Valentine’s Day Math Activity

September 5, 2024February 8, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

$valentines day fine motor activity$

This Valentine’s Day math activity is an easy activity designed to promote hand eye coordination and other fine motor math activities. Hand eye coordination, otherwise known as eye hand coordination, is a visual motor skill needed for so many functional tasks in children. This particular hands-on math activity was created to not only help with math skills around Valentine’s Day, but also to develop the essential coordination skills that kids need. It was easy to throw together and made working on a few Kindergarten math concepts more fun for my kiddo.

Add this idea to your Occupational therapy Valentine’s Day activities along with our new printable Valentine’s Day cards, too!

Valentine's Day math activity to help kids with hand eye coordination and math concepts with a heart theme.

Hand Eye Coordination Activity

Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

To create this Valentines math activity, I cut a piece of cardboard into smaller pieces and then used them to make small heart shapes. On those hearts, I wrote numbers 1-20. The hearts that we used were about 1 and a half inches tall but, you could create larger hearts, if coordination skills are something you need to address.

In our hand-eye coordination activity, we used a large red tweezer to work on picking up the hearts from a small container.

Typically, using tweezers is a great way to work on fine motor skills like hand strength, tripod grasp, and arch development. Here is information on the fine motor skills that tweezers help to establish, especially when using a smaller, hand-sized tong or tweezer.

With these extra large Jumbo Tweezers, the actual tweezer tool is larger than the hand. Because of this, different muscle groups are working.

The size of the Jumbo Tweezers requires the hands to open and shut with the thumb and all of the fingers. This adduction and abduction of the thumb and slightly flexed MCP joints uses encouraged more of opposition of the thumb. The wrist is extended and in an effective position for functional tasks.

Grabbing up the cardboard hearts requires hand-eye coordination or visual motor integration. The ability to effectively use hand-eye coordination in activities like handwriting, scissor use, games, and play allows children to write within given spaces, cut along lines, and move game pieces in a coordinated and fluent manner.

Free therapy resources for Valentines

If eye-hand coordination, visual motor skills, and handwriting are tasks that you are working on with children, you’ll love both of these free therapy slide decks. Use them to outline occupational therapy interventions or to use in teletherapy sessions this time of year.

Free Spot It Handwriting Slide Deck

Free Gross Motor Valentine’s Day Activity Slide Deck

Valentine's Day handwriting activity and free slide deck for occupational therapy — Click for Free Visual Motor and Handwriting Slide Deck

Valentines day gross motor slide deck for helping kids with movement, motor planning, coordination, and other gross motor skills. — Click for Free Motor Planning Gross Motor Slide Deck

Hand-Eye Coordination Valentines Heart activity for math activities with Kindergarten kids or any school aged child. These jumbo tongs are great for visual motor integration skills and recommended by an Occupational Therapist.

Valentines Math Activity

These number hearts worked well with a few different hands on math activities, especially kindergarten math concepts. And, the heart counters made a great Valentines math activity for this time of year.

The activity is very open-ended, so there are many ways you could use this activity to work on math concepts at different levels. Here are some of the hands-on math activities that we completed:

Practice odd/even numbers- We then did a round of looking for and picking up the even numbers and then the odd numbers with the tweezers.

Number order- To practice our hand-eye coordination with these hearts, I had my son try to find and pick up the hearts in number order.

Counting by 10s- Practice counting up by tens and then count by tens into 100.

Number bonds- You can use the number hearts to build and take apart numbers to build and understanding of addition and subtraction facts. My son’s favorite was using the side without numbers to build and take apart numbers. We did a snowman version of number building when my older daughter was in Kindergarten.

Composing and decomposing numbers- With the cardboard hearts, we practiced composing and decomposing numbers. I named a number, like “7” and my son had to use the hearts to build number 7 in many different ways. He pulled out 7 hearts and separated them into two piles: one with 3 hearts and one pile with 4 hearts. We used more hearts to make other ways to take apart 7, too: 6 and 1, 5 and 2, 4 and 3, 2 and 5, and 1 and 6.

