These snow and ice activities are more winter occupational therapy activities that kids will love! Use these snow activities and ice themed ideas to help kids develop skills during the cold winter months. Brrr. It is cold outside! We’re trying to stay warm these days by playing indoors or bundling up and heading outside. Some days it’s just too cold to play outside with small kids and these indoor winter activities are fun ways to keep the kids learning when the temps dip!
Snow and Ice Activities
For specifically fine motor skill-building, be sure to check out the Winter Fine Motor Kit, the Snowman Therapy Kit, and the Penguin Therapy Kit. Each one includes different activities and they all develop fine motor, gross motor, visual motor, sensory, handwriting, scissor skills, and self-regulation skills through winter play.
Explore science with a melting iceberg from Stir the Wonder.
Looking for more fun winter activities?
These ice number puzzles are a great fine motor activity. Kids can cut out the puzzles. Then, laminate them (or not!) and use them to work on fine motor skills. I love using tweezers or tongs to have kids move craft pom poms or mini erasers to match the ice number. This is such a great activity for building so many skills:
Other snow and ice printables that you can grab inside the Member’s Club (or as a free resource by entering your email into the forms on each blog post) are these snow, ice, and snowball activities:
These fine motor play ideas are great for days when it’s too cold to play outside in the snow and ice.
Cut paper icicles and work on scissor skills, bilateral coordination, and eye-hand coordination. Label the icicles with sight words, math facts, vocabulary, etc. Get the kids involved in taping the icicles to the wall for shoulder strengthening, proprioceptive input, and other benefits of working on a vertical surface.
Have anindoor paper snowball fight to address motor planning, eye-hand coordination, balance, bilateral coordination, crossing midline, and more. Snowballs can be used as counters. Or, throw the paper snowballs at targets marked with facts or true/false containers.
Focus on fine motor skills by tearing paper. Add learning components by asking kids to first write answers on the paper, and then they can tear the page into strips or small squares. There are so many benefits to this activity!
Have fun this winter while building skills through play!
What if you had themed, NO-PREP activities designed to collect data and can help kids build essential fine motor skills?
Take back your time and start the year off with a bang with these done-for-you fine motor plans to help kids form stronger hands with our Winter Fine Motor Kit. This print-and-go winter fine motor kit includes no-prep fine motor activities to help kids develop functional grasp, dexterity, strength, and endurance. Use fun, winter-themed, fine motor activities so you can help children develop strong fine motor skills in a digital world.
The Winter Fine Motor Kit includes reproducible activity pages include: pencil control strips, scissor skills strips, simple and complex cutting shapes, lacing cards, toothpick precision art, crumble hand strengthening crafts, memory cards, coloring activities, and so much more.
Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20+ years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
These leaf activities are fun ways to incorporate colorful fall leaves into occupational therapy sessions! Fall themed activities to use all week in done-for-you therapy planning. Use real leaves from outside, or materials on hand. Fall leaves make a great theme for weekly occupational therapy themes!
Leaf Activities
Leaf Handwriting– These Fall writing prompts include leaf writing prompts, among other fall themed prompts. Includes sentence prompts and single words, all with a Fall and leaf theme.
Pre-Writing Lines Activity- Work on Pre-writing activity with real leaves. Use real leaves to work on eye-hand coordination, visual motor skills, and pre-writing lines with hands on fine motor work.
Bilateral Coordination Activity: Use this Leaf Craft to address bilateral coordination skills. Use real leaves to make a craft that builds bilateral coordination, heavy work proprioceptive input, and scissor skills.
Leaf Craft for Older Kids: This Sewing Skills Leaf Craft is great for older kids that need to address fine motor skills. Use a needle and thread, wire, lacing cord to thread around leaf shapes. We used plastic canvas, but you could use cardboard, cereal boxes, or even laminated paper.
Leaf Auditory Processing Activities– You can use leaves found out in the lawn to work on so many auditory processing skills including auditory discrimination and more.
Leaf Therapy Activities– This free printable home program uses a Fall leaves theme for a leaf tic tac toe game. Kids can complete different leaf themed therapy activities and score tic tac toe!
Hand Strength– Leaf Ten Frames are a great way to build hand strength using leaves. Use a hole puncher with leaves to work on hand strength and hands-on math.
Leaf Sensory Play– This Nature Water Table is perfect for sensory exploration, but is a fun toddler Fall activity with very little prep. Use a bin, water table, or bowl to explore Fall’s colors and textures and challenge the senses.
Leaf Sensory Activity– This corn husk painting activity is sensory activity art with the corn husk leaves of Fall! Sensory Painting- Use leaves, corn husks, and grasses for sensory painting. Then, practice handwashing!
Leaves Heavy Work Activity– We used play dough and Fall leaves in this Fall Play Dough Press to add heavy work through the hands. Use natural materials and play dough to add heavy work for the hands. This is a great visual perception activity, too.
