Looking for a fun way to bring movement into your circle time? This Jack Be Nimble craft pairs perfectly with nursery rhyme activities that get kids up and moving! Traditional rhymes like this one offer the perfect opportunity to build coordination, balance, and listening skills through gross motor rhymes. Add in a simple hands-on kids crafts, and you’ve got a meaningful activity that supports early learning in a playful way. Whether you’re working with a preschool class or doing OT sessions, this circle time movement idea brings the classic rhyme to life with jumping, crafting, and lots of giggles.
Today’s craft is a Jack Be Nimble craft based on the nursery rhyme, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. If you are looking for an easy nursery rhyme crafts based on development, this craft supports fine motor skills and scissor skills.
Jack Be Nimble Craft
I love this Jack be Nimble craft because it has so many components that are the building blocks for developing motor skills in kids. You’ll find:
Cutting simple shapes
Cutting straight lines and curved lines
Tearing paper
Crumbling paper
Gluing the craft pieces in order (direction following)
This craft is one of those kids crafts that is project based, but there are components that can be created by the child with a process-based format. You can have the child add their own spin on things and offer art and craft materials and just let the process go.
The Nursery Rhyme craft and activities series is in full swing and we’ve had some great ideas shared for some classic nursery rhyme favorites.
Today’s kids craft is one of our favorite Nursery Rhymes. We’ve loved this short little rhyme since we started book babies at the library years back.
It is a fun rhyme to recite and always brings a smile to my kids’ faces.
Jack be nimble
Jack be quick
Jack jump over the candlestick.
Jack Be Nimble Jack Be Quick Craft for Toddlers and Preschoolers
This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.
To make a Jack Be Nimble craft, you’ll need:
cardstock in white, another color (we used blue) and a background sheet (we used green)
This craft is a nice one because you can work on cutting simple shapes. Here is a scissor skills crash course that talks about how to modify cutting tasks to make it easier or harder for kids at different skill levels.
Use Squeeze Glue Bottles Instead of Glue Sticks
Here’s an occupational therapy fine motor tip: Use squeeze glue bottles for crafts. This is a strengthening tool that also works on graded precision, wrist stability, bilateral coordination, crossing midline, and visual motor skills!
These are skills that kids need for a wider variety of functional tasks and the squeeze glue bottle builds these skills with instant feedback.
Squeeze too hard and too much glue comes out of the glue bottle. Squeeze too softly and you won’t get any glue. The nice thing is you can modify the amount of pressure needed by opening or closing the cap slightly.
Wrist stability with fine motor tasks like using scissors and writing is huge. That’s why I love using the glue bottle task as a way to work on this. If the wrists are bent, or flexed when squeezing the glue bottle, the child won’t have stability and strength. It’s easy to point out this concept to them while they are using the glue bottle because it’s right there in front of them with both hands together on the glue bottle.
This is a great way to make the nursery rhyme craft even more functional and effective!
To make the Jack be Nimble Jack be Quick craft:
Start by cutting the simple shapes you’ll need to make the candlestick craft. Older kids can work on scissor skills to cut these simple shapes.
Cutting from card stock is a great way to work on scissor accuracy because the resistance is greater than regular printer paper. This allows children to slow their snipping speed and better accuracy when cutting along lines.
Cut a semi-circle from colored paper and a rectangle from white paper.
Tear a square of each color of tissue paper.
5. Glue the semi-circle onto the paper. This is a great opportunity to talk about shapes with your toddler or preschooler.
6. Glue the rectangle on top of the semicircle.
7. Draw a flame shape with the glue.
8. Have your child tear small pieces of the tissue paper.
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.
For more craft ideas, including templates and printable crafts that allow for data collection, be sure to get our resources inside The OT Toolbox Membership.
We love this easy bus craft as back to school crafts for kindergarten! School buses and the back-to-school season is the perfect time for a fun, low-prep bus craft that supports creativity and fine motor skills. We love using back to school themed activities in occupational therapy sessions for a reason…This paper bus activity is ideal for young kids, toddlers, kindergartners, and even older kids. Using simple materials like cardstock, glue, markers, and printables, this craft is a great option for the first day of school, a classroom display, or a back-to-school school activity.
An easy school bus craft is just what kids need before back to school, along with a little crafting fun!
I don’t want to even think about the end of summer and the start of school. The summer fun is quickly passing by with long days of outdoor play and water activities. We’ve got a few of the cousins heading back to school this fall. A couple on the school bus and a few that will be starting up preschool for the first time.
New classes, new book bags, and new school shoes happen before the summer fun has even ended. With all of the newness happening, this mama wanted to touch on an old familiar theme with the start of school quickly approaching.
This school bus craft was a fun way to create while we explored easy shapes. This was a great craft for my two year old as we talked about the start of school and some easy shapes.
I cut a few simple shapes from the paper. An older child who is working on scissor skills could cut these shapes.
Building our school bus was fun! We moved our shapes around until we liked the bus. This was fun for Big Sister (age 6) as she helped us build the bus and made sure the windows were where she liked them.
