This blog post is one of the oldest posts on the site, but the sensory activities for 1 year olds that we shared way back when are just as fun now! When this post was written, the babies that played with the balls and muffin tins were just 11 months and going on 1 year. Those little ones are now 11 years old! This is such a great brain building activity for babies that I wanted to reshare the idea for the latest crop of babies out there!
If you are looking for more Baby activities, try the fun over on our Baby Play page. You’ll also find some great ideas for different ages on this post on baby sensory play. We’ve been busy!
sensory activities for 1 year olds
This sensory activity for 1 year olds is an easy activity to set up. You’ll need just a few items:
colorful balls
muffin tins
You can add create another sensory activity for the babies with the same colorful balls and a cardboard box or basket. We also used an empty cereal box with hole cut into the sides.
Each sensory activity here supports development of eye-hand coordination, grasp and release, core strength and stability in dynamic sitting, positioning and seated play on the floor (floor play).
An important consideration is the use of baby positioners as they can impact powerful movement-based play in babies.
The best for sensory play for 1 year olds is just playing on the floor! There are so many benefits to playing on the floor with a basket of balls and a few muffin tins.
What do babies love to do? Take things out and put them back into containers.
We have a bunch of different colored and sized balls that are so fun to play with in so many ways. I had my niece and nephew here one day and we needed something different to do. My nephew and my Baby Girl are both 11 months old and they absolutely loved this play activity!
I pulled out my muffin tins and they had a blast putting the balls into the tins, taking them out, putting them back into the box, and pulling them out again!
Little Guy (my 3 year old ) loved joining in too. Really, who could resist playing with all of these colorful balls???
Peek a Boo Sensory Activity for 1 year olds
What else do babies love? The peek-a-boo game!
It’s at this age (around one year) that babies often struggle with separation anxiety when being dropped off at a caregiver’s when separated from their parents or caregivers. You will even see signs of separation angst when a parent goes into another room, which can especially happen when the baby is tired.
The next sensory activity for baby was a fun one!
We had an empty cereal box that I cut circles into. They had a ton of fun putting the balls into a hole, and pulling a different one out as the box moved around…there were a lot of little hands in there moving that box around 🙂
The it’s-there-then-it’s not of a great game of peek-a-boo (or peek-a-ball in this case!) is awesome in building neural pathways of the brain.
More sensory activities for babies
Other sensory activities for 1 year olds and babies include using small baskets or boxes to transfer the balls from one container to the other.
Transferring from box to box…working those hands to pick up different sized/weighted/textured balls. Dropping the ball to see what happens is so predictable, but it is important in learning for babies. Just like when baby drops the cup from her highchair a million times…
We had a ball!
(couldn’t resist that one…heehee)
Need more sensory ideas for 1 year olds? Try these:
Sensory tables- put interesting toys, textures, scoops, and containers on a low table like a coffee table. The new cruiser or early walker can stand at the table and explore the textures
Messy play on a highchair- Strap baby in and encourage messy food play. Thing about apple sauce, pudding, or mashed potatoes.
Textured fabrics- Put a bunch of fabric scraps into a box and invite the one year old to pull them out and put them back in.
Play with cups and spoons– with supervision- This is a great activity for eye hand coordination skills.
Use a baby gym to encourage reach and play in various positions.
Helping kids develop and strengthen fine motor skills is essential for functional tasks, and this resource on fine motor precision activities supports that development. Here, we are addressing what fine motor precision means and specific activities to do with kids to help with grasp manipulation, dexterity, and graded movements like managing a zipper, buttons, and adjusting a pencil within the fingers to write and erase. These are just a few examples of how grasp and release activities support fine motor skill development. Let’s break this down…
Fine Motor Precision Activities
Before we get to the fun stuff…the actual fine motor activities that support graded grasp and release, manipulation of objects within the hand, and various amounts of pressure and precision needed to perform functional tasks, let’s cover exactly what precision skills look like, what the term means, and why this area of development is so important.
At the bottom of this post, you’ll find specific strategies to support precision development so that kids can complete these tasks and not fumble with objects in the hands.
A good place to start is with our resource listing games with paper clips as a tool to support precision and refined dexterity.
Fine Motor Precision refers to the ultra-fine motor skills in the hand, broken down into areas: grasp and release, fine motor rotation, in-hand manipulation, and proprioception. Together, these precision skills enable us to pick up an object with the right amount of pressure and motor dexterity so you can grasp the object accurately taking eye-hand coordination skills into consideration. After grasping the object without overshooting or missing the item, it is necessary to position or rotate the object within the hand
Let’s cover each of those areas in greater detail below.
