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Separation Anxiety Activities and Tips

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kindergarten separation anxiety

Today, we have a couple of separation anxiety activities that can support kids who struggle with school drop off. Many times, kindergarten or preschool drop off is full of tears, especially those first few weeks of school. Here, you’ll find a great connection activity to help preschoolers and parents find a way to make preschool drop off easier by connecting through the book, Owl Babies. Use this Owl Babies activity to help with that preschool separation stage. This post shares movement based separation anxiety activities that can help kids who are experiencing separation anxiety in preschool drop off, with ideas based on the children’s book.

Separation anxiety can occur at various ages and stages, including toddler, preschool, kindergarten, and school-aged.

For example, in the toddler years, separation anxiety is quite common. However, if there is extreme separation anxiety, this might be a toddler behavior red flag or something to look into.

Separation Anxiety in Preschool or Kindergarten

Step into a preschool classroom on the first day of school and you will likely see a few tears here an there (possibly some of those tears coming from the parents dropping off their child for the first time!).

Separation anxiety in preschool age is normal! But here’s what you need to know about that visible preschool behavior that may be fueled by something besides getting used to leaving mom/dad/caregiver for the first time…and how to help with a simple preschool self-regulation strategy.

The movement-based, sensory activity we share below can actually be used with preschool through kindergarten:

  • the 3 year old preschooler who is just being dropped off for the first time
  • the 4 year old preschool student
  • pre-k kids
  • kindergarten students
  • older, grade school students who are sad or upset on the first day of school

preschool anxiety

So, what is happening with preschool anxiety that causes tears, meltdowns, and clinging to mom or dad at the day care or preschool drop off?

You have probably seen it before:

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, it’s time for preschool. The routine at home is the same: excitement, packing the bag, and gearing up for a day of learning colors, songs, preschool activities, and nursery rhymes. Getting into the car and driving to preschool is no problem.

But then you pull into the parking lot and the worries begin.

Tears, crying, clinging to Mom, negotiations, promises of seeing the little one in just 2 short hours.

Two minutes later, she is happy, playing with play dough, and dry of all nose drips.

It might even seem as if the preschool separation meltdown is just part of the morning routine.

As a momma of four, I’ve seen plenty of tear-filled drop-offs.  

And it just never stops breaking your heart.

Separation anxiety is actually considered a normal process that occurs in early childhood, as a result of a maturing physical, cognitive, and emotional development. Specifically, the areas of development that lead to a period of separation anxiety in young children include:

  • Visual processing system (visual memory, visual closure)
  • Executive functioning skills (working memory)
  • Self-regulation skills (connecting emotions with behaviors)
  • Social-emotional maturation (emotional connections, attachment, and feeling safe with certain individuals)

Despite the normal development that results in fears, worries, or flat out meltdowns following or leading up to a period of separation, severe separation anxieties do have the potential to negatively impact a child’s social and emotional functioning and this is especially true when the young child then avoids certain places, activities, and experiences that are necessary for healthy development.

Separation Anxiety Disorder

Sometimes, the family, parents, or caregivers also avoid these places, experiences, and activities. This can lead to even more negative experiences. When the family supports avoiding certain places or situations because of the young child’s separation, we can have situations where separation anxiety “hangs around” longer than is part of typical development.

Officially, Separation Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is defined as “developmentally inappropriate and excessive anxiety concerning separation from home or from those to whom the individual is attached” (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). However, for the young child, separation angst does not mean a disorder is present. It is only when the anxiety levels are so severe that they are not appropriate for developmental age that the official diagnosis of Separation Anxiety Disorder should be investigated.

For those with severe symptoms, Separation Anxiety Disorder may result in school refusal and a disruption in educational attainment, refusal to attend doctor’s appointments, dentist visits, or other situations where a child is separated, no matter the physical distance, from the parent or caregiver.

What causes Separation Anxiety Disorder?

There are many developmental areas that enable to progression of separation anxiety in toddlers and preschoolers from levels of worry and age-appropriate anxiety at separation to an inefficient and “disorder” level of worry.

Studies show us that some of these considerations may include:

  • Parenting behavior
  • Low parental warmth
  • Poor attachment
  • Trauma to the parent during the baby’s young years (death in the family, environmental, or other big situation)
  • Trauma to the child (Adverse childhood experiences, both large and small)
  • Insecure or anxious attachment styles
  • Diminished sense of control over one’s environment
  • Overprotective and over involved parenting behaviors
  • Parental intrusiveness- including extreme decision making on the part of the parent
  • Parental intrusiveness- including providing excessive assistance in the child’s daily activities (beyond age-appropriate ability)

Common signs of separation anxiety in kids

The natural and developmental stage of separation anxiety occurs from around age 6 months when the baby is able to notice that something is missing from their field of vision. This skill requires development of several areas:

  • Visual perception
  • Attention
  • Working memory (executive function)
  • Sensory motor

Separation anxiety typically continues from around 6 months of age to about 5 years of age, however signs of separation anxiety can persist after age 5 and through age 6.

However, the cognitive and emotional development that occurs during this age allows for kindergarten and younger elementary aged individuals to separate from their loved ones and know that they will be there even when the are not in view.

Once the underlying areas noted above develop (around 6 months of age), you may see some common signs of separation anxiety:

  • Crying when the parent leaves the room or home
  • Upset and crying when a babysitter or caregiver comes into view
  • Tantrums
  • Avoidance behaviors (refusing to participate in activities that require separation)
  • Clinging to parents
  • Refuse to attend certain situations
  • Apprehension about harm coming to parents
  • Fears the parent will leave and not return
  • Running from the classroom/school bus/appointment setting

Separation anxiety activities

Today, I’m sharing a simple trick for helping kids with separation anxiety at kindergarten, preschool, or other drop-off situations like day care, a caregiver’s home, nursery school, or a church Sunday school room. These separation anxiety strategies can be addressed in occupational therapy sessions, used in cognitive therapy, or simply trialed at home or at school.
Each of the separation anxiety activities listed below may be helpful in any situation where there is anxiety and stress as a result of separation from a parent or caregiver.

separation anxiety activities

One tool that can support separation anxiety in the classroom is starting each day with a feelings check in. This can help to get a handle on how emotions are impacting behaviors.

This post contains affiliate links.

