Email Gold

handwriting

Fix Spacing in Handwriting (Free Handout)

by
spacing in handwriting handout

Working to fix spacing in handwriting so the kids you serve can write legibly? Spatial awareness is a huge means to improving legible handwriting. Sometimes having a few strategies to actually improve the spacing between letters and words is so beneficial for accuracy and carryover in handwriting.

Today, I have another free handwriting handout as part of our handwriting tips and tricks series. If you’ve already signed up for this series, you have the free worksheet in your inbox. This is the space to access more spacing in handwriting resources and tools to help with spacing between letters and words for legible written work.

Free spacing in handwriting handout that includes tips for improving spacing between words and letters in written work.

Fix Spacing in Handwriting

Spatial awareness is a powerhouse when it comes to legibility in written work. The child who forms letters with award formation no matter how many times you teach them that letters start at the top can increase overall legibility by spacing out words on the lines.

However, spacing between letters and words can be difficult when visual motor integration is an issue. Modifications and adaptations can help.

For those kiddos who have zero awareness of organization on the page and start at the middle of the paper or don’t seem not notice space constraints on a worksheet will definitely benefit from spatial awareness tips and tricks.

Here are a few easy ways to fix spacing in handwriting:

  1. Use graph paper
  2. Use a highlighter for writing words
  3. Use a small dot (colored pencil) to space between words
  4. Use a spacing tool. Kids can make their own (check out the spacing tools listed below) to help with carryover and use.
  5. Highlight margins
  6. Use boxes for words or letters. This blog post shows how to set up boxes for spacing between letters and words.
  7. Encourage the child to use a “finger space” between words and physically place their finger on the paper. This incorporates bilateral coordination and holding the paper when writing.
  8. Use stickers placed along the right margin of to cue the student that they are nearing the edge of paper when writing.
  9. Draw a red stop sign at the right margin.
  10. Graph paper Try 1/2 inch wide rule first.
  11. Raised line paper
  12. Slant board
  13. Try smaller width of lines instead of primary paper.
  14. RediSpace paper has a green line along the left margin and a red line along the right margin.

Fix Spacing between words with a spacing tool

There are many spacing tools on the market, but when kids are involved in the creation process, they are likely to use the item in handwriting tasks. We’ve made several spacing tool crafts here. Try these ideas:

Why Spacing between words is important

Spacing between letters and words is one of the easiest ways to improve overall legibility in written work. Why? There are a few reasons…

When letter formation is difficult for children, letters can appear sloppy or hard to discriminate from one another. This can make reading back written work difficult for children. Spacing between words can create white space that makes it easier to read sloppy or poorly formed letters.

Those that struggle with handwriting challenges such as dysgraphia or dyslexia, fine motor challenges, sensory issues, motor planning challenges, correct formation of letters can be quite difficult. Spacing between words helps to improve overall legibility.

For more information, check out our blog post on dyslexia and occupational therapy.

Spacing helps when line use is a challenge. Some children struggle with the visual perceptual skills needed to write on lines. Other contributors to poor line use may include pencil control challenges, motor planning issues, fine motor skill development, or difficulties visual motor skills. When any of these challenges exist, placing letters correctly on the lines, below the lines can impact legibility. Addressing spacing between letters and words can help with readability of written work.

Spacing helps with letter size issues. Similarly to the concept of line use, sizing of letters is important. When sizing is incorrect or inconsistent, children may fill the entire space with their letters. They may make all of the letters the same size or use quick writing speed which impacts legibility and results in large letters. Adding more space between words can help with reading this written material.

Addressing spacing issues allows others to read one’s handwriting. Teachers and parents can agree that when handwriting is illegible, there are difficulties with learning. Kids struggle to read their notes or homework list. Others might not be able to read back over what they’ve written making studying for quizzes and tests a challenge. Students may miss questions on exams or homework assignments when legibility is an issue. All of these issues can impact learning of information and grades.

For more information, you’ll want to check out all of our handwriting posts here.

Spatial Awareness Quick Tip:

Make a spacing tool that can be used while your child is writing words and sentences. It can be as easy as a popsicle stick or even the child’s finger. Show them how to place the spacing tool between words and sideways between letters.

Fine Motor Quick Tip:

Help kids to develop and strengthen the skills needed for improved pencil grasp with fine motor experiences. Encourage flexion of the thumb IP joint (bending the tip of the thumb). Thumb IP joint motion during handwriting helps with pencil control and positioning in the hand. Check out this resource on improving pencil grasp through play, or this massive Pencil Grasp Bundle for activities and tools to impact pencil grasp, motor planning, and fine motor skills.

Spacing in Handwriting Handout

Want tips and tricks to work on spacing in handwriting in a handout form? This free resource is a spacing worksheet that can be used to develop spacing awareness skills in written work. Use the handwriting strategies listed on the handout in educating parents, teachers, or other therapists on the needs of a child.

