There are certain times during the school year when indoor recess becomes a must. When the temperatures are below freezing or there is constant rain, i seems like there are days on end of indoor recess. We wanted to put together a list of indoor recess activities that can support attention spans and keep kids from wreaking a classroom.
Recess is a must for moving and getting the brain breaks needed for learning. It’s a sensory coping tool built right into the school day!
Indoor Recess Activities
Looking for indoor recess ideas? Below, you’ll find winter indoor games and activities to add to the recess line up when it’s too cold to go outdoors for recess. We’ve tried to come up with indoor recess games for older kids AND indoor recess ideas for kindergarten and the younger grades.
Some of these ideas work well with traditional indoor recess group activities, and others are better suited for socially distancing during indoor recess, while still allowing kids to move! All of the inside recess ideas can be used to add activity and movement when it’s raining or too cold for outdoor recess!
Indoor recess activities can use materials you have in the classroom like games. Sometimes just rotating games during these days helps.
Other ideas use crayons from the student’s desk and a stack of paper. The goal is to curtail the mess but also allow kids to get up and move.
Indoor Recess Winter Activities for Kids
Here are more ways to get the kids moving this time of year:
This time of year can be a real struggle for kids. They’ve got a long school day, where it’s too cold to go outside for recess. Many are on screens during much of that day, especially if schooling is done virtually or at home with distance learning.
After school brings continued cold temps and an followed by coming home to an early sunset. Not to mention, many kids have after-school activities scheduled. It’s no wonder that kids are less active than ever before.
Because of this, I wanted to share these indoor recess ideas that can be used to add activity, motor planning, visual motor skills, midline crossing, and general movement!
1. Turn on the music and have a Crossing Gross Motor March. Crossing Midline is a developmental ability that is important for so many gross motor tasks. When a child has difficulty with crossing midline, they may demonstrate inefficiency with other areas like fine motor skills, bilateral coordination, hand dominance, self-care, reading, handwriting, and so many other areas. This can be done in a socially distanced format in a well-spaced out area such as a gym or hallway. And, for our virtual learners, this activity is fun for the whole family.
2. Add proprioceptive and vestibular input with an Indoor Skating activity! All you need for this activity is a pile of paper plates or old tissue boxes. If you have a carpeted area in the classroom, this can be a great way to identify a space for indoor ice skating during indoor recess. Add specific moves and have kids copy the ice skating moves to really incorporate motor planning and direction following.
3. Do the Hokey Pokey. Need some fresh ideas when it comes to the classic hokey pokey? Try playing “Snow-key Pokey” with a snowman theme. Just label the various body parts a snowman would have. For example: Snow cap, stick arms, boots, snow bottom, etc.
4. Animal Races- Gather a group of kids and have relay races in the hallway or gymnasium area. Kids can split into two teams and race against one another. Each child will need to come up with an animal walk as they race back to tag another person on their team. Some animal walk ideas include: donkey kicks, penguin waddles, bear walks, crab walks, frog jumps, elephant walks, snake slithers, etc.
5. Arctic Animal Yoga- Add animal walks with an artic theme. These would go perfectly with an animal theme and add the bonus of calming stretches. They are a great movement break during the day, use at circle time, morning meeting, free time or for use during stations. These cards are fun for use during physical education or in group/individual physical and occupational therapy. They are a great way to add simple movement into the day which we know is essential for learning and concentration. Use them with an arctic unit! These polar bear gross motor therapy activities can be used as a winter brain break or recess activity.
6. Freeze Dance- Turn on YouTube and dance to the music. When the music stops, everyone needs to FREEZE!
7. Charades- Ask each student to write on a slip of paper a character, animal, or object. Combine themes from the curriculum, favorite books, or movies. Students can act out the people or objects on the cards while the rest of the class guesses what the student is describing with movement.
8. Indoor Balance Beam- Try some of these indoor balance beams using everyday items or a roll of painters tape. There are so many benefits to using balance beams. It’s a fun way to break up indoor recess into centers, too.
9. Ribbon Wand Dance- Make a handful of DIY ribbon wands and sneak in some gross motor skills and movement by dancing to music.
10. Indoor Gross Motor Game- Get the whole class involved in gross motor play with jumping, hopping, and more with this Dinosaur Gross Motor Game uses mini dinosaur figures. Grab the free printable game spinner and activity here.
12. Play the Four Corners Classroom Game– Add movement and sneak in some auditory processing work with this fun game shared over on The Game Gal.
13. Who Am I Game- The kids can write down book and movie characters on a sticky note and stick it to their forehead. They can ask other students questions as they move around the room, trying to figure out who they “are”!
11. Winter Toothpick Art– Use the Winter Fine Motor Kit materials to get kids moving with the toothpick art activities. These can be used on cardboard or a carpeted area to help kids build fine motor strength and tripod grasp.
12. Winter Crumble Art- This is another fun fine motor activity for indoor recess. Use bits of tissue paper or crumbled up construction paper to create a winter picture. These sheets are in the Winter Fine Motor Kit, too.
Quiet indoor games for the classroom
If you need quit games or activities kids can do in the classroom without a lot of gross motor movement like charades or yoga, pull out the crayons. Here are some ideas to try during indoor recess:
Tic Tac Toe Tournament
DIY Pictionary
Paper Dolls
Paper Snowflakes
Doodle Relay
Fold-and-Pass Story Drawing
Crayon Rubbing Art
Origami with Notebook Paper
Connect the Dots Challenge
Crayon Resist Art
Grid Drawing Challenge
Paper Chain Contest
Draw Your Favorite Animal
DIY Board Game Design
Collaborative Mural
Symmetry Drawing
Maze Creation
Hidden Picture Challenge
Letter Art Contest
Create a Comic Strip
Crayon Texture Collage
How do you make indoor recess fun?
What ideas to you have in your toolbox for an indoor recess that allows kids to move?
I hope these ideas are helpful in creating opportunities for movement and activity during these indoor recess months at school!
The Winter Fine Motor Kit has materials to print-and-go, including arctic animal finger puppets to develop finger isolation, toothpick art activities with winter themes, crumble art pages, coloring and pencil control activities for building strength and endurance in the hands. All of these materials are included in a 100 page packet with winter themes: snowmen, mittens, snowflakes, penguins, polar bears, arctic animals, 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.
In this blog post, we are covering all things crossing midline activities…but what is crossing midline?? We’ll get into that too, as well as some fun ways to develop midline crossing skills and specific exercises that kids (and all ages) can do to support development of this motor skills task that is huge in the way of gross motor coordination.
