We had some fish learning activities based on a penguin theme going on for a while around here. Penguin activities are so much fun for learning and play! This fish learning activity was a fun way to explore letters, words, and numbers AND incorporate our penguin theme. We did this learning and counting activity one day after we made our penguin themed snacks. Add it to the penguin yoga activity and penguin deep breathing activities to round out full-body movement and learning.
Fish learning activity
Penguin math is fun when it comes to catching fish for penguin food! Use these ideas for a polar bear theme, too.
We used sheets of scrapbook paper and construction paper to make fish shapes. Kids can cut these out to work on scissor skills.
Next, we drew a pond on a large sheet of crafting paper. I wrote words, letters, or numbers on the fish. On some, I attached a paperclip or clip. We used a net (from a Bug Net toy) or a fishing pole from a puzzle set to scoop up the fish like a penguin would.
You could also use a magnetic fishing pole from a puzzle set to catch the fish with clips on them. We scooped them in numerical order or in alphabetical order and then in random order too.
How fun would this be to read a few fun penguin books and then do some fishy counting to continue the penguin theme?
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
Today, I have a hands on learning activity for second grade using a polar bear game. This number line games for 2nd grade could actually be used in any age or grade level math, however, the polar bear craft that we used for a second grade math game turned out to be a fun way to work on base ten operations and adding 10’s and 100’s to two and three digit numbers. In second grade, adding two digits is a big deal! This polar bear activity is a fun two digit addition games for 2nd grade (and other grades).
To make the polar bear craft, glue the small white crafting pom poms to the white pom pom. These will become the polar bear’s ears. Glue the black pom pom to the bear’s face. This will become the nose. Add the googly eyes and your polar bear craft is done.
There are a lot of fine motor skills being addressed in the making of this polar bear craft: pincer grasp, eye-hand coordination, in-hand manipulation, bilateral coordination, and separation of the sides of the hand.
This polar bear craft would pair nicely with our snowball math activity, designed to inspire hands-on learning with gross motor skills. The polar bear math activity described here would also go well with our Winter Fine Motor Kit, which is loaded with polar bear themed fine motor activities and crafts designed to target and strengthen specific fine motor skills.
Polar Bear Game
We played a polar bear game to boost second grade math skills by working on adding 10’s and 100’s to numbers along the number line. I showed my daughter how to use a straw to blow the craft pom pom polar bear craft across the table and along the number line.
We started the bear at zero and tried to see how far she could get the bear to go down the number line. I then asked her a few questions that I had written out on cards:
What is your digit?
Is your digit even or odd?
What is 10 more?
What is 10 less?
What is 100 more?
We played a few times and then tried a few different extension ideas for this activity.
Starting at where the polar bear lands, count on by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, and 100’s.
Start out by saying “We’ll add 100 to the number where your bear lands.” Then, practice counting backwards by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, and 100’s.
Use two polar bear crafts to practice single and double digit adding and subtracting.
This polar bear game would be a great way to work on aspects of numbers with a hands-on approach to learning. Use it along with this Snowman Math-Composing and Decomposing Numbers activity.
Polar Bear Sensory Activity
This activity doubles as a polar bear sensory activity as it offers oral motor skills work. By blowing the straw to move the craft pom poms, children experience proprioceptive input through their mouth and cheeks. This sensory input is calming and can be a regulating tool to help kids focus following the heavy work through their mouth.
Using the straw to blow the polar bear across the table requires some “oomph” because of the weight of the crafting pom poms. Blowing through a straw is a great way to provide proprioception through a winter-themed oral motor activity. This is a fun activity for sensory seekers, kids who seek out oral motor input, and children who tend to fidget during learning or homework.
If blowing the straw requires too much effort for your child, or you would like to try a fine motor activity, practice flicking the polar bear across the table. Keeping the bear on the table requires precision of fine motor skills, making it another way to use the polar bear craft in therapy and hands-on learning.
Grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit, with 100 pages of done-for-you therapy activities, including polar bear themes. Grab it now before January 9th and you get a bonus of 3 fine motor slide deck activities.
These reproducible activity pages include: pencil control strips, scissor skills strips, simple and complex cutting shapes, lacing cards, toothpick precision art, crumble hand strengthening crafts, memory cards, coloring activities, and so much more.
Play Dough Roll Mats- Use the 6 play dough mats to develop fine motor skills and hand strength needed for tasks like coloring with endurance, manipulating small items, and holding a pencil. Kids can roll small balls of play dough with just their fingertips to strengthen the intrinsic muscles.
Pinch and Grip Strength Activities- Challenge fine motor skills with polar bear and winter themed glue skills page, tong/tweezer activities, lacing cards, finger puppets, 1-10 counting clip cards, 10 toothpick art pages, find & color page, 5 crumble art pages.
