Brown and Blue Play Dough, sand, rocks, palm tree food picks, and a bowl of beachy manipulatives were put on a tray for Big Sister and Little Guy. They played with this in our basement in a baby pool we have going on down there right now.
I love how Little Guy put the dolphin in the blue play dough like it was leaping into the water 🙂
What are we learning through play?
Imagination Play
Pretend Play
Fine Motor Dexterity
Tripod Grasp to pinch and sprinkle the sand
Index Isolation and Tripod Grasp to press the little items into the play dough
The weather this week has been SO cold. Sunny, yes. But Freezing!
We went out to ride bikes for a little while, ran around the yard one day…but couldn’t stay out long.
This little play activity was perfect for warm, inside, table-top play.
Spring Play Dough: Exploring Imprints
We gathered up a few fun colors of play dough and some spring-y objects to explore the imprints they would make in the play dough.
Fun with textures, fine motor dexterity, and resistive play… (pressing little objects into the play dough is perfect for providing a little proprioceptive input to the little joints of the hand.)…this was a fun one for Big Sister, Little Guy, Baby Girl, and my niece and nephew.
Pre-Handwriting Exercise
An easy play activity like this would be great to do before something that requires the child to work their hands with fine motor dexterity and adjustments in pressure/manipulation (Handwriting!)
It’s a fun exercise like this one wakes up the hands before they have to get to work on forming letters and pencil control.
Little Guy liked the footprints that the chick made. He really had fun guessing what made each one of the imprints after I took them out of the play dough.
Try this one with any little objects you have around the house…everyone will love it 🙂
This Spring sensory activity doubles as a fine motor activity and visual perceptual skills activity too. We used some materials we had around the house to create an “I Spy” sensory bag that kids can use to work on essential skills for reading and learning.
To make a Spring seek and find sensory bag, you need just a few materials:
gallon sized baggie
gel
food coloring
Paper
Stickers- we used Spring stickers
This is a really simple sensory bag to make:
Today we used some spring flowers that we had and stuck them inside a plastic bag.
We filled it with aloe gel and some food coloring.
There were matching stickers on a piece of paper so the kids had to seek and find the match.
Looking back and forth to find the matches is great for visual scanning and visual memory.
Pushing the gel around to find the sticker below helps with fine motor strength, including index finger isolation.
This was Baby Girl’s version of fun:
…we did not tape the bag to seal it closed, but you may want to. It would also be fun to tape the bag to a window like we did in the linked activity. The gel bag is fun for practicing letter and number formation too.
Why make a Spring Seek and Find Sensory Bag?
Spring is a great time to get outside and explore the natural world with your senses. You can create your own spring sensory bags by filling them with different materials that will stimulate your senses, such as flower petals, leaves, or even some freshly cut grass.
These sensory bags can be a great way to encourage children to explore their surroundings and discover new things. You could also create a seek and find spring activity, where children have to search for certain items using their senses.
If you have a child who is a sensory seeker, creating a spring sensory bag could be a great way to provide them with the tactile and visual sensory input they crave.
The different textures of the materials inside the bag can help to regulate their sensory system and provide a calming effect. Pressing the bag through the fingers offers calming proprioceptive input through the joints of the hands.
Additionally, creating a spring look and find activity could be a fun way to engage them and provide them with an opportunity to explore their surroundings in a meaningful way.
Spring Sensory Bags
For an I spy sensory bag activity, you could fill a bag with various small objects, such as buttons or beads, and have children search for specific items using their senses.
This activity can be a fun way to develop children’s sensory skills and provide them with a fun and engaging learning experience.
Whether you’re looking to engage your senses or seek out new spring adventures, there are plenty of creative ways to make the most of this vibrant season. So why not grab a seek bag and get started today?
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:
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.
Kids LOVE rainbow sensory bins! These rainbow sensory bin ideas are some of our absolute favorite sensory bins, and they are the perfect addition to our rainbow activities, rainbow crafts, and a rainbow theme in therapy. Be sure to use our rainbow breathing exercise, too. Let’s talk rainbow sensory play!
Rainbow sensory bins
A sensory bin is a container filled with materials that are designed to engage children’s senses and encourage exploration and play. They can be as easy or as complicated as you like, but the concept is the same- sensory based, tactile play with a theme or play idea with items to manipulate and explore as the user explores their tactile sensory system.
These materials can include a wide range of sensory inputs such as sand, rice, beans, water, or small objects like toys, beads, and stones. Here are many sensory bin base ideas to get you started.
The goal of a sensory bin is to provide children with an opportunity to explore their senses through play. As they play with the materials, they can feel the different textures, see the different colors, and hear the different sounds they make. This can help to promote their sensory development and stimulate their curiosity and creativity.