Crossing midline is one of those motor skills we do constantly throughout the day, but never really give a second thought. And that automaticity of motor movements is a good thing, too! Imagine processing the action to use one hand to pull a door open. Imagine the time it would take to shower, dress, put on and tie your shoes if you had to process through the action to move your hands fluidly across the middle line of your body.
As therapists, we hear “crossing the midline” all the time. Have you ever wondered what the big deal is? Why is crossing the midline so important? In this post we will delve into what crossing the midline is, what causes issues, and how it impacts daily function, especially schoolwork.
Before we get started, if you are doubting the validity of crossing the midline, tie one hand behind your back and go about your day. How much did you reach across your body to get something? You reached across, diagonal, up and down to interact with your environment. While a two-handed person does not do this much crossing the midline, there is still a fair amount.
What is Crossing Midline?
Crossing midline refers to moving the body (hand/arm/foot/leg across an imaginary line that runs vertically down the center of the body to the other side (and vise versa). Additionally, crossing midline also refers to twisting the body in rotation around this imaginary line, as well as leaning the upper or body across the middle of the body.
Let’s break it down further:
Midline of the body is an imaginary line that drops from the middle of the head, straight down over the nose, to the belly button and divides the body into left and right sides. Imagine a line that starts at the middle part of your hair and runs straight down your forehead and ends at the core of your abdomen. This imaginary line effectively divides your body into a symmetrical (mostly) left side and a right side.
“Crossing the midline” is a simplified way to indicate that part of the body moves over that imaginary line. This can look like 3 different aspects of movement:
Reaching an arm/hand or foot/leg across the middle of the body to the other side of the body (Example: Reaching the right arm across the body for an object placed on a table to the left side)
Rotating the body around the midline in a rotary motion in order to twist at the hips. This can look like putting your hands on your hips and rotating your upper body around at the abdomen (Example: reaching for a seatbelt involves reaching the hand and arm across the midline but it also involves twisting at the hips)
Leaning the upper body over the middle line as in doing a side crunch. The head and shoulders move over the middle of the body (Example: Bending sideways at the waist while getting dressed or reaching while sitting for an object that’s fallen to the floor)
Crossing the midline is a motor skill that requires using both hands together in a coordinated manner (bilateral hand coordination) allows kids to cross midline during tasks. This bilateral coordination ability is deeply connected to crossing midline.
Why is Crossing Midline Important?
Midline crossing is a developmental ability that is important for so many fine motor and gross motor tasks. This relates to functional skills in a major way. When a child has difficulty with crossing midline, they will demonstrate challenges in practically every functional task.
When a child does efficiently cross the midline, they can use their dominant hand in skilled tasks. They develop a dominant hand and the other extremity becomes the assisting hand. They can manipulate objects in the world around them through all planes. They can demonstrate sensory integration by motor skills with vestibular, proprioceptive, and visual input.
In particular, crossing the midline offers vestibular input. Moving the head from center plane shifts position of the inner ears. When bending, twisting, and moving from center, the vestibular system is at work.
When the child does not cross the midline, they tend to use both hands equally in tasks like handwriting, coloring, and cutting with scissors. They may demonstrate awkward movements by moving the body to position itself so they don’t need to cross the middle line.
Challenges with this motor skill impact learning, social skills, play, and self-care.
In particular, we might notice sensory motor challenges at different age levels. For example, for children aged 3-5, we might see specific midline red flags that impact learning and play. We cover this specific age group in our blog post on Crossing Midline Activities for Preschoolers.
Occupational therapy will assess midline crossing skills by observing play and functional tasks.
Crossing Midline Occupational Therapy Asessments
Occupational therapists perform individualized evaluations and assessments of underlying skills as they impact functional performance in every day tasks. Because of this, crossing midline is an essential skill that will be observed and looked for in every OT evaluation.
Occupational therapists can complete a standardized evaluation, but most often, their skilled abilities will enable them to identify when crossing midline is a problem through play and interaction during the evaluation process.
When you are watching for midline crossing, you should observe kids playing in normal situations. A child will demonstrate a tendency to avoid crossing midline in activities or tasks, but if “set up” to cross the midline (i.e. setting items to the left of the body and asking them to reach over the midline with their right hand), they will typically be able to complete the requested movement pattern, but not carry over the action in a normal situation.
If they have difficulty with crossing midline, a child will switch hands during handwriting because both hands get practice with pencil manipulation.
The child might rotate their whole body instead of twisting at the trunk or shift their weight in a task rather than leaning the upper body over the midline.
You can often times observe a tendency to avoid midline crossing in activities such as kicking a ball, throwing beanbags, switching hands in coloring, difficulty with putting on pants and shoes independently, and difficulty with visual tracking and reading.
Crossing Midline Activities
So, what do you do when crossing the midline is an issue? There are many ways to support the development of this skill.
The ideas listed below are fun ways to play and develop motor skills by crossing midline, however they have a sensory component too.
We mentioned above the aspect of vestibular input and proprioceptive input that occurs in crossing the midline. These midline activities have those sensory motor considerations through play.
Toss bean bags -Encourage upper body movement! Bend through the legs, turn sideways, reach back behind you, rotate side to side…encourage vestibular input by bending and rotating.
Slow motion cartwheels- Place both hands on the floor to the side, kick legs over. By doing the cartwheel in slow motion, the body is forced to move sequentially, adding midline crossing at the trunk.
Hit a ball with a bat.
Use pool noodles to hit a ball- think hockey and hitting the ball into a target on the floor
Play catch with rolled socks- Use a bucket or bin to catch the rolled socks. They will fly high, low, left, and right!
Play flashlight tag.
Catch lighting bugs or butterflies.
Show the child how to write their name in the air with large arm movements.
Bend over at the waist and swing the arm side to side, in large circles, and in figure 8 motions.
Play with scarves to music.
Move a ribbon wand to music.
You can use midline crossing activities in OT interventions.
Crossing Midline Treatment Ideas
You can use the ideas above in different ways like in games like Simon Says or the Hokey Pokey. You could add them to obstacle courses or brain breaks. Some other things to consider about crossing midline treatments…
One of the easiest ways to work on midline crossing is to make the opposite side unavailable.
The classic treatment for hemiplegia is to restrict movement of the functioning side, while making the affected side do all the work. You can do this activity yourself, or with your learners. Make the activity rewarding to encourage your learners to want to keep going. Food, stickers, or preferred activities are a great motivator.
Another way to address midline issues is to move objects to the side to encourage reaching. Put a preferred object in different places to encourage your child to stretch to get it.