Pencil Control Worksheets- Connect the arctic animals or winter items and stay on the pencil path lines while mastering pencil control.
Arctic Animal Cutting Strips and Scissor Skills Sheets- Work on scissor skills to cut along lines to reach the arctic animal friends or snowflakes, snowmen, and mittens. This is a great way to strengthen the motor and visual skills needed for cutting with scissors.
Handwriting Sensory Bin Materials- You and the kiddos will love these A-Z uppercase and lowercase tracing cards with directional arrows, 1-10 tracing cards with directional arrows, 1-10 counting cards.
“I Spy” Modified Paper- Includes: Color and find objects in two themes: winter items and arctic animals; 3 styles of modified paper for each theme: single rule bold lines, double rule bold lines, highlighted double rule.
Fine Motor Handwriting Sheets- Try the 4 Find/Color/Copy pages in different styles of modified paper, rainbow writing pages in 3 styles of modified paper.
Write the Room Activities- Using a winter theme, these Write the Room cards includes: 5 lowercase copy cards, 5 uppercase copy cards, 5 lowercase tracing cards, 5 uppercase copy cards, 6 cursive writing copy cards, 2 styles of writing pages.
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
Looking for a snowman craft to help kids develop fine motor skills during the winter months? These snowman activities and snowman crafts are perfect for using in occupational therapy interventions or to build skills! Here you will find snowman activities for fine motor, gross motor, sensory tolerance, pencil grasp, handwriting, math, scissor skills, sensory experiences, and other learning/school tasks. Use the snowman crafts and sensory activities to make winter fun a skill-building moment! For wintery fun, browse the ideas below.
Add this snowman theme to your weekly therapy theme list for themed therapy activities that are done for you.
Snowman Crafts
Let’s start with snowman crafts that build fine motor skills. We know that kids crafts have a powerful benefit when it comes to developing fine motor precision, hand strength, functional use of craft tools like glue bottles, scissors, crafting materials. When kids use these craft items to create, they are using the occupation of crafting to develop skills for that specific task, but also to carryover to other functional tasks. When it comes to occupational therapy, crafts are a means and a technique to functional skill development!
These snowman crafts are just one theme in the selection of winter craft ideas that we have on the website.
Check out the selection of snowman themed crafts below. From the paper snowman, to toilet paper snowman crafts, these creative snowman craft ideas will have you covered on fun ways to help kids build motor skills and executive functioning skills this winter.
These snowman crafts cover a variety of materials and skills. Choose the ones that work for your needs, and available materials. Kids can improve areas including: pinch, grasp, precision, cutting, glue use, bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, and more.
Snowman Glitter Craft
There is just something about kids and glitter! But did you know the fine motor benefits of a glitter snowman craft? Use stamp art to make a snowman but with a sparkly paint when you mix glitter into paint to create this textured snowman. Work on precision, fine motor skills, texture tolerance, and address eye-hand coordination with this stamp glitter snowman craft.
Kids will also love to paint real snow. Here’s how to paint snow using spray bottles to double down on the fine motor skills.
This glittery snowman is a fun craft idea that works on boosting important fine motor skills that are needed for pencil grasp, fastener manipulation, and the opening and closing of containers and food products! All of these are essential skills needed for a child to become more independent in their daily task performance.
Making a textured snowman is fun with the Disguise a Snowman activity in the Snowman Therapy Kit. Add sequins, glitter, and puffy paint, or other fine motor items like beads, string, and more to disguise a snowman!
Paper snowman Craft-
There are many ways to make a paper snowman, and when kids cut and paste, they are building fine motor skills with basic, everyday craft materials. Plus, there are tons of fun and creative ways to make a paper snowman, too, so this is a wintery craft idea that can be extended while working on motor skill development. Try some of these paper snowman craft ideas:
Cut round circles and glue them together to build a snowman from paper.
Build a paper snowman using the templates in the Snowman Therapy Kit. The materials are all there for you. Kids can color the objects and cut them out while working on scissor skills. The paper snowman templates are large, so this is a great gross motor task for building or attaching to a bulletin board or magnetic wall to work on core strength and working on a vertical, too.
Egg carton snowman-
Egg cartons are a great therapy tool, but when you make an egg carton snowman, you get many fine motor benefits too. Work on in-hand manipulation and eye-hand coordination skills with this cute egg carton snowman!
For another way to use egg cartons to make a snow friend, try this Egg Carton Snowman. It’s a another fun craft idea that children will love and it works on important fine motor hand skills to include a tripod grasp, intrinsic hand strength, arch development, and an open web space. How? By implementing the use of scissors, bottle glue, marker, and skewers. Easy to create, but so effective in skill development and children will have so much fun doing it!