This free spacing worksheet lists the strategies we covered above and can be a great addition when making suggestions for specific spacing needs. To access this free handout, join the Handwriting Tips and Tricks series…5 days of free handouts and information on all things legible written work!

Head to Handwriting Occupational Therapy Tips and Tricks to sign up. You’ll receive 5 free handwriting handouts related to aspects of written work: spacing, sizing, line use, letter formation, and more. Each day for 5 days, a free handwriting printable is delivered to your inbox.

handwriting handouts
The Handwriting Book is a comprehensive resource created by experienced pediatric OTs and PTs.

The Handwriting Book covers everything you need to know about handwriting, guided by development and focused on function. This digital resource is is the ultimate resource for tips, strategies, suggestions, and information to support handwriting development in kids.

The Handwriting Book breaks down the functional skill of handwriting into developmental areas. These include developmental progression of pre-writing strokes, fine motor skills, gross motor development, sensory considerations, and visual perceptual skills. Each section includes strategies and tips to improve these underlying areas.

  • Strategies to address letter and number formation and reversals
  • Ideas for combining handwriting and play
  • Activities to practice handwriting skills at home
  • Tips and strategies for the reluctant writer
  • Tips to improve pencil grip
  • Tips for sizing, spacing, and alignment with overall improved legibility

Click here to grab your copy of The Handwriting Book today.

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.

Line Awareness Activities

by
alinement in handwriting and writing lines activities

Here, you will discover line alignment resources and line awareness activities to promote accurate use of writing lines. Line awareness is a handwriting skill occupational therapists often address to promote functional written work and legibility in handwriting, by offering raised line paper and other handwriting strategies. Let’s talk line use!

Line Awareness Activities

Line awareness refers to placement of the letters accuratley on the writing lines. When we form letters, there are differnet letter sizes that are placed in different positions within the lines of the paper:

  • Letters that touch the top and bottom lines (b, d, f, h, k, l, t, and all upper case letters)
  • Letters that touch the bottom line (all upper case and all lower case letters)
  • Letters that cross the bottom line (g, j, p, q, y)
  • Letters that touch the middle line (or middle space if using single rule paper: a, c, e, g, i, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z)

Line use allows for proper letter sizing and formation. Together these three aspects play an important role in legibility of written work.

Other aspects of line use refers to margin awareness or stopping writing before reaching the edge of the paper or writing area, and use of the left margin, or writing lists.

Typically, difficulties with line awareness are a result of visual processing problems. Visual processing skills that impact line use include: visual scanning, visual closure, visual discrimination, form constancy, eye-hand coordination, and visual motor integration.

Poor use of Writing Lines

Line awareness is a common struggle for many kids. You might know a child who writes with letters floating up over the lines, shows little regard to lines, or is inconsistent with line use. They might make letters of various sizes and write letters super big so that written work looks completely illegible and sloppy. Writing on the lines and using appropriate size awareness is an issue when visual motor integration skills are difficult for a child.

Perceiving visual information such as lines and available writing areas and then coordinating the motor movement needed to place letters accurately can lead to a lot of areas for legibility breakdown.  

A child turns in an assignment and the letters are written all over the paper. They started out writing pretty neatly. But then, as they thought out their creative writing prompt, you see the words and letters dropping below the lines. Some of the letters are too big and even are scooting up into the letters on the line above. All of these are examples of poor line awareness.

Many times, kids are working on neatness in handwriting due to letters being written all over the page with little regard to placement on the lines.  You might see kids writing with sloped arrangement as the words drift down over the lines or you might see younger kids who are making lower case letters the same size as the tall or upper case letters.  

They might write as if they don’t even see the lines on the paper.    

For older kids, they might not be able to go back over notes and understand what they’ve written in class.   

Line awareness is often times an area that kids need to work on when there are difficulties with legibility in handwriting.   

How can a child write neatly on lines of lined paper or worksheets when the letters drop below the lines?  As teachers and parents, it can become difficult to read their writing.  

How to Improve line awareness

There are many modifications that can be made to help with legibility due to trouble maintaining line awareness.  Kids can build the visual perceptual skills needed for line awareness with activities designed to help the child attend to the lines.   

Line use is closely related to spatial awareness that was discussed in yesterday’s email. Try using the tips and strategies in combination.   Here are a few easy hands-on strategies to help with line awareness and visual motor integration:

Here are a few easy hands-on strategies to help with line awareness and visual motor integration:

Use Beads to Help with Line Awareness

Motor Control in Handwriting

Line Awareness Quick Tip:
Work on letter formation before requiring students to address line awareness. Children are not developmentally ready to write on lines until between ages 5 and 6.

Fine Motor Quick Tip:
Help kids to improve pencil grasp and pencil control when writing on lines by separating the two sides of the hand. When writing, we NEED a stable base to support the fingers that hold and move the pencil.