Sometimes you need to restrict the movement of objects. People will turn and shift their paper or other objects to be able to utilize it without crossing the midline. Fix the paper to the table and encourage your students to sit forward without turning their body.
One of the classic tests, the Bruinicks Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, is a drawing test where learners have to draw inside a narrow path that crosses across the paper. You can quickly see who struggles with this as they quickly turn their paper to make the task easier. The design copy task in this test looks at midline crossing as well. Learners are asked to dot to dot a diamond. They are instructed not to pick up their pencil or shift the paper. This proves to be difficult for many students.
Crossing midline exercises can look like many different things.
Crossing the Midline Exercises
I love this crossing midline exercise below, because it has a ton of different movement options with one fun activity.
We had fun one winter day with a few crossing the midline exercises, including marching, crossing arms over, and stomping out some wiggles.
Our midline march activity was a marching parade with “Stop Stations”. We marched along to music and when I turned off the sound, the kids had to do a midline exercise.
The midline exercises included:
Place left hand on right knee
Place right hand on left knee
Stand and bend to touch the opposite foot
Standing and place right elbow on left knee
Standing and place left elbow on right knee
Crunches with touching right elbow to left knee
Crunches with touching left elbow to right knee
Cherry picker crunches- lay on the back slightly bent forward at the hips so the upper body is off the ground. Move a ball or small toy from the right side to the left side.
Because we were doing these midline exercises to music that quickly stopped and started, the thought process was quick. The kids had to quickly complete the exercise without much forethought.
This quick start and stop activity allowed them to practice crossing midline without over-thinking about the action.
A crossing midline exercise like the ones in the pictures are easy to incorporate into therapy sessions or occupational therapy at home. Make it fun!
Fine Motor Crossing Midline Exercises
Crossing the midline can be done on a small scale, too. This activity is similar to the midline marching activity described above, but it uses paper, pencil, and small colored dots such as stickers or a small circle drawn with markers.
Draw dots on the left margin of a paper using colored markers or colored stickers. There should be one of each color going down the left margin.
Draw dots using the same colors going down the right margin. Use each color only once.
Turn on music. The student can draw to music on the center of the page using their pencil or markers.
Turn off the music. When the music stops, call out a direction: “Left hand, yellow!” The student should put down their marker and touch the yellow dot on the right margin using their left hand.
Turn on the music to draw again and repeat.
This activity is similar to the gross motor midline exercise because it requires the child to think on the spot. They have to listen to several instructions, but also process the motor skills and cross the midline automatically.
You can adjust this activity by numbering the dots, using less colors, or less dots, and reducing the amount of instructions. This activity can be used with any level by grading the activity.
This post is part of the Gross Motor A-Z series hosted by Still Playing School. You can see all of the gross motor activities here.
Occupational Therapy and Crossing Midline
Now, let’s talk about what an occupational therapy practitioner will assess and why they look so closely at midline crossing during OT evaluations.
As a parent/caregiver you probably do not give “crossing midline” much thought, until you see your little one painting the left side of their picture with the left hand, and the right with the right hand. Difficulty crossing the midline can be caused by several different factors:
Neurological impact – caused by a stroke, brain bleed, or cerebral palsy
Visual deficit – sometimes after having a stroke the visual field is impacted. Persons can see only one side of their visual field, or each side is treated as a separate side, rather than a fluid spectrum. There are other vision disorders that impair the visual scanning field
Low tone and muscle weakness. People with low tone or core weakness may feel unbalanced when they reach across their midline. They might topple over, or feel like they are going to. There are various diagnoses that exhibit low tone, like Down Syndrome and others. It’s important to assess midline crossing skills that might be delayed because of tone or weakness.
Sensory processing – the sensory system is critical in determining position in space, feedback on the muscles and joints, and body awareness. Without this, a person may not notice where their body parts are, or that they are using inefficient movements to complete tasks.
Here is a good hint for new grad OTs or occupational therapy students working in a fieldwork position: Uncovering the “why” is important, in case there is a medical cause that can be corrected. We do want to know the why and that can solve some of the questions that we might have during the evaluation or interventions. However, try not to spend too much time worrying once you have determined the “why”. It is important to get started with treatment.
Pediatric occupational therapists will evaluate midline crossing skills in OT evals.
Evaluating Midline Crossing
Pediatric occupational therapists will note midline crossing in practically every evaluation they do. It might only be a one liner in the eval that you’ll see: “Child crosses midline independently during play.” Or, the description of the midline crossing skills might go more into depth, covering the dominant and the non-dominant hand, various self care skills, whether weighted items were used that triggered more tone during movement, etc. There can be many variances to crossing midline and a skilled eye is key.
Things to look for when assessing crossing midline:
Some symptoms of difficulty crossing the midline will be obvious. Seeing your child eat each side of their plate with a different hand will be hard to miss. In young babies using both hands interchangeably is typical. Movements are not coordinated in young children, neither is hand dominance.
Other signs of not crossing midline might not be as obvious. Watch someone paint a wall. You will probably notice they cross the midline of their body as they reach for different parts of the wall. Someone who does not cross midline will constantly move their body to reach the next part. This type of obvious non-use of the midline might be observed in the child that colors one side of the page with one hand and then complains that they are getting tired and they pick up another crayon with their other hand to color the opposite side of the page. Or, you might see a child struggling to put on a seatbelt in a car. They might pull the seatbelt with their hand closest to the belt, get it to the middle of their body, and then continue to pull the seatbelt with their other hand. They might struggle to engage the buckle of the seatbelt because they only use one hand. Or, they might turn in their seat so the buckle is in the center of their body and midline crossing is taken out of the equation.
Other things to look at when assessing midline crossing:
Hand dominance
Foot dominance
Vision dominance
Hand preference in tasks
Strength, bilaterally
Muscle tone
Motor planning skills
Proprioceptive input and tolerance
Cognition and direction following
How the individual moves when holding items
Different environments (when alone, when in front of peers, confidence in movements, etc.)
Something to consider that isn’t always thought about when you think about midline…vision skills!
Crossing Midline and Vision
Crossing the midline can involve vision also. This means that your eyes scan over the middle of the imaginary line running down the middle of your body. For example, you can move your eyes visually from the far left of your view to the far right. Both eyes should move steadily and together. If there is difficulty with visual midline skills, then you will see a lot of head movement as the individual compensates.
If you can not cross midline visually, you might have difficulty scanning a document, reading fluidly across a page, or doing visual perceptual tasks like word searches, and hidden pictures.