Sensory bins are often used in early childhood education and therapy settings as a tool for sensory integration therapy, which aims to help children develop and organize their sensory systems. They can also be used at home as a fun and engaging activity for children to play and explore.
We’ve been playing with a rainbow theme alllll week around here. These are three rainbow sensory bins that we have been exploring.
Any time that I pull out the corn bin, everyone gets very excited. I added ribbons in different colors and some “gold coins” (aka yellow Connect Four game pieces!)
Another little sensory bin that we’ve been playing with is a simple bowl of these Fuse ‘M Beads.
I added a couple of pairs of tweezers and an ice cube tray and let them go at it!
This was a fun fine motor activity, but mostly they just loved running their hands through the beads.
Baby Girl loved exploring these little beads.
((These are really little, so if you play with these…or any little parts…keep an eye on your little ones if they tend to put things in their mouths. Baby Girl does pretty well and won’t put things like this in her mouth.))
This last sensory bin used the Fuse ‘M Beads again. The next day, I put the beads and some cotton balls (clouds) into a big ol’ bowl and added a melon baller and kitchen tongs.
More fine motor skills and sensory play combined into one colorful activity!
We hope you get some good ideas from these sensory bins. have you done any fun sensory bins recently?
If you are setting up a rainbow sensory bin, be sure to grab a copy of our colors handwriting kit. There are many items in the printable kit that can be used in a sensory bin to challenge letter writing. It’s a great colorful addition to rainbow play!
Rainbow Handwriting Kit– This resource pack includes handwriting sheets, write the room cards, color worksheets, visual motor activities, and so much more. The handwriting kit includes:
Write the Room, Color Names: Lowercase Letters
Write the Room, Color Names: Uppercase Letters
Write the Room, Color Names: Cursive Writing
Copy/Draw/Color/Cut Color Worksheets
Colors Roll & Write Page
Color Names Letter Size Puzzle Pages
Flip and Fill A-Z Letter Pages
Colors Pre-Writing Lines Pencil Control Mazes
This handwriting kit now includes a bonus pack of pencil control worksheets, 1-10 fine motor clip cards, visual discrimination maze for directionality, handwriting sheets, and working memory/direction following sheet! Valued at $5, this bonus kit triples the goal areas you can work on in each therapy session or home program.
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 pipe cleaner fine motor activity is a fun one that we used for many years to target fine motor skills like dexterity, pincer grasp, hand strength, and more. Plus, this pipe cleaner activity is great for toddlers. But, kids of all ages love this activity! Let’s break it down…
Pipe Cleaner Fine Motor Activity
This fine motor pipe cleaner activity is very simple to set up. You need just two items:
Pipe cleaners cut into half or one thirds
A cardboard box
To set up the activity, first cut the pipe cleaners into smaller sections. For younger children use longer lengths of pipe cleaners and for older kids, target more precise fine motor skills but cutting smaller sections.
Then, use a screwdriver and poke holes all over the cardboard box.
You’ll want to poke holes on the top of the box, but also on the sides of the box. A larger box is best for this activity, because the holes on the sides of the box encourages a wider range of motion, including wrist extension.
You’ll also see more diverse movements when a larger cardboard box is used: bilateral coordination, visual scanning, crossing midline, and more.
This was the invitation to play that I had set up for the kids. A cardboard box with holes poked all over, and pipe cleaners.
This was the end result 🙂
They all had so much fun creating a work of art with pope cleaners, all while working on their fine motor dexterity, tripod grasp, and eye-hand coordination.
(These two were pushing each other to get in there. They are WAY more like siblings than cousins…)
Have you seen our recent post Pipe Cleaner Fun where we shared how to explore colors with pipe cleaners? There are so many fun ways to use them for fine motor development with kids!
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.
This was an easy and fun way to spend an afternoon. And when Baby Girl woke up from her nap, she loved it too.
I put out six colors of play dough and a little bin of colored beads, paper clips, and other little things.
Fine Motor Strengthening for kids
They had so much fun matching up the colors. Baby Girl just loved pushing the little beads and things into the Play Dough.
I love her little knuckle dimples 🙂
Pushing the little objects into the dough is resistive and an excellent fine motor strengthening exercise for little hands. They are also working on their tripod grasp when they push the beads into the Dough.
Big Sister said we needed to wash all of the little objects after we were done. We put all of them into a bin of water and everyone had fun swishing them around.
Drain them into a colander and you are good to go 🙂
Fine motor play for toddlers is a win in our house. Toddlers seem to love moving, scooping, dropping, and sorting items, so why not incorporate fine motor skills into the activity?