Leaf Eye-Hand Coordination Activity– Use leaves to make these Fall tree crafts. They are great to work on eye-hand coordination and problem solving with a sensory experience to make these fall trees.
Fall Scissor Skills Activity– This Fall leaves scissor activity uses leaves found right outside the home or therapy clinic! Use leaves to work on line awareness, bilateral coordination, and visual motor skills.
Bilateral Coordination Activity– Work on bilateral coordination skills with this Fall leaf garland craft.
Shoulder Stability and Posture– Use a vertical surface to build strength, stability, posture, balance, coordination, and eye-hand coordination skills with this easel leaf activity. We used these easel leaves to work on sight words and trick words, but you could use this activity for any multi-sensory learning or math activity, too.
Fall Crafts
This Fall Art Collage from A Little Pinch of Perfect adds a sensory and fine motor component to Fall art for preschoolers!
These Autumn Leaf Hats from Mosswood Connections are a fun craft to work on scissor skills, bilateral coordination, and fine motor skills.
Address bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, finger isolation, and precision skills to make these Leaf Stamping Tee Shirts from Mommy Crusader.
Printable 76 page, (no-prep) Fall themed fine motor activities and fine motor worksheets designed to build strong hands so kids can learn, hold & write with a pencil, and play.
This print-and-go Fall Fine Motor Kit includes no-prep fine motor activities to help kids develop functional grasp, dexterity, strength, and endurance. Use fun, Summer-themed, fine motor activities so you can help children develop strong fine motor skills in a digital world.
Includes Fall themed activities for hand strength, pinch and grip, dexterity, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, endurance, finger isolation, handwriting, scissor skills, pre-writing skills, and much more.
Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20+ years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
When the weather is hot, you need water play ideas that build skills…and make Summer memories! These water sensory bin ideas are perfect for HOT Summer days while incorporating sensory and motor skills. Use these water sensory bin activities in therapy or in the backyard to help kids build skills this Summer…and cool off!
Water Sensory Bin
Now, you may be wondering what is a water sensory bin??!! A water sensory bin is a sensory play experience that uses water as a medium for holding various textures designed to promote sensory motor play and learning.
A water sensory bin inspires motor skill development through the use of materials presented in water and the manipulation of tools to scoop, pour, and manipulate water and themed items.
Water sensory bins inspire creative play, exposure to various textures, and motor skill opportunities such as laterality, bilateral coordination, grasp, precision, manipulation, grip and pinch strength, and others.
And best of all, water sensory bins are a fun way to play and explore!
Water Sensory Table
Similar to a sensory water bin, a sensory water table is a sensory play experience using water and other materials in a water table. Water tables can be great for child development for toddlers and preschoolers as they are the perfect height for standing and moving around during play.
Aquatic Therapy
Water sensory tables, like water sensory bins, can be created in a variety of themes, designed for creative play or for learning specific skills or concepts. While aquatic therapy is often thought of as a gross motor therapy tool (using water or a swimming pool as a therapy medium for whole body movements, balance, and gross motor coordination), water bins and water tables involve water therapy play into a smaller scale of aquatic therapy. With a small pool of water, kids can develop and refine so many skills!
In therapy, water tables and water bins can be used to focus on specific skills, including functional tasks. Let’s take a look at different ways that water bins and water tables can be used in therapy:
Functional Skills in Aquatic Therapy
Water therapy can be used to help kids refine and develop functional skills…making water a resistive surface that provides proprioceptive feedback, turn-taking, and self-confidence. Functional skills that can be addressed in water play in therapy include:
washing hands
drying hands
wiping spills
pouring water (liquids)
using cups and pitchers or scoops (tool use)
measuring liquids for cooking tasks
play
washing dishes
Sensory Benefits of Water Therapy
Aquatic therapy involves the sensory systems and on a small scale, water bins and water tables are a powerful therapy tool. You can focus on refined sensory input on a small scale through play using water tables in therapy.
On a small scale, water tables and water bins offer many motor skills opportunities for kids to develop fine motor skills! Fine motor skills abound in aquatic therapy!
Grasp
Coordination
Pincer grasp
Hand strength (tong or tweezer use, squeezing water squeeze toys, syringes, spray bottles)
Even on a small scale, there are gross motor benefits of using water tables and water bins to help with gross motor skill development. Consider these strategies for developing skills using water play:
Core strengthening by playing in a water bin on the ground: crouching, squatting, getting up and down from the ground
Upper body support through the arm and shoulder for developing strength and stability
Sitting crisscross apple sauce with extended reach in all directions
Weighted containers to pour, mix, and dump water
Coordination skills
Motor planning
Heavy work to dump and move water
Crossing midline to pour or scoop water, reach for objects in the water
Bilateral coordination to support and manipulate items
Standing with reach at a water table
Mobilizing along a supported surface with head and arm movements
How to use a water sensory bin in aquatic therapy
Kids will love these water bin play ideas listed below! Adding sensory play into a water bin is an easy way to explore the senses, challenge tactile and sensory systems, and encourage development of skills such as fine motor skills, bilateral coordination, crossing midline, visual motor skills, coordination, confidence, and language. Kids love so many sensory activities when you simply add water.