Baby Girl (age 2 and half) worked on her shape identification with this craft. Big Sister and I would hold up a shape and ask her what it was. She was loving the shape test!
We glued the shapes in place on our bus when we got it looking like we wanted. Big Sister used some scrap paper to draw bus stops for our bus. I love the “baby stop”!
Easy Bus Craft for Kids of All Ages
As an OT in schools, I love this craft to start off the school year because you can get a quick look at scissor skills, fine motor skills, planning and executive function, and much more. It’s a wonderful way to welcome the new school year with hands-on learning.
Simple Steps and Creative Add-Ons
This paper plate school bus craft (or use cardstock to make a more structured paper bus) is great for easy crafting in small groups or as part of a station activity. Add a black line for the road, draw headlights on the front, or invite kids to sketch their own child’s face in the windows for a personalized touch.
Need a quick solution for class? Provide step-by-step instructions with a visual example, or print out bus shapes with cut-and-paste parts to make this a preschool craft that’s both fun and functional.
Make It a Wheels on the Bus Craft!
Turn your bus project into a Wheels on the Bus craft by adding interactive features to go along with the classic bus song. Use paper brads to make spinning wheels, or glue on circles cut from black construction paper. Attach craft sticks to act out the song as a puppet or prop during circle time. You can also label parts of the bus (“doors go open and shut,” “wipers go swish swish swish”) to reinforce early learning concepts while you craft.
This is a fun idea that pairs perfectly with music, group time, and creative movement!
Turn It Into a Pigeon Rides the Bus Craft
We have many preschool book activities here on The OT Toolbox. This paper bus craft is a perfect way to extend the craft into the book, Pigeon Rides the Bus!
Turn this craft into a Pigeon Rides the Bus craft inspired by Mo Willems’ beloved character. Simply add a drawing or cut-out of Pigeon riding in or driving the bus. Kids can glue Pigeon onto the driver’s seat or draw him peeking out the window using a marker or crayon. Pair the craft with a read-aloud and follow-up discussion to build on literacy and comprehension skills.
This is a great way to tie in book-based learning with preschool crafts or kindergarten art projects.
Why This Craft Works for Young Children
This school bus art project uses simple crafts and easy paper crafts to build important early skills:
Promotes fine motor skills through cutting, gluing, and coloring
Encourages creativity and storytelling
Supports classroom community with a shared fun activity
Perfect for first week of school routines
It’s one of those easy craft ideas that is great for building connection and confidence in your preschool class or at home.
With one cutting craft, you can assess many areas:
Fine Motor Skills
Cutting: Children cut squares, rectangles, and circles, which targets hand strength, bilateral coordination, and scissor skills.
Pasting/Glue Control: Squeezing glue bottles or using glue sticks promotes hand strength and precision.
Grasp Patterns: Encourages tripod grasp and refined finger movements when handling small shapes.
Visual Motor & Perceptual Skills
Visual Discrimination: Identifying and matching shapes (square windows, rectangular bus body).
Figure-Ground: Picking out shapes from a group of cut pieces or worksheet.
Visual Closure: Recognizing the bus even if parts are missing or partially hidden.
Visual-Spatial Awareness: Placing parts of the bus (windows, wheels, stripes) in correct orientation and location.
Bilateral Coordination
Cutting with Stabilization: Requires use of one hand to stabilize the paper while cutting with the other.
Assembly Tasks: Holding the bus body with one hand while placing and pressing shapes with the other.
Executive Functioning Skills
Planning and Sequencing: Following steps in order (e.g., bus body → windows → wheels).
Working Memory: Remembering shape placement and order from visual or verbal instruction.
Inhibition: Waiting to glue or cut at the appropriate time within the task.
Language and Cognitive Skills
Shape & Color Identification: Naming shapes and colors while assembling.
Following Directions: Completing a multi-step task with adult guidance or peer modeling.
Seated Tolerance: Sitting upright to complete a tabletop activity from start to finish.
Core Engagement: Maintaining posture while using both hands in front of the body.
Sensory Processing
Tactile Input: Handling paper, glue, and possibly stickers or markers.
Proprioceptive Input: Using controlled hand pressure for cutting and gluing.
Visual Input: Tracking lines while cutting and scanning for shape placement.
Social and Emotional Skills
Turn-Taking and Sharing: During group crafts, materials may be shared.
Task Completion: Builds confidence by following through on a start-to-finish task.
Self-Expression: Decorating the bus with additional details or personalization (child’s name, colors).
For more ways to focus on scissor skills, and the WHY behind development of cutting with scissors, check out our resource, The Scissor Skills Book.
Check out The Scissor Skills Book for tips and strategies based on development from school based occupational therapists and physical therapists.
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.
If your kids are outer space enthusiasts, then this space theme activities are just the thing to add learning and skill building with space activities. This collection of space activities for kids are actually part of a DIY summer camp that we designed. When the kids need a backyard summer camp or something fun to look forward to, easy and creative activities based on a space theme can do just that. This summer, create a home summer camp with an Outer Space theme…all while building skills in therapy or at home. Our space theme slide deck is just one way to help kids build skills, and a great way to lead into space theme learning and play with the kids!