Encourage creative play activities that separate the two sides of the hands by tucking a cotton ball into the palm when playing with toys like beads. Here is more info about motoric separation of the two sides of the hand and fun ideas for play.

Activities for Writing Lines

Below, you’ll find fun activities to promote use of writing lines for overall legibility of written work.

 
Creative activities to work on line awareness in handwriting
This post contains affiliate links.
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 

More Ways to adjust Handwriting Lines:

  • Highlight the base line.
  • Provide bolded lines.
  • Try paper with raised lines.  This is the type I love for Kindergarten and first grade students. This type is recommended for second grade and older.
  • Try using graph paper.
  • For children who need more space on the page, this colored raised lined paper may help.
  • Use a movable baseline that provides a physical “stop” such as a ruler or index card.
  • Use paper designed to address placement on the lines like earth paper.
  • Highlight the bottom half of writing space
  • Trace baseline with bright colored crayon
  • Trace baseline with white crayon for waxy stopping
  • point
  • Marker on the bottom and top lines
  • Bold single lined paper
  • Low Vision Writing Paper
  • High visual contrast bold lined paper
  • Bold raised lined paper (in single space or double space
  • forms)
  • Adjust line height to fit the student’s handwriting
  • Raised Line Paper
  • Use a serrated tracing wheel to create DIY tactile paper
  • Make a stencil from a cereal box
Writing lines activities for occupational therapy handwriting sessions, to improve line awareness.

Want these writing lines tips in printable format? You can get this list in a handout to use in therapy. Just join our 5 day series on Handwriting Tips Printables to access this along with 4 other free handwriting handouts.

Join here, on the Handwriting Tips and Tricks printables series!

handwriting handouts
Creative activities to work on line awareness in handwriting

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.

Letter Formation Handout

by
Letter formation handout

This blog post is DAY 1 in our Free Handwriting Handouts series. Here, you’ll find all of the information you need to educate others on letter formation. To access the free printable letter formation handout (and all of the other handwriting handouts in this series), be sure to sign up for the Occupational Therapy Handwriting Handouts where you will receive tons of resources and information related to occupational therapy handwriting interventions and handwriting instruction for helping children write legibly.

Use this informative handout in addition to our letter formation worksheets and hands-on activities to target legible writing.

letter formation handout for helping kids with handwriting skills

You’ll also find many resources and writing strategies related to writing letters accurately and legibly on our letter formation resource page.

Letter Formation Handout

Letter formation can be a great challenge for children of all ages. Beginning with pre-writing strokes, preschoolers

Sometimes, when teaching kids how to make letters, it is helpful to add creative and different methods to the good old fashioned, paper and pencil letter making practice. Here are some creative ways to work on letter formation using the senses:
Foam Strip Letter Formation
Letter Formation Resistive Surface
Sensory Letter Formation

You can find all of our handwriting posts here.

Now, let’s move onto the details on letter formation. We’re going to cover a few concepts: tracing letters, letter formation development,

Tracing Letters

Tracing has it’s time and place. And like all things (especially chocolate chip cookies in my case), moderation is key.

Tracing letters is not an ideal format for teaching letter formation and here’s why: When children trace letters, they can become overly focused on the immediate line strokes under their pencil. It’s harder to create a motor plan for the letter in it’s entirety.

Also, tracing letters can set kids up for establishing a poor motor plan for letter formation. This is especially true if children are given a tracing worksheet with no cues or prompts to start letters at the top and to form letters in proper formation sequence. Often times, you’ll see children start letters at the bottom when tracing, or segmentally, jumping from piece to piece of the letter. This can be a recipe for disaster!

However, practicing letter tracing can be a good activity, too.

Tips for Tracing letters

When the child is tracing the letters over and over again, they become more efficient at planning out and executing the movements needed to make a letter accurately. This activity is great for a new writer because they are given a confined space to practice a letter, visual cues, and verbal prompts.

To make the most of tracing, be sure to ensure the child is tracing letters correctly. You’ll want to watch for a few things and show the child the correct way to trace if they are forming the letter incorrectly.

  • Make sure they trace starting at the top
  • Make sure the child retraces lines when appropriate
  • Make sure they form the letter in correct sequence (don’t picking their pencil up to trace the last part of the letter first, for example)

Tracing Letter Strategies

Some ways to effectively use tracing as a method for working on letter formation:

  1. Write the letter in highlighted lines and ask the child to trace in a different colored marker to get a color-changing effect. This marker rainbow writing activity is one great example.
  2. Use a tracing font that has numbers and arrows so kids know where to start and how to sequence the letter formation. These A-Z letter formation worksheets are a great resource for teaching letter formation of upper case and lower case letters segmentally to establish a motor plan. They are great for sensory handwriting techniques, too.
  3. Use this letter construction method to work on forming letters correctly.

Letter formation development

So often, handwriting is impacted by fine motor development and resulting endurance, strength, and therefore pencil grasp. Read here about fine motor skills.