Water sensory bins and tables use any basic water table or can be set up with just a large tote bin, a small food casserole dish, storage bins, or any container that will hold water. The nice thing about these water play ideas is that you can create any theme or use any type of manipulative to the water to engage kids attention and interest. Place the bin on the floor for floor play and core strengthening or position the bin on a table surface for a table set-up.
Water play is so great for little kids to experience and enjoy. The sensory aspect of getting their hands in the water and manipulating objects is great for brain development and sensory integration. They are improving their fine motor skills, bilateral hand coordination, language development, problem solving, creative development, and even self-confidence!
The open-endedness of water play enables learning in endless varieties. Consider adding math or letter concepts to a bin of water. The child is enthralled by the sensory experience and learning happens! Just think, all you have to do is add water and there is so much learning to experience!
To encourage movement, heavy work input, fine motor skill development, try adding these materials to water sensory play experiences:
Scoops
Measuring cups
Spoons
Watering can
Marble run
Water dropper
Syringe
Spray bottle
Squeeze toys
Tweezers
Tongs
Floating toys or foam
Cut pool noodles
Balls or ping pong balls (any ball that floats)
Small animal toys or figures
Water beads
Scents
Glitter
Food coloring or water paints
Paint brushes
Chalk
Water Sensory Play Ideas
Below are are fun water bin sensory play ideas for kids that can be used to address a variety of skills or concepts. Scroll on to find some creative ways to encourage play and development of skills with simple water bins.
Kids of all ages will love these water play ideas…even the big kids! When the weather is hot (Or not…bring these water bin ideas indoors for more fun and sensory play!) you can add any type of learning, cause and effect, and even STEM activities, using some water and some added materials.
Colors/Fine Motor/Sensory Water Play– Work on bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, motor planning, precision, and proximal stability as well as tool use in this color water sensory bin.
Calming Sensory Water Bin– This water sensory bin uses scented water and fun colors to create a calming sensory water bin.
Island Luau Water Party Water Bin – Use small scoops and island themed items to work on fine motor skills, scooping, pouring, and fine motor strengthening.
Swamp Water Bin – Explore textures in this swamp themed water bin.
Pool Noodles Water Bin-Incorporate cut pool noodles for fine motor work, core strengthening, and gross motor skills.
Color Match Water Bin – Use colors and letters to work on visual scanning, visual motor skills, visual discrimination, and learning colors and letters.
Rainy Summer Day: Ice Muffins Water Play – Freeze letter magnets or foam letters into ice cubes for sensory motor learning experiences. Kids can chip the alphabet letters from the ice cubes and explore letters while strengthening visual perceptual skills and fine motor strength.
Colors, Fine Motor, Sensory Water Play -Work on hand strength, grasp, coordination, visual perceptual skills and more with simple materials you already have in the home.
Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20+ years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
Going camping this summer? This free therapy slide deck is a camping writing activity that kids can use to work on handwriting skills this summer. Use the camping activity as a tool to work on handwriting skills in therapy sessions or at home this summer.
Camping Writing
When you think of camping and writing, you might think about writing letters home from a summer camp. Or, maybe you think of writing out packing lists before you head off to tent in the woods for the weekend.
Both are actually really great natural writing tasks that kids can use to put pencil to paper this summer and work on writing skills without the boring rote practice that thoughts of handwriting typically bring.
However, to expand on that theme a bit, this camping writing slide deck is great for building specific writing skills over the summer months.
You can use this slide deck in teletherapy sessions, in home programs, in extended school year, or at home to work on writing skills such as:
copying skills
letter formation
size awareness
line use
visual motor skills
The camping activities include visual forms that children can copy without admitting details so that they are working on visual perceptual skills such as form constancy, visual discrimination, visual closure, and other areas.
There are several simple camping images that build up to more complex camping images that kids can copy to build visual motor skills and attention to detail.
There’s also a part of the activity where kids can copy specific terms related to tenting and camping.
Kids can copy these words right onto the screen using an Google Jamboard or they can copy the words onto paper. Several slides have lined portions where kids can copy the words onto the screen. You’ll find a link to access this resource once you access the file in the form at the bottom of this post.
When kids copy words they need to work on they are using visual perceptual skills such as visual scanning, visual attention, visual memory, and visual shift. These tasks this skills are important for tasks such as copying written material from a chalkboard or smart board in the classroom.
