This was a super easy and very fun fine motor activity we did one day. Perfect for the littlest ones who find dinner-prep time is time for Mom to hold her while sautéing chicken
…cough, Baby Girl, cough…
Pull out one color of play dough and one matching color of Legos. Baby Girl loves her mega blocks and we play with them daily. This was perfect for her because she could press the blocks into the dough and see an imprint of squares and circles. Great for language development, as well as color identification.
She liked that she could press the little circle “buttons” (and this works those little muscles of the hand and index isolation).
We’ll be pulling out the play dough and Lego blocks again, for sure!
We’ve done the no-mess window painting a few times before (Seek-and-find, and Colored gel mixing to name a couple) and had a lot of fun with it. This time we added a spelling component to add a few Kindergarten sight words to the fun.
This is so easy and Big Sister had fun moving the letters around in the paint to work on some fine motor skills, too.
Pour a little bit of paint into a sandwich baggie. Add a few foam letters. Seal the baggie closed. Tape it to a window and start to play! We had a really rainy day recently and this was a fun indoor learning activity. (You can see the raindrops on the picture!)
You’ll also love our diagraph spelling word poem that helps children with learning commonly misspelled words.
Fine Motor Letter Learning
Moving the foam letters around in the baggie is resistive and a really great fine motor strengthening activity to work the fingers. The child is able to isolate her index finger to move the letters around.
Add a few extra letters to work on rhyming words. This is also great for just placing right on the table surface and better for smaller kids that way, too. Littler ones can just move the letters around and address letter identification and colors.
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!
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:
Our theme for this week is Swamp/Alligators/Turtles…and Oh Yeah, this one was fun!
We used these Bath Color Tablets to make our water bin green. They only have primary colors in this set, so we talked a little about what makes green.
It was pretty cool to see the colors fizzing together in to a green swampy water!
Once we had our swamp water, I pulled out a bin of frogs, alligators, turtles, lily pads cut from foam crafting sheets, and bug shaped foam stickers.
Little Guy discovered that he could stick the foam stickers to the walls of the bin. He had a whole little story going on here. The bugs were a family and the alligators came by for a visit…there was a little battle and the bug family and alligator family went their separate ways 🙂
There were hands everywhere playing in this water bin! Sign of great sensory play 🙂
We have these little squeeze water toys that were a pretty fun addition to our swamp water bin. And so good for fine motor strengthening. When a child pinches the squeeze toys between their thumb and fingers, they are strengthening the arches of their hands.
Yes, we can add grass to our swamp.
We have been loving this play series…SO much fun! We’ve been adding our water bins to our Pinterest board:
I have so much fun planning the craft for our play group kids once a month. This month had an Ice Cream Sundae in honor of National Ice Cream month. And because ice cream sundaes are perfect any time of day. Even at 10 am.
And, what would be a better craft to go along with an ice cream social theme, than an ice cream cone??
Ice Cream Cone Craft
I had Big Sister try out the craft before the play date and make an example to show all the kids.
I drew the ice cream outline on construction paper, and she went to work.
We used a fork to paint the cone.
Our paper scraps were used to make the ice cream mosaic.
We love using scraps of paper in artwork. Manipulating the little bits of paper is excellent for fine motor dexterity and strengthening. Even better for tripod grasp and developing the arches of the hands, is tearing the paper into scraps and then, crumbling them into little balls. The balled up paper can then be pressed onto glue or contact paper. How great for working on a child’s tripod grasp!
We had a fun ice cream play date today, a great craft with a big crew of children, fun with friends…And even a chance for Mom to catch up with a few Mommy friends.
Drawing with wet chalk on a driveway is such a fun sensory experience for outdoor play and one that develops so many areas of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, and visual motor skills through sensory play. Drawing milestones like coloring with chalk is part of childhood but this driveway chalk activity builds many skills!
Wet Chalk
We played outside one cool morning and discovered something really fun…We had left a couple of pieces of chalk outside during an overnight rainstorm.
The texture of wet chalk is so cool! It smears on the driveway so easily and is the neatest texture. For children struggling with tactile defensiveness wet chalk is a great sensory experience because you can grade the dryness or the wetness of the chalk texture.
There was only red and blue that were soaked through, but they combined to make a pretty nice rainbow!
How to make wet chalk
There are several ways to make wet chalk to use on a driveway.
Soak driveway chalk in a bucket of water overight or for a few hours.