Try this quick tip to address fine motor skills:

  • Provide tons of opportunities that open up the thumb web space. Many times, children with poor handwriting have their thumb squashed up against the pencil, the pointer finger wrapped around the pencil, or the thumb wrapped or tucked against the pencil.
  • Try to encourage your student or child to open up the space around the pencil. Read more about an open thumb web space and find a lot of creative activities to address this need HERE.
  • Pencil grasp isn’t a make-or-break deal when it comes to letter formation. Read this resource on things an OT wants you to know about pencil grasp and handwriting.

One final note: While functional handwriting is key, letters need to be formed in a manner that is readable and mostly accurate. By that I mean sometimes we need to follow the “beggars can’t be choosers” mindset. If a child is struggling with composing written work, building sentences, and putting their thoughts on paper, then a functional style of letter formation can be A-OK.

Need more Handwriting Help? If you landed here and want in on the full Handwriting Handouts series (and access 6 free handwriting resources for legible written work, head to Handwriting Occupational Therapy Tips and Tricks to sign up.

handwriting handouts

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.

Ice Cream Writing Activities

by
ice cream writing activities

Today I have a fun ice cream writing activity that gets kids excited about writing ice cream words and everything fun and motivating about ice cream. If your kids are anything like mine they love ice cream and the toppings ice cream cones sprinkles and the jingle of the ice cream truck.

Ice Cream Writing Activity for kids

Ice Cream Writing

In this ice cream writing activity kids can work on the skills they need for legible handwriting including letter formation sizing spacing and copying skills and the fine motor skills needed for a functional pencil grasp.

All of this happens in an interactive in a free Google slide that you can use in teletherapy face-to-face therapy home programs or in the classroom for with an ice cream theme.

This ice cream writing activity begins with a several ice cream themed words including:

  • ice cream truck
  • chocolate syrup
  • ice cream scoop
  • cone
  • sprinkles
  • spoon
  • bowl

Ice Cream Writing Skills

Kids can copy the words from the slide deck and work on letter formation, sizing, spacing, and legibility.

You could expand the activity to ask kids to write the words in alphabetical order and address some visual perceptual skills such as visual scanning visual memory visual attention and visual discrimination and others.

Then the slides continue with a visual perceptual exercise that takes away one of the items on the previous slide.

This activity is much like one a hands-on “what’s missing” activity where you lay out several minute items on a table and then ask children to remember what they see in front of them and then after a few seconds you take away one of the items and ask them what’s missing.

“What’s Missing” games are such a great way to work on visual attention and visual memory skills. These skills are so needed for copying materials writing reading and recalling letter formation as well as hand writing rules like using spaces between words in pencil grasp rules.

The slides continue with several of these “what’s missing” activities with the ice cream theme where kids can write out the specific ice cream terms that are missing on each slide in further work on handwriting skills.

Write Ice Cream Words in ABC Order

The next ice cream handwriting activity asks kids to write in alphabetical order, several ice cream words scattered on ice cream cones.

Kids can work on copying those in order and work on the visual memory skills and visual perceptual skills needed for putting words into alphabetical order.

Ice Cream Sign Language Activity

The next several slides include several American Sign Language handwriting activities to spell out ice cream words.

There is an American Sign Language key on each slide so that kids can visually scan to copy the hand formations to spell out the words.

They will love using sign language to spell out ice cream words like sprinkles, scoop, ice cream, bowl, and spoon.

The benefits of asking children to use sign language to spell words is that if they do not know the sign language hand formations, that they need to visually attend to on the screen, using visual memory and visual attention skills to copy the formation.

However using sign language also develops working memory to recall and use the same letters in spelling. American sign language activities and spelling also benefits kids to work on fine motor skills such as:

  • finger isolation
  • separation of the sides of the hand
  • open thumb web space
  • arch development
  • dexterity

Ice Cream Writing Prompts

The last activity on this ice cream writing task is a open ended handwriting task which asks students to create sentences using the ice cream words.

You can expand this activity to meet the needs of various levels of children by asking them to copy more sentences or less sentences you can make the sentences very concrete and give them a specific sentence to write that contains the words or you can leave it open ended and ask students to write a silly sentence or a story using the words on the slide.

Use the ice cream writing prompts to meet the needs of your students!

You will also enjoy the other ice cream activities that we have here on the website including:

Would you like to add the slide deck to your therapy Toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below to access this ice cream writing activity.

FREE Ice Cream Writing Activity

    We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.
    Built with ConvertKit

    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.

    Ice Cream Working Memory Activity

    by
    ice cream activity for working memory skills

    This ice cream activity is also a working memory activity that combines the two themes into a hit of a therapy tool…a lot like combining ice cream and sprinkles! If building working memory skills this summer is on your to-do list, than this interactive ice cream ice cream activity is sure to be a hit! Add this to your summer OT activities and let’s build executive functioning skills!