Crossing Midline and Fatigue- Something to Consider
There are times when I fail to cross the midline, even though I am perfectly able. When I am doing strenuous tasks like a large painting, cleaning, or carrying something heavy, I tend to switch hands to alleviate some of the stress on my joints. This does not make me ambidextrous, just tired. Sometimes it takes considerable effort to reach way across my body, when my right hand is already there.
If you have ever broken an arm, you can relate. If you can only use one arm, you have to become adept at reaching across the midline. You may get used to this new movement pattern quickly, while others get off balance, often moving their body to compensate.
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
Grab a box of alphabet noodles for a fun multisensory learning activity that builds skills in many areas. We used letters pasta to create a sensory bin that incorporates fine motor skills and a letter learning activity.
Alphabet Noodles
You might remember eating alphabet noodles as a child in soup. But if you have a box of letter noodles on hand, it’s easy to create a sensory play activity that builds skills.
This easy dyed pasta activity combines learning with fine motor development. From the scooping to the neat pincer grasp activity, this is a great way to build many skills! Younger children can use scoops and spoons to develop coordination needed to scoop and pour while gaining exposure to letters. What a fun way to build so many areas!
Alphabet Pasta Activities
So, in addition to the ideas we shared above, we love using dry alphabet pasta in other activities to support fine motor and visual motor skills. I love that you can incorporate the tactile sensory play in learning and skill development.
Some of my favorite ideas for alphabet pasta:
Alphabet Sensory Bin Search: Fill a sensory bin with dry alphabet pasta and small items like pom-poms, beads, or toy animals. Hide letter cards or small objects in the bin, and encourage kids to search for specific letters or objects. This activity helps improve pincer grasp and hand-eye coordination while engaging their sense of touch.
Letter Pasta Sensory Bottle: Create a “Alphabet Seek-and-Find” Sensory Bottle by filling a clear plastic bottle with dry alphabet pasta. Add a few small, colorful beads or buttons to make it more visually stimulating. You can also include a few small trinkets or themed charms to match a specific letter (e.g., a tiny apple for “A”). Seal the bottle tightly with glue to prevent any spills. Here are other sensory bottle ideas to use, like adding scrabble letter tiles to the sensory bottle as an I spy activity.
Pasta Art and Letter Matching: Have kids glue dry alphabet pasta onto construction paper to create letter art or spell out simple words. For an extra challenge, provide them with a printed word and have them match the letters using the pasta. This activity develops both fine motor skills and visual-motor integration as they match letters and manipulate the small pieces. It’s a great letter recognition activity!
This was such a fun activity! I found a bag of alphabet pasta at a local grocery store on sale for a dollar and couldn’t pass it up! We used a little from the bag and used the rest in wedding soup. (Little Guy’s most often request and favorite meal!) Because the only thing that makes wedding soup even more awesome is fun shaped noodles 🙂
How to dye alphabet Pasta
We dyed the pasta in a baggie…added a few drops of red food coloring and 2 Tbsp of vinegar. We dyed this batch back in May and the color is still going strong. The vinegar doesn’t leave an odor when playing with the pasta, but helps the coloring to “stick” to the pasta.
Have the kids shake the bag (or use a lidded plastic container for a fun auditory component!) and get their wiggles out.
I put up a few strips of masking tape on our easel and put out the bowl of pasta. Baby Girl had the job of scooping letters from the bowl onto a plate. She loved using my measuring spoons to scoop. Toddlers seem to love scooping any little bits…peas/beans/rice/sand…and it’s such a great fine motor task for them.
Pinching those little letters was a fun fine motor exercise for working on their tripod grasp and pincer grasp.
I positioned the tape strips high up on the easel to encourage an extended wrist. This wrist position allows for efficient use of the fingers in such a small motor activity.
Big Sister worked on locating letters as I told her how to spell words.
…Baby Girl couldn’t let her big sister do something and NOT get involved…
We also used the alphabet letter pasta to work on a little reading/spelling activity: I stuck on the -AT letters and asked Big Sister to find the letter we needed to spell different rhyming words. Fun!
Alphabet letter pasta can be used in many ways! How do you use this sensory activity to learn and play?
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:
In this blog post, originally written on November 13, 2015 and updated on July 18, 2024, we are talking all about the benefits of playing with stickers. Occupational therapy providers love stickers as a fine motor tool! Let’s break down the benefits of sticker play with kids…
When you were a kid, did you have a sticker collection? Maybe it was a Trapper Keeper binder with paper, or maybe it was a sticker book with themed pages. Filling it’s pages were puffy stickers, scratch-and-sniff stickers, fuzzy stickers, and glossy glittery stickers.
Thinking back to those sticker collection can bring back memories of sticker trades. All you cared about back then was a complete collection of all the Care Bears or a page full of sticker-y rainbows.
But did you know that peeling all of those stickers has a bigger benefit that a full sticker book page?
Benefits of Playing with Stickers
Occupational therapy providers always have stickers on hand in their therapy toolbox and there’s a reason why…playing with stickers has many benefits!
Playing with stickers can help kids with so many skill areas! They can even be an Occupational Therapist’s secret weapon. School based occupational therapy providers love them for so many reasons. Pulling a fresh sheet of stickers from the OT’s treatment bag can bring on big smiles from kids of all ages. And the best news is, that the children don’t even realize they are working on important child developmental areas!
The Best Reasons to Play With Stickers
Affiliate links are included in this post.
When you see a sheet of stickers, what grabs your attention? Maybe it’s the brightest sticker on the sheet, or maybe it’s a special character. Whatever it is that brings you sticker joy, they all are great for developmental areas.
10 Reasons Why EVERY Kid Should Play With Stickers:
1. Neat Pincer Grasp. Stickers are a fine motor powerhouse. Peeling the sticky little pictures requires a neat pincer grasp in order to pull up the edge of a sticker from a sticker sheet. The very tips of the fingers are needed to grip such a small area. For some kids, grasping just the edge of a single sheet of paper is quite difficult. Working with stickers is a great way to practice neat pincer grasp for skills like picking up small beads, string, or a sewing needle.
Extend the skill: Work on pincer grasp by peeling stickers of different sizes. Smaller stickers will be more difficult to peel. Place stickers on strips of masking tape and other surfaces and and peel the stickers up. Then, work on grasp by placing the stickers down on different surfaces. Stick the stickers on paper taped to a wall to encourage an efficient wrist position.
2. Bilateral Coordination– It’s an essential skill for so many functional tasks. Zippering a coat, cutting with scissors, and handwriting are all activities that require bilateral hand coordination. Peeling stickers requires tow hands as you hold the sheet with one hand and peel with the dominant hand. Both hands are involved in the work and doing different tasks.
