Butterflies are on our brain right now. We’re patiently waiting for the postman to drop off our batch of caterpillars that will be a part of our family for a little while as we watch their development through the butterfly life cycle. Add these butterfly life cycle crafts and activities to your Spring occupational therapy activity themes and help kids develop the fine motor skills needed for function.
The kids received a (and this is an affiliate link…) Live Butterfly Garden as a Christmas gift this year and we are SO excited to watch the butterfly life cycle. We can’t wait to watch our new family members grow and develop and do a few butterfly life cycle activities as well! (I can’t get over the cuteness of that Lego butterfly life cycle below!)
Butterfly Life Cycle Crafts
These crafts and activities are great to add to a life cycle of a butterfly lesson plan or to use in therapy planning in the clinic, classroom, or home.
This butterfly cupcake liner craft is a fun way to work on scissor skills and direction following, as well as fine motor work.
If you want to start with caterpillar and then move to butterfly activities, use this free bug and caterpillar slide deck to work on fine motor strength and development. The play dough and other fine motor tasks build hand strength in kids.
Recently, we released a new therapy slide deck to use in virtual therapy sessions that explores the butterfly life cycle. The butterfly therapy slide deck encourages gross motor skills, motor planning, and heavy work movement.
These heavy work cards include a page of butterfly life cycle activities that incorporate calming heavy work activities for motor planning and proprioceptive benefits.
This butterfly handwriting activity slide deck is another virtual therapy tool for using in teletherapy or even face to face sessions while working on letter formation and handwriting skills.
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.
More Butterfly Life Cycle Crafts and Activities
Try these crafts that combine the full butterfly life cycle into crafts and activities:
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.
These Earth Day Activities are great for occupational therapy activities because they are full of fine motor work, bilateral coordination, motor planning, and sensory experiences. Plus, when kids create these Earth day crafts and play experiences, they are learning about recycling, cleaning up the Earth, and nature.
Earth Day Activities
Let’s get to the Earth Day fun!
Make a recycled materials craft bin. Kids can gather recyclable materials from food containers, cardboard, artwork, and use them to make a DIY craft bin that is used for making more crafts and using in fine motor or sensory play activities. I love that the wax paper sleeves or egg cartons can be easily stored in cut cereal boxes. What a way to work on scissor skills with a variety of materials.
2. Use recycled materials to make a flower craft– Then, after that recycled materials craft bin is sorted, use the items to make a flower craft. Things like used egg cartons, cereal boxes, paper bags, can be cut and manipulated to craft and work on fine motor skills.
3. Head outside. There are so many benefits to playing and exploring the outdoors. And, kids can learn about the earth, too.
4. Read about recycling. These books about recycling are great to incorporate into therapy activities.
5. Incorporate recycled materials into learning concepts. Use these strategies to integrate therapy goals into the classroom with a recycling theme. You’ll find math, reading, science, and more ideas here.
6. Plant something- Explore this post on sensory gardens to find ways to incorporate sensory input in the outdoors.
I was surfing around on some other lovely blogs and trying to find some fun crafts that we could try. Here are a few of our favorite ones we came across all geared towards children ages two through five.
Itsy Bitsy Learners
This is a fun activity for preschoolers using homemade textured paint.
Repeat Crafter Me This Earth Day inspired felt counting book is such a great idea for toddlers.
Imprints From Tricia What a fun idea- go on a nature hunt and create a Nature Book. Press plants, leaves, and flowers into paint and then write to describe the prints. It’s a great sensory based handwriting activity.
Laugh Paint Create Created some great recycled artwork with cardboard food boxes. Work on scissor skills, bilateral coordination, and more.
Teach Beside Me These adorable Rock faces will make anyone smile and make a beautiful addition to a garden.
All of these great posts have inspired us to go create something special out of recycled items or something Mother Earth has provided for us…we can’t wait to get our hands dirty!
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 you have a child that loves all things unicorns, then this unicorn craft is the way to go. It’s a craft that develops fine motor skills and scissor skills but has magical fun of unicorns! For more unicorn activities, try this Unicorn Yoga activity as well.
I love creating crafts for kids that serve a purpose. There are a lot of anti-kids craft-ers out there, but as an Occupational Therapist, I am in the camp that kids crafts are GREAT for working on fine motor skills. Direction following, task completion, fine motor work, and dexterity (among other goal areas) can all be addressed with a fun craft that kids will have fun making and be proud of!