More Valentine Math activities

Try some of these ways to play and learn using the

Practice number formation: pull out a heart with the Jumbo Tweezers
and have your child write that number.
Ask your child to pull out a pile of hearts. They can count with one to one correspondence and then write the number.
Use the hearts in a ten frame.
Practice counting the hearts, starting at different numbers.

Valentines Fine Motor Activities

If you need more hand eye coordination activities for Valentine’s Day fine motor fun, try the Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Kit.

The Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Kit is here! This printable kit is 25 pages of hands-on activity sheets designed to build skills in pinch and grasp strength, endurance, eye-hand coordination, precision, dexterity, pencil control, handwriting, scissor skills, coloring, and more.

When you grab the Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Kit now, you’ll get a free BONUS activity: 1-10 clip cards so you can challenge hand strength and endurance with a counting eye-hand coordination activity.

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.

Hole Reinforcement Stickers Snowman Craft

January 19, 2021January 19, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

You know we like to use materials that are on hand to help kids develop fine motor skills. This snowman craft uses hole reinforcement stickers to make a cute craft that works on fine motor skills. We do a TON of Fine Motor activities here! This Fine Motor Snowman art craft was just the thing to work on a little fine motor dexterity while keeping with our wintery freezing theme! We worked on tip to tip grasp, bilateral hand coordination, and intrinsic muscle strength, while creating our snowmen. Read all about it below!

Cute fine motor snowman craft using hole reinforcement stickers.

Craft with hole reinforcement stickers

This post contains affiliate links.

Use hole reinforcement stickers to help kids develop fine motor skills with this cute snowman craft.

We started with a sheet of Hole Reinforcement Stickers. These were fun to pull from the sheet and stick onto our blue Construction Paper.

Kids can use hole reinforcement stickers to make a snowman craft and strengthen fine motor skills.

Pulling the reinforcement stickers from the sheet required bilateral hand coordination to manage the page and pull the sticker off with the other hand. Managing two hands together in a coordinated manner is bilateral hand coordination. This skill is very important for self care tasks such as buttoning and zippering clothing, tying shoes, and handwriting.

We placed the stickers into a snowman by placing one sticker above the others. It was starting to look like a snowman party!

Pincer grasp development by peeling and placing small stickers.

Pinching the small stickers from the sheet required precise fine motor dexterity. Using a tip-to-tip grasp to peel the sticker from the sheet was necessary because the stickers were so small. A tip-to-tip grasp occurs when the ends of the pointer finger and thumb are used to pick up very small items. Think about picking up a needle from a table surface. This can be a very difficult and advanced fine motor skill for some!

Paint hole reinforcement stickers to make a snowan.

Once our snowman were placed on the paper, we painted them with blue paint.

While the paint was still wet, we sprinkled clear glitter on our snowmen. This is the same technique used in our homemade glitter glue craft.

Picking up the glitter and sprinkling activates the small muscles of the hands~ the intrinsic muscles. These are the muscles that allow for strength in the arches of the hands and are very important for endurance in coloring and writing with a pencil. The glitter stuck on the paint and made very sparkly snowmen!

To finish the project, peel the reinforcement stickers away and you’ll find a snowman. Be sure to peel away the reinforcement labels away while the paint is still wet, otherwise it will be difficult to pull them away.

Want more ways to boost fine motor skills with a snowman theme or winter theme? The Winter Fine Motor Kit is on sale now!

This print-and-go winter fine motor kit includes no-prep fine motor activities to help kids develop functional grasp, dexterity, strength, and endurance. Use fun, winter-themed, fine motor activities so you can help children develop strong fine motor skills in a digital world.

More than ever, kids need the tools to help them build essential fine motor skills so they develop strong and dexterous hands so they can learn, hold & write with a pencil, and play.

This 100 page no-prep packet includes everything you need to guide fine motor skills in face-to-face AND virtual learning. Includes winter themed activities for hand strength, pinch and grip, dexterity, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, endurance, finger isolation, and more.

Click here to grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit!

Clothespin Snowman

May 7, 2024January 19, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This clothespin snowman is a fine motor craft that is not only the cutest winter craft we’ve seen, but it’s also a powerful tool to strengthen fine motor skills. Kids that fumble with pencil grasp, struggle with clothing fasteners, or are challenged by opening lunch box containers, often times need focused fine motor strengthening. What if we could combine fine motor work with a fun snowman craft? That’s just what we did and we are sharing the how to below! This is a craft that kids can use to really boost fine motor skills…with a super cute snowman clothespin craft!