Extend the skill: Use stickers to work on bilateral hand coordination by using very large pieces of paper and very small sheets of paper.
3. Visual Scanning. Visual scanning is required for skills like reading, writing, searching for an item in a crowded room, and visually scanning the environment. Kids can scan a sticker sheet to peel off the sticker that they want.
Extend the skill: Position stickers all over a page. Ask the child to look for a specific sticker that you describe. They can connect stickers with a crayon, or cut the paper along a line stickers. Position stickers all over a wall and work on visual scanning on a large scale as they look for specific stickers. Add in a flashlight and have the child scan for stickers with the light.
4. Spatial Awareness. Difficulties with spatial awareness can make reading writing, and functioning in all daily tasks practically impossible. Kids may write with sloppy handwriting or have trouble with organizing their body in space. Use stickers as a visual cue for spatial awareness. Kids can see the sticker’s bright color and can use it as a visual cue for where to start writing on a page, how big to form letters, where to stop in the hallway of lockers, where to place folders in a desk, where to place coats in the closet. The use of stickers in this area are limitless!
Extend the activity: Position stickers on the left margin of a paper for kids who need help with writing. Stickers can provide a cue for letter size, too. Use stickers in a large scale maze by sticking them on chairs, walls, and floors. Kids can hop or jump over stickers or go around, and touch stickers while working on spatial awareness.
5. Sensory Exploration. Explore scents with scratch and sniff stickers. Discover textures of smooth, puffy, scratchy, and fuzzy stickers. Kids are very motivated by stickers, too. A sticker can be used as a reward for a child who touches a messy sensory bin or participates in difficult therapy treatment activities.
6. Handedness. Kids often times have trouble learning which hand is which. They will switch hands when writing and can put their shoes on the wrong feet. Use stickers as a visual cue in learning left from right both on their body and off. One sticker can be stuck to just one shoe to help a child learn to put their shoes on the correct feet. You can put a sticker on the top of a child’s coat to teach them which way is up.
Extend the activity: When practicing scissor skills, place a sticker on the side of the paper the child should hold.
7. Separation of the two sides of the hand. Using the thumb side of the hand while bending the pinkie side of the hand in stability defines separation of the two sides of the hand. This is needed for tripod grasp and in-hand manipulation as well as gross grasp and power grip hand strength. Use stickers to work on this by placing a sticker in the child’s palm. They can bend the pinkie, ring finger, and middle finger down to cover up the sticker while using the pointer finger and thumb in fine motor tasks.
Extend the activity: Place a small object like a cotton ball in the hand while using the thumb and pointer finger to pick up stickers.
Stack stickers in a pile by placing them on top of one another. Use a sticker on the tip of a pencil to show kids where to pinch the pencil when sing a tripod grasp.
8. Hand Strength. How can something as small as a sticker work on hand strength? Children need strength in the small muscles of their hands in order to have endurance in coloring, using an open web space when holding a pencil, and when managing buttons and snaps on clothing. Kids can use stickers to build the strength of the intrinsic hand muscles by peeling stickers from resistive surfaces.
Extend the activity: Place stickers on cloth like couches or carpeting and ask your child to unstick the stickers without ripping them. They will need to use the intrinsic muscles and defined arches of the hand to pull them up.
9. Body Awareness. Toddlers can work on naming their body parts by sticking stickers on feet, and other parts. Children with difficulty in sequencing might have trouble knowing if a sock or shoe goes on their feet first. Use stickers to help with organizing and positioning on the body.
Extend the activity: Place stickers on feet, hands, arms, and back. Ask your child to touch certain body parts in a specific order. Work on getting faster. Toddlers can practice naming body parts by trying to peel off a sticker stuck to their wrist as you say “wrist”.
10. Gross Motor Development. Crossing midline, jumping, hopping, skipping, and jumping jacks are gross motor tasks that can be difficult or some kids. Use stickers as a visual cue or obstacle in practicing these areas.
Extend the activity: Place stickers on each knee. Ask your child to touch the right knee’s sticker with their left hand and the left knee’s sticker with their right hand.
Stick stickers high on walls as they try to jump up to touch them with outstretched hands.
MORE reasons to play with stickers:
Literacy
organization
sequencing
problem solving
self-confidence
language development
mathematics
creativity
sense of accomplishment
stress reduction
goal setting
socializing
What are your favorite ways to play with stickers?
So, get your child involved with sticker collections to work on all of these developmental areas. And, you’ll get to relive your childhood with the scratch-and-sniff, fuzzy, hologram, puffy stickers!
Best Sticker Gifts for Kids
We also have some ideas for sticker toys and sticker gifts that support development of these skills in kids.
I found some very fun sticker activities out there that I wanted to share. Play with your child using these sticker activities as you work on 10+ functional areas:
Every kid needs a sticker collection book! This My Sticker Album has illustrated pages for sticker collections.
Need stickers to add to your collection book? The 1000 Stickers for Girls and 1000 Stickers for Boys should have you covered! (Although who says a truck sticker is just for boys? Nope! I would get both books for my kiddos!)
There are stickers for every theme, character, or interest out there. From Dinosaur Stickers, to Cupcake Stickers …there is something for everyone! (including the Care Bears fans out there!)
I love these Alphabet stickers for name building, letter identification, and spelling word practice.
What stickers do you need in your sticker collection?
You will love our recent 31 Days of Occupational Therapy series where we shared free and almost free ways to work on Occupational Therapy goal areas. This post is a great way to work on functional skills using free or inexpensive items. Most of us have a couple of stickers around the house. Some of my favorite activities from the series include:
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.
We made this racoon craft many moons ago, when my oldest was in second grade. She’s now a sophomore in high school, and I have to say that those years went by like a flash. This post was originally written in October, 2015 and I’m just updating it now with some tips about how to use the racoon craft to support fine motor development. One thing is for certain; this fine motor math craft still remains as cute as it did all those years ago!
This is a clothespin activity that supports development of many areas of motor skills AND learning regrouping in math!
Racoon Craft
I love that this racoon craft supports fine motor skills. Not only by making the craft, but by playing with the racoon clothes pin, there are some big fine motor benefits. Plus, it’s a fine motor STEM activity that kids seem to love.
There are so many benefits to using the clothes pin as a fine motor tool in math (and in kids crafts)!