Social Stories- Use social stories to create a visual narrative about how drop offs go and that parents will be back to get the child. Social stories can offer a verbal narrative for the child to use during these situations. Some of our social stories include:

Self-Regulation Strategies- Practice the regulation tools that support the individual’s emotional status with self-regulation strategies. Select a set of calming or heavy work strategies that can be used in preparation for the separation situation, whether that be using at the school bus stop (like this deep breathing school bus exercise) or while driving into school. Having those set of strategies readily available and discussing how the child feels will go a long way.

Movement-based separation activity – One fun way to work on separation anxiety in preschoolers that becomes part of the routine…here we are talking about the preschooler or kindergarten aged child that cries, clings to Mom or Dad, but then warms up to the classroom activities.

Practice routines- Do the same thing every day during the week in preparation for school, including bed times, morning routines, and transportation routines. These visual schedules can help with some individuals.

Wearable Charm- Another similar strategy is to create a DIY separation anxiety charm. Kids can make this along with the family adding heavy work through the hands. then, wear the charm to know that parents and caregivers still love and miss them even when not in view.

Get enough sleep– Practicing good sleep hygiene is important for the child as well as the parent or caregiver. This has an impact on behavioral response and self-regulation. Read a related blog post on supporting newborns not sleeping as sleep in young ones in the home can impact sibling and parent sleep.

Books about Separation- The activity listed below uses the book Owl Babies. But we added a heavy work goodbye sign that parents and children can use at school drop offs to ease separation anxiety. Or, this activity could work for kids that struggle with the transition to the classroom, because they are missing Mom and Dad or other caregiver.

Use the book, Owl Babies by Martin Waddell!

Use a magic number- In some cases, it can be hard for children to separate for even a very short period of time, and even in an environment such as the home. One strategy is the magic number technique. In this activity, the child and parent/caregiver can practice away time for short periods of time. Select a “magic number”. Then, move away from each other by going into a different room of the house. Use a timer or a watch to count up to that magic number. Try increasing the magic number up by a few minutes at a time until it’s less difficult to spend time apart.

Create a plan- Having a plan or set of coping strategies prepared for time apart can help. For the kindergarten separation anxiety issues, maybe looking at a picture of the family that is stashed inside a pencil box would help. For another student in kindergarten, maybe touching a special keychain attached to the shoe or belt loop would work. Having this plan prepared before heading into the kindergarten room or daycare setting is key.

Owl Babies Activity

We read the book, Owl Babies (affiliate link- As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases) and fell in love.  

The sweet little Owl Babies in the book wake up from a nap to find their mother gone from the nest.  The owl siblings go through a series of concerns and thoughts about where their mom might be with a little almost-tears.  

My older kids thought the book was pretty awesome and decided that each of the owl babies in the book were one of the girls in our family.  There were a few similar personality traits that aligned with the owls in the book and the sisters in our house.  

The idea of knowing that mom comes back when she leaves is a lesson we’re going through at Sunday School each week and one that happens so often with kids.  Just like the Owl Babies (affiliate link), it can be hard to stay calm and not worry when mom goes away.  

We decided to come up with an owl themed movement activity that kids could do when they are feeling anxious after leaving mom or dad.  

Try this trick to help with separation anxiety in preschoolers, based on the children's book, Owl Babies.


School Drop Off Anxiety

This activity would be perfect for preschool kids or kindergarten students who are experiencing separation anxiety at the start of school or in a new classroom situation. For kids that cry at school drop off, or really struggle with missing Mom or Dad, this school drop off anxiety activity can help.

To do the activity, first read Owl Babies (affiliate link) together.  Then, talk about how the owls in the book must feel when they see their mother has gone out of the nest. Finally, talk about how when the mom or dad in your family has to go away for a little while, they always come back and that they are thinking of the little one in your home while they are gone.

Try this trick to help with separation anxiety in preschoolers, based on the children's book, Owl Babies.


One easy way to help with separation anxiety is to come up with a hand signal.  We decided that making a bird wing sign would be a lot like an owl in flight.  Hook your thumbs together and spread your fingers out to create the wings of an owl.

Then, wrap both hands around your thumbs to create a little owl baby of your own.  Now, squeeze your hands tight to give them a hug.  Your child can do this motion when the are feeling sad or nervous at school.  Tell them to think about the owl babies in the book (affiliate link) and how they felt when their mom came back.

School drop off anxiety activity for separation anxiety in students

Squeezing the hands tightly can provide a bit of proprioceptive input that is calming in a stressful situation like the preschool drop-off.  A simple hand hug might be just the thing that can help! It’s a self regulation activity that supports the whole body as a mechanism to address emotional regulation needs that show up as crying, clinging, and bolting “behaviors”.


Then, when you pick up your little baby, be sure to swoop them up in a big hug!


This activity would work with preschoolers who are a little older than my two year old.  She really enjoyed the book, Owl Babies (affiliate link), though and we have read it again and again!


Let me know how this tip to help with separation anxiety works with your preschooler!

Try this trick to help with separation anxiety in preschoolers, based on the children's book, Owl Babies.

This Owl Babies activity is a fun and interactive book for kids of all ages!

Use this separation anxiety activity to support kids that struggle at school drop off with anxiety or worries.

 

kindergarten separation anxiety

Let’s go a bit further with kindergarten separation anxiety and how to support this need.

Kindergarten Separation Anxiety

One thing about kindergarten separation anxiety is that it may not rear it’s head until after school has started. Typically (in many cases, not all cases), young children and parents are very excited for their little ones to head off to kindergarten. There are a lot of new things to experience as a new kindergartener!

However, one new consideration may end up being a case of worries and anxieties after the school year has begun!

What’s going on here?

At the start of a school year, after school has been in session for a few days or weeks, things start to get old, quick. The young child has to wake up early every day. They have to spend 8 or more hours in school, paying attention, and on high alert, every day, Monday through Friday. There are new routines, new peers, new rules, new learning, new transportation, and they can be on high alert all day.

Sometimes we see kindergarten students who experience a separation anxiety from their parents or guardians as a result. This involves stress and worries that might be brought up during the night, before bed, before school, at school, or even during slow times at home.

The kindergarten child who is attached to their special parent, guardian, sibling, etc. are now spending many hours away from their person, people, and routines.