Unicorn Craft
(AND, the bonus to a purposeful craft is that it’s fun for the kids to make something that interests the child…whether it’s a specific animal, a favorite character, or a season…crafts build up a child with excitement and smiles.)
I do have to say, though that process-oriented arty creations are equally precious in child development and learning. It’s all about balance!
This super cute Unicorn craft is one that my kids loved making, and we worked on scissor skills and fine motor skills. And they didn’t even know it!
How to make a Unicorn CraftFull disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
You’ll need these materials to make a Unicorn Craft:
First, you’ll need to cut the white card stock into several shapes: One large rectangle, three small rectangles, a square, and a triangle.
Cut the pink card stock into a wing shape.
Cut the yarn into small pieces about 4 inches long.
Once all of the shapes and yarn pieces are cut, glue the paper shapes together in a unicorn shape.
Use the hold punch to create holes along one of the small rectangles and on the corner of the large rectangle.
Tie the yarn into the hole punch holes. To do this, pinch the center of the yarn and push it into the hole. Then, pull it halfway through the hole and slip the tail ends of the yarn into the loop. Do this for the unicorn’s mane and tail.
Trim the unicorn’s hair and tail so the yarn is shorter and an even length.
Use this uncorn craft to build therapy skills
This unicorn craft is a great craft for occupational therapy sessions because it works on so many areas and skills:
Direction following and executive functioning skills
Visual motor skills (copying the shapes and placing them on the paper to make the unicorn)
Eye-hand coordination to cut along lines
Scissor skills and graded hand precision
Hand strength using a hole punch
Fine motor precision to thread string through the holes
Bilateral coordination to cut with scissors, use hole punch, and tying knots
Making this craft is a great way to work on and practice scissor skills including cutting multiple-angled shapes like rectangles, squares, and triangles. I made an example of the unicorn craft and had my preschooler practice cutting on the lines.
Cutting card stock is a great medium for younger kids because of the thicker paper and more resistance to the scissors during cutting. This, along with a thick line like a crayon line provides an easier task for younger kids. Thicker lines and paper provide a child with a graded down component to the craft and allow for more accuracy.
Another way to make this activity easier or grade the craft is to provide help to a younger child who is completing this craft is to position the shape on the edge of the paper, so a rectangle would have only two cutting lines into the paper. The child can then reposition the paper instead of cutting around a corner.
Cutting the yarn is a great way to work on scissor skills: A child needs to hold the yarn with one hand and cut with the other, working on bilateral coordination skills. A different medium like yarn or string is a fun way to encourage more scissor practice, including accuracy and precision of snips.
So, how can you encourage fine motor skills with this craft? Simply by doing it! It’s a powerhouse of fine motor work. From cutting, snipping, hole punching, and threading the yarn through the holes, knotting the yarn, and gluing on the Googly eye: it’s a fine motor work out!
National Unicorn Day is April 9th. Who knew?! If you have a kiddo that loves all things unicorns, it’s a great theme to use in therapy or in home activities to help kids develop fine motor skills, visual motor skills, motor planning, and all of the areas described above.
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.
Spring is finally upon us, and the flowers will be blooming soon – it’s the perfect time to introduce some springtime crafts! The ideas you’ll find here are Spring fine motor activities that help to develop hand strength and dexterity. Cherry Blossoms are one of the most famed blooms every year, and for good reason, too – they are gorgeous and short-lived. Cherry blossom trees only have flowers for about 14 days, and only for about a week of that time is when they are this beautiful:
Cherry Blossom Crafts
Get yourself and your kiddos into the springtime spirit with any of these Cherry Blossom crafts, and add these ideas to your Spring occupational therapy interventions.
At the bottom of this post, you’ll also fine Cherry Blossom book ideas to incorporate into multisensory learning through play, so keep reading for story time ideas, too!
Q-TIP CHERRY BLOSSOM CRAFT
First, we have to talk about q-tip art. Just look at the creations you can make with a simple bathroom staple:
This Handprint Tree from Glued to my Crafts will keep your little ones entertained for a while!
Or this Spring Tree from A Little Pinch of Perfect, using the q-tips as the tree branches – brilliant!
Why make art with a Q-Tip?
First of all – It’s fun and cheap!
Using objects in a way that is not their intended purpose teaches object fluidity, and encourages cognitive development through creative play.