For example, when manipulating clothes pins, fine motor contributions include:
We made a video that shows how manipulating and pinching clothes pins promotes grasp development. Check it out here:
In the video, we show how to use the clothes pins to work on pinch strength and grip strength. You can use your racoon clothespin craft to do these things!
Regrouping Math Activity
Second grade. They say it’s the old third grade in public schools. My second grader is our oldest, so I’ve no previous school years to compare the class work or curriculum to. We are plowing through the first few months of school though. We are well into a routine with schedules, homework, and have only missed the bus once. (This is our best year so far in that area!)
While my second grader might be doing the stuff that third graders used to do, she is a trooper. She works hard and she loves her teacher and her friends. I mean, she even comes home from a long day of school and PLAYS school with her siblings. While they have zero interest in regrouping addition problems, they are cooperative little students.
Raccoon Craft
This Raccoon craft made the perfect tool to practice a math skill with my second grader: Regrouping Double Digit Addition Problems. It was a fun craft to make alongside my daughter and turned out to be a pretty fun second grade craft, too!
What is Regrouping Double Digit Addition?
So, we actually did a regrouping activity last year when my little future teacher was in first grade. That activity was about regrouping single digits in addition. Now, a whole year later, we’re regrouping double digits and feel like big shots. Ok, not really. But it IS a whole other column of numbers that we are adding, here!
Now, I’ve said it before. I am not a teacher by trade. In fact, I’m an Occupational Therapist. So I don’t have a huge understanding of teaching techniques or educational standards and the like. But, I do have the motivation that only a mom has when it comes to making homework fun, and easy. I am so over pulling teeth to get homework done. Let’s do a creative and playful activity to build on school-found skills and I’m good. And really, when we pull in my OT-ness to the play and fun, it’s even better. Fine motor skills, here we come!
Ok, ok back to what is regrouping question.
Essentially, regrouping in math is borrowing or carrying a digit to aide in a math operation. In addition, digits from the ones column are added to the tens column to add single or double digits.
My second grader is adding double digit numbers. When the ones column of those double digits add up to more than 9, there is another tens to add to the tens column.
Regrouping in Math Activity
Now, to practice regrouping double digit addition problems, you could do page after page of worksheets. But if your kiddo is like mine (and any other kid out there), that will not go over well. We made this sneaky little raccoon clothes pin craft to practice regrouping in math practice.
It’s a pretty easy craft that your second grader will love to try. You’ll need just a few materials: (These are affiliate links.)
Start by cutting a strip of newspaper to fit on the front of the clothes pin.
You’ll also want to cut a small circle for the raccoon’s head, and a tail-ish shape.
Glue the newspaper strip to the front of the clothes pin.
From the black cardstock, cut small strips to make the raccoon’s eye mask, tow triangle ears, and stripes for the tail.
Glue all of these paper pieces into place.
Add the googly eyes and draw on a cute little smile. That raccoon is done and ready to help with regrouping.
Regrouping Raccoon and Double Digit Addition
We decided that since raccoons are pretty sneaky and sometimes steal garbage from trash cans, that our Regrouping Raccoon would be the perfect buddy for stealing numbers from the ones column and placing them over in the tens column. We practiced with a problem or two and added up the ones column. If the total had 10 or more, than that sneaky little raccoon helped us move the ten over to the tens column. Fun, right?
Now, grab a sheet of regrouping addition problems. We used a homework page, but you could just write out problems on a piece of paper.
As my daughter did the double digit math problems, I had her clip the raccoon onto the edge of the paper if it was a regrouping problem. For the problems that did not require regrouping, we just left the raccoon in place.
We ended up making a few more raccoon pinch clothes pins and had a family of raccoons!
We have a few other resources that might help as well. These are free tools you can find on The OT Toolbox and all three include free downloads. These would go great with our racoon craft activity!
Use the forest sensory path with our racoon craft to support self regulation needs.
And, use our forest animal puzzles to work on scissor skills and visual motor skills.
I hope the racoon craft and all of the tips in this activity supports development! Have fun!
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 article on shamrock balance beam ideas was originally written in March 2016. We updated it in March 2024 and included new information on how to grade up or down a balance beam, and balance beam ideas for preschoolers and toddlers.
This shamrock balance beam uses foam shamrocks we found at the dollar store. It’s a fun indoor balance beam to use with a St. Patrick’s Day theme or a Spring theme in occupational therapy. In fact, you could use this gross motor activity along with our Spring sensory walk and you’ve got a great obstacle course for therapy sessions.
This shamrock activity is a great balance beam for preschoolers because when the child steps along the shamrocks, their movements are very precise. One way that I actually like to use it as a path to follow a few leprechaun activities in OT sessions, too!
Shamrock Path Balance Beam Activity
There is just something about easy sensory play that makes mom and kids happy. Balance beams are a way to incorporate vestibular sensory input into a child’s day, allowing them to refocus, improve behavior and impulsivity, regulate arousal levels, improve attention, Improve balance, and help with posture.
One thing we see a lot in schools or in therapy clinics is the need for vestibular input. There are sensory red flags that come up a lot. And while not every child has every red flag show up…and red flags might not mean there is for sure an issue that needs addressed. (This is where the OT eval comes into play!)
Some things to consider about vestibular challenges…
Children with vestibular problems might seem inattentive. These are the kiddos that appear lazy, showing excessive movements, anxious, or attention seeking. They might have trouble walking on uneven surfaces, changing positions, or resist certain positions.
One way to address these needs is with a balance beam, like this Shamrock St. Patrick’s Day balance beam.
A while back we shared a snowflake balance beam for indoor vestibular sensory input…And we’ve been on a balance beam kick ever since!
For our balance beam, we used foam shamrocks along the floor. Position them as close to each other as your child needs. To extend the activity a bit, move them further apart or add curved and turns to your balance beam.
For our balance beam, we used foam shapes. You can adapt this to any theme by cutting foam shapes or using any type of foam piece in place of the shamrock. Then, you can help preschoolers and toddlers develop skills all year round, with the same activity.
It’s very possible to create a beginner balance beam using shapes or tape along the floor.
You can modify a balance beam to make the balance activity easier, or harder, depending on the needs of the child.
Check out the strategies below each section below. While we have them listed as toddler balance beam and preschool balance beam, this is just a way to classify the modification and activity tips to support developmental progression. Don’t worry about the names “toddler” and “preschooler”. This is just a developmental age range and you can definitely challenge balance and coordination skills at any age! Remember that the development of balance occurs through play.
Toddler Balance Beam
Walking along a balance beam can be a challenge for some kids with vestibular sensory needs. This is a great balance beam for toddlers and preschoolers because it’s flat on the ground and not raised up at all like a foam balance beam or a gymnastics balance beam.