For another space themed virtual therapy activity, try this free outer space Connect 4 game. It’s great for kids of all ages.
Here, you’ll find everything you need to plan a space camp fun that builds skills like fine motor skills, gross motor skill development, sensory input, regulation, emotional support, bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, executive functioning skills, and more. Read on for all of the outer space fun!
Space Camp for Kids
Whether you are planning a space camp in your therapy programming or trying to think of ways to build skills for kids this summer in a fun and creative way, this space camp idea is for you. For parents that need something out-of-the-box this summer (that doesn’t break the bank!), a backyard space camp can be just the thing to get excited about.
Space theme ideas
You’ll want to check out some other space activities we have here on the Toolbox website. Add these ideas to your space camp planning. These ideas can get you started with planning. Scroll below to find more specific space activities based on skill area.
For more creative ideas with a space theme, be sure to check out my Outer Space Awesome Pinterest board.
We even grabbed up a handful of our all-time favorite Outer Space books from the library to share with you. If you’re looking for activities to do with the kids this summer, a space theme will be a sure hit. Your Summer Camp at home will be complete with Space crafts, Space snacks, Space sensory, fine motor, and gross motor learning and play.
Space theme
These activities are set up by theme (books, snacks, crafts, solar system models, sensory play, and movement learning activities) so that you can pick and choose activities for each day of your themed camp. Make the week work for you! Choose just one or two activities for each day, or go all out and do one from each category. It’s totally up to you and your little campers!
Space Fine Motor Activities
Use this outer space play dough mat printable to work on hand strength, fine motor skills, and eye-hand coordination. Simply print it off and slide into a page protector to use each day during your space camp.
We made this Outer Space model using pipe cleaners. We didn’t get into planet size, but rather checked out the size of each planet compared to the others from The Planets book and crafted them based on the pictures in the book. we strung the pipe cleaner planets along fishing line and taped it between two walls. This was a fun way to explore how the planets are spaced from the sun.
Space Visual Motor Activities
Visual motor skills and visual perception can be worked on with a space theme. Grab this free space visual discrimination worksheet to incorporate visual processing into a space camp.
This space maze is a visual motor activity that my own kids loved. Use Wikki Stix to build a maze and work on eye-hand coordination and other visual processing skills to work through the outer space maze.
Outer Space Books
Start off your daily activities during a week of Space activities with a Space book. Some of our favorites are ones we read weekly and others are ones we love to check out from the library. Here are outer space books for kids.
Outer Space Snacks
Cooking with kids is a huge way to build motor skills and executive functioning skills through cooking. Below are outer space snacks that the kids can help to make while building skills.
Affiliate links included below.
We quickly made this space snack while doing a little space reading. Kids will gobble up the stars and planets. We even made it a fine motor sorting activity by sorting the stars and planets from the snack mix. This outer space themed snack will be a hit during your Summer Camp at home or space themed week. We used a cup of Cheerios Cereal and a cup of Puffs snacks to make our stars and planets snack mix. Have the kids sort the planets and stars into separate bowls for fine motor practice that Toddlers and young Preschoolers will love.
More Space themed snacks to fill the rest of your week:
If there is one thing that occupational therapists love, it’s the use of kids crafts as a therapy tool. Be sure to check out our Constellation crafts. There are a bunch of space and star craft ideas based on constellations and outer space…that double as a fine motor and visual motor skill building tool.
Use this space martian craft that the kids can make to build fine motor skills, and then use in handwriting activities to space between letters and words.
Use these outer space crafts to make one each day of the week of your DIY summer camp…or just use them with your space-loving kiddo!
Our Outer Space sensory activities were a huge hit in adding proprioception, vestibular, and tactile sensory play into the day. Use them as part of a sensory diet with learning components. Mix these space sensory ideas into the schedule as a reward that also meets the sensory needs to benefit regulation and social-emotional skills.
These space themed sensory play ideas are ways to teach about planets, with an astronaut theme in mind. Know a little future astronaut? They will love these sensory play and learning ideas.
I love the rocket ship in this space themed party! Climb in and out of a cardboard rocket ship for lots of movement and play. Then, use another cardboard box to make this glow in the dark space fort like Lalymom. Nurturestore made a great Space math game.
Space Fine Motor Kit
Know a kiddo that loves all things space, astronauts, and planets? The Outer Space Fine Motor Kit is your chance to develop fine motor strength, dexterity, and coordination skills.
Addressing hand strength, endurance, and precision is out of this world fun! The Outer Space Fine Motor Kit includes:
Fine Motor Mazes
Fine Motor Ten Frames for motor activities
1-20 Star Counting Cards
Bead Copying Strips
Space Alien Directed Drawing Sheets
This fine motor kit includes 24 pages of printable resources. Included in this printable pack are:
Two pages of color coded bead copying strips
Two pages of blank bead copying strips
Four pages of “draw and write” directed drawing activities with a space theme (Includes 3 styles of handwriting lines: highlighted lines, single rule, and double rule)
Nine pages of fine motor mazes
1-20 Outer Space Counting Cards
Four pages of fine motor ten frames activities
These printable activities extend to work on a variety of other functional areas, too: handwriting skills, numbers, math, adding, subtracting, one-to-one correspondence, scissor skills, coloring, and more.