Toilet paper Snowman Craft-
Grab a toilet paper tube or a paper towel roll and start painting it white. Then, cut the paper tube into sections. These make great tacking tubes to work on fine motor skills and bilateral coordination. Add a few snowman details like a scarf, black dots for buttons, and coal. Draw on a carrot and you’ve got a fine motor toilet paper snowman!
Stacking toilet paper snowmen is really cute way to work on fine motor skills while building snowman towers! That’s right, towers of toilet paper snowmen in which a child uses tongs (or hands) to pick up and sort snowmen into towers by stacking them on top of each other. Sort, build the tallest tower, or simply just stack! This activity easily works on fine motor control, strengthening and endurance, and grading of movement.
Sticker Snowman Craft-
We used paper reinforcement stickers to create a snowman craft with big fine motor benefits. This is a great way to work on precision and dexterity with this fine motor snowman craft. Kids can peel off the small paper reinforcements and place then precisely on paper using neat pincer grasp, eye-hand coordination, and separation of the sides of the hand in order to make the sticker snowman. Plus, kids love using paper reinforcement stickers!
Cotton Ball Snowman Craft
Using cotton balls or craft pom poms to make a snowman is a fun way to build fine motor skills, too. We used craft pom poms to make this clothespin snowman but cotton balls would work, too.
Dab a cotton ball into glue (pincer grasp) and then press it onto paper or a textured background (arch development and hand strength) to build a 3D snowman.
Paper Plate Snowman Craft-
Emotion Snowmen Paper Plates is an easy to create paper plate activity that works on facial emotion identification and awareness with the theme of snowmen. Kids can make their own emotional faces or they can be premade to work on social emotional skills. Make duplicate plates and create a matching game as a way to work on visual memory too!
For another paper plate snowman idea use the snowball templates in the Snowman Therapy Kit. Kids can cut out the large snowball circles and glue them to paper plates. Then, build a snowman using the paper plates. Kids can then decorate their snowman and work on fine motor skills.
Snowman Activities
Below, you’ll find more snowman fun. I’ve broken these snowman activities and therapy ideas into areas designed to help kids develop specific skills. You’ll find snowman activities for fine motor development, gross motor skills, and motor planning. You’ll love the craft ideas that challenge visual perceptual skills and sensory tolerance. Each activity can also build on several skill areas.
Deep Breathing Snowmanis a fun mindfulness, deep breathing printable to use as a sensory coping strategy with kids throughout the winter season. Simply print and teach children to follow the visual prompts on the snowman to trace and pause at each white dot and hold their breath to achieve a calming effect.
Snowman Brain Breaks- Kids love the self-regulation strategies using whole body movements with a snowman theme. These exercises get kids moving, and are a great way to add mindful movement during the winter months when it can be a challenge to get outdoors. You can find these snowman brain breaks in the Snowman Therapy Kit.
Snowman Executive Functioning Activity (Make a Snowman Treat)- Cooking in the kitchen is a powerful way to develop fine motor skills and executive functioning skills. Use cucumbers and vegetables to make this snowman snack. Click here for the snowman snack directions.
Pin the Nose on a Snowman- This gross motor snowman activity is a great way to develop specific gross motor skills like hopping, skipping, squatting, and balance. The coordination tasks are on the snowman noses and when kids pin the nose on the snowman, they get a gross motor movement break, too. You’ll find this winter activity in the Snowman Therapy Kit.
Snowman Self-Regulation Activity– This deep breathing activity can be a coping tool or a sensory strategy to help with self-regulation skills. Included is a free printable deep breathing worksheet. Click here for a snowman deep breathing activity.
Snowman Puzzles- There are so many reasons why I love these snowman puzzles. Kids can trace the snowman, color in the picture, and then cut out the paper puzzles. Plus, they can build the puzzle and work on visual perceptual skills, too. In the Snowman Therapy Kit, you’ll find simple and complex snowman puzzles and a variety of puzzle tasks for this winter theme.
Snowman Sensory Activity– Use this baking soda dough recipe to make a sensory and fine motor material that kids can use to build skills. The baking soda dough provides a resistant material for strengthening hands. Click here to for the snowman baking soda dough directions.
Snowman Gross Motor (slide deck)– Incorporate bilateral coordination, motor planning, crossing midline, and other gross motor skill areas with this snowman activity. Kids can follow along to the slide images. This makes a great brain break activity, too. This is a free Google slide deck. Click here for the snowman bilateral coordination activities.
Snowman Fine Motor Activity– This counting/adding/subtracting activity builds eye-hand coordination, and fine motor skills. Make snowmen from recycled egg cartons. This is a great activity for breaking down numbers. Click here for this snowman math activity.