Kindergarten separation anxiety may include fears as well:

  • they are going to miss out on something at home
  • their special person will become sick or have an accident while they are not together
  • they, the kindergartener, may worry that they will become sick, lost, or hurt while away at school
  • they may worry that they will become lost in the school or on the way to school

Some things that we see with kindergarten separation anxiety may include:

  • Outbursts at home before school
  • Refusing to get ready for school
  • Outbursts or meltdowns before bed or on Sunday night
  • Refusing to go to school
  • Refusing to go on the bus
  • Refusing to sleep alone
  • Being afraid or fearful when they weren’t before
  • Refusing to do things they used to like to do like playing with friends
  • Refusing to leave the home or be away from their parent/guardian
  • Feelings of intense fear or helplessness
  • Agitated behavior
  • Anxiety that presents as crying, tantrums, shrinking away, or running away from unfamiliar people or situations
  • Excessive fear about other situations
  • Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
  • Reverting to younger habits such as sucking their thumb or talking in a “baby voice”
  • Restlessness
  • Trouble concentrating or paying attention
  • Worry during other times of day or night

There may be other things going on too. With the kindergarten age, it might be hard for the child to express all that they are experiencing. We can however, support separation anxiety in kindergarten students.

How to support Kindergarten Separation Anxiety

One of the most important ways to help a kindergarten student who is experiencing separation anxiety is by giving them words for what they are experiencing.

  • Talk about separation anxiety- It’s important for the child to realize and understand that we all have worries and anxiety. We all experience stress at some point or another. We can come up with tools to support and work on these worries, however, so they don’t become all that we think about. What we don’t want is for the worries to prevent participation in all of the fun activities that comes along with kindergarten!
  • Give words to the feelings that the child is feeling. This involves interoception (the sensory system that allows us to recognize internal sensations). One of these aspects is headaches that come because of worries or anxiety. Other feelings might be rapid heartbeat, stomach ache, dry mouth, sweating, cold hands, tingly fingers, etc.
  • Read books about separation anxiety in kindergarten. There are a lot of great books out there about kindergarten separation anxiety in particular. That tells us that this is a very common issue!

  • Focus on Kindergarten Friendships- One of the fun things about kindergarten is meeting new friends. But being worried and over-thinking might mean that there is less time to talk to friends and do all of the fun kindergarten things! Try helping your kindgergartener to focus on friends when they are feeling very anxious about going to school.
    • Enlist a friend to help walk them to the classroom
    • Have a buddy to get started during the day
    • Check in with a friend when they feel the worries
    • Create a social support system with a small group of friends by having playgroups on the weekends or after school.
    • Use a few friendship activities to build awareness and understanding
  • Make a Clock- Using paper, make or draw a clock with the time that the child will reunite with their adult. This visual cue can help them to see that they will return to their loved ones. Include “grace” time for a window of time to allow for the school bus, traffic, etc. Plus this is a good clock activity too!

Separation Anxiety Occupational Therapy

Just like in kindergarten, sometimes we see clients that are worried or anxious about coming into the occupational therapy space. This might especially be the case for the new child experiencing OT for the first time. For parents to better know what to expect in OT sessions, read our getting started with occupational therapy blog post.

Using some of the same strategies listed above and under kindergarten separation anxiety can support these kiddos so they can participate in therapy. Separation anxiety may need work with a child psychologist, however occupational therapy can support families and the team using meaningful and motivating strategies as well as tools that enable the individual to participate in daily functional tasks.

Other separation anxiety OT tips include:

  • Work to establish a secure relationship to the teacher/therapy provider/classroom support staff/peers with the aim of reducing dependence on parents or guardians in the school environment over time
  • Use a timer
  • Use a visual schedule
  • Allow choices in therapy sessions
  • Work together on common goals
  • Make therapy fun and engaging with therapy themes
  • Create a social story on being away from loved ones for short periods of time
  • Educate parents and educators on the limbic system and the possibility of the child being in a fight or flight state as well as tools to support the child in this manner
  • Educate and provide interventions on interoception and support the child with tools to slow a fast heart rate, etc.
  • Educate on emotional regulation along with emotional regulation strategies such as the Zones of Regulation®, the Alert Program® (How Does Your Engine Run)
  • Trial child-led strategies such as DIR Floortime
  • Inquire about the child’s sleep hygiene and support the family in this way
  • Support the child and the family in any trauma related considerations
  • Explore a sensory diet for potential needs
  • Support the child and the family as a unit with education on co-regulation

Occupational therapy empowers individuals with meaningful and motivating tasks. When separation worries interfere with the things that matter most to the child, we see the intersection with occupational 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.

Name Practice for Kindergarten

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name writing activities for kindergarten

This blog discusses the developmental criteria needed prior to introducing name writing to kindergarteners, specifically name practice for kindergarten. We’re covering the related fine motor strengthening activities, and ten fun ways to work on name writing practice for kindergarten students. Be sure to check out our resource on name writing activities for more tips at different ages and abilities.

At this age it’s important to understand the reasoning behind tracing sheets.

name writing activities for kindergarten

name practice for kindergarten

Today’s Kindergarten curriculum includes increased developmental requirements than in previous years, but the opportunities to practice writing can be a “just right” level for many children at this age.

An important thing to cover when it comes to name writing practice: name writing in kindergarten is when handwriting begins to be developmentally appropriate. In preschool, writing AND pre-writing with a pencil or writing utensil is NOT developmentally appropriate. Preschool curriculum that tell you otherwise are simply inaccurate.

Being that this article is about kindergarten name writing, know that handwriting in kindergarten requires the establishment of pre-writing skills (which occur through play).

Once children have developed visual/spatial awareness, pre-writing strokes, and fine motor strength, they are ready to practice writing their name. Also a common consideration in kindergarten name writing is that sometimes children may be developmentally ready, but they don’t show an interest in writing their own names.

You can practice name writing in lots of different ways that include multisensory name creation and letter recognition games to entice even the most reluctant student.

Let’s take a deeper look at kindergarten name practice.

Developmental prerequisites needed for name writing

There are many skills children need to develop before they are able to write their names. In order for greater success, they need to know the sounds and names of letters, be able to use their body correctly, know how to copy written lines, and so much more.

For better success rates, many developmental skills are needed for handwriting to be developed before a child is able to write their name:

  • Pre-writing line formation (straight lines, circles, cross, diagonal lines, triangles, squares) 
  • Identifying letters of the alphabet
  • Visual perceptual skills
  • Visual motor skills
  • Fine motor skills to hold and manipulate a writing utensil
  • Spatial relations (positioning, placement, left to right progression)
  • Direction following
  • Eye-hand coordination to place letters on a paper
  • Visual Tracking skills 
  • Crossing midline skills
  • Bilateral coordination skills

One of the the best ways to learn new skills is through a multi-sensorial approach.

Letter identification and sounds can be taught through worksheets and flashcards, but kindergartners love to learn through play. 