But first, it’s important to note that a child’s ultra fine motor dexterity is dependent on bigger things. And by that, I mean that in order for a child to use their hands super fine motor tasks, they first must demonstrate strength and control of their core, shoulder, and arm. If any of these areas are not fully developed in stability or control, then the child will show compensatory strategies as they try to use their hands in handwriting or cutting with scissors. Gross motor coordination is a great place to start if precision skills seem to be “off” or delayed. Related to that is the key input of body awareness and the impact of heavy work on more distal motor coordination skills.
One way to remember this is this:
“Proximal stability allows for distal mobility.”
Colleen Beck, OTR/L
Before a child can manipulate and move an object with dexterity and refined motor skills, there needs to be a base of support in stability in the core and upper extremity, mobility and coordination in the proximal joints (shoulder before elbow…elbow before wrist…and wrist before hand).
Breaking it down further, arch development and strengthening of the intrinsic muscles in the hands are both areas that are essential for precision in the fingertips.
The following resources will be a great way to break these areas of development down:
Kids and fine motor skills go hand-in-hand. (That is my funny-OT attempt at a fine motor skills joke!) But really, fine motor skills are a staple of a child’s development and are essential to function.
Precision occurs with development of grasp when child to use the pads of the index finger, middle finger, and thumb to manipulate objects with opposition. I talked a little about strengthening these types of grasp patterns.
Today, I’m sharing ways to work on the controlled use of these fine motor patterns in controlled dexterity tasks. The precision of grasp and release is essential for very small motor movements in activities like picking up beads and releasing items like blocks with precision. This is broken down into areas of dexterity that all work together:
Grasp and release (we’ll break these two areas down even further)
Fine motor rotation
In-hand manipulation
Muscular force, or the amount of force applied through the muscles in small motor use, also referring to proprioceptive input through the hands and fingers.
What is precision of grasp and release?
Precision in grasp, manipulation, and release of small objects makes the difference between fumbling with zippers and buttons and efficiently grading movements in very small dexterity patterns like threading a string through a needle (kid-friendly, of course!)
Precision in grasp is related to the picking up of items. A graded lateral grasp is needed to cut with scissors and only squeeze the scissors halfway shut for accurate cutting lines in some situations. Around 3-4 years, a preschool aged child typically develops a greater variety of grasping patterns, including precision. They begin to grade their scissor strokes so that they can cut a line or shape without opening and closing the scissors completely. Grasps in babies typically begin with a raking motion and work towards a pincer grasp. Precision in this skill occurs when the child is able to pick up very small items like beads with accuracy and graded movements.
Precision release is needed for stacking blocks without toppling them over, placing cards on a pile, opening scissors just a small amount, or placing small beads into a bowl. Precision is needed for a child to let go of an item in a controlled manner. If they are not exercising precision in release, you might see them rolling or tossing an object as they let go. They will knock over a stack of blocks, or over open the scissors when cutting lines, making their accuracy very choppy.
Precision in rotation is another task that children develop around age 5. Rotation is a portion of in-hand manipulation and seen when turning a coin on the edges and the child rotates it in a circular motion. Precision in rotation also occurs when holding a pencil between the fingers and the child rotates it over and over.
One way to develop these skills is through practice! One precision grasp and release activity I love is using popsicle sticks in various colors. You can stack the popsicle sticks so they build a wall without toppling over. Using the different colors allows kids to see how the sticks are aligned by offering contrasting colors. If they see a bit of yellow stick under the green stick, then they need to adjust the top stick with refined motor movements.
Grade this activity for younger kids or those developing skills:
Simply place a single popsicle stick down on a table surface. Then pick it up.
Younger kids can stack just one stick on top of another.
Match colors.
Make a wall of popsicle sticks to develop more refined precision skills.
Place and sort popsicle sticks into a container on the vertical position (shown below)
To practice precision in grasp and release, I showed my preschooler how to pick up and stack Popsicle sticks. Picking up the sticks required a tip-to-tip grasp. We used different colored Popsicle sticks for my 4 year old and my 17 month old.
The preschooler was able to pick up the sticks accurately without pushing other sticks around. She could grasp the specific stick she wanted by an end or middle accurately.
The toddler grabbed the sticks with a pincer grasp, but showed much less accuracy.
To advance this popsicle stick sorting, the next step is precision in rotation. This can be addressed by asking the individual to sort popsicle sticks into containers.