Read on to find out how to make a snowman craft that uses a few craft supply closet staple items (hello clothespins!) AND works on the fine motor skills like hand strength, precision of grasp, and other skills, too.

ClothesPin Snowman Craft

We used some basic craft materials to make a snowman craft that has been as much fun to make as it is to play with! The fact that this snowman craft is on a clothespin makes it a fine motor power tool. Kids can pinch the clothespin to attach the snowman to anything from a folder, to a book, to a backpack, to a flowerpot! Our snowman craft showed up hanging out on the side of a flowerpot and it is still there!

Fine Motor Skills Craft Idea

The clothespin snowman craft that we made is a spin on the typical painted clothes pin idea. While equally cute, I wanted to come up with a craft idea that builds fine motor skills throughout the process of making the snowman craft AND while using it in play and decoration.

The best thing about this little snowman is that while making him, we powered up on fine motor skills like neat pincer grasp, pincer grasp, bilateral coordination, in-hand manipulation, eye-hand coordination, hand strength, finger isolation.

All of these fine motor skills are needed for every-day tasks like pencil grasp, management of clothing fasteners, cutting with scissors, manipulating small containers, shoe tying, and so many other areas.

So many of our kids are struggling with fine motor skills…why not sneak them in with a fun winter craft like this clothespin snowman craft?

Craft supplies to make a snowman craft that builds fine motor skills for kids.

You will need a few materials for this clothespin snowman:

Clothespin
White craft pom poms
Small black craft pom poms
Red pipe cleaner (or any color!)
Brown pipe cleaner
Black paint
Craft glue

Craft pom poms are needed to make a snowman craft that helps kids with fine motor skills.

make a clothespin Snowman

This was super easy to make:

Use the craft glue to stick the white craft pom poms onto the clothespin. The bottom of the snowman should be at the end of the clothespin that opens when you pinch it.

2. Glue the small black craft pom poms onto the belly of the snowman.

3. Use the red pipe cleaner as a scarf by cutting a smaller piece. About 4 inches long is perfect, because you can then trim it as short as you would like.

4. Thread the pipe cleaner behind the head of the snowman and bend it around the front. Twist it into a “knot” and bend the pipe cleaner so it stays in place with the ends hanging as you would like them. Trim the excess from both ends of the scarf.

5. Use the brown pipe cleaner to make the arms of the snowman craft. Thread the pipe cleaner behind the snowman’s head. At this point, you can add a bit of glue to the red and brown pipe cleaners to keep them both in place.

6. Use paint to make a face on the snowman craft. We used squeezable gel glue (the kind that is use for window suncatchers) because it really adds a fine motor strengthening component. A sharpie works as well. Other ideas for decorating the snowman’s face might include gluing small googly eyes and a orange pipe cleaner carrot in place. These options may include use of a hot glue gun.

And that’s it! Your snowman craft is ready to hang out AND work those fine motor skills!

This snowman craft helps kids work on fine motor skills.

Fine Motor Skills Used in this Snowman Craft:

We incorporated fine motor skills like the ones listed below right into the process of creating our snowman craft!

Make this snowman craft to work on fine motor skills that kids need for functional tasks.

Use the clothespins to pick up the craft pom poms that you will need for the snowman. One way to do this is to have a sample available. Kids can look at the sample and identify the correct pom poms they need to build a snowman of their own. What an exercise in visual perceptual skills as well as fine motor skills!

Use craft pom poms and clothes pins to work on fine motor skills in kids.

Picking up and moving craft pom poms with the clothespins really strengthens the hands. Here is more information on using clothespins to strengthen the hands, and you can read more about the specific fine motor skills below.

Kids love this fine motor activity that is so easy to set up and strengthen the hands, using just a clothes pin and craft pom pom.