Have fun with your Outer Space themed week of fun!
Outer Space and Star Wars
For even more space themed activities for kids, add some of these Star Wars occupational therapy ideas to your therapy planning. We’ve broken down a bunch of space ideas using the Star Wars theme and include handwriting activities, sensory play, executive functioning ideas, crafts, gross motor ideas, and more. Kids will love it!
Set up Your Own Summer Camp
What’s next? Actually taking the steps to create your own Summer side-gig! If you’re ready to take the leap and turn your camp idea into something real, the Summer Camp & Tutoring Side Business Workbook is your perfect next step. Created specifically for OT, PT, and SLP professionals, this printable guide walks you through everything you need to set up and run your own skill-based summer program. It walks you through everything you need to know about this process, from planning and pricing to registration forms, waivers, and activity templates.
Whether you’re thinking about a handwriting bootcamp, sensory playgroup, or life skills club, this workbook helps you put your ideas into action, on your schedule, with your expertise, and without the overwhelm.
This workbook was inspired by my own experience starting a sensory playgroup while juggling work and mom life. I built it on my own terms, brought my kids along, and created fun, meaningful experiences that supported real skill development, and made extra income while doing it.
…and everything you need to confidently launch a camp, playgroup, or tutoring program this summer.
Whether you want to run handwriting bootcamps, sensory skill groups, or one-on-one sessions, you don’t need a full course or new certification. You just need a starting point. This is it.
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.
I love using coffee filter butterfly crafts in occupational therapy to work on several skill areas. The fine motor benefits are huge with this one. This coffee filter butterfly craft is a great fine motor and bilateral coordination activity for kids. If you are looking for butterfly life cycle crafts, this one is a great addition. Or, if you are seeking Spring OT activities, be sure to add this colorful fine motor butterfly craft to your list.
Why make a Coffee Filter Butterfly Craft?
One craft that hits on several skill areas is a benefit in pediatric occupational therapy sessions. This coffee filter craft is a nice one to develop skills because it works on so many areas that are covered in therapy sessions:
This was an easy set-up and fun craft we did one afternoon recently. You’ll need the following materials:
Coffee filters
Water color paints/water
A straw
Clothes pin
Pipe cleaner
String (to make a banner)
Directions to make a tie dye coffee filter butterfly
Use a paint brush to add a bit of water to the wells of a water color paint pallet. To really work on fine motor skills, use your thumb to drop water droplets into the paint tubs.
Use the straw to drip colored water from the water color paints. Then drop them onto the coffee filter. Allow the colors to blend into one another. If you add more water to the paint wells, you can transfer that water with the straw.
This version of painting a coffee filter can be a challenging fine motor task but one that really develops separation of the sides of the hands, thumb IP joint flexion, and motor planning skills.
To make this painting process easier, try using a eye dropper where the child can squeeze the end of a small dropper to draw up water from the water color wells. Another option is using a small plastic syringe to draw up watercolor paint and dropping it onto the coffee filter.
Little Guy and Big Sister both loved dropping the water into the color wells. Big Sister felt pretty good about showing her little brother how to drop the water into the color wells using her straw.
This is a great activity to work on thumb isolation and control of the thumb during fine motor activities.
Next, dip the edges of the coffee filters into the colors so the water creeps onto the edges of the coffee filter.
Other ways to add the color can use the straw end or the paint brush. This craft is nice because it can be adjusted for many different kids.
When kids drip the color on with a paintbrush, or drop color with the straw, it’s fun to try different ways to color the filters and see the colors blend together.
Next, use clothes pins to pinch the middle of the coffee filter together in the middle. This is a great hand strengthening and eye-hand coordination task.
Finally, add a pipe cleaner to the end of the clothes pin for the antenna of the coffee filter butterfly. Bend the pipe cleaner around the clothes pin and twist it up to make antenna.
If you like to create several butterflies in a variety of colors, you can clip them onto the string for an other bilateral coordination task.
They look pretty! Big Sister wanted to hang them on the ceiling of her room. We strung the butterflies on yarn and taped them to her ceiling. This would be a great way to display a whole client caseload of coffee filter butterflies and really show off those fine motor skills!
Add this butterfly craft to a butterfly theme in therapy or home programing.
These heavy work cards include a page of butterfly life cycle activities that incorporate calming heavy work activities for motor planning and proprioceptive benefits.
Or, in the Spring Fine Motor Kit, you’ll find butterfly and caterpillar activities that are designed to build a variety of fine motor manipulation, dexterity, and strengthening tasks.
Spring Fine Motor Kit
Score Fine Motor Tools and resources and help kids build the skills they need to thrive!