Different small cups (Dixie cups would work) but we used a popsicle mold to encourage a single hand to hold the mold as the assisting hand.
We used an empty Popsicle mold to place the sticks into the cups. What a great way to practice grasp precision! We worked on sorting the craft sticks by color and had to hold the mold with one hand to work on bilateral hand coordination. For the activity, we placed the mold on the floor and sorted the colored sticks without knocking the Popsicle mold over. Both the preschooler and the Toddler loved this simple activity.
Another precision in release activity was simply stacking the craft sticks. The four year old could do this, but used her non-dominant hand to stabilize.
Precision in in-hand manipulation-In hand manipulation skills include different components as well. In our blog post, we cover rotation, refined movements within the hand, and how to actually move objects from the fingertips to the palm and ice versa. These are precision skills at work!
Muscular force- This refers to knowing how much force to use to pick something up. When it comes to muscular force in fine motor skills this can mean the difference between overshooting an object when picking something up, fumbling with small objects, pinching things with too much force, or dropping items because not enough force is applied.
As described above, muscular force also refers to the amount of force applied through the muscles in small motor use, also referring to proprioceptive input through the hands and fingers. Another term for this concept is force modulation, or graded force.
Muscular force is a must for picking objects up, putting them back down, manipulating them within the hand, and rotation.
We go into greater detail on the proprioceptive input in our blog post on proprioception. In summary, muscular force means the ability to inherently know how much force is needed to pick up and hold and manipulate a ladybug as opposed to a heavier rock. Too much force and the bug is squashed. Not enough force, and the rock slips through the fingers. Another example is pressing too hard when writing and holding a pencil. This experience and muscle knowledge happens through play!
As you can see, all of these concepts work together to enable precision skills in functional tasks!
Precision Activities
We’ve covered a couple of precision activities related to grasp and release and rotation, but let’s go over a few more that include all aspects of precision, including muscular force activities and how these are related to functional participation.
This post contains affiliate links.
Looking for more ways to practice precision in grasp, release, and rotation with Occupational Therapy students or your kids? Try some of these ideas. While they are not all free (going with our series this month!), they are creative ways to practice precision.
Perler beads- Try manipulating Perler Fuse Beads with Pegboards (affiliate link) for precision in grasp and release. These pegboards are very small and work on very fine dexterity with precision.
Stamp sets (affiliate link)- Playing with stamps is a good way to practice graded grasp and release. Use these stamp blocks to accurately stamp within a specific area on a page. Draw squares or circles and the child needs to stamp in those areas.
Tweezer games and activities like this Bed Bugs Game (affiliate link) encourage a precise and graded grasp and release of the small game pieces using tweezers. This game is on my must-buy list for Christmas this year!
This Avalanche Fruit Stand (affiliate link) for another fun way to practice precision with a pair of tweezers. Stack the fruit with precision of grasp and release in a fun and colorful way!
The Perfection Game (affiliate link) is another game that is great for precise grasp and release. Encourage kids to rotate the pieces by twirling the peg of the game pieces to work on precision in rotation as well.
Jenga (affiliate link) is a precision work out in grasp and release of the blocks. My kids love this game!
Stacking blocks is a precision pattern activity that is perfect for working on graded grasp and release.
This Tobbles stacking toy (affiliate link) is a version of that, with bright and bold colors. Try stacking and taking these balls down without knocking them over!
Sometimes, simple is best! These Wooden Color Cubes (affiliate link) are perfect for simple block building and stacking while working on precision of grasp and release.
Kids need precision of the thumb, too. These Slide Puzzles (affiliate link) are not only fun, they work on small motor skills needed for graded movements in cutting and pencil control.
It’s my hope that this post and ideas were helpful and a resource for you! Looking for more fine motor activities for functional grasp? Try these:
Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.
Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
If you know a kiddo that loves all things dinosaurs, than this dinosaur free printable is for you! It’s a visual perception activity designed to develop and support visual perceptual skills such as visual discrimination, form constancy, visual closure, and other visual processing skills (visual tracking for one!) To grab this free printable dinosaur activity, read on! Add this resource to your dinosaur activities for an OT theme.
Dinosaur Free Printable
If you are working on the visual perceptual skills needed for letter formation, handwriting, or reading, then you are probably loving the recent free visual perception printable sheets that we’ve been sharing on the site.
This visual perception worksheet is great for working on skills like visual motor skills, visual scanning, visual figure ground, visual discrimination, spatial reasoning, and visual memory. Also, it’s a great way to develop pencil control by moving the pencil around obstacles as kids connect the matching pairs of dinosaurs.