How do I know they are ready for name writing practice?

One of the best ways to know when your child is ready to start writing their name, is by using an assessment tool formulated for kindergarteners.

This handwriting observations and data collection kit has everything you need to get started. This shape formation and pre-writing screening tool can be used along with observations and data collection to assess and analyze a child’s progression in pre-writing skills.

Remember that for some kids, in the kindergarten classroom is the first time they are picking up a pencil or any coloring tool. Others may have been “instructed” to write their name before they were developmentally ready. They might have formed inaccurate motor plans for letters. They might have a pencil grasp that is founded in an inefficient grasp due to using a pencil as a writing tool before they were ready. Kindergarten name writing can look like many different things based on these differences.

Name practice for kindergarten can look like many different things for each kindergartener.

Now that you have determined that your child is developmentally ready to write their name, let’s take a peek at the most enjoyable name writing practice activities available. 

Multisensory activities for name writing practice for Kindergarten

These 10 name writing activities are perfect for kindergarteners ready to take the next step in forming words. Kindergarten name practice can occur through play based activities that support development of underlying skills through play.

Try some of these name practice for kindergarten.

  • Sensory bin handwriting activity: Fill up a tray with sand, shaving cream or other fine sensory material. Laminate the child’s name on a card and place it next to the tray. Using a stick or capped pen, the child can write their name in the tray material. If the material is thin enough, try putting the name card in the tray for students to uncover
  • Letter b and d reversal activities: Do you have a child that has a lowercase b or d in their name? It is common for kids to interchange these letters when learning how to write. These letter reversal activities will help them learn which letter is which
  • Waiting list: When children are waiting for a turn with a toy, or to complete a task, start a “waiting” list on a white board. When one child would like to use a toy another child is using, they can write their name on the board. When it’s their turn, they erase their name, and another child can write their name.
  • Sensory tracing bag: Place some shaving cream and food coloring in a plastic ziplock bag. Smear the shaving cream around so it takes up the entire bag. Some children love to add glitter to their bag to make them sparkle. Once, the bag is flat, have the child use their pointer finger to write their name on the bag, creating a colorful name. These bags can be made with hair gel and glitter, birdseed, dry rice, or sand.
  • Labeling artwork: Once a child is done drawing, write their name using a yellow highlighter. Have the child trace their name using a pen or marker. 
  • Sidewalk Chalk Painting: Write a child’s name in sidewalk chalk outdoors. Give them a paintbrush and water, and have them “erase” their name by tracing the letters with the wet paintbrush. When they are ready, they can write their own name with sidewalk chalk.
  • Name Kits: A name kit is a great way to organize name practice in a folder for each child in your class. To make a name kit, you’ll need letters of the name in different fonts, letter magnets, and writing strips. By adding a laminated name card, the plastic letters in their name, letter cut outs, and a few other name products, kids can grab their name kit at any time to practice the letter order and spelling of their name. We have many different letter activities available that can be used with many different students in our Letter Fine Motor Kit. The kit can be printed off and used with an entire therapy caseload, printing off the letters needed for each student. You’ll find many letter manipulatives in the kit.
  • Name Tracing Folders: Isolating the index finger to trace letters in our name, or using a writing utensil to trace letters, can help children learn the order in which the letters in their name go. 
  • Magnetic Letter Names: Use magnetic letters along with a magnetic surface such as a cookie sheet, refrigerator, or even building names on the garage door to build names using a name cards, to allow children to practice spelling their names anytime. This spoons and magnetic letters activity is another fun idea.
  • Play dough Names: Use colored play dough to roll, stretch and cut the dough. Children can spell their names with the play dough both indoors and outdoors.
  • Graph Paper Letter Boxes: Use large graph paper or letter boxes for students to write one letter of their name in each box. This helps with sizing and spacing, and is often less frustrating to the new learner.
  • Velcro letters: Add velcro to several letters. Have students find the matching letters to their name and stick them onto a board. Pulling velcro is a great finger strengthening activity

A final note about name writing

Name writing practice for kindergarten students is an essential part of their curriculum. Name writing is an essential skill students will need for life, but it is important to remember all of the developmental skills needed in order to write a name.

Allowing children plenty of time to practice, and a variety of multi sensory activities, will make name writing fun. It may take a few months before children are able to write their names legibly, without tracing, because everyone develops at a different pace.

Jeana Kinne is a veteran preschool teacher and director. She has over 20 years of experience in the Early Childhood Education field. Her Bachelors Degree is in Child Development and her Masters Degree is in Early Childhood Education. She has spent over 10 years as a coach, working with Parents and Preschool Teachers, and another 10 years working with infants and toddlers with special needs. She is also the author of the “Sammy the Golden Dog” series, teaching children important skills through play.

Letters Fine Motor Kit
Letter Fine Motor Kit

The Letter Fine Motor Kit has many letter manipulatives to allow kindergarten students to practice name writing with different letter activities and letter cards to support name writing practice through fine motor play.

Developmental Tools for Teaching Letter Recognition

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Letter puzzle pieces and a magnifying glass focusing on letter E. Text reads "letter identification"

This blog discusses activities for teaching letter recognition. At its most basic, letter recognition refers to letter identification. It is one of the main skills children need to know before they can name, write, or sound out the letters. The following fun letter recognition games for preschoolers are based on development and skill progression.

Be sure to read through our blog post on name practice for kindergarten for resources and tools to support letter use and recognition in children ages 5-6 or for kids at the level where they are recognizing letters in their name. These ideas are great for beginning reading for kindergarten.

Use our new color by letter worksheet to further develop this letter recognition skill.

Teaching letter recognition

What you need to know about Teaching Letter recognition

Letter recognition, or the ability to recognize and identify letters begins at a very young age. But did you know that teaching letter recognition skills starts way before kindergarten and and even before entering the classroom?

Kindergarten students are many times exposed to writing and copying letters on trace worksheets, and writing pages. But before a young child can do these skills that are part of the curriculum, knowing what skills lead up to these skills is helpful.

Even before a young preschooler is able to identify and name letters in printed context such as books or letter play activities, they are learning this skill through the immersion of seeing letters in everyday life.

Letter identification and the ability to recognize letters in printed form might occur through exposure on television, printed media, following along while a book is being read, or while engaging with technology. 