Holding a tiny Q-tip stick strengthens fine motor skills and encourages the development of a tripod grasp which is a part of handwriting development
Tissue Paper CHERRY BLOSSOM Craft
Next on the list is tissue paper crafts, so simple yet so beautiful!
We have to have one in here for developing mathematical skills! This is the perfect craft that challenges logical thinking and memory but doesn’t feel like learning to your young student.
Cognition and fine motor skills can be developed using felt and a tree branch in this cherry-blossom-themed Tactile Math Activity.
This Tissue Paper Tree from The Adventure Starts Here couldn’t be easier! You just need glue, tissue paper, and a printed (or drawn!) image of a tree.
Or, glue some tissue paper on to a stick in this 3D Cherry Blossoms project, from Practically Functional.
Ripping tissue paper strengthens the muscles of the fingers, hands, and arms.
Touching the crinkly and smooth textures of tissue paper provides a gentle sensory experience that is good for sensory seekers or avoiders.
Depending on the papers that you use, you can offer various sensory experiences – the textures, the sounds, the colors!
Why should I give my toddler a bottle of glue?
Squeezing a bottle of glue can take a lot of effort, which strengthens the muscles of the hands that are necessary for occupational skills like handwriting, zipping coats, etc.
Learning to control the pressure is a great way to teach fine motor planning skills.
Motor planning occurs before a voluntary movement happens, and when we are learning new physical skills, like squeezing a glue bottle, it requires some thinking beforehand to get it right.
The action-reaction that occurs with the amount of pressure from the squeeze (action) to the glue that is released (reaction) is a very tangible way to teach this skill.
CHERRY BLOSSOM Fingerprint crafts
We can’t offer a craft without a finger painting option! Read on for why painting with your fingers is beneficial for your child’s development.
The answer is that both are great tools to teach different skills!
Using fingers as a tool in artistic play provides great sensory feedback to the brain.
The textures of the paint, the feeling of the paper, the pressure to place the pain down, and the colors that they can experiment with all provide learning experiences for their growing mind.
Using a paintbrush is great, too!
The paintbrush provides another way to interact with the paint and paper while using their little hands in a prehensile pattern. Prehensile = grasp, and using any utensil develops their general grasping skills necessary for many occupational skills that are coming their way (handwriting, opening bottles/jars, buttoning, zipping, the list is endless!).
Cherry blossom books
Add a book to the craft activity to add dialogue and communication opportunities to craft time, while facilitating problem solving, social emotional learning, and more.
I personally love the days when I am able to connect a craft with a story. It makes the simplest things feel so purposeful and well-thought-out – like you’ve won the parenting award for the day!
Here is a list of cherry blossom themed books to go along with your craft: (Amazon affiliate links included below.)
Sydney Thorson, OTR/L, is a new occupational therapist working in school-based therapy. Her background is in Human Development and Family Studies, and she is passionate about providing individualized and meaningful treatment for each child and their family. Sydney is also a children’s author and illustrator and is always working on new and exciting projects.
This Leonardo the Terrible Monster activity is a fun way to create and teach kids about qualities of a friend, using a popular children’s book.
Leonardo the Terrible Monster Activity
You might know that we love to partner great children’s books with crafts and activities. Today’s hands-on activity is a Leonardo the Terrible Monster activity and it’s one that uses an amazing monster book to help kids talk about the qualities of a friend. Add this to your list of friendship activities, or when working on social emotional skills.
By the way, be sure to check out all of our book activities. It’s been fun creating book related activities! Today’s book is Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Williams. We created a monster craft and game where we talked about friendship.
(This post contains affiliate links.)
Have you read the book, Leonardo, the Terrible Monster? This is such a cool book, all about a Monster who is not so scary.
In fact, Leonardo is terrible at being terrible. Leonardo tries to find the most scare-able kid there is so that he can scare the tuna salad out of him. Meet Sam. Well, it turns out the Sam has had a bad day and is not in fact scared by Leonardo; he’s sad. Leonardo and Sam become wonderful friends.
This book is such a fun read with it’s big, fun font and simple illustrations. It was easy to make a game based on Leonardo the Terrible Monster. This game is all about what makes a friend. We talked about qualities of a friend (and decided scaring our friends is not a good quality!)