Looking for more creative ideas for toddlers? Try these ones.
Fine Motor Work for Toddlers and Preschoolers
This activity is so easy to put together and fun for different ages. My Toddler and niece and nephew (both 16 months old) were immediately loving this one. They saw the pile of crafting pom poms and the bottles on the table and were instantly popping the fuzz balls into the empty water bottles.
NOTE: If you try this activity with little ones who love to explore with their mouths, please keep a very close eye on them. Or put this one on hold for a few months.
Pushing the pom poms into the bottles is great for working on a tripod grasp, and the littler kids tended to push the ball into the bottle by using their index finger (Index Isolation).
When kids develop isolation of individual fingers, it improves their dexterity, separates the sides of the hand, and allows them to manipulate small objects with accuracy.
As they progress in fine motor development, you will see the ring finger, and pinkie finger fold down into a fist as they use just their thumb, pointer finger, and ring finger to manipulate little objects. The ring and pinkie fingers are then able to stabilize the hand during activities such as handwriting, cutting with scissors, and shoe tying.
Color Sorting for Preschoolers
Little Guy (who is 3) sorted the different colored pom poms into bottles.
We had fun with this for a long time. They were occupied before and after nap time with this one!
To get the pom poms out of the bottles, I was able to pull them out quickly. The little kids were not able to get them out, but it was not too difficult for Big Sister.
Bilateral coordination for toddlers is part of development and this plastic bottle and craft pom pom activity is a great tool to support this sensory motor skill.
The toddlers had a little trouble at first, managing the bottle with their helper hand while concentrating on putting the pom poms into the bottle top.
This is a really great activity to work on bilateral coordination for little ones. After a while, they both got better at it.
That was pretty neat to see. It really helps, too, that the bottle made a loud crinkly sound when they squeezed too hard. What a great auditory cue for them to lessen their grip on the bottle.
Don’t have the pom poms at the house??? Use cotton balls.
Try this fine motor activity that uses a simple item you probably already have in the house right now: a plastic water bottle. Add a few pipe cleaners for a fun activity that boosts skills like fine motor skills, visual motor skills, bilateral coordination, and more.
Fine Motor Skills and Learning Colors with Pipe Cleaners
Baby Girl has been LOVING this library book.
Her favorite word right now is “apple” so she turns to this page and points to the picture and says apple again and again 🙂
So cute!
The babies had fun doing a little fine motor activity to go along with the Red page in the book.
I cut some red pipe cleaners in half and put out an empty water bottle.
This is great for a Toddler’s Fine Motor Skills, Eye-Hand Coordination, and Cause-Effect.
They love to put little toys into openings to see what happens. Putting the brightly colored pipe cleaners into the bottle is so much fun for them!
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We started with a bunch of colored pipe cleaners, but I put them away and just pulled out the red ones to go along with the page in the book. We will definitely be coming back to this activity again, adding different colors…They loved it!
There are so many fun ways to use stickers for fine motor skill development.
Stickers can be used in scissoring to work on accuracy, scissor control, snipping paper, manipulating the paper to turn corners and curves when cutting. It can be really tricky for a kiddo to manage all of those areas if they have any fine motor/visual motor/eye-hand coordination…or any trouble area(s) that effects their ability to accurately maintain line awareness when cutting paper.
And for pre-schoolers, it can be really fun to use stickers in a cutting activity.
Anything that makes things different. Or silly.
It makes an activity Interesting!
We used some heart stickers in honor of Valentine’s Day…
(and also because we have millions of them)
to make some curves, squares, and angled lines…and to practice a little cutting!
This little bird stopped by to watch 🙂
What else can you do with stickers when practicing cutting…
~Cut along a line of stickers, like we did.
~Use a sticker only at the corners of an angled shape (the corners of a triangle) to signal when the child should turn the paper.
~Place stickers along the edge of the page, to show where the child should hold the paper with his “helping hand”, and signal when he should move his hand along. This would be a good guide for kids with trouble coordinating both hands when cutting.
~For the child who needs help knowing when to open/shut the scissors to snip with smooth cuts, place stickers along the line signaling when to open/shut the scissors. This can be a visual cue to assist the child.
~Using Fiscar scissors (or other scissors that have a smaller thumb opening): Sometimes kids will get mixed up about which opening their thumb goes in when they hold the scissors. If they are holding the scissors upside down because of this, it can lessen the control they have when they cut. Place a sticker on the scissors to they know which hole they should put their thumb into.
~Practice scissor control: Place stickers randomly around a page and have the child cut from the edge of the paper up to a sticker and then stop before they cut into the sticker.