This handwriting active activity can also be expanded to ask kids to copy the words into alphabetical order or to expand the activity by asking them to write a sentence including the words.
Free Camping Writing Slide Deck
Would you like to add this camping hand writing activity to your therapy tool box? Enter your email address into the form below to access this free therapy slide deck.
More Ideas for Summer
Want more ways to play and build skills while camping or with a camping theme in therapy sessions or at home? Check out these fun ideas:
Use these Fine Motor Kits for hands-on activity kits to develop fine motor skills, strength, dexterity, and manipulation. Kids LOVE these fine motor kits for the motivating activities. Therapists love them because it’s fresh, fun ways to work on pinch, grip, manipulation skills, and much more. Try some of these themed therapy kits:
Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20+ years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
This pinwheel painting is a creative art idea and sensory painting art activity is one that we actually did YEARS ago. It was such a fun messy, creative art activity and a fun one to add to your summer painting ideas, and I wanted to be sure to show you all! My kids still talk about painting with pinwheels, so we’ll be doing this one again soon, especially now that the weather has warmed and we can get back outside for sensory play with the kids!
Painting with pinwheels is such a simple and fun outdoor painting activity for summer. Or, if you’re looking for a “letter P” theme for preschoolers, painting with pinwheels would be perfect!
You can definitely take this painting activity indoors, with paper spread over the table surface.
To paint with pinwheels, there is just steps to set up this sensory painting activity:
Set the stage- Find a space to work in the grass or on a table which can be wiped down. This is a messy sensory painting activity! Consider using a wipeable plastic table cloth.
Pour a little washable paint into bowls. (Click here for our favorite paint for it’s bright colors that don’t fade as they dry.)
Prepare your paper or canvas. We used a giant roll of paper for big art.
Dip the pin the pinwheels into the paint.
Roll, blow, spin, and tap the pinwheels onto the paper with color mixing. This is such a fun and creative painting activity!
Sensory Painting Activity
The paint coated pinwheels make the paint spray, especially as kids start getting more into the activity and discover that blowing the pinwheels makes paint spray in super artistic ways!
There are many sensory benefits to this Sensory painting activity:
Oral motor benefits- When children blow out through their mouth with concentrated effort, they are gaining proprioceptive input through their mouth. This is a calming and regulating sensory input that can help to organize and calm down. Read here about the development of oral motor skills. And, check out these oral motor activities for summer play.
Visual Convergence benefits- When we visually track an object as it nears our eyes (such as a pinwheel), and then track it as it moves away from the eyes, visual convergence is occurring. This visual processing skill is needed for functional tasks that we do throughout the day. Here is more information on convergence insufficiency and here are more activities to promote visual convergence skills.
Let us know if you do this Pinwheel Painting art with your kids or your class. More creative sensory painting techniques you may enjoy:
Use these Fine Motor Kits for hands-on activity kits to develop fine motor skills, strength, dexterity, and manipulation. Kids LOVE these fine motor kits for the motivating activities. Therapists love them because it’s fresh, fun ways to work on pinch, grip, manipulation skills, and much more. Try some of these themed therapy kits:
Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20+ years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
If you are looking for outdoor sensory activities, this is the place to start. Here, you’ll find outdoor sensory ideas to address each sensory system. Also included are sensory play ideas to use in the backyard when creating an outdoor sensory diet for children.
Outdoor Sensory Activities or a Sensory Diet?
So often, kids are sent home from therapy with a sensory diet of specific activities and sensory tools that are prescribed for certain sensory processing needs. When a therapist creates a home exercise program, they do their best to ensure carryover through small lists of activities, parent education, and motivating activities that are based on the child’s interests and personal goals.
The important thing to recognize is that there is a difference between sensory play and sensory diets. Read here for more information on what a sensory diet is and isn’t.
When therapists develop a specific and highly individualized sensory diet, it’s not just throwing together a day filled with sensory input. A sensory diet is a specific set of sensory tools used to meet and address certain needs of the individual based on sensory need and strategizing.
Each of the sensory diet activities above should meet specific needs of the child. Every child is different so applying sensory input to one child may look very different than that of another. Parents should use the tactics below along with your child’s occupational therapist.
So, using sensory diet tools within the context of environments or activities that are deeply meaningful to a family and child such as play that is already happening, can be the meaningful and motivating strategy to actually get that sensory diet task completed. And it benefits the child along with the whole family.
Outdoor Sensory Activities
These outdoor sensory activities are those that can be included into backyard play. That may look like independent play by the child or it might mean family time on a Sunday afternoon. Use these outdoor sensory diet activities in the backyard to as sensory tools that double as playtime for the child while he/she learns and grows… or to meet the sensory needs of the child while creating memories and enjoying time together!
Below is a huge list of outdoor sensory activities, but to focus on each sensory system, check out these resources:
Backyard dance party. Encourage lots of whole body movements and spinning.