Neat pincer grasp- This fine motor skill is a precision skill that uses the tip of the pointer finger and the tip of the thumb in opposition. Here is more information about neat pincer grasp. We use neat pincer grasp to manipulate very small items. This is a refined fine motor skill. Use the snowman craft to work on this fine motor skill by holding the small craft pom pom with the tips of the fingers while adding craft glue.

Pincer grasp- Pincer grasp is the opposition of the pointer finger to the thumb, but with the pads of the fingers. This is a skill tat develops from a very young age, but is used for so many functional skills! Use the clothes pins to pinch and pick up the craft pom poms like we did.

Bilateral coordination- Using both hands together in a coordinated manner is a skill that is used in almost every activity we do. Work on bilateral coordination by building a fine motor snowman of your own.

In-hand manipulation- This fine motor skill is essential for a functional pencil grasp and manipulating items like clothing fasteners and small objects. Work on in-hand manipulation by managing the craft pom poms when completing this craft.

Eye-hand coordination– Build skills by asking your child or client to work on eye-hand coordination when adding the craft pom poms and details to this snowman craft.

Hand strength- Strong hands allow us to perform fine motor tasks with coordinated movements. Use the clothes pin to strengthen the arches of the hand and the intrinsic muscles by pinching and placing the snowman craft onto various surfaces!

Kids can work on visual perceptual skills and fine motor skills using craft pom poms and clothes pins.

This snowman craft for kids is so cute and helps kids with fine motor skills too!

This cute little snowman craft has been moving all around our house these last few days!

clothespin snowman craft- Fine Motor Activity

We actually have a video that shows different ways you can use a clothes pin, like the snowman clothespin that we made, as a hand strengthening tool:

Clothespins are a powerful way to strengthen hands. In this video, we walk through different grasp patterns that we can target with clothes pin activities.

Want more ways to boost fine motor skills with a snowman theme or winter theme? The Winter Fine Motor Kit is on sale now!

More than ever, kids need the tools to help them build essential fine motor skills so they develop strong and dexterous hands so they can learn, hold & write with a pencil, and play.

Click here to grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit!

Glitter Paint Snowman

October 10, 2023January 18, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

We used homemade glitter paint to make this snowman painting that is the prefect addition to a snowman theme! The nice thing about this snowman craft is that it uses paint and glitter so that the process is a little messy, but super sensory. The way that we painted our glitter paint snowmen was very fun and a great sensory experience for the toddlers. Add this to your creative art ideas for more fun!

This, along with our how to paint snow activity are fun winter OT ideas

How to make Glitter Paint

This post contains affiliate links.

To make the glitter paint, we started with some white paint in a bowl and a new shower scrub. You can get a pack of these at the dollar store.

At this point, you could mix white or iridescent glitter right into the paint and mix it up. We chose to sprinkle the glitter onto the paint, however, for the fine motor benefits of sprinkling.

Next, you are ready to make the snowman craft!

Glitter Paint Snowman

Press a new shower scrubber into the white paint. Then, gently press it onto blue construction paper. You can “build” a snowman by adding three puffs of white paint.

RELATED: To build a snowman with less sensory input or via virtual therapy, try this build a snowman therapy slide deck.

The shower puff was the perfect stamper for our snowman’s body and a great painting tool for toddlers. The Toddlers could grab the shower pouf with a gross hand grasp and smash it right down on the construction paper.

Toddler craft idea using a shower puff to paint.

Big Sister helped out with this craft and was the “teacher”.

Toddlers can paint with a shower puff for fine motor and sensory crafts.

Sprinkle glitter into paint for homemade glitter paint, great for a snowman craft.

While the paint was still wet, we sprinkled **generous amounts** of clear glitter right onto the paint. By sprinkling the glitter with your fingertips, kids develop intrinsic hand strength and arch development. It is a similar motor plan and muscle use required for rolling small balls of play dough. You can explore more on intrinsic hand strengthening here.

We used the same technique recently when we made our Fine Motor Snowman Craft.

The glitter stuck right in the glue and the excess was shook off. Our snowmen were starting to look pretty snowy!

Use a bottle of squeeze glue to help kids develop fine motor skills.

The next step involved Big Sister coming to the aid with her “teacher” duties. She squirted dots of glue for eyes, noses, scarves, hats, and buttons.

