to get younger kiddos involved in the Fall football season by having them lace their own football. A great way to work on bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, and fine motor precision skills.
Motor Planning and Eye-Hand Coordination Activity- Make this Turkey Football Craft. It’s a festive way for kiddos to work on cutting and drawing skills not to mention those much needed sequencing and pasting skills too by combining a turkey for Thanksgiving and footballs for the Fall season. Be sure to use bottle glue as that makes for an automatic incorporation of grading of force or pressure so kiddos don’t create puddles of glue, but dots or simple outlines.
Football Brain Breaks- Use these Football Brain Break Cards in therapy or in the classroom or at home. These gross motor, heavy work activities provide a fun opportunity to work on gross motor and motor planning skills with kiddos throughout therapy sessions or even during transitions while at home.
Bilateral Coordination Football Craft- This Woven Football Craft works on cutting skills, visual motor integration, sequencing, bilateral hand use and the repetitive movement of weaving that can also be calming and engaging for some children.
Visual Convergence and Eye-Hand Coordination Activity- Take throwing a football to a different level with this Paper Football. It’s a flying cylinder that you simply grasp and throw like a football. How do you make it? You only need a manila file folder, some tape, scissors, and paperclips.
Self-Care Activity- Work on buttoning skills with this Felt Football Button Activity – an easy and fun way to work on fastener manipulation skills whether it be to address buttoning or unbuttoning or both!
Football Game – makes for a great way to work on a variety of skills. YOU DECIDE the skill you want the child to work on and write it on the football when you play the game. It can be gross motor, handwriting, fine motor strengthening, core strengthening, or crossing midline. It’s a great way to work on turn taking and coping skills with a peer as they take turns choosing a card and performing the activity as well as coping with winning or not winning.
Now, “Hut, hut, hike!” Go grab a few materials or print a few sheets so you can easily prepare your football-themed therapy sessions or activities.
Regina Parsons-Allen is a school-based certified occupational therapy assistant. She has a pediatrics practice area of emphasis from the NBCOT. She graduated from the OTA program at Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute in Hudson, North Carolina with an A.A.S degree in occupational therapy assistant. She has been practicing occupational therapy in the same school district for 20 years. She loves her children, husband, OT, working with children and teaching Sunday school. She is passionate about engaging, empowering, and enabling children to reach their maximum potential in ALL of their occupations as well assuring them that God loves them!
Adding to the fun of autumn are these Fall gross motor activities. There is so much about this time of year that offers opportunities for heavy work activities and gross motor play, all using a Fall theme!
Use these Fall activities for family fun or ways to offer different movement challenges. Many of these ideas use all that Autumn has to offer: cooler weather, piles of leaves, hay bales, pumpkins, and apples. Other gross motor ideas listed here are gross motor ideas that can be done indoors. Either way, they are perfect for gross motor preschool activities, gross motor activities for toddlers, and whole-body activities to help kids build core strength, balance, coordination, and endurance.
Fall Gross Motor Activities
Isn’t Fall the perfect time to get outside, enjoy the season and the crisp air while getting active? There are so many great active and gross motor activities you and your family can do even with little prep or planning. Jump in leaves, go on a nature walk, collect leaves and fall items…just get moving!
Spending time time indoors doesn’t mean there’s no room for gross motor activities. Creep and crawl like a spider with this Motor Planning Spider Web Maze.
Explore apples and red while balancing a tree trunk with Learning Apples/Red.
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 nursery rhyme craft is based on the classic nursery rhyme, “There was and Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe”. We had a blast building fine motor skills with this kids craft. It’s a great way to work on shoe tying, too!
Shoe tying craft for kids
We are starting off the nursery rhyme craft and activity series with a timeless nursery rhyme…There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. This is one of our favorite nursery rhymes to recite, although to be honest, in our house we love them all! When we visit the library, we usually hit up the nursery rhyme shelf and come home with a book or two about nursery rhymes.
Nursery Rhyme Craft
There is just something wonderful about reciting nursery rhymes. The repetition of rhythm and rhyme teach kids about language, memory, and literacy. They are fun to say over and over again. And with this repetition, comes self-confidence in the child. The timeless quality of nursery rhymes brings together generations of storytelling. There is much to discover about how nursery rhymes help with learning, including pitch, imagination, sequencing, and phonics.
We recited “There was an Old Woman who lived in a shoe” and made a boot craft to explore the rhyme. There was an old woman Who lived in a shoe. She had so many children She didn’t know what to do. She gave them some broth And a big slice of bread, Kissed them all soundly And sent them to bed. (We went with the Mother Goose version)
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Shoe Tying Craft
This craft doubles as a shoe tying craft, too. Kids can build so many skills by making this craft, that are so important for shoe tying, including:
Bilateral Coordination
Lacing a shoe
Pincer Grasp
Eye-hand coordination
Tying a bow
The best thing about this shoe tying craft is that kids will leave with a sense of accomplishment, allowing them to feel self-confidence with shoe tying.
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe craft
We started with a few supplies to make our nursery rhyme craft:
Start by drawing a large boot shape on the craft foam sheet. Draw dots with the marker for the lacing holes.
Older kids can cut out the boot shape. Crafting foam is a great material to snip with scissors and provides a different resistance when cutting.
Use the hole punch to punch the lacing holes. We started with a kid friendly hole punch, but it didn’t work very well on the craft foam material. The old fashioned hole punch worked better.
Snip a long length of yarn. Clearly Little Guy needs a little work on his scissor grasp. 😉 He was being silly with cutting the yarn.
Here is a guide to scissor skills, including the bilateral coordination needed for shoe tying AND cutting with scissors.
Tape one end of the red yarn to the back side of the boot. Get the kids lacing away on the boot. This is a fantastic fine motor task for little fingers. Tripod grasp, bilateral hand coordination, motor planning, eye-hand coordination…lacing is great for preschoolers!
This boot alone would make a very cute fine motor craft. But it needs a little something extra for our nursery rhyme.
We made a little old woman and many children on the boot. Baby Girl loved sticking the yellow circle label stickers onto the boot. These would be the faces.
Next, we cut our colored card stock into triangles and rectangles for the bodies. More fine motor work with the snipping card stock. A bit of glue holds these shapes in place. Be sure to talk about shapes and colors with your preschooler while doing this part.
Baby Girl used a marker and drew faces on each person. Working in a small defined area is a great way to further develop pre-handwriting skills drawing and pencil control.
She then drew arms and legs for the old woman and children.
How cute is this nursery rhyme craft? It brings the rhyme to life with imagination and creativity. Baby Girl wanted to introduce a duck to the woman and children.
Be sure to stop back tomorrow and the rest of this week and next week for the rest of the nursery rhyme series. You can find them all of our nursery rhyme crafts here.