Cartwheels
Tumbles
Hopscotch
Play Leapfrog
Mini trampoline (or the big sized-trampoline) Catch a ball while standing, sitting, swinging, rolling a ball, catching between legs, etc.
Hit a tennis racket at a target including bubbles, falling leaves, large balls, small rubber balls, and balloons
Catch butterflies in a net
Bubble pop, including popping bubbles with a toe, knee, foot, head, finger, or elbow
Play with goop
Draw in shaving cream on a cookie sheet outdoors. Then squirt off in the hose.
Backyard Sensory Equipment
There are outdoor play items you may have already that can be repurposed to use in outdoor sensory play. These are common backyard toys or things that might be in your garage! It can be fun to re-think these items for a means of adding sensory input.
Make a bin of outdoor toys that are readily available in your garage or storage area so that sensory play experiences are at your family’s fingertips. For example, all of these items could be used in an outdoor balance beam.
Hoola Hoops
Jump Ropes
Balls
Bat
Tennis Racket
Butterfly Net
Baby Swimming Pool
Tarp or Slip and Slide
Water Hose
Scoops and cups
Sidewalk chalk
Bike
Scooter
Skateboard
Cardboard
Target or net
Shovels
Buckets
Play wheelbarrow
Swing set
Climbing structure
Flashlight
Magnifying glass
Cones
Bubbles
Bean bags
Outdoor Sensory issues
Summer can mean sensory processing issues that impact kids with sensitivities or over responsiveness to sensory input. For autistic children or anyone with a neurodiversity that impacts sensory processing, summer can mean a real hatred for being outside in the hot summer months.
So what are some of the reasons that sensory kids have issues with being outside during the summer?
It can be hard to encourage outdoor play (and gain all of the benefits of outdoor play) when the summer months add a different level of sensory input. Here are some of the reasons that sensory kids are challenged in the summertime:
For kids with sensory needs, it can be overwhelming to have an open space full of sights, sounds, scents, and textures.
Tolerance of the cuffs of shorts or sleeves
Tight bathing suits
Sensation of sunscreen
Sensation of socks or other clothing in hot weather
Humidity changes
Summer thunderstorms (can change the air temperature)
Short clothing that brushes on legs or arms
Sandals or open-toed shoes
Crowds or places where others are in close contact
Wearing a mask in warmer temperatures
Honking horns, barking dogs, and other sounds that frequent the backyard or lawn can be too much for the child with sensory sensitivities
Bright sun that is at a different angle in the sky than other months of the year
Interoceptive issues with body temperature, increased need for water, less hunger due to heat
All of these sensory issues can occur unexpectedly and that unexpectedness of sensory input can be overwhelmingly alarming for those with autism or neurodiversity.
How to help with summer sensory overload
Visual schedule
Help the child know what to expect
Wear shoes instead of sandals or bear feet
Proprioceptive input such as firm touch to the shoulders
Limit time outdoors
Know triggers for sensory overload and plan ahead when possible
Oral motor jewelry
Communicate travel or outdoor time needs
Calming vestibular sensory input such as side to side or forward-front slow swinging
Play that involves throw and play catch with a weighted ball
Bucket of water to rinse hands if child is sensitive to messy hands or dirt
Sheltered area if child is sensitive to wind blowing on skin
Wear a lightweight wind jacket
Bring a water bottle with straw for proprioceptive input
Calming or alerting snacks
Portable fan to help with overheating if needed
Hat with brim to reduce bright light or intense light in eyes or on face
Umbrella to deflect direct sun rays and prevent overheating
Sunscreen with firm touch before going outdoors
Scent free sunscreen
Sunscreen lotion vs. spray sunscreen (or vice versa depending on the particular needs and preferences)
Sensory friendly clothing, bathing suits, goggles
Wear sunglasses
Wear headphones to reduce background noise
Be aware of freshly cut grass which as a strong scent
Wear thin gloves for tactile activities
Use water shoes or crocks instead of sandals
More about outdoor sensory diet activities
Sensory diets and specific sensory input or sensory challenges are a big part of addressing sensory needs of children who struggle with sensory processing issues. Incorporating a schedule of sensory input (sensory diet) into a lifestyle of naturally occurring and meaningful activities is so very valuable for the child with sensory needs. That’s why I’ve worked to create a book on creating an authentic and meaningful sensory lifestyle that addresses sensory needs. The book is now released as a digital e-book or softcover print book, available on Amazon. The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook walks you through sensory diet creation, set-up, and carry through. Not only that, but the book helps you take a sensory diet and weave it into a sensory lifestyle that supports the needs of a child with sensory processing challenges and the whole family.