Next, you will need squeeze glue from a bottle. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I love the use of a squeeze glue bottle over a glue stick for so many reasons. By using a squeeze glue bottle, kids are building refined use of skill areas:

Refined grasp
Hand strength
Eye-hand coordination
Arch strength
Open thumb web-space
Visual motor skills

You can focus on certain areas with use of a squeeze glue bottle by asking kids to place glue onto specific spots. Just use a marker to dot throughout the shape. Kids can then place glue dots on those specific spots.

If working with glue bottles is a helpful activity for the children you serve, you will love the Glue Spots Exercises in the Winter Fine Motor Kit.

All of these were one at a time and because we were doing four kid’s worth of snowmen, she was pretty busy with her little glue assembly line!

Fine motor snowman craft with glitter paint.

Little Nephew was much more sure of himself when it came to squashing the black pony beads into the glue dots. This was a great fine motor activity for little hands. I love those little wrinkly knuckles!

Work on fine motor skills with this glitter paint snowman craft.

Big Sister helped to keep everyone on task with the steps.

Fine motor snowman craft with homemade glitter paint.

I cut little pieces of orange felt into carrots for the snowmen noses and tiny felt hats from felt sheets. The eyes were googly eyes and the scarves were just strips of red felt. Once everything was glued on, we used a brown marker to draw stick arms.

Cute glitter snowman crafts for preschool and toddlers.

Our sparkly snowman family looks pretty cute. This was such a fun craft for multiple ages. I love how their personalities come out in each snowman, too…with the different sized eyes, the smash of the paint, the sizes of the arms…Big fun!

Looking for more winter activities designed to build fine motor skills? The Winter Fine Motor Kit is on sale now!

Play Dough City

July 15, 2022January 11, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This fine motor play dough mat is a fun one. It’s a play dough city mat that allows kids to work on hand strength and fine motor skills using a city themed play dough mat. Playdough mats like this one can be used along with other city activities like books, travel, or discovering information about geography and our world. We’ve talked before about using play dough for fine motor skills development and this city play dough mat is a great way to do that!

This City Play Dough Mat is a supplement that can help with more skills than just adding to a city learning theme, all in a fun play dough activity! This free play dough mat boosts fine motor skills specifically hand strength, and the intrinsic muscles of the hands. Print off this city playdough mat and start playing and learning WHILE boosting those skills that kids need!

Kids can use this play dough city theme fine motor activity to increase hand strength for fine motor skills like handwriting and pencil grasp all with play dough activities kids love!

City Play Dough Mat

I love adding hands-on components to learning themes. It adds a special twist that really helps with recall when motor components are added. This city play dough mat is a great accompaniment to any community or geography theme.

Kids can fill in the circles in the city skyline while building the fine motor skills they need for tasks such as endurance with writing or coloring, pencil control when forming letters, functional pencil grasp, management of buttons/zippers/other clothing fasteners, opening and closing of food containers, and so many other fine motor tasks!

For the child who struggles with fine motor skills or has a fine motor delay, this city play dough mat can be a fun way to build those skills.

In fact, there are so many fine motor skills needed in school and in home learning environments whether it occurs in the classroom, virtual learning, or the homeschool dining room. Building fine motor skills can make an impactful difference in learning and functional tasks!

How to increase hand strength with a play dough mat

Play dough mats are a big hit with kids. They can come in any theme, making them fun for specific interests. This astronaut play dough mat is one of our favorites. The thing is, though that just the act of playing with play dough on a play dough mat is a really power tool in strengthening little hands!

In fact, there are so many ways to use a play dough mat to strengthen the skills kids need for fine motor tasks. One of the ways we have been focusing on here on The OT Toolbox with our recent play dough mat series is working the intrinsic muscles of the hands by rolling small balls of play dough in various sizes.

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.

The intrinsic muscles are those responsible for nice, defined arches of the hands, the ability to separate the two sides of the hand, and to have nice, bulky muscle tone in the mass that makes up the base of the thumb and the side of the pinkie finger. These muscle groups help with dexterity, endurance, coordination, and controlled manipulation of small items and all things fine motor!

Free Play Dough Mat

Grab a copy of this free playdough mat by entering your email in the form below.