Another great fine motor snowman activity is the bead copying cards in the Snowman Therapy Kit. Kids can cut out the bead cards and then copy the patterns to make a string of beads while developing fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, and visual motor skills.
Snowman Eye-Hand Coordination Activity- We’ve made a ton of virtual therapy Slide decks for occupational therapy services, and this snowman themed task is one more. Use this build a snowman activity in virtual lessons or teletherapy to work on eye-hand coordination, visual scanning, handwriting, or typing.
Graph a Snowman- For kids working on executive functioning skills like metacognition, organization, task completion, prioritization, and planning, a “graph a snowman” task is a great activity. You’ll find this printable resource in our Snowman Therapy Kit.
More Snowman Crafts and Activities for Therapy
Kids are loving our latest therapy kit! The Snowman Therapy Kit covers all aspects of therapy skill areas: gross motor, fine motor, self-regulation, visual perception, executive function, handwriting, scissor skills, and more! Read all about the Snowman Therapy Kit here.
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
If you love Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and of course, Rudolph, then you’ll love all of these fun reindeer activities! The reindeer crafts and movement activities you see here will get kids grasping, pinching, jingling, buttoning, writing, sniffing, moving, creating, and partying. All of these developmental skills are included with the completion of these fun and festive reindeer activities. Kids will be engaged and motivated to do even the most difficult of tasks. These reindeer play ideas cover a variety of skills. So, let’s get to it!
Reindeer Activities
I’ve broken these holiday activities up into sections: sensory activities, fine motor activities, movement, and reindeer crafts. These should help you with therapy planning this time of year. These reindeer fine motor cards will be a fun way to play, too.
Reindeer Sensory Activities
First, are some fun SENSORY activities, do you need some sensory tools with a festive reindeer theme? Then here ya go!
Chocolate Scented Reindeer Play Dough gives you the recipe to create a yummy smelling play dough and when it’s in use as part of an invitation tray, children work on fine motor strengthening as well as tactile tolerance while building fun reindeer faces and more.
Rudolph Jingle Bell Sticks gives you a fun way to incorporate music jingling into your daily activities. The sticks include the creation of a unique musical instrument that can be used when working on dance moves, gross motor exercise, or even as a fun reading tracking stick.
Reindeer Food Writing Tray provides you a recipe for reindeer food that children create while working on eye-hand coordination to pour, shake, scoop, and stir while creating the food mixture. Once made, it provides a fun sensory tool for children to work on letter, number and shape formation.
Christmas Sensory Bottles includes a reindeer-themed sensory bottle that can be used as a calming tool for use in a sensory or calm down corner. Super cute!
Reindeer Crafts
Next, are some fun FINE MOTOR and ART and CRAFT activities that can help if you need festive ideas for building fine motor strength, pincer grasp, bilateral coordination, hand dominance, fastener manipulation, tool use, and sequencing skills. Use these reindeer crafts to help kids develop fine motor skills in a big way. Take a look:
Add these reindeer fine motor cards to your therapy toolbox to work on a variety of areas: pencil control, writing lines, coloring, scissor skills, precision, hand strength, spatial skills, and more.
Olive, the Other Reindeer Book Ornament is a cute ornament craft that uses a recycled toilet paper roll to create a set of antlers. The ornament is based on the book, Olive, The Other Reindeer, who is a dog-reindeer, that’s right a dog-reindeer. She thinks she’s a reindeer and goes to the North Pole to help Santa and the reindeer save Christmas. Olive earns her own set of antlers from Santa, so, why not create her antlers after reading the book?
Reindeer Antler Match includes matching and clipping multi-colored, miniature clothespins onto foam reindeer heads with the matching nose color. Works on pincer grasp and color recognition.
Reindeer Buttoning involves the use of felt and buttons to build a reindeer’s face while working on buttoning or unbuttoning skills, sequencing, and following directions.
Feed Rudolph the Reindeer will work on pincer grasp and eye-hand coordination while children pinch small pieces of pipe cleaner to push through the holes of a recycled spice bottle.
Cocoa Pebbles Reindeer Craft includes the use of Cocoa Pebbles to fill a reindeer outline. Have kiddos pinch small piles of pebbles from a bowl and sprinkle onto the outline to work on fine motor pinch skills. Note: With the yummy smell of this cereal while doing the activity, it just might make it a little difficult not to sneak a nibble while creating this cute craft!
Toilet Paper Roll Reindeer includes the tracing of hands and cutting them out to create antlers for pasting onto a recycled toilet paper roll. Finish with adding cute googly eyes and a red pom-pom nose. Easy, but really cute and what great skills are worked on with tracing and cutting!