You can really add some modifications to this activity to help a toddler gain skill sin balance and coordination. During toddlerhood that young children develop so many gross motor skills through play. My own kids loved this type of activity as 2 and 3 year olds!
Try these activity ideas to help motor skills development with a toddler:
Ask the toddler to tip toe along the shapes
Use different color shapes and ask them to name the color or the shape. You can use any foam or paper piece, as long as they are stuck to the floor with a bit of tape.
Ask the toddler to hold their arms out at their shoulder height.
Ask the toddler to walk sideways or backwards
To modify, or make the balance activity easier or harder:
Change the thickness of the balance line
Make the balance beam or balance line closer to the floor (flat on the floor) or raise it up with a board and blocks
Use bigger stepping stones or stepping images.
Encourage other movements or easier movements (hopping, tip toe, stepping, etc.)
Preschool Balance Beam
We love using this easy balance beam with preschoolers because you can really challenge preschool skills, too.
To further challenge your child, try some of these ideas:
Add arm motions.
Ask your child to look up at a fixed point instead of down at their feet.
Add curves and turns to the balance beam.
Position the shamrocks on pillows for an unsteady surface.
Raise the surface with a long board.
Try walking on tip toes, balls of the feet, or heels.
Walk the balance beam backwards or sideways.
Hop along the balance beam. (Be sure to tape the shamrocks to the floor.
Use crab walking or other animal walks along the balance line
Include upper body movements along with walking
To modify, or make the balance activity easier or harder:
Encourage different walking movements
Make the shapes or the walking line thicker
Make the steps closer together
Use the suggestions above from the toddler section.
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.
Many years ago (July 28, 2015 to be exact…this post has been updated!) we made this set of baking soda paints. It was a fun outdoor, creative painting activity and we painted on the driveway. I wanted to come back to this sensory painting idea again, because it’s such a fun way to be creative with kids. Plus, kids can mix up paints of their own and work on scooping and pouring with the ingredients and support those fine motor skills. I think it’s a fun idea you’ll want to check out!
Baking Soda Paint
The amazement of watching a child’s face light up when science and discovery happens is like watching a light turn on.
This baking soda and vinegar paint experiment is a creative painting and sensory way to explore science through painting. My kids had so much fun exploring the chemical reaction of baking soda and vinegar with our bright and bold homemade paints. We ended up with vivid paintings and had a great time creating.
Be sure to read our article on why kids need messy play…this activity sure does support those needs!
And, this activity is a great one for adding to a messy playdate with friends. As an OT, I LOVE using this activity for so many goal areas!
STEAM Activity
One fun benefit of this activity is that it’s a STEAM activity. we’ve covered the benefits of fine motor STEM activities, but the creative painting aspect of using the baking soda paints adds an art component to the science, technology, engineering, art, and math.
You might want to check out our baking soda snowmen sensory activity for another fun science activity.
Baking Soda and Vinegar Paints
This post contains affiliate links. This post is part of our Learning with Free Materials series where we are sharing learning ideas for homeschoolers and school-extension activities using items that are free or mostly free (i.e. CHEAP or you already have in the home), and is part of the 31 Days of Homeschooling Tips as we blog along with other bloggers with learning at home tips and tools.
You’ll need just three ingredients to make these paints:
Washable Poster Paint (This is my favorite brand of paint!)
A Mini Muffin Tin (any containers will work, but you’ll want all of the paints near each other and enough compartments so that you can see the different shades made by slightly adjusting the amount of paint you add.
Paper
Popsicle sticks for mixing the paint and baking soda
Water
Paint Brushes
How To make Baking Soda Paint
Ok, now that you’ve got your materials gathered, actually making the baking soda paint is really easy! This process is fun for kids to be involved with as well.
First, mix together baking soda and water to create a thick paste. You want it to be stir-able and moist. Use the popsicle sticks to mix it together.
Scoop the paste into the sections of the muffin tin with a spoon.
Add drops, globs, and dabs of different colored poster paint. Adjust the amounts in the different sections so that you get a nice variety of shades.
Stir the paint into the paste.
Next, pour off any excess water from the tops of the paste. You want a nice, thick paste to remain.
Then you are ready to paint! You can either start painting right away, OR you can let the paints harden. Allow the muffin tin paints to sit overnight. This will create a hard, tub of dried paint, almost like dry watercolors.
Baking soda and paint makes a great colorful painting mixture. We added a bit of vinegar to get a lovely fizz and pop to our paints!
This is such a fun way to explore the vinegar reaction with the baking soda paint.
Baking Soda Painting
When you are ready to paint, you’ll need to prepare the vinegar.
Pour a small amount of vinegar into cups. Use paint brushes to dab vinegar into the dried paints. Watch the science reaction happen as you paint!
Adding more vinegar to the tubs of paint will give you a brighter hue as you paint. You can get even more vivid colors by swiping chunks of moistened baking soda across the page. And, what a textured piece of art this will be!
What is especially neat about these paints are that if you work quickly enough, you can see the bubbly reaction right on your art work. Simply swipe the paint brush into the vinegar and then into the baking soda paints. Quickly paint and your bubbles will dry onto the paper.
We taped a piece of paper onto an easel and painted on the vertical surface. This is a great activity for developing wrist stability and core strength.
How gorgeous is this work of art? The baking soda paint made vivid colors!
Use a mini muffin tin to make a whole set of baking soda paints. The colors are so vivid!
Looking for more baking soda experiments? These are a few of our favorites:
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.
Welcome to a winter wonderland on the farm! In today’s blog post, we’re diving into the magical world of sensory play with a snowy farm sensory bin. This delightful activity combines the charm of a farm theme with the sensory joys of winter, creating an engaging and therapeutic experience for children. This is one of our favorite winter sensory bins because you can focus on so many different underlying skills through play.
Whether you’re a parent looking for creative winter activities or a therapist seeking effective tools for skill development, this farm sensory bin is tailored to captivate young minds while addressing various therapeutic areas. Read all about sensory bins in general as a therapy tool to support skill development.
Farm Sensory Bin
We love a great occupational therapy sensory activity because cold winter temps and less daylight hours mean you might not have a chance to get little ones outside as often as you might like. Plus, a farm sensory bin goes great with a Farm theme in preschool or in occupational therapy sessions.
This farm sensory bin has a winter theme, but you could actually set up a farm sensory bin any time of year. In fact, we loved this play dough farm activity that goes along with a farm theme and supports fine motor skills as well as sensory input.