You will receive the printable play dough mat in your email where you can print it and use it over and over again in your therapy toolbox.

Want to check out the other play dough mats we’ve shared recently? They are all designed to promote strengthening of the intrinsics and hand strength in kids.

Free Astronaut Play Dough Mat

Free Space Play Dough Mat

Free Ice Cream Play Dough Mat

Free Bird Theme Play Dough Mat

Be sure to grab the city play dough mat and use it for increasing hand strength in fun ways!

Use this city theme play dough mat to work on hand strength and increasing the hand strength needed for fine motor skills.

Space Play Dough Mat

January 23, 2024January 11, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

If you are working on building intrinsic hand strength and the fine motor skills kids need to improve tasks such as maintaining a pencil grasp or coloring with endurance, than this space play dough mat is perfect for you.

Kids can use play dough mats to strengthen their hands and develop essential skills needed for writing with a pencil, dexterity in fine motor tasks, and precision in fine motor coordination tasks. This free play dough mat has a space theme and you can print off the printable play dough mat and add it to your therapy toolbox.

This space play dough mat is just one tool to use when looking for playdough activities for fine motor skills.

Kids love play dough mats like this space worksheet. When they roll play dough to fit in the spaces on the printable sheets, they don’t always realize they are working on intrinsic hand strength or hand strengthening in general. Even better, this outer space play dough mat is a free printable playdough mat that will go perfectly with a space theme!

Space Play Dough Mat

Working on intrinsic hand strength is a task that doesn’t need to be difficult…with a simple play dough activity like this one, building hand strength is easy!

We’ve shared a few play dough strengthening activities before. There is a reason why: Kids NEED more hand strength. It’s evident in the increased pencil grasp issues that teachers, parents, and therapists are seeing every day!

Looking for more strengthening activities using play dough? Try this flower play dough activity.

Intrinsic Muscle Strengthening Activity

The thing about this outer space play dough mat is that it works on a specific set of muscles in the hand. The intrinsic muscles are those within the hand that enable dexterity and endurance in fine motor tasks. They are the ones that allow the arches of the hand to be used in fine motor tasks like manipulating objects with in the hand.

They are the muscles of the hand that contribute to separation of the sides of the hand and create the thenar and hypothenar eminences. Specific exercises can strengthen these muscles and one of the biggest ones is rolling small balls of play dough with just the fingertips of the hand.

That’s why we’ve created a series of free play dough mats that encourage small balls of play dough of various sizes.

Space Activity

Print off this free play dough mat and add it to your toolbox for a fun fine motor activity that kids will love.

You can enter your email into the form below and watch your email to find the printable outer space playdough mat. After printing, you may want to cover it with a plastic or laminated surface that allows you to use the playdough mat over and over again. Some of our favorite tricks for this include: (Amazon affiliate links are included below.)

Laminating the paper
Slipping it into a sheet protector sleeve
Sliding the play dough mat into a dry erase marker pocket
Covering the paper with clear contact paper

Grab your free printable outer space play dough mat here and start working on that intrinsic hand strength!

Print off this free outer space play dough mat to help kids increase their hand strength and the intrinsic hand strength needed for fine motor tasks, all with a space theme!

More play dough activities you will love:

Play Dough Farm Activity | Play Dough Activity Color Match | Play Dough Cupcakes

More Free Play Dough Mats

Here are more free play dough mats that you can print off and use to work on hand strength endurance, and fine motor skills:

Free Ice Cream Play Dough Mat

Free Bird Play Dough Mat

Free Toys Play Dough Mat

Free Astronaut Play Dough Mat

Free City Skyline Play Dough Mat

More Space Activities

Pair this free outer space play dough mat with hands-on fine motor activities or virtual therapy activities for a themed therapy experience. Try these space activities that build skills:

Free Space Play Dough Mat

Want to add this space play dough mat to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below to access.

Know a kiddo that loves all things space, astronauts, and planets? The Outer Space Fine Motor Kit is your chance to develop fine motor strength, dexterity, and coordination skills.