There is a progression in the important literacy skill of recognizing printed letters:

  • Letter recognition in isolation – example, pointing out all of the upper case letter As on a letter picture book
  • Letter recognition in every day life – example pointing out the letter S on a stop sign
  • Letter identification – identifying and stating letter’s names
  • Letter identification in text -reading and sounding out a letter’s sound in reading or sounding out written text
  • Matching upper case and lowercase letters– matching the upper case letters to lowercase, and vice versa

Each step of teaching letter recognition skills is founded in experience and practice. This includes communication with others, exposure, and reading with caregivers. 

Not every child learns the same way. Starting as young as preschool, caregivers can support children by using their interests and strengths to teach them new skills.

Children don’t need to read or write until well beyond toddlerhood, but preschoolers enjoy looking at books, finding letters on walks, and learning letters through movement. 

The best way to teach letter recognition
The best way to teach letter recognition is by first covering the prerequisite skills.

Prerequisites to Letter Teaching Letter Recognition

Several areas are needed to develop letter recognition skills:

  • Object permanence
  • Form constancy
  • Visual discrimination
  • Visual figure ground
  • Working memory
  • Visual memory
  • Visual scanning skills
  • Cognitive skills
  • Physical development

You can see that these components are founded in visual motor skills, perceptual skills, and working memory.

Before any of this can happen (and through the process), young children should be exposed to rhymes, songs, and singing the alphabet song. (Add alphabet exercises for movement fun!) Letter formation rhymes can support literacy as well. This is actually the first step in the road to literacy!

Teaching letter recognition requires Visual discrimination Skills

Letter recognition/identification is when a person is able to look at a letter and recall it from previous experience. Recognition of letters occurs both in uppercase and lowercase form. Additionally, there is a cursive letter recognition aspect as well. This blog post covers cursive letter recognition skills.

This site states that even before letter identification, there are a few other skills that should be taught, including visual discrimination, so the child is able to find differences among lines and shapes. 

Visual discrimination can be taught in isolation through books or letter formation worksheets, or in games and activities such as Memory games, matching and sorting activities, or playing “what’s the same” and “what’s different” through hidden picture activities and puzzles.  We cover this visual perceptual skill in our blog post, Wacky Wednesday book activity.

Visual Memory Another great play-based activity to develop the visual perceptual memory skills needed for letter recognition, are games that challenge kids to notice differences. Present the child with a tray of everyday items, and ask them to memorize the items on the tray. Ask them to look away or cover their eyes. Take away one or more items, and have them recall the missing items. 

Letter activities- Other ways to encourage letter play is through printed alphabet worksheets, puzzles, letter magnets, or other alphabet manipulatives such as letter beads. You can ask the child to sort letters based on shape, such as those that include straight lines, versus curved line, or diagonal letters. You can also sort letters by letters based on size: tall letters, short letters, and letters with a tail that hangs below the lines.

One way to encourage functional handwriting is through addressing letter size. This tall and short worksheet has a fine motor and visual motor component that can be incorporated into whole-body movement activities to teach these concepts that carryover into letter sizing and use in handwriting.

Prerequisites to teaching letter recognition begins in infancy

These prerequisite skills that support letter recognition, such as visual discrimination and memory, develop as early as infancy, when young children identify 3D objects that are familiar to them like their bottle, favorite toy, or their parents. It is important infants experience tummy time in order to develop visual motor skills, and strong oculomotor skills, as a result of time spent on the belly while looking at objects.

As children grow, their visual discrimination becomes more refined and they are able to identify pictures and written words.

Toddlers are able to point to a picture of a puppy in a book they are reading, or identify who is hiding under the blanket.

Object permanence and working memory

When a child sees an object and knows what it is called, this is referred to as object permanence. This requires working memory skill development to use what is seen, remember it, and store it for later retrieval.

While visual discrimination is the ability to detect differences and similarities in size, shape, color and pattern, cognitive ability is necessary to recognize these differences based on previous exposure, along with memory to have stored that information away in their mind’s eye to recall when needed.

This skill is typically associated with letter formation and handwriting skills. Identifying and discriminating between differences in letters allow kids to copy and write letters from memory. However, noticing and identifying the differences in the curves, diagonal lines, and lines that make up a letter are essential build up to that skill.

Hearing and saying the letter sounds associated with letters are part of the process, too. Phonemic awareness is developed initially through play, but this skill continues to develop and progress as reading and literacy skills are refined in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and beyond.

Teaching letter recognition begins with the ability to recognize details in visual images

In more depth, students should identify likeness and differences of shapes or forms, colors, as well as the position of various objects and people. Developing discrimination skills will help children learn the alphabet and then both read and print letters a lot better. 

There are numerous types of visual discrimination that children should begin to understand and develop. These include: 

  • 3D Objects
  • Shapes
  • Drawings & Pictures
  • Colors
  • Letters and Words
  • Sequences

Letter recognition games

The letter recognition activities and games and listed below are fun ways to instruct children in the essential skills needed for reading and literacy. It’s literally the building block to reading.

  • Name Recognition- Start with recognizing the letters of their name. Point out letters in the child’s name and ask them to point to letters in a book or on a sign. Children can first begin with recognizing upper case letters of their name, then moving onto the lowercase letters. Working first with uppercase letters is best, because capital letters are easier to discriminate between. Lowercase letters have many similar letters, b,d,p,g,q, and j. 
  • Bean Bag Letter Toss – Affix upper and lowercase letter stickers to one side of each bean bag. Put a basket or bucket across from your child. As your child throws the bean bags into the bucket, ask them to name the letters and their sounds of the letters. Students can run around looking for matching letters scattered around the room.
  • Alphabet Play dough- Write down large letters on a piece of paper and place that paper into a sheet protector. Encourage your child to form the letters on the sheet protector with play dough of their choosing.
  • I Spy Letter Walk –Take a walk with your child and look for letters in their environment such as on license plates, street signs and building. Play, I Spy, searching for different letters, or letters in sequential order. The printable tools in the Letter Fine Motor Kit are a great resource for this activity.
  • Jumping to letters – Create a letter pathway with sidewalk chalk on a playground or sidewalk. Children can walk, run, jump, or crawl across the letters, naming them as they move forward! Change it up by asking them to walk backwards along the path. This is a fun motor planning activity.
  • Chasing the Alphabet – (Amazon affiliate link:) Sammy Chases the Alphabet is a book I wrote about Sammy the Golden Dog playing fetch with balls around his farm. Each ball has a letter on it. After you read the book, bring the story to life by adding letter stickers to ball pit balls. Toss the balls around a room or outside, and encourage your child to find them all, naming the letters on each ball they find.
  • Food Alphabet Worksheets – Pair real food items with these food worksheets. These worksheets include the letter, a food that starts with the letter, and all of the letters that make the word. As children sound out each letter, ask them to point to the letter that makes that sound.

more letter recognition Activities

Alphabet activities like the ones below support recognition skills through repetition. Alphabet recognition occurs through songs, play, and hands-on activities.