Visual perceptual skills are needed for so many functional skills. You’ll find easy and fun ways to work on visual perceptual skills through play here.
How to use this dinosaur printable
This printable dino activity can be used in many different ways to support hands-on learning.
Print the page and slide it into a plastic page protector. Kids can then use a dry erase marker to work on the page over and over again.
Try these tips to use the worksheet in different ways:
Connect the dinosaurs with a dry erase marker
Place play dough balls on the matching dinosaurs
Use finger paints to place a fingerprint on each matching dinosaur
Play I Spy: Ask users to find an object that has specific colors or other details
OR, use it right on your tablet. You won’t be able to draw a line to connect matching dinosaurs, but you will be able to save the ink as kids use their finger to connect the matching dinosaurs. They will still address those visual perceptual skills by using the freebie on a tablet’s screen.
Then, use this activity along with other dinosaur activities to support development of other skills. Other dinosaur themed ideas to use along with this printable activity include:
To get your copy of this printable page, enter your email address into the form below. The printable is part of our 24 page free visual perception packet, so you can use all of the items in the packet along with this dinosaur activity. Just print and go!
OR, if you are an OT Toolbox Member, you can log in and go to our toolboxes and access this resource along with every other freebie here on the website. For this particular tool, head to our visual tools page.
Look for more free visual perception worksheets like this one, coming soon to the site.
You can check out our space theme visual perception free printable, or if you sign up for the freebie below, you’ll be directed to a page with all of the free printables in one place.
These visual perception apple theme shape stamps are a perfect way to work on visual perceptual skills and fine motor skills with DIY stampers.
Be sure to try some of these pencil control activities to help with the visual motor skills needed for handwriting and to challenge a child you know with more activities just like the dinosaur free printable.
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 pasta threading activity is a fine motor task that supports development of many skills. If you are looking for toddler activities, preschool activities, or ideas for older kids to develop motor control and coordination, pasta threading is the way to go!
Pasta Threading
First, you might be wondering what is “pasta threading”? If you have Pinterest, you may have seen activities where kids thread pasta onto straws placed into play dough. This is one form of pasta threading.
Another way to thread pasta as a fine motor activity is to simply create a pasta necklace by threading the pasta onto string or yarn. This is a classic craft that helps develop many skill areas.
By threading pasta, kids develop skills in areas such as:
We’ve covered other threading activities in the past, including this gross motor threading activity. Working from a larger aspect like using whole-body movements is a great precursor to the more refined fine motor work needed for threading pasta noodles.
Pasta Threading Activity
Similar to stringing beads as a therapy tool, threading pasta can be graded in many aspects to support the individual needs of the user.
Modify the material– You can stringing pasta onto cord, thick yarn, straws, or even lightweight string.
Modify the pasta size– Use a larger noodle or a smaller noodle. You can target in-hand manipulation skills, pincer grasp, and arch development by using different sizes of noodle.
Modify the positioning– Ask users to thread onto a free lying piece of string. Or place straws or skewers into playdough to change the positioning and shoulder involvement.
Depending on the needs of the individual, you can adapt or modify these materials. Use a thicker straw or a smaller straw cut into pieces. Position the straws on angles or all in one direction.
There are so many ways to change this single activity to support a variety of needs and skill levels.
To complete this fine motor activity, you need only a few materials:
plastic straw or straight spaghetti
tubular pasta
play dough
Be sure to incorporate the play dough into the activity so that the user has ownership in setting up the activity. There are also the added fine motor benefits of play dough as well.
How to thread pasta
To set up this fine motor activity, follow these steps:
flatten out play dough on to table
stick the straw/spaghetti into the play dough
thread the pasta onto the straw
Pasta threading is a great fine motor activity that supports so many areas, and can easily be set up at home.
Looking for more ways to develop fine motor skills and visual motor skills?
Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.
Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:
How would you like some free Spring worksheets? Today, I have a fun freebie that I’m excited to get into the hands of little ones…our popular fine motor skills handwriting worksheets! These fine motor precision worksheets are actually Spring themed worksheets, BUT they can definitely be used year-round to work on handwriting and fine motor precision. You can get your hands on these printable Spring exercises and help little ones develop stronger hands!
This is a great letter formation worksheet option: focus on one letter per sheet or use a page to write one letter based on the items in the picture.
Spring Worksheets
These free Spring worksheets for fine motor and handwriting skills are one of our popular printables for precision and dexterity (and handwriting). Here’s why: These Spring worksheets are a powerhouse in building fine motor skills. Kids can use play dough to build the fine motor strength they need to hold and write with a pencil, color, and complete fine motor activities all with more dexterity, precision, and endurance!