Addressing hand strength, endurance, and precision is out of this world fun! The Outer Space Fine Motor Kit includes:

Fine Motor Mazes
Fine Motor Ten Frames for motor activities
1-20 Star Counting Cards
Bead Copying Strips
Space Alien Directed Drawing Sheets

This fine motor kit includes 24 pages of printable resources. Included in this printable pack are:

Two pages of color coded bead copying strips
Two pages of blank bead copying strips
Four pages of “draw and write” directed drawing activities with a space theme (Includes 3 styles of handwriting lines: highlighted lines, single rule, and double rule)
Nine pages of fine motor mazes
1-20 Outer Space Counting Cards
Four pages of fine motor ten frames activities

These printable activities extend to work on a variety of other functional areas, too: handwriting skills, numbers, math, adding, subtracting, one-to-one correspondence, scissor skills, coloring, and more.

Click HERE to grab the Outer Space Fine Motor Mini-Kit.

Fish learning activity

January 10, 2021January 10, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

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.

Use these fish learning activities to work on sight words, math, letter identification, or spelling words with whole body 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.

Make a fish learning activity and kids can fish for words or fish for math problems. Great for kinesthetic learning.

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.

fish learning activities for math, sight words, numbers, or letter identification.

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?

Polar Bear Sensory Bin

January 18, 2024January 5, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This polar bear sensory bin is an old one from The OT Toolbox site archives. This tactile sensory activity is a fun way to challenge sensory exploration with a variety of textures and materials. But more than that, this polar bear activity can be used in a therapy theme to address skills. The next part of the polar bear gross motor activity included a Our Polar Bear Sensory bin was cotton batting, tinsel, a stuffed polar bear, and a seal toy. This is a Winter Sensory bin that can go along with an arctic animals theme.

Polar Bear Sensory Bin Materials

There are many ways to set up this sensory bin. Use items you have in your home or therapy space. Use some of the materials listed below. You DO NOT need all of these items. The nice thing about creating a themed sensory bin is that you can use what you have on hand. Some ideas for the sensory bin include:

Container or bin
Teddy bear
Tinsel
Cotton balls
Cotton batting
Tissue paper
Rice
Dry beans
Blue or white construction paper
Tape
Wax paper
Clear cellophane
Aluminum foil
Arctic animal figures

Make a polar bear sensory bin with figures, and sensory materials.

Other materials that you may want to add to the polar bear sensory bin to encourage fine motor skills and coordination skills:

Tweezers to pick up and manipulate materials
Small bowls
Tongs
Spoons or scoops
Chopsticks
Pickle picker
Containers
Counting cards (try the winter themed ones in the Winter Fine Motor Kit)

Fine Motor Skills in a Sensory Bin

Using the materials and tools above, students can work on fine motor skills to manipulate and explore the items in the sensory bin. Some ways to work on fine motor skills include:

Address in-hand manipulation by sorting items in the hands into containers or cups.

Work on hand strength and arch development by moving items with tongs, tweezers, or pickle picker.

Work on open thumb web space by pinching and pulling cotton balls.

Work on finger isolation by moving materials and items around in the bin.

Work on grasp and precision by picking up small items such as tinsel, mini-erasers, crumbled paper or tissue paper, etc.

Use a Sensory Bin for Visual Perception

This polar bear sensory bin can be used to address a variety of visual perceptual skills: visual discrimination, visual memory, visual attention, figure ground, and visual closure.

Ask children to locate specific items by color or texture. They can also recall items that they found in the sensory bin. Ask kids to locate items that are partially hidden by other objects or sensory bin filler materials. These are all ways to work on visual perceptual skills with this polar bear sensory bin.

Use a Sensory Bin for Eye-Hand Coordination

A sensory bin like this polar bear theme can be used in so many ways to address eye-hand coordination:

Pouring materials
Scooping materials like beans or rice
Using tongs or tweezers to pick up and move items like mini erasers
Sorting sensory bin items into piles or containers
Picking up and exploring various sensory bin items

Polar Bear Imagination Play

My kids had fun just imagining stories for the items in the sensory bin. We used the stuffed bear as a polar bear and a seal figure who was trying to escape into the ocean…Imagination play!

Polar bear sensory bin with tinsel and arctic animal figures.