Yarn Wrapped Reindeer Craft is really a fine motor activity that turns out to be a cute craft when completed. Children wrap yarn around a cardboard triangle, add googly eyes and a pom-pom nose, and then clip on two clothespins that are wrapped with pipe cleaners to create antlers.
Preschool Build a Shape Reindeer is a fun way to have prechoolers work on shape recognition by building a fun construction paper reindeer with use of precut shapes. You can easily have a child work on cutting skills with this activity, if you have them cut out the shapes and then assemble the reindeer.
Handwriting Reindeer Activities
Next, are some multisensory HANDWRITING reindeer activities that help children to work on handwriting mechanics along with other skills in a fun and unique way that will motivate them to engage in the task!
Reindeer Multisensory Handwriting Freebie involves a multisensory approach to handwriting that includes tracing, cutting, pasting, moving, scanning, visual discrimination, and handwriting. Check it out.
Meet My Pet Reindeer is a holiday craftivity that includes cutting, tracing, gluing and writing.
But, if you just need some festive holiday handwriting paper that is modified to help a variety of children with their handwriting needs, check out this Christmas Modified Handwriting Paper, by The OT Toolbox.
Gross Motor Reindeer Activities
Next, are some super fun GROSS MOTOR Reindeer Activities that could be used for transitions while building gross motor skills and working on motor planning too! Fun activities that can be used at home, at school, and during remote learning or therapy.
Try the pin the nose on the reindeer activity in our Reindeer Party Games for a gross motor game with the whole family.
Reindeer Brain Breaks is just that, a break for the brain with a reindeer theme! Each of Santa’s reindeer has a brain break card and children can use them while at home, during a transition, in the classroom, or while online. These brain break moves can easily be done in small spaces making them perfect for most anywhere!
Reindeer Testing will get kids moving as they perform some fun reindeer moves that may be needed when pulling Santa’s sleigh! This fun resource helps to get kids moving while testing their reindeer skills with running, jumping, stomping, and prancing.
Reindeer Boot Camp is an excellent source for gross motor activities and they are perfect for either a classroom, home party or just to get kids moving! The reindeer training activities include balancing, galloping, leaping, scooter pulling, and tossing bean bags at a target. Don’t have been bags? That’s okay, use some stuffed animals.
Reindeer Games Camp is a boot camp that works on a variety of gross motor skills. Children will pull sleighs, do agility drills, do hoop and cone training, practice reindeer moves, and work on present stacking. These skills are important when you’re a reindeer!
Lastly, do you need a resource that literally has all you need in one place? Try this fun resource by The OT Toolbox called, Reindeer Playdate Party. There is food, activities, snacks, and reindeer games! This will give you all you need to party like the Reindeer! Have fun!
Try these ideas for more Christmas activities that help kids develop skills…Just click on the images below for holiday 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.
Looking for gingerbread man activities? We’ve got you covered. From gingerbread men to gingerbread houses to gingerbread cookies, it’s the theme of gingerbread for this festive season! Can you smell the ginger? Ah, it’s so cozy and the theme of gingerbread is so classic and fun! Browse an old blog post from The OT Toolbox to find gingerbread activities for kids by kids. Lots of fun ideas in that post as well as some new ideas in this post! You can also find a Cardboard Gingerbread House idea.
Included below are gingerbread man books that you can pair with hands-on activities. The gingerbread man ideas below build fine motor skills, gross motor skills, motor planning, direction-following, and sensory exploration. Let’s get started with the holiday activities!
You can’t go the season without reading at least one gingerbread man book. So grab one or more of these gingerbread-related books and work on critical thinking and early literacy skills!
GINGERBREAD MAN BOOKS
Take a look at these gingerbread man books: (Amazon links included below.) These are great books to use along with therapeutic activities.
Do you have visions of colorfully decorated gingerbread houses or some icing covered gingerbread men? Crafts are the supreme skill builder for kiddos and highly motivating.
Crafts can work on scissor cutting, drawing, coloring, tool grasp, glue management, direction following, and sequencing. Now, let’s craft some gingerbread goodies.
This fun gingerbread man stapling craft is a super fun way to build a gingerbread man while working on stapler use that incorporates strength, bilateral coordination, visual motor control, and precision handling.
Craft a fun paper bag gingerbread house using office stickers galore! Stickers are an easy way to work on pincer grasp, bilateral coordination, spatial awareness with placement, and hand dominance.
Craft a fun plate of gingerbread cookies using a paper plate and paper bag being sure to decorate with crayons. Don’t forget broken crayons color too and they can be better for kids to work on their tool grasp!
Maybe a collage art gingerbread man is more what your kiddos would enjoy. Providing a tray of decorating goodies can give a child the opportunity for creativity and independence. But if you’re looking for more therapeutic benefits, you can incorporate body awareness and multiple fine motor skills.