We have so many themed fine motor worksheets like this one in our OT Toolbox Member’s Club. You can log in, click the ones you need and print them right away, without entering your email address for each printable.
These printable worksheets are great for using in school based occupational therapy sessions, because you can cover a variety of OT goal areas:
Fine motor skills
Eye-hand coordination
Handwriting
Letter formation
Letter spacing
Letter size
Coloring
Spring Worksheets for Fine Motor Skills
Here’s how these Spring printable pages work: Kids can first roll a die (Great for in-hand manipulation, arch development, and separation of the sides of the hand!)
Then, they can use play dough to create that same number of balls of play dough. Be sure to ask kids to use just the fingertips for this part of the activiyt. Using the fingertips to roll balls of play dough is a powerful strengthening activity.
Using the finger tips and thumb of one hand at a time to roll a play dough ball is an intrinsic muscle workout that builds the muscles of the thenar eminence, hypothenar eminence, the interossei, and the lumbricals. All of these muscle groups make up the intrinsic hand muscles which are those located within the hands.
After working out the hands and getting them warmed-up for writing, the page asks kids to then write on the lines. I’ve left the writing portion open-ended so that kids can write words, letters, numbers, or sentences, based on their level, skills, and age.
The Spring themed worksheets come with a flower style and a fun snail activity page. But, each printable sheet is available in three different writing lines styles:
Double ruled lines
Single ruled lines
Double ruled lines with a highlighted bottom space
Print off these worksheets, slide them into a page protector sheet and start building those fine motor skills!
Free Spring Worksheet Set
Want to add this set of worksheets to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below to access. NOTE- Due to changes in security levels, users have reported trouble accessing free resources when using a school district or organization email address. Consider using a personal email address.
For more play dough activities and fine motor worksheets, grab the Spring Fine Motor Kit:
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:
Want to add this resource to your therapy toolbox so you can help kids thrive? Enter your email into the form below to access this printable tool.
This resource is just one of the many tools available in The OT Toolbox Member’s Club. Each month, members get instant access to downloadable activities, handouts, worksheets, and printable tools to support development. Members can log into their dashboard and access all of our free downloads in one place. Plus, you’ll find exclusive materials and premium level materials.
Level 1 members gain instant access to all of the downloads available on the site, without enter your email each time PLUS exclusive new resources each month.
Level 2 members get access to all of our downloads, exclusive new resources each month, PLUS additional, premium content each month: therapy kits, screening tools, games, therapy packets, and much more. AND, level 2 members get ad-free content across the entire OT Toolbox website.
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 play dough recipe without Cream of Tartar is one of our favorite playdough recipes because it omits cream of tartar, so the dough ingredients are commonly found in the home.
If you’ve been following this site over the years, you’ve seen many of our play dough recipes, one of them being this play dough recipe without cream of tartar. This easy play dough recipe is one that kids can help to make, and to use in occupational therapy interventions. Read more on how play dough benefits child development, and making the play dough is half of the fun!
Homemade Play Dough without cream of tartar
Homemade play dough is a childhood staple. When kids are part of the playdough making process, they are active in the kitchen and can incorporate many executive functioning tasks as well as other skill-building.
But most homemade play dough recipes include cream of tartar as an ingredient. However, purchasing this ingredient is just expensive, and there really aren’t many common uses for cream of tartar except in the playdough recipes.
So, we decided to do some experimentation and come up with a play dough recipe that omits cream of tartar.
Our recipe uses a common ingredent that is inexpensive, but also can be used in other kitchen recipes. So, when you purchase this ingredient, you can use it for other recipes as well, making the purchase a good buying decision.
So? What is our substitute for cream of tartar in homemade playdough?
Lemon juice!
Lemon juice makes a great substitute for cream of tartar in homemade play dough recipes because it’s an easy to find ingredient in most stores and you can use it in so many other recipes. Plus, the lemon juice adds pliability to the play dough just like cream of tartar does.
why is play dough good for child development
Over the years, we’ve used many ingredients to make play dough as a sensory tool. These are all wonderful ways to incorporate various sensory input through sensory play.
One of our most popular playdough recipes is our crayon play dough recipe. But other homemade dough recipes you’ll love include:
All of these various doughs offer sensory experiences through play, using different scents and textures. We’ve strived to create sensory tools through easily accessible and inexpensive materials, mainly using ingredients that are on hand in the kitchen.
When sensory and fine motor play is easily accessible, kids develop skills!