Little Guy glued some waxed paper to blue construction paper to make an ocean covered with ice. We had a striped Christmas pencil for our “North Pole”.

Baby Girl did NOT like the texture or “feel” of the tinsel. It got stuck to her hands and she would try to pull it off…The seal is another story. She carried that thing around all day 🙂

Kids of all ages can use the materials in the sensory bin to work on tactile sensory exploration, fine motor skills, and visual perception.

Looking for more Polar Bear play ideas?? We had fun with our first Polar Bear Theme activities day! We should have more ideas up tomorrow to go along with the Polar Bear theme.

You’ll also love all of the items in our Winter Fine Motor Kit. It’s loaded with coloring sheets, handwriting pages, puzzles, and crafts with a polar bear theme. There are sensory bin materials, polar bear finger puppets, lacing cards, and so much more.

Click here to grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit.

Polar Bear Gross Motor Activities

January 5, 2021January 5, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

We are continuing with our Polar Bear Theme with all kinds of play ideas. Check out the polar bear gross motor activities listed here and challenge kids to move, and develop coordination, balance, direction changes, movement patterns, core strength, stability, and more. These polar bear activities go well with our polar bear gross motor virtual therapy slide deck, too, so you’ll want to check that out as well. Add gross motor play to your winter line-up!

Polar Bear Gross Motor Activity

For this gross motor activity, you’ll need masking tape, some couch cushions, and other small items (cotton batting, polar bear figures, or other materials can be used).

Start by creating a path with the masking tape. We made a zig zag path across the room, but the options are limitless here.

The masking tape path is perfect for polar bear crawls, toe walking, walking backwards, and knee walking.

indoor obstacle course ideas with masking tape obstacle course

Masking Tape Balance Beam Ideas

Once the masking tape is positioned on the floor, there are so many ways to use this in therapy in a classroom, hallway, clinic, or therapy at home activity.

I put a couple of pillows at the end to make a “snow pile” for the polar bears. Your kids can jump or hop into the pillows, or use them as balance challenges.

We put some cotton batting along the path that the kids had to bend and stoop to grasp using one hand or the other. Then, they had to transport the “snow” to the other end of the path.

A balance beam is so great for gross motor skills including coordination and balance. You can start with normal toe to heel steps, and then increase the balance and coordination needed by asking your child to take bigger steps, side steps, backward steps, tip toe, go fast/slow.

Polar bear gross motor activity for therapy at home or in a clinic.

Kids can hold an object and transport it from one end of the path to the other. Ask them to hold the item in their hands, on their head, on their toes, or on their back as they bear walk. Objects can be large or small, heavy or light.

Use couch pillows as pretend ice blocks for the polar bears.

Use tongs and a small plastic ice cube to incorporate fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination skills. You can place buckets or bins along the path for obstacles to place the small objects in while challenging core strength, motor planning, and movement changes.

Add buckets or cones along the path for children to step over or hop over. If cones aren’t available, just use couch throw cushions as an obstacle.

Add a big duvet blanket or other large blanket at one end or both ends as a DIY crash pad for heavy work and proprioceptive input. Crawling into and under the heavy blanket offers heavy work, and that blanket makes a great “igloo” for your little polar bear.

Advance the motor planning and core development by asking kids to stand along the path as they try to catch/toss a ball, navigate turns, curves, hop…There is so much you can do with the masking tape balance beam! Add more fine motor skill work by using paper snowflakes along the balance beam.

Challenge kids in a masking tape obstacle course with a polar bear theme.

Use a polar bear sensory bin along the path to challenge kids to transport items from one end of the path and to place them into the sensory bin. This is a fantastic occupational therapy or physical therapy intervention that challenges so many skills.

Use masking tape to make an obstacle course in the living room, with a polar bear theme or other animal walks.

For more polar bear gross motor activities, (and fine motor work), grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit, with 100 pages of done-for-you therapy activities, including polar bear themes. There are sensory bin materials, crafts, and activities designed to boost fine motor skills. These would be great additions to a polar bear gross motor theme in therapy sessions.

Grab it now before January 9th and you get a bonus of 3 fine motor slide deck activities.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE WINTER FINE MOTOR KIT.

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