Developing hand strength, dexterity, dexterity, precision skills, and eye-hand coordination skills that kids need for holding and writing with a pencil, coloring, and manipulating small objects in every day task doesn’t need to be difficult. The Spring Fine Motor Kit includes 100 pages of fine motor activities, worksheets, crafts, and more:
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.
Creating a simple heart craft is a fun and engaging way to support fine motor skill development while celebrating Valentine’s Day. It’s a great addition to your Valentine’s Day Occupational therapy activity ideas! As occupational therapists, we believe in using hands-on activities to help children build important skills through play and creativity.
Incorporating an easy heart craft into therapy sessions, classrooms, or at home can encourage children to strengthen their hand muscles, improve coordination, and practice scissor skills, while making something festive and fun.
From construction paper heart projects to cut folded paper designs, this page is filled with simple Valentine’s Day crafts for preschoolers that support fine motor development. Whether you’re looking for a heart craft to help with cutting skills, hand strength, or coordination, this activity is a great way to promote learning while celebrating the holiday with creativity.
We have other heart crafts here on the website you’ll want to check out, too.
Cutting a paper heart
Before we get into the craft, let’s talk about how a simple paper heart craft is an easy way to work on skills in an occupational therapy session.
I love to use an easy craft like, just cutting construction paper into a heart shape because we are working on so many areas! This activity naturally promotes scissor skills, as children must carefully hold and manipulate scissors to follow a curved cutting line.
Cutting along a folded edge provides a visual and tactile guide, helping children develop control and precision while strengthening the muscles in their hands. You can make the lines bold or thin. You can use thick or thinner paper…there are so many ways to individualize this one craft, which is perfect for the busy school based OT.
Additionally, bilateral coordination is required as one hand stabilizes the paper while the other operates the scissors, reinforcing the ability to use both hands together in a coordinated manner. This carries over into daily tasks like dressing, handwriting, and using utensils.
Beyond cutting, the act of folding the paper before cutting works on pinch strength and hand dexterity. Pressing the paper together and making a crease encourages children to use their fingertips and develop the small muscles of the hand, which are important for fine motor control.
Occupational therapists can use this easy heart craft as a tool to address different areas of need by adapting the activity to the child’s skill level. For children with weaker hand strength, using thinner paper or assisting with the fold can make the task more accessible, while those needing more of a challenge can try folding multiple layers or cutting intricate designs. By incorporating this simple craft into therapy sessions, school activities, or home play, therapists, parents, and teachers can provide a fun and engaging way to build foundational motor skills in a meaningful and festive way.
Are you getting ready for Valentine’s day? Maybe putting together a few ideas for next week or just enjoying the pretty pink pictures (is Valentine’s Day reeeeally a holiday??) maybe you are looking for a few Valentine’s Day activities to use in occupational therapy.
Either way, you have to admit…the hearts, love, and kindness is pretty contagious! We’ve been having fun doing a few Valentines Day activities and this Sparkle Heart Craft was no exception. Valentine’s Day Activities are just FUN. This one was scented and smelled as pretty as it looked.
Paper Heart Craft
We started with a few supplies:
craft paper to cover the table (this was essential with this craft!)
Pomegranate Bath Salt (optional) You could also use glitter or skip this step all together.
I cut a few hearts from the construction paper. Baby Girl did this craft with me and she was excited to see the hearts.
I poured a little of the pomegranate bath salts into a little cup. They smelled SO good! This craft was turning sensory already.
Next, I used the glue to draw a couple of hearts and showed Baby Girl how to sprinkle the salts on the glue. She was hooked!
She LOVED this activity! She squeezed the glue and drew all kinds of decorations on our red hearts. Sprinkling the bath salts was a great way to encourage pincer grasp.
There were also times when she transitioned to a tripod grasp to sprinkle the glitter. Using the pointer finger, middle finger, and thumb to grasp with the ring and pinkie fingers tucked into the palm is a tripod grasp. She sprinkled the salts all over the glue. I had to cut more hearts because she wanted to keep making more and more sparkly hearts!
Valentine’s Day Craft with Fine Motor Skills
This craft worked on tripod grasp by sprinkling the bath salts (with a great scent!) and gross grasp of the hand when squeezing the glue bottle. This was a great activity for little hands!
Looking for more Valentine’s Day activities? You may also like Valentine’s Day Goop Painting for more sensory and fine motor 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.
Let’s face it, the heart candy and chocolates are already in the stores and children are already anticipating the consumption of all the sweet treats they are going get. Some children have even begun to plan their Valentine’s gifts and handouts for their friends and family. Add these heart crafts to your Valentine’s Day occupational therapy activities!
One of our newest heart crafts is this free Valentine’s Day Hat Template. Kids can color, cut, and assemble the heart hat in OT sessions, in the classroom, or at home. This printable heart hat makes a great craft during February, but it doubles as a skill-builder: Use it to work on fine motor skills, hand strength, scissor skills, eye-hand coordination, executive functioning skills, and more.
Heart Crafts for Occupational Therapy
Whether it is a pink, red, or purple heart, OT practitioners simply love crafts that incorporate a variety of skills and give the flexibility for each step to be modified, so as to upgrade or downgrade as needed, to allow all children to engage in the craft making process while achieving some level of success.