Making homemade play dough is a great occupational therapy activity for the clinic, school-based session, or a home recommendation to carryover skills in a family time activity.
These are great ways to use playdough can be used as a warm up activity or to incorporate palm strengthening exercises into therapy through play.
Another aspect of homemade playdough and fine motor skills includes the mixing and kneading aspects. Pouring, scooping, stirring, and kneading are all very functional tasks that
Whether you are developing fine motor skills, addressing cognitive skills like direction following, or incorporating sensory play into occupational therapy interventions, a simple homemade play dough is the way to go. Play dough has many benefits and there are many ways to use a simple dough recipe into therapy.
Playing with playdough improves fine motor skills such as:
Pinch strength
Eye-hand coordination
Intrinsic muscle strengthening
Separation of the sides of the hand
Pincer grasp
Opposition
Tripod grasp
Wrist extension
Bilateral coordination
All of this occurs through play!
Try these fine motor activities using play dough:
This homemade play dough recipe is great for easy play dough activities like our play dough snakes.
Kids can work on safety skills while working in the kitchen to prepare this recipe. There is the heat of the play dough after cooking, and stove safety to consider.
Some users would benefit from using a stove to make the playdough and others may benefit by using an electric skillet in place of the stove.
So, let’s get to the recipe making with our play dough recipe (without cream of tartar)!
Playdough without cream of tartar
To make this playdough without cream of tartar, first gather your ingredients, cooking items, and get started. This is a great play dough recipe to make with kids!
You’ll need just a few ingredients in this playdough recipe withoug Cream of Tartar:
3 cups flour
1 and 1/2 cup salt
3 and 1/4 cup water
3 Tbsp oil
3 Tbsp lemon juice
food coloring
How to make playdough without cream of tartar:
Mix the flour and salt in a bowl, using a fork to stir. Add the water, oil, and lemon juice and stir until the dough pulls together. Move the wet playdough lump to a sauce pan and cook over low heat for 3-4 minutes until the dough forms.
2. Plop the dough onto a clean surface and knead for a few minutes.
3. Separate the play dough into portions and add food coloring. Knead the dough to mix the food coloring. If you are making just one color of play dough, you can add the food coloring to the dough before cooking.
Many times, we want a variety of play dough colors, though, so mixing the food coloring in after the dough has been cooked is one way to get several colors of play dough.
4. Remember that the dough will be very hot to the touch after cooking. Use a dishtowel to mix the baggie so the color is absorbed throughout the dough.
5. Keep the homemade play dough in covered containers/sealed plastic bags. Dough does not need to be refrigerated.
Playdough with cream of tartar
If you do have a jar of cream of tartar, use this play dough recipe:
3 cups flour
1 and 1/2 cup salt
3 and 1/4 cup water
3 Tbsp oil
2 Tbsp cream of tartar
food coloring
The same cooking process listed above can be used to make this dough recipe, using cream of tartar instead of lemon juice.
How to get Vivid Colors in Homemade PlayDough
Want the secret to really bold and vivid colors? Use (Amazon affiliate link) Wilton’s gel food coloring. I have a bunch of these that I use for my cookies, and Big Sister had fun picking out the colors she wanted to mix up.
A lot of times, you can find these color sets on clearance (plus add coupons) for a Great discount!
Little Guy had SO MUCH FUN playing with little straw pieces in the red play dough. What a great
Fine Motor Activity for a three year old
This easy safe play dough recipe is great for toddlers and preschoolers, but also younger if closely watching young children.
We used the play dough recipe above, and some cut straw pieces to create a toddler-friendly play dough activity that builds fine motor skills.
Cut the straws into pieces. You can get preschoolers involved with this part of the activity for a scissor skills task.
Then, show your toddler how to poke the straws into the play dough.
He played with this one for a long time…hiding the straw bits in the dough, poking circles, bending the bendable part of the straw… So much fun!
Playdough Play Mats
Use this easy playdough recipe (without cream of tartar) with our playdough mats to add play dough as a handwriting warm-up and then incorporate handwriting skills!
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 paper icicle craft is a fun one for wintertime occupational therapy activities. If you are working on Scissor skills, cutting icicles into paper is a great fine motor task that builds eye-hand coordination, crossing midline, and visual motor skills to cut basic shapes. Be sure to add this paper icicle template for more tools for your winter occupational therapy toolbox.
Take fine motor work a step further by grabbing our new winter crossword puzzle to incorporate a whole winter theme.