Use these Fine Motor Kits for hands-on activity kits to develop fine motor skills, strength, dexterity, and manipulation. Kids LOVE these fine motor kits for the motivating activities. Therapists love them because it’s fresh, fun ways to work on pinch, grip, manipulation skills, and much more. Try some of these themed therapy kits:
Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20+ years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
You may have seen our Backyard Summer Sensory series that covers all things outdoor sensory activities. Today, I’ve got outdoor sensory focusing o proprioception activities that are designed to get the kids moving with heavy work using items you’ve probably already got right in your backyard. These are easy ways to build sensory breaks into the day, get the kids moving with heavy work. You can see the other posts in the series, including backyard oral sensory activities, outdoor sensory activities for tactile sense, and outdoor oral motor sensory activities (yep, that’s possible to address in outdoor play!)
Outdoor Sensory Activities for PROPRIOCEPTION
Try these outdoor heavy work activities to add input through the core and gross motor muscle groups for regulation and body awareness.
Amazon affiliate links are included below.
Hoola Hoop Jump- Place out several hoola hoops (or just one) on the ground. Create a hopping obstacle course into the hoops. Jump with both feet, one foot, and then the other. Place the hoops further away for more work. Try making a hopping memory game, much like playing “Simon” in a gross motor way. This activity provides heavy work and input through the lower body as kids jump and hop into hoops.
Hose Tug- Use a regular garden hose to incorporate heavy work by pulling the hose across the lawn. Use the hose to water flowers, bushes, or even to spray at targets drawn with sidewalk chalk.
Shovel Carry and Dig- Use a garden shovel in an adult or kids’ size to shovel dirt, rocks, leaves, sticks, or mulch from one area to another. Try filling a bucket with the different mediums and then carry them to another area of the yard. Good old fashioned lawn work can do wonders for a proprioceptive input seeking kiddo!
Jump Rope Pull and Slide- This activity adds a bit of vestibular input to the heavy work of pulling a jump rope. Use a piece of cardboard cut from a large box or cereal box to create a flat piece. Have your child sit on the cardboard and hold onto a jump rope. Pull them around or down slopes as they hold onto the rope. You can also try this activity with the child pulling another individual on the cardboard.
Hop Scotch
Bean Bags
Corn Hole
Play Leap Frog with friends
Jump Rope
Fly a kite
Climb trees
more backyard sensory ideas for summer?
The activities in this post are part of our Summer Sensory Activity Guide, where you can find everything you need for a summer of sensory input. Use the sensory activities described in the booklet as a guide to meet the individual needs of your child. The activities are not a substitute for therapy. Rather, they are sensory-based summer activities that are designed to address each sensory system through summer play. Activities are described to involve the whole family. Check out the Summer Sensory Activity Guide today!
AND…that guide is actually a bonus item in the Summer OT Bundle. So if you are working with children this summer to improve fine motor skills, handwriting, sensory processing, and other skill areas, check out the Summer OT Bundle:
Use these Fine Motor Kits for hands-on activity kits to develop fine motor skills, strength, dexterity, and manipulation. Kids LOVE these fine motor kits for the motivating activities. Therapists love them because it’s fresh, fun ways to work on pinch, grip, manipulation skills, and much more. Try some of these themed therapy kits:
Use these Fine Motor Kits for hands-on activity kits to develop fine motor skills, strength, dexterity, and manipulation. Kids LOVE these fine motor kits for the motivating activities. Therapists love them because it’s fresh, fun ways to work on pinch, grip, manipulation skills, and much more. Try some of these themed therapy kits:
Colleen Beck, OTR/L is an occupational therapist with 20+ years experience, graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. As the creator, author, and owner of the website and its social media channels, Colleen strives to empower those serving kids of all levels and needs. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
There are so many benefits to getting the whole family out for a family nature walk. Besides the physical exercise and family time, nature walks are powerful tools to incorporate all of the senses without any sensory equipment. Research tells us outdoor sensory play has many benefits. Use the sensory activities described here to learn and explore all of the senses (including the proprioceptive, vestibular, and interoceptive senses!) and add these sensory nature walk ideas to an outdoor sensory diet to help kids achieve an optimal sensory state so they can complete functional tasks and daily occupations.
Nature Walk Sensory Benefits
A nature walk and all of its colors, sights, and sounds make for a multi-sensory experience that can be easily shared as a family. There are so many sensory benefits when going on a nature walk or simply just by getting outdoors. The sensory input, learning and development, and simple family connection are just a few long-term benefits that can be provided by hiking in the woods.
Nature walks promote wellness by meeting many different needs:
Facilitate engagement and an alert state of regulation
Learning and cognitive benefits
Play and activity
Social interaction
Rest and sleep
Sensory Nature Walk
Stimulating the senses can help a child reconnect with their inner self, helping them identify how their body calms and relates to a free-flowing natural environment. Parents can help facilitate a child’s interaction in nature and the outdoors by simply being aware of a few activities that can be enjoyed as a family while experiencing the outdoors. Every sense can be utilized and engaged with a few fun ideas.