    Ice cream activity that is a working memory activity too!

    Working Memory Activity

    Working memory is a skill that can be difficult for many children but is used and needed for so many functional tasks. Working memory is an executive functioning skill that kids need for safety completing assignments reading participating in self-care tasks interacting with others and basically every task that we complete throughout the day.

    We use working memory to complete school tasks, self-care tasks, and everyday living tasks!

    Processing short term memories and using it allows us to respond in new situations.  Working memory allows us to learn, play, and interact with the world around us. The skill allows us to self-regulate, and pull strategies that have worked (or didn’t work) for us in the past. Using working memory skills we can use past information in reading in order to read, spell, know math facts, phone numbers, faces, addresses, sight words…and so much more.  We can remember our way back home, state capitals, mnemonics, phone numbers, addresses, and friends’ names.  We can then use that information to answer questions based on what we know and apply that information in new situations. All of these abilities are working memory at work!

    Ice Cream Working Memory Activity

    That’s where this ice cream activity that address is working memory is comes in handy.

    This ice cream working memory activity is a free virtual slide deck that can be used with teletherapy or to facilitate face-to-face therapy sessions as well as home programming or school activities.

    In the ice cream working memory slide deck kids can move through the slides and work on various skills while they complete each slides instructions. The slide deck is designed to support and practice skills including:

    • working memory
    • visual attention
    • visual scanning
    • eye-hand coordination
    • direction following
    • sequencing

    This slide deck is able to be graded to expand the activities and make them easier or harder for individual students based on their needs.

    You can grade the activities by asking students to complete two or more tasks for each slide.

    For example you can read the directions on the slide and then add additional steps or additional details that they need to remember and recall. Each ice cream ice cream on the slide deck is movable so this interactive slide deck is an interesting and fun way to work on specific skills for kids. When you open this slide deck in your Google Drive you can edit it in order to move the individual ice cream cones.

    This is an engaging and motivating way for kids to work on listening sequencing motor planning and direction following. And this slide deck can be adjusted so that it addresses specifically different needs for kids you can for example move the ice cream cones to other areas on the slide that were give them to individual children based on descriptive colors or positions so that you’re working on other skills as well such as body awareness and position in space or other listening and comprehension skills.

    Working Memory Activity for handwriting

    When we write or copy material, we need to recall how to hold the pencil including verbal cues or physical cues we’ve experienced in the past. The ability to recall those cues during a similar task involved working memory. The ability to translate those cues to a muscle memory involves working memory as well.

    You can see how working memory plays a role in letter formation, number formation, line use, spacing, sizing, pencil grasp, margin use, capitalization, punctuation, and overall legibility in handwriting.

    Ice Cream Activity for Working Memory Skills

    The slide deck with an ice cream theme is very engaging and fun for kids and it can be used to work on other areas to such as handwriting and visual motor skills.

    There are several slides in the slide deck that work address on hand writing and copying skills kids can copy the different ice cream terms in and work on handwriting skills such as:

    • letter formation
    • letter size
    • line awareness
    • copying from a distant or near point

    There are also drawing activities to address visual motor skills.

    Kids can copy the simple and complex forms on the slide deck and work on details that are needed for copying work such as handwriting or lists in the classroom. When kids copy from a form they are working on visual motor skills in order to copy the form but they are also furthering their working memory skills by not missing any pieces of the drawing.

    There are so many ways to use this engaging and motivating ice cream activity to work on working number memory skills!

    Would you like to add this ice cream working memory activity to your therapy Toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below and you can access this therapy tour on your Google Drive. It’s able to be used in teletherapy sessions home programming face-to-face therapy sessions or in the home or classroom.

    FREE Ice Cream Activity for Working Memory

      We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.
      Built with ConvertKit

      More Ice Cream Activities

      Want more movement activities? Check out these fun ideas:

      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.

      Baseball and Softball Activity

      by
      baseball and softball activity

      Today I have a fun baseball and softball activity to add to your therapy toolbox. This interactive therapy slide deck goes really well with our other baseball activity (perfect for softball themed fun, too!); this baseball matching game.

      Fun baseball and softball activity is a free slide deck for therapy that addresses handwriting skills, with an interactive Connect 4 game.

      Baseball and softball activity

      This baseball and softball activity is a digital connect four game is a lot like our other more recent digital connect four game with a space thing.

      However this online connect four game has a baseball and softball theme that fits perfectly with the interest of many of the kids we work with.

      Kids that love baseball or softball will love this Connect 4 game that actually addresses therapy goal areas and functional tasks, such as handwriting, letter formation, number formation, eye-hand coordination, visual scanning, visual memory, working memory, visual attention, and more.

      Baseball & Softball Writing Activity

      When you use it in Google slides the game is interactive, allowing kids to move the baseball and softball game pieces to play Connect Four.

      This is just one of the many free slide decks available here on the site. Be sure to grab them all!