You’ll find heart craft creations that range from easy to more complex, making them accessible by younger or novice learners that have fewer hand skills, or more advanced learners that need more skill advancement and require increased time to complete.
There are numerous enjoyable heart craft ideas in this post. If you need something sweet to jazz up your therapy session, classroom, or at-home theme, this post is right where you need to be. Read on and get ideas that don’t include tasty sweets, but do include all the sweetness of the Valentines holiday!
Wearable Heart Crafts:
These fun, festive heart crafts can include wearable jewelry, ornaments, or provide a source of Valentine’s Day gifts. They will encourage separation of the two sides of the hand, in-hand manipulation, precision grasp, and arch development, making them purposeful and productive.
Heart Keychain Craft– Make a batch of salt dough and create a heart keychain. This is a great multi-step activity for learners to develop executive functioning skills.
These paper crafts include folding, painting, cutting, pasting, weaving, and writing.
All of these actions will help your learner of most any age and skill level to work on bilateral hand use, eye-hand coordination, scissor grasp, hand dominance, delicate touch, grasp patterns, and visual motor skills.
Another easy heart craft for preschoolers is to simply cut out paper hearts and then fold the paper in half. You can also reverse the steps and first fold paper in half and then cut along lines to make a heart. Then unfold the paper.
Foam Crafts:
These foam crafts are not only cute, but they help learners develop skills such as proper scissor grasp, cutting skills, rotational manipulation, sequencing, and precision skills.
Once complete, some provide a functional use in the end – a bookmark!
Cardboard is a material that develops hand strength, pincer grasp, bilateral coordination, hand dominance, stability, and eye-hand coordination. Some of the crafts listed will provide opportunity for lacing, wrapping, poking, cutting, and tearing, all of which give hand skill development a real challenge.
These fun cardboard crafts will allow focus on a variety of skills while being highly engaging and rewarding.
While these food inspired heart crafts, do use food as a medium, these festive food crafts will include only decorations and a few ideas for a way to feed the birds.
Learners will work on building precision grasp, gross grasp, bilateral coordination, and eye hand coordination skills.
These tin foil crafts are unique in appearance, but also help build maker grasp, fine motor control, and tool pressure. If the child tears off their own piece of foil from the roll and wraps the foil themselves, they will also be working on bilateral coordination and touch pressure.
Older or more advanced learners can be presented with the opportunity to use a glue gun (always use caution with these as even the cold glue guns get hot at the tip). Learners can display their own creativity with these crafts.
In The Valentine’s Day Kit offered by the OT Toolbox, you will find printable heart activities and craft materials. Just download, print, and start building skills. This pack is a great tool for developing a variety of fine motor skills for Valentine’s day or all year round!
We hope you enjoyed all of the crafts included in this round-up of ideas and that you have found exactly what you are looking for to help the learners in your life enjoy Valentines day and celebrate the LOVE of this season!
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!
Grab a copy of the Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Kit for fine motor and visual motor activities with a heart and Valentine theme.
This apple activity is a fine motor activity for occupational therapy sessions with kids that builds many skill areas. I love this fine motor apple activity because you can make it work for the needs of each child. There is power to using hole punch activities with kids! Working on hand strength? Use the hole punch to build skills. Working on dexterity? Pick up the small red circles to place them on the felt apple tree. You can even incorporate it into a vertical plane activity or add apple brain breaks to the session. The sky is the limit!
I love this apple tree activity because you can use dice to work on hand mobility, small apple dots that are precision work, and you can incorporate other skills into the activity.
Pair this apple tree activity with our apple tweezer activity for even more apple themed fine motor fun.
Fine motor strengthening is a hot topic when it comes to back-to-school time. Kids go back into the classroom and need to get back up to speed on all of the fine motor requirements in the classroom. What better way to work on fine motor strength than with a Fall apple theme? This apple themed fine motor activity adds a bit of math, too and it’s super easy to create for hands-on play, learning, and fine motor work.
Fine Motor Strengthening Activity
This apple tree activity is a fun way to build the intrinsic muscle strength of the hands as well as gross grasp strength. It’s an easy activity to throw together, and the steps of the activity help to build strength of the hands, too.
Materials needed to make this apple tree activity:
Scissors (Here are my favorite scissors and why to use each type of scissors for different needs)
To create the apple tree, cut the green felt into a tree-ish shape. Cutting felt is a complex scissor task, so older kids can help with this part. If you are able to use stiff felt, cutting through the material is a strengthening exercise in itself.
Next, cut the brown felt into a trunk shape, by simply cutting strait lines. Consider allowing the child to cut the trunk shape as cutting strait lines on a material such as felt is easier, yet the flimsy material makes it difficult to cut. A stiffer material would work well for this part as well.
Next, cut the red cardstock into small, thin strips of paper. This is not necessary for the end result of the activity, however there is a fine motor benefit to the extra step. Kids can hold the thin strips of paper with a pincer grasp using their non-dominant, helper hand. Using the small strips of paper requires precision. Kids will then be required to slow down while using the hole punch so that they don’t cut the holes over the edge of the strip of the paper.