  • The Soundabet Song – Letter identification doesn’t just include what letters look like, it also includes what letters sound like. Can your child point to the letter name as well as the sound it makes? This Soundabet Song is a great way to teach kids how to pair the sounds of the letters to what the letters look like. 
  • Letter Push – This ABC play dough activity uses plastic letters and play dough! Add in some fine motor skills to alphabet identification, by having children push plastic letters into play dough while they name the letter. This can be done as a circle time game, where each child take a turn pushing in a letter, or a small group time where every child has the opportunity to push the play dough letters. 
  • Alphabet Sensory Bins – Nothing keeps my preschoolers entertained more then a large sensory bin! Adding alphabet letters or letter markers to the sensory bins for children to find and match, is one of the most exciting letter identification games. Check out these sensory bin base ideas to use in different letter recognition sensory  bins.
  • This alphabet sensory writing tray requires users to recognize letters by uncovering them from a sensory medium. This is a great activity for recognizing letter parts such as diagonals or the curved part of a letter as the letter is uncovered.
  • Metal alphabet tray play – My favorite is to add a metal pan to the sensory table, and ask kids to stick the magnet letters they find in the sensory materials onto the metal pan!
  • Alphabet Discover Bottle – This sensory discovery bottle can be used before naptime, bedtime, in a calm down corner, or as a learning activity. As children shake the bottle, they can name the letters that appear! 
  • Match letters- Match uppercase letters to lower case letters, match different fonts of letters, and match letters in different environments (books, signs, on television, in print, etc.)
  • Gross motor activities- Use a letter floor mat to jump on a specific letter. Ask the child to find a letter magnet and place it on the letter mat.
  • Letter recognition scavenger hunts- Use ideas like these letter clothes pins scavenger hunt for ideas.
  • Write letters in shaving cream or in sand
  • Sort letters by word families when teaching letter groups
  • Play beginning sound games- I spy with my little eye, a word that starts with /b/
  • Use dot markers to dot letters
  • Spot letters on a white board and trace with a dry erase marker
  • make letters from pipe cleaners
  • Sensory play activities
  • Trace letters on sandpaper

A note teaching letter recognition skills:

Learning through play doesn’t have to be stressful. Every child learns differently, and that includes recognizing letters of the alphabet. Once a child has developed the visual discrimination, expressive language and receptive language skills needed to participate in letter identification activities, notice what motivates them to learn.

Do they like to move, cut, color, dance, or sing? Pick a letter activity that you know your child will love, and they will keep coming back for more. This will result in increasing their attention span and learning new letters daily. Follow your child’s interests and you will surely have a wonderful time!

letter identification

Today’s post addresses Letter Identification. What happens if your student copies letters, but is unable to recognize them? Can a student who can not identify letters learn to read? Letter identification is at the core of reading and writing, which are important life skills.

letter identification before copying and tracing

Many therapists and teachers work on copying and tracing long before their students can recognize the letters. Have you thought about what happens if your student copies and traces letters, but is unable to identify them?

Tracing is not going to teach number/letter formation if the learner does not know what those figures are. To a learner who does not know these symbols, they will be tracing lines and circles, not learning numbers or letters.

This holds true for copying letters and numbers. For example, the “H” becomes just sticks, while the “b” is a ball and a stick rather than recognized symbols.

Theoretically if a person writes or traces the letter “A” enough times, the body will start to recognize this pattern (through motor planning and kinesthetic awareness), and commit it to memory. 

This only works if the learner understands what is being traced or copied, and can add meaning to it.

can a student who is unable to identify letters learn to read?

Sadly students who are unable to recognize letters can learn to read, but not efficiently or effectively. Learners who are unable to identify letters will memorize the way words look as a clump, rather than using letter identification and phonemic awareness. This holds true for math. Students can learn ways to get around multiplication and division without memorizing these facts.

Because students can “get by” this is why it is critical to insure students have the necessary building blocks for learning before moving on. Pushing students through to the next grade without having the necessary skills, is an ongoing problem. How many high school students have you seen that are unable to do simple math in their head, or spell simple words? Too many.

IdentificATION OF lETTERS FOR READING

Let’s circle back to letter identification now that you have a better understanding of the need for letter identification before teaching reading, copying, writing, or tracing.

One of the pre-reading skills kids need to be a successful reader is letter knowledge.

Letter Knowledge begins with Letter Identification which is also known as Alphabet Recognition.

Students have different learning styles, therefore they need to be exposed to new information in various ways.

Learners can understand information by:

Offering several different teaching styles is the key to meeting the needs of all different types of students. Sometimes this takes many trials to find the one that sticks.

I had a reluctant learner who was unable to recall or identify his letters despite repetition, flash cards, games, puzzles, worksheets, or any other activity I presented. In the past I had used my students specific interests to spark their learning. Many lines were made making Thomas the Train tracks across the paper.

This student loved Star Wars. He could name every character. Lucky for me, there are many Star Wars characters! I paired a letter with each character. We used A for Anakin, S for Stormtroopers, C for Chewbacca, and so on. At first we worked on pairing them verbally/auditorily. Then I made flash cards with pictures of each character near their name and picture. Because this was motivating for him, my student quickly learned letter identification!

activities to teach letter idenfication

Before children are able to learn to read or identify letters, you can work with them to understand what they are. This can be done by reading stories, singing songs, telling nursery rhymes, and talking to them. Once they begin to notice that stories or other items have symbols, you can point to the words as you read them. Here are some simple letter identification activities:

  • Point out print wherever you see them. On signs, license plates, television, books, packages, clothing, or anywhere you might find written print.
  • Look for specific letters in books or magazines. Ask the child to name the letter and the sound.
  • Make arts and crafts with specific letters. Write it in sand, shaving cream, or a foggy mirror. Letter of the week crafts are fun, too. We have printable letter crafts inside The OT Toolbox Membership.
  • Practice writing letters with different toys or activities. Magnetic letters, books, magazines, puzzles, flash cards, and games like Scrabble, are handy options to have letters readily available for letter identification.
  • Form letters out of pretzel dough, play dough, popsicle sticks, pasta, or cookie cutters for sensory letter formation.
  • Play a Letter Scavenger Hunt and have students look for certain letters you have hidden around the room or house. A scavenger hunt is another great use for magnetic letters. Enhance this activity by adding finding items that start with that letter.
  • Use a keyboard to identify letters. Keyboarding skill is a great life skill tool to have. Finding and identifying letters is a great way to practice and learn the letters in a functional way.