The base of shredded paper sets the stage for a snowy landscape, providing a tactile experience that stimulates sensory exploration and fine motor skills.
This winter-themed sensory bin features a collection of farm toys and mini figures, turning the snowy setting into a farm scene ready for imaginative play.
Farm Animal Sensory Bin
The farm animal sensory bin takes the excitement a step further, introducing miniature figures of beloved farm animals. As children dive into the bin, they engage in hands-on exploration, feeling the textures of the shredded paper, maneuvering the farm toys, and creating their own farm stories.
This sensory-rich experience enhances tactile input, encouraging self-confidence as children express themselves through play.
Farm Theme Sensory Bin Setup
Setting up the farm theme sensory bin is a breeze:
Begin with a large container filled with shredded paper to create a snowy base. You could also use other sensory bin base materials if you don’t have shredded paper on hand.
Add farm toys such as barns, tractors, and mini figures of animals to bring the farm to life.
Encourage creativity by incorporating small props like faux trees or fences. This simple yet effective setup provides a canvas for endless imaginative scenarios.
Before this weekend, we’ve had a super cool spring. With a handful of days where it snowed. We are ready for outside play in short sleeves, running in the yard, and grass stained knees.
But, we have been loving this fun play activity too 🙂
We had a boat load of shredded paper from doing taxes recently. It came in pretty handy for a small world snowy farm scene!
We put some farm animals, the Little People barn, and of course, Little Guy’s construction vehicles.
(how else can the farmer move allll that snow??)
Little Guy went to farm-town with imagination stories and pretend play.
Baby Girl loves to make the animal sounds and had a blast finding them in the shredded paper.
Why This Farm Sensory Bin Helps Development
Beyond simply playing in the sensory bin, this farm sensory bin serves as a therapeutic tool to foster development in various areas.
Mindfulness- playing in a sensory bin can be calming and regulating for kids. Read about Winter Mindfulness Activities for more information.
So much more
Fine motor skills are particularly important in early childhood development, as they lay the foundation for more complex tasks in the future.
Tactile discrimination, exploration, and sensory desensitization are effectively addressed with sensory bins as they are playful and present in a non-threatening way. The playful nature of sensory bins allows children to control their tactile experiences, fostering confidence in their interactions with materials and gradually increasing their comfort with different sensations.
The hands-on nature of the activity promotes fine motor skills as children manipulate the farm toys and engage with the sensory materials. Communication skills blossom as they create farm narratives, fostering language development.
In addition, occupational therapy providers love sensory bins because they can offer a unique and enjoyable way to engage reluctant children who may initially be hesitant about engaging in the sensory elements of tactile defensiveness challenges.
Tactile input and sensory exploration contribute to a holistic sensory experience, supporting overall sensory processing.
My fun-loving Baby Girl instigated this little incident…
she just couldn’t help herself 🙂
What are we learning through play?
Imagination Play
Pretend Play
Learning Animals
Animal Sounds
Visual Scanning
Sensory Play
Farm Sensory Bin Ideas
You can pair this farm sensory bin with other therapy ideas, too. Use some of these tools and resources to support skills like gross motor skills, coordination, brain breaks, and more:
These Farm Brain Breaks can add movement and gross motor input to a child’s day and fit in great with a farm animal theme. Print off the cards and use them in the classroom or home.
These heavy work cards includes a set of 8 farm themed heavy work activities that can be used as a brain break or added proprioceptive input.
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.
Today we have a tissue paper crumpling activity (or paper crumbling!) that builds many fine motor skills, including hand strength. In this easy tissue paper fine motor activity, we are working on pinching and crumbling paper is an excellent fine motor exercise for children. It is an activity that works the small muscles of the hand and really strengthens the arches of the hands.
There are many fine motor benefits of crumpling paper into small pieces!
Paper Crumpling
Paper crumpling (or paper crumbling) is a great way to play with paper that builds fine motor skills in the hands.
If a child has weak muscles in their hands and the arches are not defined, you may see them holding a pencil or small items between their thumb and the side of their index finger. The arches of their hand may not be defined and nice and round. You may also see them holding their hands close to their chest as they attempt to gain stabilization of their arms to do the small motor task.
To really work those muscles, you could have your child first tear the bits of tissue paper before they crumble them up.
Defined arches are very important in shoe tying, handwriting, and managing clothing like buttons and snaps.
You can see how to incorporate tearing paper into this activity using the video below. Towards the end of the video, you’ll see ways to build fine motor strength and finger dexterity using crumbled paper pieces. The tissue paper squares that we are using in our activity today can be used like shown in the video for more finger strengthening exercises.
Working on fine motor skill development through play supports functional tasks, plus it’s fun!
Paper Crumpling Activity
We came up with this tissue paper crumbling activity many years ago, and it still stands as a great way to work on skills:
We’ve talked about the benefits of tearing paper before, and this activity expands on the skills a bit, because after you tear the tissue paper, you can have your student crumble the paper and then push it into the mouth of a water bottle.
While this is a really simple fine motor activity, it’s great because you build so many skills, and kids typically enjoy this simple task.
Tissue Paper Crumbling Activity
For this activity, you really can use items you have on hand. We used empty plastic water bottles, and colorful tissue paper squares.
Cut tissue paper into small squares.
Remove labels from plastic water bottles.
To increase the fine motor work, you could have the student rip pieces of the tissue paper to really increase grip strength work.
Ask the student to take one piece of tissue paper, and crumble it up with their finger tips.
Then, they should push the crumpled tissue paper into the empty water bottle.
You can make this activity a game by asking them to roll a dice and place that many squares of tissue paper into the bottle. Or you could have them sort colors by filling each water bottle with a single color.
This was an easy and fun little activity to throw together.
We have a bunch of little tissue paper squares in our craft supplies. Put them next to a couple of empty plastic bottles, and the kids know what to do!
Pushing the tissue paper into the spout of the water bottle is great for encouraging a tripod grasp (using the thumb, index, and middle finger).
Holding the bottle with the non-dominant hand allows the child to work on their bilateral hand coordination (using both hands together in a coordinated manner…kids need this when they begin shoe tying and managing the zipper on their coat).
When you ask kids to crumble paper using just the tips of their fingers, you really isolate thumb IP joint flexion as they bend the tips of the fingers. This is needed for dexterity and precision skills in functional tasks such as writing with a pencil.
…And everyone loved the cool crunchy sound the bottle made when you squashed it!
There are so many ways to build skills with this simple tissue paper crumpling activity!
More fine motor fun…
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.