Need a hole punch that requires less effort for younger kids or those who need to build their gross muscle grip strength? Try this one.
Hole Punch Activity
Before we move on, I want to take a moment to talk about this portion of the activity.
Cutting paper strips and using a hole punch along the strip is an easy fine motor activity that you can set up with items you probably have on hand….Cut strips of paper. Use different grades and remember that cutting thicker paper means more resistance which is good for strengthening the hands.
Use the brown cardstock to make a small apple barrel shape. This can be used in the math part of this activity.
A slower cut with the hole punch allows for the muscles of the hands to exercise with prolonged tension and increases blood flow. Using the hole punch with slow repetitions builds gross grasp strength.
Once the apple tree and apples are created, kids can place them on the tree. The cardstock will not stick permanently to the felt, but they will stay in place for temporary play. Scatter the red cardstock circles, (those are your apples!) onto the table. Show your child or student how to pick up the apples and place them onto the apple tree. Picking up the small cardstock circles is a real workout for the intrinsic muscles of the hand.
To make this activity easier, place the cardstock circles on a piece of felt.
Apple Fine Motor Activity
Add a bit of math to this activity with a pair of dice. Show your child how to roll the dice and then count the number of dots on the dice. They can then add and count the number of apples and place them on the tree.
There are several ways to build on this activity:
Use the dice to add apples.
Subtract by taking away apples from the tree.
Create multiple step math problems by adding and them subtracting the numbers on the dice to put on and then remove apples.
The Apple Therapy Kit is full of fine motor, visual motor, and sensory motor tools to support fine motor skill development needed for handwriting and other functional tasks.
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 Halloween cutting craft is an old one that’s been on our site since October, 2018. We love this activity for so many reasons, and wanted to share it again. The ghost cutting activity that we did all those years ago supports development of hand and grip strength, bilateral coordination, eye hand coordination, and more. This is a Halloween occupational therapy activity you’ll want to add to your therapy plan this Fall! Check out all of our hole punch activities for more fine motor fun.
We made these fine motor ghosts years ago, but still love to use them to work on fine motor and visual motor skills.
This Ghost Craft is a fun Halloween cutting craft idea that kids can do while boosting the skills they need for scissor skills and other fine motor skills. Use this ghost craft idea to work on occupational therapy activities and OT goal areas in a fun and festive way, perfect for Fall activities and ghost theme therapy ideas!
For more ways to build skills, try our other quick and fun ghost craft that will boost those fine motor skills.
This ghost cutting craft can be modified to meet the levels of various student skills.
Ghost Craft to Work on Scissor Skills
This scissor skills craft is an easy craft to set up and one that you can pull together in in no time, making it a nice craft for on-the-go school based OTs looking for a ghost themed craft that addresses OT goal areas.
Kiddos will love this ghost craft as it’s a cute craft idea that is motivating. In fact, kids won’t even realize they are working on skills like hand strength, separation of the sides of the hand, arch development, scissor use, or bilateral coordination.
Kids love this ghost cutting craft because you can add different facial expressions.
Ghost Craft for Kids
To create this ghost craft and work on scissor skills as well as fine motor skills, you will need only a few materials (affiliate links are included below):
First, it’s important to talk about where to start with know what a child can benefit from when it comes to paper type (construction paper, printer paper, cardstock, and other paper types all play important parts in addressing needs in scissor skills. Read about the various paper choices in addressing scissor skills in our scissor skills crash course.
In that crash course, you’ll also find information related to line thickness when it comes to teaching kids to move through the stages of scissor skills.
Steps to Make a Ghost Craft and Work on Scissor Skills
To make this ghost craft (and boost those scissor skills), simply draw a semi circle on the edge of a piece of paper.
Ask kids to cut out out the ghost craft along the curved line. You can draw visual cues on the paper to cue kids on where to hold the paper as they turn the paper while cutting.
Next, draw or ask the child to draw circles for the mouth and two eyes. They can then use the hole punch to punch holes inside the circles of the eyes and mouth.
Graded Scissor Skills Craft
There are several ways to grade this ghost craft to make the craft easier or more difficult depending on the child’s needs:
Use lighter or heavier paper grades. Some ideas are tissue paper, newspaper, wrapping paper, paper towels, or coffee filters to make the craft more difficult. Some ideas to make the ghost craft easier include cardstock, manilla folders, poster board, or thin cardboard.
Add more details to the ghost craft such as a bottom that the child needs to cut along a 90 degree angle to cut the bottom of the ghost.
Add a wavy line to the bottom to require more details and scissor movement.
Make larger or smaller ghosts.
Looking for more scissor skills crafts? Try these:
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
Occupational therapy practitioners working in school based occupational therapy know that collecting data, building rapport with students, and coming up with fun ways to support educational needs is a tricky, but fun challenge in OT sessions. We have pulled together some of our favorite activities to cover various aspects of the scope of school based OT. I’ve been busy behind the scenes here at The OT Toolbox building tools that you can use during the first weeks of school that will make your life easier. Here, you will find first day of school activities, first day of school printables, and back to school baseline screening activities, back to school crafts, and ideas to use in therapy or the classroom this week (and coming weeks).