ot toolbox resources for letter recognition

  • Developmental tools for teaching letter recognition – This blog discusses activities for teaching letter recognition
  • Here is a recent post on Learning Letters with Bottle Caps
  • The OT Toolbox Archives contain dozens of posts related to letter recognition.
  • Alphabet Movement Cards – Alphabet Movement Cards combine love of letters, along with aerobic activity to work on muscle strength, tone, focus, attention, or add a much needed sensory break between tabletop tasks. 
  • Letter Formation Themed Activities – This page includes all of our Letter Formation theme activities. You’ll find letter formation themed fine motor activities, letter printables, and A-Z therapy tools of all kinds! Plan out a week (or weeks) of activities for your whole therapy caseload. Just print and go!

Letters are everywhere!

When you start to think about letters, you realize they are everywhere! Use what is readily available to immerse your learners in knowledge. You might have to get creative once in a while, like my Star Wars guy, but that is what makes this job so fun!

Jeana Kinne is a veteran preschool teacher and director. She has over 20 years of experience in the Early Childhood Education field. Her Bachelors Degree is in Child Development and her Masters Degree is in Early Childhood Education. She has spent over 10 years as a coach, working with Parents and Preschool Teachers, and another 10 years working with infants and toddlers with special needs. She is also the author of the “Sammy the Golden Dog” series, teaching children important skills through play.

Letters Fine Motor Kit
Letter Fine Motor Kit

The Letter Fine Motor Kit is a 100 page printable packet includes everything you need for hands-on letter learning and multisensory handwriting!

This resource is great for pediatric occupational therapists working on handwriting skills, fine motor skills, visual motor skills, and more. Use the activities to promote a variety of functional tasks.

Teachers will find this printable packet easily integrated into literacy centers, classroom activities, and multisensory learning.

Parents will find this resource a tool for learning at home, supporting skill development, and perfect for therapy at home!

MULTISENSORY HANDWRITING

Grab the Letter Fine Motor Kit and use all of the senses, including heavy work, or proprioceptive input, through the hands ask kids build and manipulate materials to develop handwriting and letter formation skills.

Skipping Activities for Kids

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How to teach skipping

Young children often ask to learn to skip. Here, you’ll discover skipping activities for kids, as well as specific strategies to teach children how to skip. Skipping is an important gross motor target. For some children, learning to skip is a real challenge! 

These skipping activities are fun ways to teach kids to skip.

Learn to Skip with Skipping Activities

If you have ever spent time in an elementary school, you may have noticed that the youngest members of the school community, specifically kindergarteners, hardly ever walk from place to place… they skip (and hop, jump, twirl, and gallop, too)!

Skipping is a developmental milestone or marker that generally emerges around age 5, with a range of age 4-6 years.  For many kids, skipping emerges without intervention, just the way reaching, crawling, or walking develops. 

For kids who struggle with gross motor skills and bilateral coordination, direct teaching may be necessary to develop this critical skill.  Once the basics are learned, skipping activities are a great way to practice.

learning to skip requires motor planning and sensory integration

Skipping is such a perfect example of motor planning and sensory integration.  It requires ideation (having the idea about how to move), planning (sequencing the movement), and execution (carrying out the movement).  

For a person to execute the motor plan of skipping, the coordinated effort of sensory systems and the brain is required. 

Skipping also provides excellent sensory input. No wonder kindergarteners like to skip from place to place… the vestibular and proprioceptive input they receive is a natural reward for all their hard work in mastering the skill!

what about bilateral coordination?

The ability to coordinate the two sides of the body involved in learning how to skip requires balance, strength, motor planning, and bilateral coordination. Bilateral coordination refers to the ability of the brain and body to process and integrate information from both sides of the brain to respond with movements in a coordinated manner. 

Many functional tasks and daily activities, such as feeding, dressing, and writing rely on bilateral coordination. 

Being able to coordinate both sides of the body is also a foundation skill for gross motor coordination activities such as walking, running, galloping and skipping.

Wondering how to teach skipping? This blog post breaks down the steps of skipping.

How to Teach Skipping

When you have a goal for a child to learn to skip, it is important to make sure that you address all of the components of skipping.  Teaching kids to skip starts with seeing what skills the individual is able to do. There are skills that are required to skip. Can the child balance on one foot and hop? Does the child have a dominant leg? Can they gallop or perform a different version of skipping? These are all good questions to ask when teaching skipping skills.

First, evaluate and observe the following gross motor skills needed for skipping:

  • Balance – check to make sure they can balance on either foot
  • Hopping – are they able to hop in place on each foot?  Are they able to hop forward on one foot?  Have them try to take 5 hops forward on either foot
  • Leg dominance – it may be helpful to know if they have a preferred leg for activities like hopping or kicking
  • Galloping – are they able to gallop? Can they gallop on either side?  This is more of a unilateral skill, which is often easier for kids who demonstrate difficulty with bilateral coordination skills.

If any of the above skills are weak, start with developing balance and hopping.  Then progress to galloping, followed by skipping. 

Then, use these strategies to teach skipping:

  1. To teach skipping, start by breaking down the steps for the child.  Provide a demonstration and simple verbal cues like “Step, hop, switch”.  You may need to provide a visual cue as well, using colored dots or markers on the floor, such as these (Amazon affiliate link) Little Polly Markers.

2. Once the child is able to complete the “step, hop, switch” sequence. This can be a very slow process at first. Some kids will need to think through the motor plan of each step. That’s ok! Use visual and verbal cues to work on the step with one foot, the hop, and the switch to the other foot.

3. Work to improve their fluency and speed of the step, hop switch sequence. Use these steps in an obstacle course or a relay activity to work on speed and gross motor coordination to improve fluent motor skills.

3. As they master the skill of skipping, you can encourage them to incorporate their upper body into the movement as well. Show them how to swing their arms in coordination with the legs. This will become more fluent and integrated with practice.  

Working on the coordination and motor planning to master learning to skip involves more than just a hop and a skip. Skipping is a complex task, but once you break it down and address underlying skill areas, it becomes easier. 