Draw with chalk on a wet driveway. After a rain works or spray the driveway with water from the hose.
Crush chalk into a powder and mix water into the chalk dust to create a messy, thick chalk paint. This liquid chalk paint recipe explains more on this strategy.
You can select the wet chalk method that works best for you!
Once you have your wet chalk created, you can get started with the chalk art.
Wet Chalk Activities
We’ve created a list of chalk activities here on the website before so any of those ideas would work. But if you want to explore development of other skills, try these wet chalk activities:
Make a chalk rainbow
Make a driveway obstacle course
Create letters and use a wet-dry-try method of writing the letters
We played with this for a while…the chalk drawing even started to dry on the driveway.
I LOVE this picture!
Baby Girl loved this messy play. She got her hands right in there and covered them with the chalky mess.
Outdoor Sensory Play
What a great sensory experience! Check out how Baby Girl is on her hands and knees…She’s putting weight through her upper body and down to the hands, and strengthening her shoulder girdle which is so important for fine motor dexterity. All this while exploring the texture of the chalk, manipulating little pieces of chalk, and having fun with her sister!
We kept tracing over the rainbow lines until the chalk became so small…great for working on that tripod grasp!
Big Sister was really aware of the lines of the rainbow when she was tracing. This is fun for a new hand writer who is learning to place letters on the lines of paper ((line awareness)).
Tracing the big arch of the rainbow allowed her to cross midline on a fun activity. Why do kids need to cross midline?? One reason is so that hand writers efficiently allow the dominant hand to do the work during handwriting while moving left to right across the page in a smooth manner.
And of course, you MUST add raindrops to the rainbow 😉
Rainbow Handwriting Kit– This resource pack includes handwriting sheets, write the room cards, color worksheets, visual motor activities, and so much more. The handwriting kit includes:
Write the Room, Color Names: Lowercase Letters
Write the Room, Color Names: Uppercase Letters
Write the Room, Color Names: Cursive Writing
Copy/Draw/Color/Cut Color Worksheets
Colors Roll & Write Page
Color Names Letter Size Puzzle Pages
Flip and Fill A-Z Letter Pages
Colors Pre-Writing Lines Pencil Control Mazes
This handwriting kit now includes a bonus pack of pencil control worksheets, 1-10 fine motor clip cards, visual discrimination maze for directionality, handwriting sheets, and working memory/direction following sheet! Valued at $5, this bonus kit triples the goal areas you can work on in each therapy session or home program.
This finger painting fireworks craft is a great July craft for toddlers that can be used to celebrate the Fourth of July with toddlers and preschoolers! Add this one to our favorite creative painting ideas!
Finger Paint Fireworks
This weekend I had 5 kids (ages 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) and I had to think of something to keep them all busy. Finger painting is a fun craft for kids all ages, the babies love feeling the different texture of paint on their fingers and playing with the paintbrushes. I pulled out the paper and let them go to town with the washable finger paints!
I helped my little guy (2) make hand prints in red and blue.
The big kids enjoyed mixing colors while my 2 year old enjoyed painting his hand…and mixing colors in the paint jars…ughh. I think every color is now brown.
This project kept the kids busy for about 30 minutes, enough time for me to put away the dishes and wipe down the table 🙂
Once the paint was dry we gathered up some black construction paper, gold tinsel from a gift bag and scissors. I folded the paper into a small square and helped the older kids cut out fireworks.
We glued the fireworks onto the paper and made the tinsel stream down from the fireworks. We talked a little about the 4th of July and I told my daughter it was the country’s birthday. The best part was hearing
my daughter recite the Pledge of Allegiance (so cute)!
for an easy little learning activity. Two of us Sugar Aunts were together one afternoon for a little play session with the kids and this was quick and easy to put together.
One bottle of sand.
A handful of foam sheet shapes (we wrote a few beginner sight words on front and back of each shape).
It was perfect for the different age groups of the kids (5, 4, 3, 2, and 1!)
And these kids seem to LOVE anything they can put into something else. The little fingers were everywhere when we told them to drop the shapes into the bottle opening!This is Awesome for tripod grasp skills.
This was great for the 5 and 4 year olds who are learning their sight words. We used some beginner reader words that they recognize (Their current favorite book around here is “Sam I Am”. Seeing those words in a new place is pretty cool way to emphasize reading confidence, I think!)