Provide a fun gingerbread man lacing craft that automatically incorporates fine motor precision, pincer grasp, motor planning, eye-hand coordination and bilateral hand use.
Maybe you have the need for some energy consuming gingerbread movement! So many gingerbread books provide action words that can easily be utilized for movement exercises. Try substituting these actions with various movements you need your child to practice.
Use these Gingerbread Man gross motor activities as a brain breaks for a physical break in the classroom, at home, or during a transition. Brain break movement activities can involve so many different body moves with a wonderfully festive theme!
Here’s an activity that you can try called, Gingerbread Man Gross Motor Activity. It combines the simple idea of gross motor skills and literacy skills.
You can also try these fun Gingerbread Man Gross Motor Dice printables to further incorporate movements related to the book. Read and move together!
Try Gingerbread Passing to work on core strength, coordination, motor planning, and social skills. It’s a great team work activity or it can be simplified to have one child work on passing a gingerbread man from one place to another.
Try this fun idea of some Gingerbread Hokey Pokey using a classic game with a gingerbread theme to work on body awareness and motor planning.
Gingerbread Man Fine Motor
Feeling the need to focus on fine motor or visual motor skills, maybe? How about drawing, handwriting or visual perception? Read on to find some great activity ideas.
Need a low prep Gingerbread Man Cutting activity to work on bilateral hand skills and eye hand coordination along with scissor grasp? Try this fun idea! Maybe cardboard is too difficult for your kiddos to cut, so simply change to paper or even sandpaper for a fun approach.
Maybe using scissors is not the skill level of your child so try a Gingerbread Pom-Pom Match activity and use tongs as a pre-scissor skill.
How about a Gingerbread Man I-Spy activity that is perfect for visual scanning and discrimination? It’s a simple print and go for therapeutic fun!
Do you have a child working on spoon use? Try this fun Feed the Gingerbread Man printable to set up a low prep scoop and pour activity or use tongs to feed the gingerbread man.
This post started with a list and now it’s ending with a list! There are always children who need the sensory input or need to work on sensory tolerance provided by multiple sensory-related activities. Take a look at the list below and click on each item to read the details of how to create these varied sensory goodies all within the gingerbread theme!
Now, run, run, as fast you can…and prepare some fun gingerbread activities for the kiddos in your life as all of these activities are super skill builders for children at all levels of development! There’s something about this time of year and gingerbread. The scent of ginger in the kitchen makes this time of year so warm and cozy!
Christmas Handwriting Activities
Writing out that Christmas wish list is a difficult task that brings out tears instead of holiday excitement. I’ve got a solution for your kiddo with handwriting difficulties: a packet of modified paper for all of the Christmas handwriting tasks that come up each year. Use this handwriting pack to help kids who struggle with handwriting to participate in holiday traditions while even working on and developing their handwriting skills! Working on handwriting with kids this Christmas season? Grab your copy of the Christmas Modified Handwriting Packet. It’s got three types of adapted paper that kids can use to write letters to Santa, Thank You notes, holiday bucket lists and much more…all while working on handwriting skills in a motivating and fun way! Read more about the adapted Christmas Paper here.
Today, I have an amazing resource to share with you. Art Play is a new book that has been recently launched, and is a creative art activity book that is also a sensory and fine motor goldmine. Children can use art activities to create while developing skills and making an art project they can be proud of! Art Play is a process art creation book that focuses on developmentally appropriate art projects for kids, using sensory experiences and allows children to explore art materials at a level that is comfortable for them…without expectations for the “perfect” end product.
Years ago, I created a children’s activity book with my friend Meredith, an educator and author of the website, Homegrown Friends. Meredith’s new book, Art Play, is my new favorite children’s art and activity book.
In the book, you will find easy to set-up art projects that focus on the child.
So often, we see crafts and art activities that are product focused. And, while the end-product focused craft has it’s time and place, especially when working on data collection or achieving specific goals in scissor skills or other areas, there is a place for process art in therapy as well.
And, this book has got you covered in child-friendly art projects that pull in a very important area: play!
We know that play is the job of the child. Play is a child’s primary occupation after all! And, it’s through play that these art projects allow a child to participate in creative, making activities. These are activities that allow a child to develop age-appropriate skills…through play!
This book is beautifully and thoughtfully written and includes step-by-step instructions that are easy to follow. The pages of the book are wipeable and durable, meaning the book can be right there in the play activities and the pages are kid-friendly with thick paper that kids can manipulate.