Leonardo The Terrible Monster Book Craft and Game
We started by making a monster craft using coffee filters and fork painted fur. For the Monster friend game, you can make a monster craft using any Monster craft, but this one was fun and easy! You’ll need a few materials to make the coffee filter monsters:
Monster-ish decorations like pipe cleaners, googly eyes, yarn, or any crafting material
To make the coffee filter monsters, first flatten and paint the coffee filters.
Add color and fur texture by pressing the back of the fork into paint and then pressing onto the coffee filter.
Let the paint dry and then glue on details of the monsters. It was fun to see how different each of our monsters looked.
We then used these monster crafts in a friendship game.
Monster “What is a Friend” Game for Kids
Once your monster friends are dry, hang them on the wall for a game about friends!
This color matching game was perfect for my preschooler (and her little sister who loves to do whatever her big sister does!)
Talk about the colors and details of each monster on the wall.
Discuss how each monster is different, but they all have feelings and might end up becoming a great friend. We talked about how friendship doesn’t have anything to do with appearances or visual qualities, but of the specific qualities of a friend, or how a person (or monster) acts like a friend to others.
We talked about what exactly it means to be a friend.
Then, to play the monster game, we played a version of “I Spy”. I said that I could see a monster who has blue fur.
My daughter would then go over and point to the monster that had blue fur and would name a quality of a friend that the monster might have. This extended the learning of friendship concepts further, and added movement, visual perceptual skills, color recognition, and more.
This is such a great movement and sensory-based preschool activity to learn about friendship skills!
Qualities of a Friend
(according to my kids):
It was fun to talk with my kids (later my 8 year old came over to see what the fun was about and joined us) as we discussed qualities of a friend. Some of the things we came up with were:
A friend is someone who helps.
A friend cares about their friends.
A friend helps people at school.
A friend asks others to play with them.
A friend tells the truth.
A friend takes turns.
What qualities of a friend can you and your kids come up with?
You’ll also love these free friendship slide decks that are now on the site:
Writing about Friendship Slide Deck – writing prompts, writing letters to friends, and handwriting activities to develop friendship skills, all on a free interactive Google slide deck.
Personal Space Friendship Skills Slide Deck– Friendship involves allowing personal space, and body awareness and all of this is part of the social skill development that some kids struggle with. Use this free Google slide deck to work on body awareness and personal space.
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 live in an area with cold winters and lots of snow. With the wintery weather comes ice, salt, and snow plows. We’ve been watching many salt trucks rumble down our road, scattering salt and plowing snow. My kids love to see the salt truck come and every time the see one when we’re out and about, they shout, “SNOW PLOW” from the back of the minivan. We had to make an Easy Shapes Salt Truck craft to join our other truck crafts.
Other trucks and cars crafts that work on scissor skills with simple geomteric shapes include:
If working on scissor skills is a must, then this salt truck craft is the way to go. Kiddos that love all things trucks and vehicles will love it for the vehicle theme, but as a therapist, I see the geometric shapes, making it perfect for working on early scissor skills.
Salt Truck Craft
This post contains affiliate links.
To make the craft, you’ll need just a few materials:
Scissors
Yellow paper
Red paper
Black paper
White paper
Green paper
Glue
Other colors of paper can certainly be used! These are the colors we used, and I’ll describe the shapes you need for this truck craft here so you can use the salt truck as a template.
About paper type- Different types of paper provides different amounts of feedback for young scissor users. We love crafting with card stock or thicker paper, because it’s easy to hold with the assisting hand and the paper doesn’t easily bend or move when cutting through it with scissors. Cardstock paper is great for younger kids or those just learning to snip and cut with smooth lines as well as just starting with turning the scissors around a corner of simple shapes.. Its brightly colors make great crafting material and the thickness is perfect for new scissor users. You can find more information on types of paper for scissor skill development in our scissor skills crash course.
You’ll need to draw the following shapes:
Yellow Rectangle- for the body of the truck
Yellow Square- for the cab of the truck
White Smaller Square- for the window of the truck
Large Green triangle- for the truck’s Salt bed
Long Green rectangle- for the top of the salt truck’s bed
2 Black larger circles- for the wheels
2 Smaller white circles- for inside the wheels
Red Half Circle- for the plow
Small Red Square- for the plow attachment
Draw the shapes onto the paper and then start cutting. Cut shapes as pictured above to build the salt truck craft.
Snow Plow Puzzle
Constructing this snow plow puzzle is part of the fun! Kids can work on visual memory by building the truck from memory or by looking at an example picture and then back to their project.