The 3 year old knows most of his shapes (that rectangle gets him every time!) so this was good for his learning level.
The two year old could point to the colors (and with only three options in the bottle, it was not overwhelming for him).
And for the one year old, this was overall great for language development!
((and super fun to shake !!)
We had fun with our sensory sight word bottle. Have you done one of these? Link them up in the comments, we would love to see them!
Many years ago, we made a creative ocean and beach small world play activity and it was a Summer hit! Whether you are looking for activities to keep the kids busy at home through hands-on, sensory play, OR if you need Summer occupational therapy activities to use in skill-building, a beach small world is a fun way to play!
Beach Small World Play
Creating a beach small world using miniature animal forms and homemade colored sand can be a fantastic sensory activity for children.
It doesn’t take much to create a small world, and the benefits are huge:
Imagination and Creativity: Small world play encourages children to use their imagination and create their own narratives and scenarios. They can invent stories, develop characters, and build unique worlds, fostering their creative thinking skills.
Language Development: Small world play often involves storytelling and dialogue, which helps children enhance their vocabulary, expressive language skills, and communication abilities. They can practice describing objects, expressing emotions, and engaging in role-play, leading to improved language development.
Problem-Solving and Critical Thinking: When engaging in small world play, children encounter various challenges and obstacles. They learn to think critically, problem-solve, and find solutions to overcome these challenges, fostering their cognitive skills.
Fine Motor Skills: Manipulating and arranging small objects in a small world setting requires precise hand-eye coordination, dexterity, and fine motor skills. Children practice grasping, pinching, and manipulating objects, which can enhance their fine motor abilities.
Social Skills and Cooperation: Small world play often involves collaboration and cooperation when children engage in shared storytelling or role-playing scenarios. They learn to take turns, negotiate roles, and collaborate with others, promoting social skills and teamwork.
Emotional Expression: Small world play provides a safe and controlled environment for children to express their emotions and explore different feelings through their play narratives. They can process and make sense of complex emotions, develop empathy, and practice emotional regulation.
Sensory Stimulation: Small world play often incorporates sensory elements, such as sand, water, or different textures. Engaging with these sensory materials stimulates children’s senses, promotes sensory exploration, and contributes to their sensory development.
Knowledge Acquisition: Small world play can be a great tool for learning about different concepts and subjects. Children can explore nature, geography, history, and various themes as they create their miniature worlds, leading to knowledge acquisition in a fun and engaging way.
How to make a beach small world
With a bit of imagination, parents can transform a small tray or container into a mini seaside paradise.
You’ll need to first gather just a few items to make a beach small world activity:
Animal figures: seagulls, crabs, and dolphins, fish, or other animals
Tray or Container: Select a shallow tray or container that is large enough to hold the materials and provide a play space for your child. It can be a plastic tray, a wooden box, or any other suitable container.
Sand: Use play sand or kinetic sand to create the beach or ocean floor. You can also dye the sand using food coloring like we did to make our homemade colored sand
Water: Incorporate a small amount of water into your small world setup to represent the ocean. You can use a separate container for the water or create a section within the main tray for a shoreline or shallow water area.
Rocks and Shells: Gather some small rocks and seashells to create a more realistic beach or coastal environment. You can collect these from a local beach or purchase decorative ones from a craft store.
Plants and Foliage: Consider adding some greenery or beach vegetation to enhance the sensory setup. You can use fake or dried plants, small artificial trees, or even real seaweed (if available and safe to use).
Tools and Utensils: Provide some child-friendly tools and utensils for scooping, digging, and creating patterns in the sand. Small shovels, spoons, sieves, and rakes can be used to enhance the sensory experience and encourage fine motor skills.
Optional Accessories: Depending on your preference and the space available, you can include additional accessories like toy boats, small beach umbrellas, mini beach chairs, or even a small plastic container to mimic a tidal pool.
As children manipulate the sand, feeling its texture and watching it flow through their fingers, they enhance their sensory development.
We used our DIY Colored Sand to do a little pretend play one rainy afternoon.
We used our refrigerator farm animal magnets and had fun with our pretend lake. Once you know how to make colored sand, you can use it for so many sensory bin activities!
It was a fun day at the lake 🙂
The bunny went swimming…
And the temptation was too great…we HAD to mix the two colors of sand together.
Looking for more ways to have fun this Summer? Grab a copy of the Summer Kit!