      Because users can select the baseball or the softball game pieces, and then move them to cover spaces and play traditional Connect 4 games.

      There is also a slide with letters on each space on the board. When players move their piece to cover that letter, they can write the letter focusing on letter formation. Expand the activity to ask kids to write a word that begins with that letter, or to write a sentence containing words that only begin with that letter. The game is very open-ended to meet the needs of all levels of students.

      You’ll also find a game board containing numbers. Use this to work on number formation. OR, incorporate gross motor movement, balance, coordination, motor planning, and ask kids to do that number of a specific task, like jumping jacks, hops, skips, etc.

      The online connect four game can be played with a therapist or another person and each participant can move the game pieces. Kids that love baseball or softball will love this virtual connect four game!

      All of these are fun ways to address letter and number formation with an interactive and engaging activity.

      Want to add this baseball themed activity or softball themed activity to your therapy Toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below to receive this interactive slide deck. It can be a great tool for a virtual therapy sessions teletherapy or face-to-face therapy activities. Consider even using this in-home or brain break activities in the classroom or at home.

      To receive this free interactive connect four game enter your email address into the form below and it will be delivered to your email address via PDF.

      FREE Baseball & Softball Digital Connect 4 Game

        We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.
        Built with ConvertKit

        Also add our recent baseball emotions spot it matching game for your baseball theme in therapy.

        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.

        Frog Writing Activities

        by
        frog writing activities

        Today we’re talking all about frog writing! These frog writing activities are part of a free slide deck to outline therapy sessions and to use to foster visual perceptual skills and handwriting skills. Add these frog writing activities to this list of cute frog crafts which are designed to develop and refine fine motor skills in kids.

        You’ll also love our frog emotions activity as another tool to add to your frog theme of activities!

        The frog writing prompts included in this therapy slide deck are perfect to add to your frog theme or use in a weekly occupational therapy theme (or at-home theme for learning, play, and building developmental skills!)

        Frog writing activities including frog writing prompts and a frog I spy activity to work on writing skills in kids, with a frogs and toads theme!

        Frog Writing

        The kids that I’ve worked with in OT sessions love this frog writing activity…and they don’t realize all of the work they are putting into the task because it’s a fun way to target OT goals.

        In my experience as an occupational therapist working in schools, incorporating fun themes into handwriting sessions has been incredibly effective for improving skills that impact learning. A frog theme set of activities is one way to do that!

        The frog writing activity supports fine motor skills, visual motor skills, pencil control and overall handwriting skills. Utilizing frog writing prompts and activities not only adds an element of fun for the children but also provides valuable opportunities to address fine motor and visual motor considerations essential for handwriting.

        Sometimes, having a set of themed activities set-up for therapy sessions is a “must” to keep therapists sane. It’s not about using the same activities with each student; Using a theme in therapy activities allows the therapist to use the same materials. And having the skilled ability to adjust for each individual is just part of an OT’s skillset. To make your life much easier as a busy therapist, head over to this free slides library and grab all of the therapy themes that fit your interests and those on your caseload.

        That’s where these frog writing activities come into play.

        The free slide deck includes several frog writing activities for users to build specific skills, depending on their needs and goal areas.

        You’ll find frog I Spy game and several frog writing slides to work on handwriting skills.

        More Frog Writing Ideas

        There are more ways to work on fine motor and visual motor skills with this frog writing activity.

        • Copy the words to work on letter formation and copying skills
        • Use other frog activities as a warm up
        • Try tracing frog outlines for pencil control
        • Hop and leap along frog-themed letter paths
        • Do frog-themed mazes to target pencil control
        • Play Froggy Says, like a Simon Says activity for gross motor skills needed for writing posture.
        • Use tweezers in fine motor activities that mimic the movements involved in catching or feeding frogs, such as using tweezers to pick up frog-themed manipulatives. This further strengthens fine motor skills essential for precise handwriting.
        • Fold paper into origami frogs

        Frog I Spy

        The first activity is a warm-up of sorts. You’ll find a frog I Spy game where users can locate, count, and find individual frog and toad images. This is a great visual perceptual skills activity to build and develop skills in areas such as:

        • Visual discrimination (needed for identifying differences between letters)
        • Visual scanning (needed for scanning a writing piece for where you’ve left off in copying materials)
        • Form constancy (knowing that a form or letter is the same no matter the positioning. This skill is needed for recognizing letters in different fonts and sizes)

        When kids find the individual frogs and toad images they can type the number into the interactive slide deck.

        This frog I spy game is available as a printable worksheet in our Frogs and Toads Motor Skills Mini-Pack. Find the items, then write the numbers in the boxes. Kids can also color or circle the items to build pencil control and fine motor skills. The packet is 43 pages of fine and gross motor skill activities with a frogs and toads theme. Not bad for the cost of a cup of coffee!