You can build the salt truck with them and then deconstruct the truck. Ask your child to recreate the truck from memory, using their mind’s eye to recall the placement of the shapes. This memory is visual memory and an important skill for copying work when handwriting.
There are other visual perceptual skills at work, too.
Looking for specific pieces that are placed on the table surface is a challenge in visual scanning, visual discrimination, figure-ground, and form constancy.
Remembering the position of the shapes is part of visual discrimination, a skill needed when children need to remember subtle differences in a picture or written work. Difficulty with visual discrimination will be apparent when a child has difficulty discerning between b, d, p, or q.
Early scissor skills fine motor
For more ways to work on scissor skills, along with all of the fine motor skills needed for scissor use and handwriting, try the Winter Fine Motor Kit. It’s loaded with cutting activities, lacing cards, coloring, clip activities, fine motor art, and fun ways to help children develop pre-writing hand strength, dexterity, and motor skills.
Use the fine motor activities, lacing cards, toothpick art, and crafts in the Winter Fine Motor Kit. It’s a 100 page packet with all winter themes, and you’ll find penguins there!
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.
You know we like to use materials that are on hand to help kids develop fine motor skills. This snowman craft uses hole reinforcement stickers to make a cute craft that works on fine motor skills. We do a TON of Fine Motor activities here! This Fine Motor Snowman art craft was just the thing to work on a little fine motor dexterity while keeping with our wintery freezing theme! We worked on tip to tip grasp, bilateral hand coordination, and intrinsic muscle strength, while creating our snowmen. Read all about it below!
Pulling the reinforcement stickers from the sheet required bilateral hand coordination to manage the page and pull the sticker off with the other hand. Managing two hands together in a coordinated manner is bilateral hand coordination. This skill is very important for self care tasks such as buttoning and zippering clothing, tying shoes, and handwriting.
We placed the stickers into a snowman by placing one sticker above the others. It was starting to look like a snowman party!
Pinching the small stickers from the sheet required precise fine motor dexterity. Using a tip-to-tip grasp to peel the sticker from the sheet was necessary because the stickers were so small. A tip-to-tip grasp occurs when the ends of the pointer finger and thumb are used to pick up very small items. Think about picking up a needle from a table surface. This can be a very difficult and advanced fine motor skill for some!
Once our snowman were placed on the paper, we painted them with blue paint.
Picking up the glitter and sprinkling activates the small muscles of the hands~ the intrinsic muscles. These are the muscles that allow for strength in the arches of the hands and are very important for endurance in coloring and writing with a pencil. The glitter stuck on the paint and made very sparkly snowmen!
To finish the project, peel the reinforcement stickers away and you’ll find a snowman. Be sure to peel away the reinforcement labels away while the paint is still wet, otherwise it will be difficult to pull them away.
Want more ways to boost fine motor skills with a snowman theme or winter theme? The Winter Fine Motor Kit is on sale now!
This print-and-go winter fine motor kit includes no-prep fine motor activities to help kids develop functional grasp, dexterity, strength, and endurance. Use fun, winter-themed, fine motor activities so you can help children develop strong fine motor skills in a digital world.
More than ever, kids need the tools to help them build essential fine motor skills so they develop strong and dexterous hands so they can learn, hold & write with a pencil, and play.
This 100 page no-prep packet includes everything you need to guide fine motor skills in face-to-face AND virtual learning. Includes winter themed activities for hand strength, pinch and grip, dexterity, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, endurance, finger isolation, 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.
This clothespin snowman is a fine motor craft that is not only the cutest winter craft we’ve seen, but it’s also a powerful tool to strengthen fine motor skills. Kids that fumble with pencil grasp, struggle with clothing fasteners, or are challenged by opening lunch box containers, often times need focused fine motor strengthening. What if we could combine fine motor work with a fun snowman craft? That’s just what we did and we are sharing the how to below! This is a craft that kids can use to really boost fine motor skills…with a super cute snowman clothespin craft!
Read on to find out how to make a snowman craft that uses a few craft supply closet staple items (hello clothespins!) AND works on the fine motor skills like hand strength, precision of grasp, and other skills, too.
ClothesPin Snowman Craft
We used some basic craft materials to make a snowman craft that has been as much fun to make as it is to play with! The fact that this snowman craft is on a clothespin makes it a fine motor power tool. Kids can pinch the clothespin to attach the snowman to anything from a folder, to a book, to a backpack, to a flowerpot! Our snowman craft showed up hanging out on the side of a flowerpot and it is still there!