Paper Icicle Craft
Do you have a little one who is just learning to master scissors? Scissor Skills for children who have never picked up a pair of scissors before can be very daunting. Frustrations can build and the next thing you know, your little sweetheart is spiking the scissors across the table!
Kids learn all things at different paces. Every developmental milestone and functional activity are achieved at different paces.
Scissor use is no different. Kids as young as two can start to snip paper (and probably with an awkward-two handed grasp on the scissors!) And as their fine motor skills develop, will achieve more and more accuracy with scissor use.
This winter themed Icicle cutting activity is a great beginner project for new scissor users. The strait cuts, bold lines, and even paper type are good modifications for a new little scissor-hands!
Winter Icicle Craft
Preschoolers are just beginning to gain more control over scissors. Preschool activities like this icicle craft at the way to go when it comes to building motor skills.
Strait lines are the perfect way to gain confidence when they are learning to cut…and ensure that they’ll want to pick up the scissors and try another craft again soon! We started out with nice strait lines on these icicles. Little Guy could cut the whole way across the page without needing to rotate the page to cut a curve or angle.
Note: This post contains affiliate links.
How to Modify this Icicle Craft
The smallest icicle could have been a harder task for him to cut, if he turned the whole page around like he started out doing.
We used a few different strategies to scaffold this paper icicle craft:
Cut through the page instead of turning around corners
Adjust the paper weight to a thicker resistance
Thicker cutting lines
Trials with thinner lines to carryover the task with practice
Verbal and visual cues
I prompted him to start one line from the edge of the paper and then instead of rotating the whole page (which would have probably given him a big chopped off icicle point), I showed him how to start the other side from the edge as well. He was much more accurate with the lines and wanted to keep going!
We had two different types of paper for our icicles. The first set was drawn on a sheet of white cardstock.
Cutting from this thicker paper is a great beginning step for new scissor users and a modification often used for kids with fine motor difficulties.
The thicker paper requires slower snips and allows for more accuracy. I also drew the icicles on the cardstock with nice thick lines. This gave Little Guy more room to cut within the lines and allowed for less line deviation.
The second set of icicles were drawn with thinner lines on printer paper. After practicing on the first set, he was game to cut more icicles. The thinner paper and lines requires more control of the scissors and better line awareness, and bilateral hand coordination.
This looked like so much fun, that even Big Sister wanted to get in on the icicle-making action!
We hung our icicles in the window to match the icy conditions outside.
You’ll love these other cut and paste crafts for winter. Use them in winter fine motor ideas for occupational therapy activities
Winter crafts using paper and a variety of textures for sensory play, motor planning, and motor skills.
Paper Icicle Craft is an actual printable template that you can print off and use to work on the scissor skills we covered in this post. It’s a great way to make an icicle craft.
Build a Snowman Craft– Work on scissor skills and fine motor strength to build a paper snowman
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.
Recently, I’ve been sharing some occupational therapy slide decks with you. These slide decks are OT activities that can be used in teletherapy sessions as part of distance OT or distance learning. Today, I’ve got movement activities with a monster theme to share. These are monster themed occupational therapy activities that cover a variety of areas. When you access the OT slide deck, use in to work on OT activities like a therapy warm-up, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, visual perceptual skills, visual motor skills, and finally, a self-regulation check-in. Each activity in the collection involves movement activities that build specific skills. Scroll to the bottom of this post to enter your email to access the latest free occupational therapy slide deck.
Movement activities
As always, my mission here at The OT Toolbox is to help you help kids thrive through the use of easily accessible tools and resources.
The slides included in this set are acceptable movement activities for preschoolers because they use letters, helping preschoolers to recognize and identify letters. The slides would also work as a movement activity for kids in older grades as well, using the handwriting and visual motor activities to build specific skills like visual motor skills needed for handwriting tasks, copying lists of words, and visual perceptual skills needed for reading.
Monster Movement Activities for Kids
The slide deck promotes movement activities for kids in several ways. These are the slides and an agenda of activities to use in therapy sessions:
Warm-Up– Use the gross motor movement activities as a warm up to help with body awareness and a sensory tool to add proprioceptive and vestibular input. Kids can copy the body positioning to challenge balance and coordination, as well as motor planning. I’ve added a visual perceptual component to the warm-up movement slides by asking children to identify a partially hidden letter as they do the whole-body movements. This challenges visual perceptual skills including visual discrimination, visual figure-ground, visual closure, form constancy, and visual memory. Read more about these skills that are needed to complete hidden pictures activities, for example.