        Frog Writing Prompts

        Next in the frog writing activities are a few writing prompts. I’ve included both frog word writing prompts and also sentences as an open-ended writing prompt to foster creative writing.

        The frog words include things like froglet, pond, lily pad, and words that are easily read and recognized by younger children.

        Pair this activity with frog lifecycle activities for handwriting practice of letter formation, letter size, legibility, and even cursive handwriting for the older elementary ages.

        The next piece is a frog writing prompt slide. This slide includes three writing prompts that users can use for longer writing samples.

        All of these writing prompts are open-ended so that you can easily adjust the therapy sessions or home programing to meet the needs of the child or individual.

        Free Frog Writing Slide Deck

        Want to add this free slide deck to your therapy toolbox and work on handwriting and visual perceptual skills in written work? Grab this resource and outline writing activities so the kids you serve can work on areas like letter formation, copying skills, and more. You’ll need to enter your email address into the form below and the file will be delivered to your inbox. (School email addresses/work email addresses may block this email as it contains a link to access a file. A personal email address may work better for deliverability.)

        Free Frog Writing Activities Slide Deck

          We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.
          Built with ConvertKit

          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.

          frog and toad activities motor skills packet

          Add the Frogs and Toads Motor Skills Mini-Pack to this activity and build stronger, more refined motor skills in children. The mini pack includes:

          • Fine Motor Mazes
          • Fine motor paths
          • A-Z frog letters for word building
          • “Froggy Says” gross motor game
          • 1-20 Number Building Mats
          • Play Dough Mat
          • Handwriting Pages
          • I Spy page
          • Gross motor directionality sheets

          Done for you motor skills activities and FUN frog and toad themes combine in the Frogs and Toads Motor Skills Mini-Pack. Work on grasp, hand strength, eye-hand coordination, handwriting, scissor skills, heavy work, gross motor skills, coordination, and all things fine and gross motor skills in this 43 page printable packet.

          Virtual Picnic Therapy Activities

          by
          virtual picnic therapy slide deck

          This week’s free slide decks are fun virtual picnic therapy activities that can be used to encourage motor skills in therapy sessions. I love the picnic theme for the upcoming warmer weather this summer, but also as a fun way to spend the last few weeks of the school year. Kids will love this virtual picnic in therapy or at home! Also be sure to grab this left right discrimination picnic theme slide deck.

          Virtual picnic therapy activities for building gross motor skills and handwriting activities in therapy sessions or home therapy programs.

          Virtual Picnic

          When you use this virtual picnic to facilitate gross motor skills, kids can move, strengthen core stability, work on bilateral coordination, crossing midline, motor planning, eye-hand coordination, body awareness, muscle memory, and many other skills.

          Plus, the virtual picnic activities includes a visual perceptual skills activities, and picnic handwriting activities.

          These virtual picnic activities go hand-in-hand with picnic crafts, fine motor activities, mindfulness activities, making a full week of camping themed or picnic themed fun for kids.

          Combine the picnic therapy activities on this slide deck to some other, hands-on picnic themed activities to round out the therapy theme:

          And, when you have a picnic, making picnic foods with kids is a must…further building fine motor skills, cognitive skills like planning, preparation, impulse control, and other executive functioning skills, and independence in daily tasks! Try these cooking with kids activities that help to build skills, but are GREAT picnic foods for kids to make:

          Kids can participate in the virtual picnic by making one of these cooking activities (as long as they have a helper at home for their cooking activities) or, make pretend food and work on direction following, sequencing, planning, and task completion.

          So, you can use these ideas to combine therapy recommendations for the home OR use these ideas in therapy sessions to create picnic themed therapy activities!

          Want to add virtual picnic activities to your sessions or home programming? This week’s free slide deck covers several different occupational therapy intervention areas (and are great for physical therapy sessions, too.)

          Picnic Gross Motor Activities

          The first part of the slide deck includes picnic gross motor activities.

          Kids can look at the image on the slide deck and pick out one piece of visual information in order to act out the picnic scene. Each picnic scene includes several people that are in various gross motor positions to challenge core strength, coordinatin, midline crossing, bilateral coordinaiton, motor planning, and more.

          Kids can also work on visual perceptual skills such as visual discrimination, visual figure ground, visual closure, etc.

          Children can then use this part of the slide deck to foster muscle memory, visual memory, and sequencing. You could go through this part of the slide deck several times and work on recalling physical motor sequences or play a memory game. The slides are pretty open-ended to facilitate a number of goal areas when it comes to gross motor skill, coordination, visual skills, etc.

          Picnic Handwriting Activities

          The next several slides in the slide deck are open-ended picnic writing prompts. There are more picnic scenes that include a variety of picnic items.

          Children can scan the image and pull out words to write on paper, or they can use the list on the slide deck to copy and then find the hidden items in the picture.

          To grade this activity, ask kids to compose a sentence using the picnic words on the slide. Or, ask children to circle the items on the slide using a shape feature on Google slides. These activities challenge the visual perceptual skills and visual motor skills needed for handwriting and copying written work.