Let’s get started with the back to school OT activities…
Back to School Activities
These activities should keep your students (virtual or in-person) busy the first few weeks of school. Some of these activities are great for online icebreaker activities and others are wonderful ways to build rapport while assessing baseline status in areas like pencil grasp, handwriting, math, scissor skills, or other learning/school tasks.
Back to School Slide Deck- This interactive back to school slide deck works with Google slides. Enter your email address and log into your Google account. You will receive an email with a prompt to access a file for your personal use. Click the button on that pdf and the interactive slide can be copied right into your Google drive. Then, make a copy for each student and they can work through the slides in edit mode. These slides are designed to address visual perceptual skills. Kids will enjoy the back to school supply activities and won’t even know they are building skills that will help them thrive in learning.
Back to school activities for kindergarten- (and first grade, second grade, etc.) These back to school fine motor activities are fun ways to quickly screen for fine motor skills needed at school while building rapport with the students. First day of school activities for kindergarten can involved fine motor activities that are fun and get children excited about their time in therapy sessions.
Visual Schedules- There is something about having a visual schedule that makes things easier when it comes to transitions. We made these back to school story stones a while back and used them to adjust to the new routine that back to school time brings. Visual schedules can be effective in virtual sessions or hybrid learning. Why not use a visual schedule as a tool to move students between group online activities?
Online Icebreaker Activity
Back to School Writing and I Spy Slide Deck- Another interactive slide deck for back to school writing, this slide deck covers a variety of areas. Use the school supplies I Spy slide as a fun activity to get started with the school year. The icebreaker slide can be used to get to know students as they fill out an All About Me activity. The slides include handwriting tasks so students can write words and sentences while teachers or therapists assess baseline levels for each student.
Separation Anxiety Activity- After being out of the classroom for a much longer period of time this year, kids might have some worries or separation anxiety that leaves them anxious. Try this separation anxiety activity that uses a popular children’s book. Reading a book and doing a book-related activity a great icebreaker activity for kids.
Icebreaker Questions- Go through some icebreaker questions for kids. This is fun in person or in virtual settings. Use these questions as a writing prompt to work on handwriting, too.
Effective online learning
Heading back to the classroom means switching gears back to online learning. Having a productive and effective online learning experience can be hard for some kids, and the same is true for virual therapy sessions. Here are tips for parents to make the most of teletherapy and online learning sessions.
Having a toolbox of coping strategies for kids can make a big difference, too. Be sure to offer brain breaks, movement activities, and have a set of rules in place to make the most of online learning and virtual therapy sessions.
These back to school sensory activities can be effective movement strategies for kids to stay alert to online learning and pay attention during virtual classroom sessions.
School Bus Craft- This school bus craft is a simple one to set up and can be done as a group online activity or in person. Record the activity for a recorded session, too. With the simple shapes, the bus craft is great for working on scissor skills, visual motor skills, eye-hand coordination, and problem solving.
The Kissing Hand Craft- You’ve read the book The Kissing Hand, right? The book is a helpful tool to help kids with the transition to school. We made a The Kissing Hand craft that involved salt dough key chains (fine motor fun!) and be sure to check out the four other Kissing Hand crafts in the blog post, too.
Pencil Fidget Tool Craft- This pencil topper fidget is a fun craft for kids but it can double as a fidget tool, too. Making this DIY fidget tool builds fine motor skills with sensory-related benefits.
Make a Space Man spacing tool. Make a DIY spacing tool.Make a pipe cleaner spacing tool for handwriting.
First Day of School Printables
The first day of school is exciting! Having a set of printables ready for kids of different ages makes the teacher or therapist feel a little more organized and ready for back-to-school, too. Try these first day of school printables:
Back to school printable toolkit- This set of back to school printable activities is fun for the first day of school or the first weeks of school! There are book themed hole punch cards, school supplies I Spy printable page, school materials handwriting paper, an exclusive school supplies “spot it” matching game, and a printable PDF version of the school materials match-up game. Grab the toolkit here OR, get the free back to school writing slide deck listed for a special discount price 🙂
Emotions and Feelings Printable- Talking about feelings on the first day of school (or first weeks of school) is important, especially this year. Grab this social emotional learning worksheet to cover facial expressions and emotions with kids.
Deep Breathing Pencil– Use this printable to work on calming self regulation as a deep breathing strategy.
Deep Breathing School Bus– I love this calming self regulation tool because it’s a strategy that can be used on the school bus or just as a back to school themed activity.
Add this sensory strategy in school environment to the bus environment which can be unpredictable, full of loud sounds, vibration and unpredictable movements, and an opportunity for sensory overload.
More first day of school activities
What are your favorite ways to get kids excited about the first weeks of school or therapy?
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 white, another color (we used blue) and a background sheet (we used green)
(in red, yellow, and orange)
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(optional) You could also use glitter or skip this step all together.