Just some of the skills that can be developed through the art projects in this book:
Pinch and grip strength
Eye-hand coordination
Motor planning
Visual motor skills
Direction following
Dexterity
Visual scanning
Visual memory, figure-ground, visual attention, and other visual perceptual skills
Tool use
Precision
Gross motor skills
Tactile experiences
The art projects in the book focus on play, so there are so many play experiences for children to incorporate into art. Just some of the art play activities include:
Dramatic play
Pretend play
Building with blocks
Playing with cars/vehicles
Drawing
Painting
Inventing
Creating while upside down
Constructing
Dancing
Picking and collecting nature
When you combine art with play, you get a lot of movement-based activities that help children develop whole-body skills!
Process Art Activities
Would you like a copy of Art Play so you can add these hands-on activities to your therapy practice or home?
Check out the blog comments below which are loaded with reader’s favorite ways to create art with kids.
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
This egg carton snowman is such a cute Christmas craft to work on fine motor skills. And, better yet, this styrofoam egg carton craft uses materials you might already have on hand. You might know that we love fine motor crafts around here, right? Christmas crafts are no exception. Why not make a festive holiday snowman craft and sneak in a few fine motor skills while decking the house in homemade decorations like this fine motor snowman craft? It’s a great winter occupational therapy craft that kids will love!
I got the idea for this fine motor snowman after we pulled out our Christmas decorations and and found our fine motor Christmas tree that we made a few years ago (also from egg cartons). My son still remembers how much fun he had making that tree, and tells us about it every year we pull that cutie out of dusty attic boxes. I love that this fun craft helps in so many fine motor areas: tripod grasp, intrinsic hand strength with arch development, and an open web space.
Check out these Christmas Fine Motor Activities for more creative ways to work on fine motor skills and address development of skills this Christmas season.
Egg Carton Snowman
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You’ll need these materials to make an egg carton snowman craft: White styrofoam egg carton (OR paint a cardboard egg carton with white paint) Scissors Black crafting pom poms
To make the egg carton snowman, first cut three sections from the styrofoam egg carton. Cutting styrofoam is a great way to practice scissor skills. It takes a bit more “oomph” to cut the egg carton and is a nice way to practice hand strengthening.
Poking the bamboo skewer into the stryofoam egg carton provides an opportunity to work on tripod grasp, intrinsic hand strength with arch development, and an open web space.
More Christmas Activities
Writing out that Christmas wish list is a difficult task that brings out tears instead of holiday excitement. I’ve got a solution for your kiddo with handwriting difficulties: a packet of modified paper for all of the Christmas handwriting tasks that come up each year. Use this handwriting pack to help kids who struggle with handwriting to participate in holiday traditions while even working on and developing their handwriting skills!
Working on handwriting with kids this Christmas season? Grab your copy of the Christmas Modified Handwriting Packet. It’s got three types of adapted paper that kids can use to write letters to Santa, Thank You notes, holiday bucket lists and much more…all while working on handwriting skills in a motivating and fun way! Read more about the adapted Christmas Paper here.
Try these Christmas crafts for more fine motor fun:
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.
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.
Christmas is just around the corner, and we’ve got some fun ideas in store for you! This Jingle Bell Kid’s Activity can be a jingle bell game or a Fine Motor Christmas activity that kids will not forget! Use an egg carton and jingle bells kids can manipulate for a color learning and fine motor activity.
We’ve done our share of Christmas play activities and this Jingle Bell Sorting activity is just one way to play and learn with a Christmas theme. We’re joining a bunch of other bloggers in a busy bag series where each month, we’ll bring you a busy bag activity to keep the kids busy and occupied (and learning!) In-hand manipulation activities are a great way to boost fine motor skills needed for tasks like managing clothing fasteners, using a pencil when writing, manipulating items like coins or beads, and more.
This jingle bell activity would be fun to incorporate into a Christmas sensory bin, too.
This post contains affiliate links. See our full disclosure here.
Jingle Bell Kids Activity
This jungle bell kids activity is a Christmas busy bag that helps children build fine motor skills, as well as other learning components in a game format.
We’ve done quite a few “busy” time of activities on this blog. These are the activities that kids can do on their own or with a little set up and explanation. They are kept busy and learning, creating, or exploring on their own. Busy bag activities are perfect for times when caregivers need to focus on other children, dinner preparation, or while waiting. Modern day busy activities might be smart phone apps for some kids, as they “busy themselves” as they wait in a restaurant or doctor’s office. A busy bag activity that is easy to set up might be something as simple as manipulating small items, or sorting sugar packets by color.
Jingle Bell Activity for Kids
Independent learning is important to a child’s development. When a child is learning on their own, they are able to come up with questions and ideas independently. They develop problem solving skills, and exploring during the process of the activity. When a child has an adult participating in an activity with them, they often times focus on the end product or goal rather than the process of the task. Children become aware of their own strengths and weaknesses during independent play and can gain a sense of satisfaction when they do a task on their own. Busy bags are great for independent learning!