To help get you started, take look at the sensory components of a nature walk:
Nature Walks and the Visual Sense
The visual (sight) sense can be stirred by the abundance of colors with the trees and leaves and don’t forget to take some time to seek out a few outdoor critters or insects which can add a little element of fun while observing.
Try these visual processing activities during a family nature walk:
Play a game of I-Spy during your outdoor adventure. Think about playing using colors or items found in the environment. Take turns, and work on building vocabulary while playing this game.
Do a scavenger hunt and look for certain things found in the woods (you can find printable nature scavenger hunts on the internet).
Complete some nature rubbings with paper and crayons. Maybe rub some leaves within a notebook or complete rubbings of different types of tree bark.
Take a notebook and write down items you see in nature. It can be a nature journal that adds an opportunity to work on handwriting.
Auditory Processing and Sensory Walks
The auditory (hearing) sense can be jostled by the crunching of leaves under the feet as well as the snapping of twigs that can be heard while walking along a path or in the woods.
Snap twigs and listed to the cracks. Maybe even taking some time to build a few fun critter forts allowing for snapping of twigs to measure and build.
Also, try snapping twigs and building letters to add a little handwriting into the nature walk.
Listen for the birds and their chirping of songs and listen for some rustling of leaves when squirrels and other critters move about the woods.
Maybe the breeze is blowing, is it causing the trees and leaves to sway back and forth? Close your eyes and simply just listen to hear (it adds another fun element).
Gustatory Sense and Family Walks
The gustatory (taste) sense can be provided a little nudge, with adult supervision of course, if you find some wild blackberries or strawberries. They can be yummy to eat, but they do require cleaning so you may want to wait until you get back home to eat them so they can be properly cleaned for complete safety. If you are not that adventurous though, that’s okay you can still stimulate the gustatory sense on your walk if you work to prepare a fun trail mix before you leave the house so you can eat it on your outdoor adventure.
Bring a cold drink- A water bottle can be added to a backpack and brought along for a cold drink during a family walk. Remember the proprioceptive and oral motor benefits to drinking through a sports bottle, or a straw in a water bottle with a straw lid.
Nature walk snacks-Don’t have time to make trail mix, that’s okay too, you can just grab some granola or granola bars or maybe even some veggie sticks or beef jerky!
Tactile Sensory Nature Walk
The tactile (touch) sense can be heavily engaged with all of the different textures that can be explored and possibly gathered on your nature walk. Try some of these strategies on your nature walk:
Take some time to feel the leaves, moss, tree bark, rocks, dirt, and even a few fuzzy critters that can be given a little lift to their next destination.
Tossing rocks into small streams or even walking through puddles of water could provide a multi-sensory experience.
Write a few letters in the dirt with use of broken twigs as a pencil.
Take some time to feel the warmth of the sun or the breeze on your face as you walk.
Be sure to collect some nature items along the way though so you can explore them later either in a sensory bin or in an art project.
Play toss and catch with pine cones as appropriate. Toss and catch to each other or have kiddos toss to themselves including back and forth between their left and right hands.
The olfactory (smell) sense can be triggered by taking time to smell the dried leaves, flower scents, and even the smells that get blown as the wind or breeze lifts them through the air. Let’s face it, the wilderness has many smells that are unidentified and when mixed together create scents that are unusual kind of, musty. Even decaying wood has a very unique smell. Try these olfactory activities:
Smell flowers
Close your eyes and smell the air. Can you identify any scents?
Talk about scent words and the meaning of those terms. Some concepts to explore are: fresh, musty, moldy, sweet, sour, dry, etc.
Proprioception and Nature Walks
The proprioceptive (muscles and joints) sense can be impacted if you allow the child to lift heavy rocks, larger limbs and even just jump from higher elevations such as large rocks. All of the walking, climbing, and exploring adds heavy work input that tells the body where it is in space so the legs and body as a whole can move. Heavy work is a calming and regulating source of getting to a calm and alert state. Consider these opportunities for adding proprioceptive input on a nature walk:
Allow them to climb some trees and hillsides.
Explore trails with variations on elevation.
Consider the walking surface. Walking through a field, even trail, flat trail, or wooded hiking trail, or paved sidewalk offer different variants of heavy work though the legs and core.
Add hopping, jumping, bending, leaping, galloping, or skipping as you walk.
Even just the act of walking up and down the trail inclines can provide muscle and joint input that can be regulating for some kiddos.
Carrying water bottles in a backpack is an additional opportunity for heavy work.
Nature walks and the Vestibular sense
The vestibular (movement) sense can be activated as a child moves their body around the trees and rocks even while crawling up large rocks and trees. Incorporate vestibular input through these ideas:
Have them try some simple spinning with their eyes open and closed and arms outstretched to get a unique view of the outdoors maybe even doing some somersaults or cartwheels.