          Use these picnic handwriting activities to focus on letter formation, spacing, sizing, and overall neatness in handwriting skills.

          Free Virtual Picnic Slide Deck

          Want to add this virtual picnic slide deck to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below to access this slide deck. Don’t forget to check out all of the Free Slides that we have available for teletherapy and for facilitating therapy sessions with kids!

          Free Virtual Picnic Therapy Activities Slide Deck

            We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.
            Built with ConvertKit

            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.

            Truck Handwriting activity Slide Deck

            by
            truck handwriting activities

            This truck handwriting activity is another free slide deck, but one that uses truck themes to help with writing, letter formation, and working on legible, functional handwriting. Perfect for kiddos that love all things construction vehicles, this truck handwriting activities go well with our recent construction vehicle brain breaks.

            Truck handwriting activities and truck writing prompts in a free therapy slide deck for teaching handwriting virtually.

            Truck Handwriting Activity

            Use this truck handwriting activity is great for virtual therapy (one of the many free slide decks here on the site) but can be used to outline therapy sessions in a face-to-face manner as well.

            In the handwriting slide deck, you’ll find truck words that kids can copy. There are different types of construction trucks. Users can visually scan to copy the words. Expand the activity in a few different ways to work on more handwriting skills:

            • Write the words in alphabetical order to work on visual scanning, visual memory, and visual scanning.
            • Write the words into sentences to work on spacing between letters and words, margin use, and size.
            • Describe a truck on the screen and ask students to write the word from memory to work on visual memory.
            • Work on cursive writing, uppercase letters, or lowercase letters to address letter formation.
            Truck writing prompts to help kids with writing words and sentences in to practice handwriting.

            Truck Writing Prompts

            Also included in the truck handwriting activities are writing prompts. Kids can copy the writing prompt and then continue the writing task to finish the thought. This can be a great way to work on spatial awareness, writing speed, margin use, and functional handwriting.

            There are four different truck writing prompts included in the slide deck:

            • If I drove a dump truck, I would…
            • I was digging in my backyard with a backhoe and I found…
            • A steam roller was making a road and it rolled over…
            • If I could drive any truck, it would be…and I would…

            Kids that love construction vehicles will love these truck writing prompts. Working on handwriting skills doesn’t need to be boring, it’s all about meaningful handwriting to make handwriting motivating and fun that build skills!

            What's missing pictures like this truck "what's missing" picture help kids with visual perceptual skills like visual discrimination, figure-ground, visual scanning, form constancy, and other visual perceptual skills in handwriting.

            Truck “What’s Missing” Activities

            Also included in this truck activity are different truck “What’s Missing” pages. These visual perceptual activities are challenges to help kids work on visual perceptual skills like:

            • visual discrimination
            • visual figure-ground
            • visual scanning
            • visual attention
            • visual memory
            • form constancy

            Turn these what’s missing activities into a motivating handwriting activity by asking kids to write the names of the truck words that are missing from the image on the right.

            Draw a Truck Activity

            Finally, kids can work on visual motor skills, pencil control, size and spatial awareness to draw a truck! There are several truck drawing slides included that challenge kids to draw different forms.

            Free truck handwriting activities slide deck

            Know a kiddo that loves all things trucks and construction vehicles? Grab this free slide deck to work on handwriting skills.

            Enter your email address into the form below and access these handwriting activities.

            Note: Try to use a personal email address, as work email addresses have been blocking the email delivery due to increased security issues.

            Truck Handwriting Activities (free slide deck)!

              We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.
              Built with ConvertKit

              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.

              The Handwriting Book is a comprehensive resource created by experienced pediatric OTs and PTs.

              The Handwriting Book covers everything you need to know about handwriting, guided by development and focused on function. This digital resource is is the ultimate resource for tips, strategies, suggestions, and information to support handwriting development in kids.

              The Handwriting Book breaks down the functional skill of handwriting into developmental areas. These include developmental progression of pre-writing strokes, fine motor skills, gross motor development, sensory considerations, and visual perceptual skills. Each section includes strategies and tips to improve these underlying areas.

              • Strategies to address letter and number formation and reversals
              • Ideas for combining handwriting and play
              • Activities to practice handwriting skills at home
              • Tips and strategies for the reluctant writer
              • Tips to improve pencil grip
              • Tips for sizing, spacing, and alignment with overall improved legibility

              Click here to grab your copy of The Handwriting Book today.

              play dough mat writing prompts

              Add the Roll and Write Play Dough Mat Writing Prompts to your therapy toolbox and build fine motor skills and handwriting in fun and engaging ways.

              Quick Links
              Explore
              My Account
              Sign Up for the OT Toolbox Newsletter

              Get the latest tools and resources sent right to your inbox!

              Get Connected
              Facebook Instagram Pinterest Twitter