Fine Motor Skills Craft Idea
The clothespin snowman craft that we made is a spin on the typical painted clothes pin idea. While equally cute, I wanted to come up with a craft idea that builds fine motor skills throughout the process of making the snowman craft AND while using it in play and decoration.
The best thing about this little snowman is that while making him, we powered up on fine motor skills like neat pincer grasp, pincer grasp, bilateral coordination, in-hand manipulation, eye-hand coordination, hand strength, finger isolation.
All of these fine motor skills are needed for every-day tasks like pencil grasp, management of clothing fasteners, cutting with scissors, manipulating small containers, shoe tying, and so many other areas.
So many of our kids are struggling with fine motor skills…why not sneak them in with a fun winter craft like this clothespin snowman craft?
You will need a few materials for this clothespin snowman:
Clothespin
White craft pom poms
Small black craft pom poms
Red pipe cleaner (or any color!)
Brown pipe cleaner
Black paint
Craft glue
make a clothespin Snowman
This was super easy to make:
Use the craft glue to stick the white craft pom poms onto the clothespin. The bottom of the snowman should be at the end of the clothespin that opens when you pinch it.
2. Glue the small black craft pom poms onto the belly of the snowman.
3. Use the red pipe cleaner as a scarf by cutting a smaller piece. About 4 inches long is perfect, because you can then trim it as short as you would like.
4. Thread the pipe cleaner behind the head of the snowman and bend it around the front. Twist it into a “knot” and bend the pipe cleaner so it stays in place with the ends hanging as you would like them. Trim the excess from both ends of the scarf.
5. Use the brown pipe cleaner to make the arms of the snowman craft. Thread the pipe cleaner behind the snowman’s head. At this point, you can add a bit of glue to the red and brown pipe cleaners to keep them both in place.
6. Use paint to make a face on the snowman craft. We used squeezable gel glue (the kind that is use for window suncatchers) because it really adds a fine motor strengthening component. A sharpie works as well. Other ideas for decorating the snowman’s face might include gluing small googly eyes and a orange pipe cleaner carrot in place. These options may include use of a hot glue gun.
And that’s it! Your snowman craft is ready to hang out AND work those fine motor skills!
Fine Motor Skills Used in this Snowman Craft:
We incorporated fine motor skills like the ones listed below right into the process of creating our snowman craft!
Use the clothespins to pick up the craft pom poms that you will need for the snowman. One way to do this is to have a sample available. Kids can look at the sample and identify the correct pom poms they need to build a snowman of their own. What an exercise in visual perceptual skills as well as fine motor skills!
Picking up and moving craft pom poms with the clothespins really strengthens the hands. Here is more information on using clothespins to strengthen the hands, and you can read more about the specific fine motor skills below.
Neat pincer grasp- This fine motor skill is a precision skill that uses the tip of the pointer finger and the tip of the thumb in opposition. Here is more information about neat pincer grasp. We use neat pincer grasp to manipulate very small items. This is a refined fine motor skill. Use the snowman craft to work on this fine motor skill by holding the small craft pom pom with the tips of the fingers while adding craft glue.
Pincer grasp-Pincer grasp is the opposition of the pointer finger to the thumb, but with the pads of the fingers. This is a skill tat develops from a very young age, but is used for so many functional skills! Use the clothes pins to pinch and pick up the craft pom poms like we did.
Bilateral coordination- Using both hands together in a coordinated manner is a skill that is used in almost every activity we do. Work on bilateral coordination by building a fine motor snowman of your own.
In-hand manipulation- This fine motor skill is essential for a functional pencil grasp and manipulating items like clothing fasteners and small objects. Work on in-hand manipulation by managing the craft pom poms when completing this craft.
Eye-hand coordination– Build skills by asking your child or client to work on eye-hand coordination when adding the craft pom poms and details to this snowman craft.
Hand strength- Strong hands allow us to perform fine motor tasks with coordinated movements. Use the clothes pin to strengthen the arches of the hand and the intrinsic muscles by pinching and placing the snowman craft onto various surfaces!
All of these fine motor skills are needed for every-day tasks like pencil grasp, management of clothing fasteners, cutting with scissors, manipulating small containers, shoe tying, and so many other areas.