Color Sorting with Jingle Bells
We started with a recycled egg carton. Technically, this isn’t a busy BAG since we made our activity in an egg carton…but it is a busy activity, and I love that it can fold up and stow away with the sorting material inside the carton. The cardboard type was needed for this activity, in order to get the paint to “stick”. I painted the sections of the egg carton in four colors. I LOVE these poster paints for their bold colors.
Little Sister (age 3) helped me paint the sections, and we let them dry overnight…because when Little Sister helps, a lot of paint is used.
The next day, we were ready for our jingle bell sorting activity. We used jingle bells that we received from our friends at www.craftprojectideas.com (Thanks so much!!) I poured the bells into the top section of the egg carton, and showed Little Sister how to sort them.
This is such a great activity for color identification, fine motor skills, scanning, hand-eye coordination, and early math.
The colors are so bright and the jingle of the bells gives a great sensory input to this activity. Little Sister sorted and sorted while I changed diapers, swept the floor, and watched her sort.
One of the cousins came over one day and these two three year olds had fun sorting together. I showed them how to extend the play by counting the number of bells in each section.
I love this activity for it’s fine motor aspect, too. Managing the jingle bells as they picked them up and sorted them into the sections works on many skills. You can encourage your child to pick up a few bells at a time and pocket them into the palm of the hand as they sort the bells one at a time.
Picking up several bells works on in-hand manipulation, specifically the skill of translation. Moving the bell from finger tips to palm as they “squirrel away” bells into their palm is a difficult task for many kids. This is a task needed in order to manage coins or other small items.
Placing the bells into the sections requires the child to use in-hand manipulation to move the bells from the palm to the finger tips. This is also the skill of translation and is needed for pushing coins into a piggy bank or vending machine, or managing small items like marbles.
Translation is a complex task requiring strength and dexterity of the intrinsic muscles of the hand. It’s fun to watch these skills develop in an activity like this one!
With this activity and any other on our blog, please be sure to supervise your children when small items are involved. If your child is one who puts items into their mouth, you may want to hold off on this activity for a while. Use caution with this activity as it involves small parts.
Christmas Handwriting Activities
Writing out that Christmas wish list is a difficult task that brings out tears instead of holiday excitement. I’ve got a solution for your kiddo with handwriting difficulties: a packet of modified paper for all of the Christmas handwriting tasks that come up each year. Use this handwriting pack to help kids who struggle with handwriting to participate in holiday traditions while even working on and developing their handwriting skills!
Working on handwriting with kids this Christmas season? Grab your copy of the Christmas Modified Handwriting Packet. It’s got three types of adapted paper that kids can use to write letters to Santa, Thank You notes, holiday bucket lists and much more…all while working on handwriting skills in a motivating and fun way! Read more about the adapted Christmas Paper here.
Check out some more busy bag activities for the holiday season:
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
Today, I have a pine cone Christmas tree that was a big hit with my kids, but also a fine motor powerhouse. The pinecone ornament was a fun way to craft but the miniature Christmas tree craft helps kids with precision, pincer grasp, in-hand manipulation, and more. We made this Pine Cone Christmas Tree years ago, but it’s still a favorite ornament my kids love to pull out each year and hang on the tree!
Here are more Christmas crafts that help kids build fine motor skills.
Pine Cone Christmas Tree Ornament
We love to take hikes in the neighborhood and woods to collect pine cones and always have a few around that are ready for fun projects and crafts. Our pine cone Christmas Tree was fun for painting and even fine motor skills. Pressing all of the little pieces into the pine cone was a great way to work the small muscles of the kid’s hands during a Christmas craft! Our little pine cone Christmas tree is nestled in the branches of our tree looking pretty cute!
Check out these Christmas Fine Motor Activities for more creative ways to work on fine motor skills and address development of skills this Christmas season.
Pine
Pine Cone Christmas craft
Note: This post contains affiliate links.
We started with some pine cones that we painted a nice green color. You might have seen the action on our Instagram feed. Once our pine cones were dry, we started decorating. For this craft, we used a little red cord and crafting pom poms in different sizes.
The decorating part was great for fine motor work. We used a little glue to glue on the yellow pom pom to the top of the pine cone tree. Little Guy liked pushing the small pom poms into the pine cone. We didn’t need any glue to make them stick…just a little finger muscle! Pushing those little pom poms into the pine cone was a great way to work on tripod grasp while holding the pom poms and making them stick in the pine cone.
We loaded that pine cone up with little white pom poms!
To finish the decorations, all we needed was a little of the red cord to make it all come together! We didn’t use glue for the cord either. Just winding it around the pine cone was enough to make it stick and stay in place. This was another fine motor dexterity task for Little Guy. He was pretty pleased with the way his pine cone turned out!
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