Allow them to try out their balance skills as they walk across a downed tree or along a trail of rocks.
Climb trees.
Run up hills.
Roll down grassy hills.
Nature walks and interoception
The interoception (inner body awareness) sense can be explored by the act of simply disconnecting from technology and other distractions and identifying how the body feels during this change of setting and heavy multi-sensory environment. An additional benefit of family walks is the connection to sleep (described more in detail at the bottom of this post.) Sleep has been noted to be included in the interoceptive processes much like hunger or thirst, as a brain process similar to other homeostatic processes.
Incorporate interoception in nature with these strategies:
Work on identifying their feelings and bodily responses to the sensory input such as noticing their breathing, heart rate, temperature, or possibly if they feel either tired, hungry, or thirsty.
How do you feel? A walk can change how you’re feeling. Maybe you feel re-energized and more alert. Talk about it.
Mindfulness is impacted by nature. Take deep breaths. Can you feel your heart rate slowing down?
Thirst inventory- How do you feel after a hike in nature? Thirsty? Dry mouth? These are signs that your body is thirsty. Some people struggle with this internal awareness. Talk about the signs of thirst and how the body reacts to this need and then afterwards once you’ve got a drink.
Nature Walk Activities
A nature walk is a fun time to collect items from nature for exploring. While out on family walk, collect items from nature such as rocks, pebbles, sticks, leaves, moss, etc. These items can be placed into a backpack or bag and brought home to explore and create. (Be sure to return items to nature, afterwards as long as they are free from paint or glue.)
After you’ve finished your outdoor adventure and you’ve collected some fun nature goodies from your walk, take those items home and create a sensory bin, fine motor craft kit, or maybe even use them in a fun art project. What can you collect?
Look for some of these items (and explore the visual sense as you seek and find items):
Acorns
Twigs
Leaves
Rocks
Feathers
Pine needles
Pine cones
Moss
Seeds
Grasses
Sand
Dirt
Sunflower seeds
Fallen tree bark
Nature Walk Sensory Bins
Use these materials to make a sensory bin. Add the items you’ve collected to a large bin, basket, or tray. Now it’s time to explore! Try these nature sensory bin ideas:
An added benefit of incorporating a nature walk into the family routine is that walks in turn promote rest. All of the physical activity of nature walks may be helpful in encouraging rest and as a result, sleep.
Additionally, research suggests a relationship between sleep difficulties and patterns of sensory processing issues in children.
Studies show that sensory processing differences, considerably including increased sensory sensitivities, sensory-avoiding patterns, sensory-seeking patterns, and poor sensory registration have been associated with changes in sleep quality. (Vasek, M., Williamson, J., Garden, J., Zwicker, J., 2015).
Occupational therapists play a role in sleep by offering tools and strategies to promote adequate and restful sleep. Because sleep is a necessary component of performing functional tasks and daily occupations, occupational therapists can assist with promoting adequate and healthy sleep by using evidence based methods, once of which can include physical activity such as family nature walks.
A final note about sensory walks
Take a seasonal nature walk to simply allow children to explore with their senses while building skills needed for learning and development! Allow children the freedom to explore at their own pace and to be creative. Give them the opportunity to come up with a fun, family activity outdoors. They’ll surprise you!
Don’t live near a colorful hiking area? Take some time to visit a farm, a pumpkin patch, a flower garden, a cornfield, or even the beach. Really, just get outdoors and explore anywhere! By being outside away from technology and other distractions, children can rejuvenate their bodies and minds while stimulating their senses.
Try these resources to incorporate the sensory system when in the great outdoors:
Create the “right kind” of sensory experiences to improve regulation, attention, focus, body awareness, motor development, and sensory processing.
90 outdoor sensory diet activities
60 outdoor recess sensory diet activities
30 blank sensory diet cards, and 6 sensory challenge cards
They can be used based on preference and interest of the child, encouraging motivation and carryover, all while providing much-needed sensory input.
References:
Mark Vasak, James Williamson, Jennifer Garden, Jill G. Zwicker; Sensory Processing and Sleep in Typically Developing Infants and Toddlers. Am J Occup Ther 2015;69(4):6904220040. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2015.015891
Regina Parsons-Allen is a school-based certified occupational therapy assistant. She has a pediatrics practice area of emphasis from the NBCOT. She graduated from the OTA program at Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute in Hudson, North Carolina with an A.A.S degree in occupational therapy assistant. She has been practicing occupational therapy in the same school district for 20 years. She loves her children, husband, OT, working with children and teaching Sunday school. She is passionate about engaging, empowering, and enabling children to reach their maximum potential in ALL of their occupations as well assuring them that God loves them!