This cute little snowman craft has been moving all around our house these last few days!
clothespin snowman craft- Fine Motor Activity
We actually have a video that shows different ways you can use a clothes pin, like the snowman clothespin that we made, as a hand strengthening tool:
Clothespins are a powerful way to strengthen hands. In this video, we walk through different grasp patterns that we can target with clothes pin activities.
Want more ways to boost fine motor skills with a snowman theme or winter theme? The Winter Fine Motor Kit is on sale now!
This print-and-go winter fine motor kit includes no-prep fine motor activities to help kids develop functional grasp, dexterity, strength, and endurance. Use fun, winter-themed, fine motor activities so you can help children develop strong fine motor skills in a digital world.
More than ever, kids need the tools to help them build essential fine motor skills so they develop strong and dexterous hands so they can learn, hold & write with a pencil, and play.
This 100 page no-prep packet includes everything you need to guide fine motor skills in face-to-face AND virtual learning. Includes winter themed activities for hand strength, pinch and grip, dexterity, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, endurance, finger isolation, 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.
We used homemade glitter paint to make this snowman painting that is the prefect addition to a snowman theme! The nice thing about this snowman craft is that it uses paint and glitter so that the process is a little messy, but super sensory. The way that we painted our glitter paint snowmen was very fun and a great sensory experience for the toddlers. Add this to your creative art ideas for more fun!
This, along with our how to paint snow activity are fun winter OT ideas
How to make Glitter Paint
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To make the glitter paint, we started with some white paint in a bowl and a new shower scrub. You can get a pack of these at the dollar store.
At this point, you could mix white or iridescent glitter right into the paint and mix it up. We chose to sprinkle the glitter onto the paint, however, for the fine motor benefits of sprinkling.
Next, you are ready to make the snowman craft!
Glitter Paint Snowman
Press a new shower scrubber into the white paint. Then, gently press it onto blue construction paper. You can “build” a snowman by adding three puffs of white paint.
The shower puff was the perfect stamper for our snowman’s body and a great painting tool for toddlers. The Toddlers could grab the shower pouf with a gross hand grasp and smash it right down on the construction paper.
Big Sister helped out with this craft and was the “teacher”.
While the paint was still wet, we sprinkled **generous amounts** of clear glitter right onto the paint. By sprinkling the glitter with your fingertips, kids develop intrinsic hand strength and arch development. It is a similar motor plan and muscle use required for rolling small balls of play dough. You can explore more on intrinsic hand strengthening here.
The glitter stuck right in the glue and the excess was shook off. Our snowmen were starting to look pretty snowy!
The next step involved Big Sister coming to the aid with her “teacher” duties. She squirted dots of glue for eyes, noses, scarves, hats, and buttons.
Next, you will need squeeze glue from a bottle. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I love the use of a squeeze glue bottle over a glue stick for so many reasons. By using a squeeze glue bottle, kids are building refined use of skill areas:
Refined grasp
Hand strength
Eye-hand coordination
Arch strength
Open thumb web-space
Visual motor skills
You can focus on certain areas with use of a squeeze glue bottle by asking kids to place glue onto specific spots. Just use a marker to dot throughout the shape. Kids can then place glue dots on those specific spots.
If working with glue bottles is a helpful activity for the children you serve, you will love the Glue Spots Exercises in the Winter Fine Motor Kit.
All of these were one at a time and because we were doing four kid’s worth of snowmen, she was pretty busy with her little glue assembly line!
Little Nephew was much more sure of himself when it came to squashing the black pony beads into the glue dots. This was a great fine motor activity for little hands. I love those little wrinkly knuckles!
Big Sister helped to keep everyone on task with the steps.
I cut little pieces of orange felt into carrots for the snowmen noses and tiny felt hats from felt sheets. The eyes were googly eyes and the scarves were just strips of red felt. Once everything was glued on, we used a brown marker to draw stick arms.
Our sparkly snowman family looks pretty cute. This was such a fun craft for multiple ages. I love how their personalities come out in each snowman, too…with the different sized eyes, the smash of the paint, the sizes of the arms…Big fun!
Looking for more winter activities designed to build fine motor skills? The Winter Fine Motor Kit is on sale now!
This print-and-go winter fine motor kit includes no-prep fine motor activities to help kids develop functional grasp, dexterity, strength, and endurance. Use fun, winter-themed, fine motor activities so you can help children develop strong fine motor skills in a digital world.
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.