Skipping Activities

Here are some gross motor coordination games and skipping activities that address bilateral coordination and motor skills:

  • Obstacle courses – set up a simple hopping and jumping obstacle course inside or outside.  Use pool noodles to jump over with two feet, hop in and out of hula hoops, jump over cardboard bricks, etc.  Here is a post about Outdoor Lawn Games with lots of ideas for using backyard toys and equipment to address gross motor coordination skills.
  • This Ultra Dash Game (affiliate link) is fun for kids of all ages!  You can set up an obstacle course in various ways and then the kids have to race to match the colors from the wand to the colored base.  You could incorporate skipping, jumping, and hopping into this game to work on those skills in a new way.
  • Use gross motor toys to work on balance, coordination, motor planning, and core strength.
  • Use a long jump rope to hop over on one foot. 
  • Stand like a flamingo. Try freeze dance games with a flamingo theme. When the music stops, players have to hold one leg up like a flamingo!
  • Simon says- Incorporate the hop and jump tasks needed in the task of skipping. Use these Simon Says commands in therapy sessions.
  • Yoga is a great activity to build body awareness, gross motor skills, and bilateral coordination.  Here are several different kids yoga resources:
  • Skip ball (affiliate link)- this toy is a fun tool to practice skipping skills
  • Chinese Jump Rope (affiliate link) – who remembers this classic toy? Relive your childhood while passing on this great game
  • Mini Trampoline (affiliate link)- these are great to work on jumping, hopping, coordination, following directions, all great skills to teach skipping
  • Musical Hippity Hop Stick – this rotating stick encourages children to jump over the stick as it rotates by. If the stick touches them, the game is over. Practice this with two feet first, then try hopping over the stick
  • Hopscotch!  Don’t forget about this one!  All you need is some chalk and a sunny day to get outside and practice hopping and jumping.  This would be a great activity to set up on the playground for kids to work on skipping skills during recess. Not ready for outside play? Use painter’s tape down the hallway.

spring has almost sprung!

With Spring right around the corner, here are some Spring Gross Motor Activities to use with your students in the upcoming weeks to address gross motor coordination skills.

It’s time to get some “Spring” back in our steps!  Bring your kids outside and have some fun working on hopping, jumping, and of course…skipping!

Katherine Cook is an occupational therapist with 20 years experience primarily working in schools with students from preschool through Grade 12.  Katherine graduated from Boston University in 2001 and completed her Master’s degree and Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study at Tufts University in 2010.  Katherine’s school based experience includes working in integrated preschool programs, supporting students in the inclusion setting, as well as program development and providing consultation to students in substantially separate programs.  Katherine has a passion for fostering the play skills of children and supporting their occupations in school. 

Creative Sight Word Activities for Kindergarten

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multisensory reading and hands on activities for kindergarten sight words.

We’ve been doing a bunch of fun sight words in the past few months and here, you will find all of our favorite sight word activities for kindergarten.  This is a collection of all of our sight word activities, or multisensory learning activities focused on reading skills. The best thing about these hands-on reading activities is that they can be used for sight words as well as decodable words. These multisensory reading activities are perfect for beginning reading for kindergarten.  Learning and practicing sight words can be fun, creative, and NOT include just repetition with flash cards.  A little creativity and lot of fun are happening on this page.  Get ready to learn through play.  And have fun!  

{Note: This post contains affiliate links.}

Creative Ways to Practice Kindergarten Sight Words

Creative activities to learn kindergarten sight words, and hands on activities for multisensory reading.
 

 

sight word activity using ping pong ballsearly literacy activity using a sticky easel
 

Sight Words and Decodable Words

When my older kids were learning to read, they came home with lists of “sight words”. They also came home with small stapled books where they inserted the sight word into sentences driven by pictures. They were “reading the pictures”.

Since then, sight words have shifted slightly to include common lists, but more of the decodable reading. 

These hands on activities can be used with any early reading! 

Sight words are not necessarily always irregular words. They may only be taught as sight words until the sounds in the word have been taught… then it becomes decidable.

Some sight words are truly words that are known by sight…there is no way to sound them out. Other sight words can be decoded. 

High frequency words and not words that can be learned through decoding. For example… “what” is a sight word and should be learned as such.

Multisensory Reading Activities

The multisensory reading activities listed below incorporate whole body movement, heavy work input, and even vestibular input. These are just SOME ways to use all of our senses in learning high frequency words.

Other multisensory reading strategies can be used to decode parts of a word, or even sight words that are decodable. This is done by breaking apart the sounds that make up the word, or orthographically mapping the word. 

Other multisensory reading strategies include:

  • pounding words and parts of words
  • tapping of words
  • moving cubes
  • moving chips  or manipulatives like mini erasers or balls of play dough for sounds
  • using a red word/heart word for the tricky part of a “trick word” or sight word
  • spelling and arm tapping
  • writing on a bumpy screen and then feeling the bumps while spelling it aloud
  • sky writing (crossing the midline)
  • writing words on the palm
  • writing on a foam sheet
  • Check out all of our ideas and strategies for name practice for kindergarten

The multisensory reading strategies below are creative ways to work on sight words

Use fun materials like ping pong balls like we did in  our Sight Words Ping Pong Bounce Game.  (That was an activity that Little Guy LOVED…and he’s not even learning sight words yet!  Use those ping pong balls again for Sight Word Scooping and incorporate fine motor skills into sentence building. 

learn words and phonics with string and a multisensory reading task.

Something that you find in the junk drawer can be a learning tool.  String!  We used string to review sight words in Creative Sight Word Practice with String. 

 
 
 

Creative Sight Work Activities for Kindergarten

The senses are an essential part of daily life.  Incorporate the senses into learning with a few fun ideas:


We got moving with our Word Scavenger Hunt. 

More movement based learning happened when we incorporated the easel in Sight Word Sticky Easel.

A few more creative ways to learn:  Does your Kindergartener love all things art?  Try some stamping with Sight Word Bottle Cap Stampers. 

We hope you’ve found some fun ways to learn and play with sight words with this list.  Stop back often, because we’re adding new activities all the time.  We’ll be sure to update this page with all of our latest sight word activities.

Need more ways to develop skills through play? Grab one of our Fine Motor Kits!

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:

Letters Fine Motor Kit
Kit de motricidad fina de verano
Summer Fine Motor Kit
Outer Space Fine Motor Kit
Space Fine Motor Kit
Spring fine motor kit
Valentines Day fine motor kit
winter fine motor kit
Winter Fine Motor Kit

Or, grab one of our themed Fine Motor Kits to target skills with fun themes:

Want access to all of these kits…and more being added each month? Join The OT Toolbox Member’s Club!

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.

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