Did you see the reindeer activities ideas listed here on the website last week? It’s a Christmas occupational therapy plan that can work on so many different areas. Today, I’ve got another fun holiday activity for kids to do…Reindeer fine motor cards! This newly created Christmas activity is a free pack of reindeer theme activity cards. Use them to work on fine motor skills such as pencil control, precision, eye-hand coordination, motor planning, and more.
Reindeer Fine Motor Cards
You can print these off and use them over and over again. I created these reindeer theme fine motor cards for the purpose of multi-use, meaning that you can use them to work on several different areas:
Reindeer Theme Pencil Control
Print off the reindeer cards for a pencil control activity where you can ask children to trace along the paths. In this way, kids work on pencil accuracy and motor planning to control the pencil. With each path, there are several repetitions, allowing children to work on these skills and accuracy. Use the sheets to collect data in therapy sessions. Kids can complete the path with accuracy on 3/5 attempts, (or other ratio) using these cards.
Reindeer Activity for Fine Motor Skills
Use the cards to work on fine motor skills such as precision, eye-hand coordination, pinch, dexterity, finger isolation, and motor planning. Print off the cards and ask students to place manipulatives along the lines to connect the reindeer. Try using these cards in a variety of ways:
- Place stickers along the path
- Trace the path to work on finger isolation
- Place craft pom poms, mini erasers, pebbles, or small objects along the path.
- Use a bottle of squeeze glue and ask students to create a glue path in the lines. They can crumble up small pieces of paper and glue them along the path.
Reindeer Coloring Activity
Use the cards to work on fine motor skills in the ways listed above, but also by addressing coloring skills. Coloring is a fantastic way to work on precision, hand strength, arch development, as well as eye-hand coordination. Coloring also benefits visual perceptual skills as well. Here are all of the benefits that coloring offers. Children can use the cards to color in the path and work on pre-writing lines as well as line awareness. Use the cards as repetition trials to work on accuracy and consistency with visual perceptual skills, line awareness, and small motor movements when coloring in a small space. Each coloring card can be used to collect data.
Use the cards to work on pencil pressure by asking children to color in the reindeer images with their pencil.
Reindeer Cutting Strips
The pencil control strips are set up in a way that allows them to be used as cutting strips as well. Ask children to cut along the bold lines and work on cutting skills. To grade the activity up, ask children to cut along the path on the curved and angled lines. Then, each strip can be used to collect data in the repetitions. Children can work on keeping the scissors within in the path. You can cut the left side of the page off to remove the reindeer on the left for cutting strips that start from the edge of the paper. Here is more information on scissor skills.
Free Reindeer Printables
Would you like to get a copy of these printable pages to use in working on a variety of fine motor skills? Enter your email address below and the file will be delivered to your inbox.
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.