Writing- The writing slides in this slide deck ask kids to identify the month they are born and the first letter of their name to create a wacky monster name. They can write this word phrase to practice handwriting. The visual scanning and tracking involved in this activity really challenges the visual processing skills and visual efficiency of the eyes. The movement activity of writing their name incorporates a functional task that they may be working on in their OT goals.
Fine Motor- The fine motor portion of this movement activity slide deck involves tearing paper into small pieces. By ripping paper, kids are building hand strength, bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, and efficiency of grasp. I’ve added a visual motor component to this activity by asking the child to use those paper scraps in shaping and copying specific shapes. The whole fine motor activity adds much-needed fine motor movement and eye-hand coordination to a shape building activity.
Visual- The visual portion of this occupational therapy slide deck is a favorite for some kids (My own kids included!) Use the slides to work on visual perceptual skills as they find matching shadows for the monster figures in a series of three slides. After the child completes each slide, ask them to jump and and cheer!
Calm Down/Check-In- Lastly, you’ll find a calm down slide that incorporates the colors of the Zones of Regulation program. Children can complete the calm down movement activities shown on the slides and then choose a color to check in for their state of feelings.
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HERE ARE MORE Movement ACTIVITIES TO USE IN VIRTUAL OT SESSIONS
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
Grab the Pumpkin Fine Motor Kit for more coloring, cutting, and eye-hand coordination activities with a Pumpkin theme! It includes:
7 digital products that can be used any time of year- has a “pumpkins” theme
5 pumpkin scissor skills cutting strips
Pumpkin scissor skills shapes- use in sensory bins, math, sorting, pattern activities
2 pumpkin visual perception mazes with writing activity
Pumpkin “I Spy” sheet – color in the outline shapes to build pencil control and fine motor strength
Pumpkin Lacing cards – print, color, and hole punch to build bilateral coordination skills
2 Pumpkin theme handwriting pages – single and double rule bold lined paper for handwriting practice
Work on underlying fine motor and visual motor integration skills so you can help students excel in handwriting, learning, and motor skill development.
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’ve been following along with our Fall fine motor activities, then you will love adding these Fall pumpkin cutting activities! I love these pumpkin scissor skill worksheets for cutting practice with a fun Fall theme. The pumpkin images have simple cutting lines, making them a great pumpkin activity for preschool, or any child that is working on early scissor skills. Also check out our pumpkin activities for ways to extend this activity in therapy sessions.
Get a copy of these pumpkin printables by entering your email address into the form at the bottom of this blog post.
Fall Pumpkin Cutting Activity
Print out the pumpkin worksheets and then use them to work on scissor skills with kids. I wanted to create a simple shape (square) to hold the pumpkin shapes. This way, kids can work up to cutting the square as a “next step” in developing scissor skills after cutting strait lines, curved lines, and jagged lines.
Each pumpkin image includes a cutting line. You’ll find strait lines, diagonal lines, angled lines, jagged lines, and curved lines.
Kids can “cut the pumpkin” to slice through the pumpkin pictures!
The lines on each shape start at different sides, so kids can work on placement with their non-dominant hand.
Extend the Pumpkin Cutting Activities
There is more than one way to use these pumpkin shapes this Fall. Try these pumpkin cutting activities to address a variety of skills and abilities:
Start with the large pumpkin cutting pieces and work toward using the smaller pumpkins.
Color in the pumpkins to work on coloring skills, line awareness, and hand strength.
Trace the dotted line with a fingertip to work on finger isolation.
Trace the dotted line with a marker, crayon, or even a bottle of squeeze glue to work on line awareness and visual motor skills.
Cut out the pumpkin images. Cut the dotted lines. Then, these can be used as mini pumpkin puzzles to work on visual perceptual skills.
Place the separated pumpkin images around the room. Kids can complete gross motor actions like donkey kicks, balance beams, lunges, or hops to reach different pieces of the pumpkins. They can try to piece all of the pumpkins together.
After cutting the lines on the large shapes and the smaller pumpkins, then ask kids to work on cutting the square to work on turning the paper to cut around corners.
Use these worksheets as a pumpkin craft ideas for toddlers. If given the cut out pumpkin pieces (start with the strait lines and diagonal lines), toddlers can place the pumpkin halves together like a puzzle. Use glue to glue the pumpkin back together onto construction paper to make a pumpkin patch craft! This would be a great pumpkin craft for preschool, too.
Free Pumpkin Cutting Practice Worksheets
Want to grab these free pumpkin cutting practice sheets? Enter your email into the form below. Have fun this Fall!
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 pumpkin and Fall activities, check out these tools:
