Kids love finger plays and action rhymes. You know the ones, right? Here, we’re sharing nursery rhymes with actions that support development including gross motor coordination, bilateral coordination, and body awareness. These movement and rhyme phrases and songs that fill every childhood, preschool classroom, and library story time are a classic part of childhood.
Rhymes with action movements inspire rhythm and rhyming skills, but there is more than that: They are engaging, fun, and repetitive ways to work on motor development.
But, did you know that action rhymes help with childhood development? Childhood development and action rhymes go hand-in-hand so to speak. Kids learn and grow by moving and repeating and then independently saying and singing rhymes that many kids could sing along to.
What are some ways that childhood development and action rhymes help a child grow?
Action rhymes are a great way to address skills such as:
Action rhymes are movement songs or nursery rhymes with movement.
They might be gross motor activities like “I’m a Little Teapot” or “Duck, Duck, Goose”. Or, they might be a fine motor activity like “Eensy Weensy Spider” or “Where is Thumbkin”.
There are so many nursery rhymes with actions out there that preschool classrooms are using or even making up to suit their needs, but one thing is common with all action rhymes; They have sing-song phrases and involve movement.
Fine Motor Action Rhymes:
Where is Thumbkin?
Creep Them, Creep Them
Bringing Home a Baby Bumble Bee
5 in the Bed
Eensy Weensy Spider
Gross Motor Action Rhymes:
Wheels on the Bus
I’m a Little Teapot
Duck, Duck, Goose
Farmer in the Dell
If You’re Happy and You Know It
Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
Grand Old Duke of York
How to use nursery rhymes with actions to build childhood development? Action rhymes and finger plays are perfect for the 18-24 month age range and the preschool years when so much development is occurring.
Consider all the ways a toddler or preschooler are developing: fine and gross motor skills, language, cognitive, social-emotional…these years are full of natural progression with development going through the roof!
Childhood Development and Action Rhymes
There are so many ways that nursery rhymes with actions help to build childhood development in a healthy way:
Fine Motor Skills– Use the fingers and hands to build dexterity, eye-hand coordination, and finger isolation through movement. Encourage kids to follow along with the fine motor action rhymes listed above to improve dexterity and fine motor control.
Gross Motor Skills– Using the trunk, legs, and shoulders builds strength in the limbs and core muscle strength needed for attention and focus. Read more developing core strength through movement rhymes here.
Social/Emotional Development– Striving for independence, asserting ones independence, engaging with peers, and an emerging awareness of ones own body and a sense of awareness of others is developing and growing in the toddler and preschool years. Action rhymes in a group setting promote all of these areas. Encourage kids to connect with other children and adults by pairing up kids to perform action rhymes in small groups of kids.
Speech and Language Development– The toddler and preschool age sets are flourishing in language skills. There is a huge opportunity for developing and building skills through repetitive action rhymes. Children can be encouraged to develop these skills when encouraged to participate in verbal exchanges. Further promote communication skills by asking questions about the rhymes.
Spatial Concepts– Important for awareness of ones self and position in space, as well as in visual motor integration tasks like handwriting, action rhymes allow children to explore position in space through movement. Encourage development and understanding of front/back, over/under, top/bottom, etc. Try this action rhyme trick: when a spatial term is mentioned in an action rhyme, try pointing in the direction instead of saying the words or phrases.
Attention Span– Action rhymes allow kids to focus for a period of time on a teacher as well as peers individual and group action rhyme activities. Encourage longer attention by increasing time spent singing action rhymes. Lead into a group activity with action rhymes or use them as a tool to take a break during seated tasks or classroom activities that require focus and attention.
Cognitive Development– Using action rhymes, children are introduced to concepts such as numbers, colors, shapes, sizes, names, letters, and more. Concrete concepts of the toddler and preschool years can be enhanced to more abstract ideas through cognitive development using sensori-motor components of action rhymes. Movement and learning are very well connected and action rhymes add a sing-song rhyming component as well. Additionally, concepts such as patterning, sequencing, and cause-effect are addressed through action rhymes.
Self-Concept– Action rhymes provide an opportunity to learn about body parts. Encourage kids to learn about their body parts with action rhymes like, “If You’re Happy and You Know It”
Behavior Development– Action rhymes promote movement and an appropriate opportunity for students to get wiggles and fidgets out in a classroom setting. Following the rhyme actions, kids can discover how they can move their body in purposeful ways.
What are some favorite action rhymes in your classroom, home, or clinic?
More movement and development ideas you will love:
The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook walks you through sensory processing information, each step of creating a meaningful and motivating sensory diet, that is guided by the individual’s personal interests and preferences.
The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook is not just about creating a sensory diet to meet sensory processing needs. This handbook is your key to creating an active and thriving lifestyle based on a deep understanding of sensory processing.
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
This beaded feather activity is a fine motor task that we created YEARS ago. WE love it because beads and feathers are common craft materials found in many pediatric occupational therapy professionals’ therapy toolbox. In fact OTs love crafts as a fine motor strategy and this feather bead activity is a powerhouse!
Beaded Feather Activity
If you need a quick and easy little activity for the kids while you are making dinner, or just something fun for the kids to keep practice a few fine motor skills, then this is a great activity for you. Simple to set up and easy to clean up, this one will get those little muscles going and moving with fine motor dexterity!
This can be a great skill-building task to add to a STEAM activity or a STEM fine motor activity.
Beading with feathers
This activity works on several grasps, color awareness, counting, sorting, visual scanning, and eye-hand-coordination. How can you beat such an easy activity with so many benefits??
This post contains Amazon affiliate links.
You’ll need just two craft materials for this fine motor activity:
Get your feathers and some coordinating beads and lay them out on the table. I started a few feathers to show the kids what we were doing and had the invitation to start ready to go.
They came over to check it out and would bead a bit here and there throughout the day. It was kind of like a therapeutic little break from bouncing off of couch cushions and each other.
Their little bodies needed a chance to slow down and re-group before getting back into the routine of regularly scheduled chaos.
But maybe that’s just my kids?
Pincer Grasp Activity With Beads and Feathers
You could also put out a big old tray of all kinds of beads with different colors, shapes, sizes to work with.
This slightly makes the activity just a little more difficult as the child has to visually scan for the colors needed and pick out the beads that they want with a neat pincer grasp.
Using the tips of the index finger and the thumb in a precision grasp to manipulate beads from a big tray of colors is great for eye-hand coordination.
Holding the feather and the beads requires two hands to work together in a coordinated way (bilateral hand coordination).
This is a great way to practice pre-writing skills and those requirements needed for self- care like managing buttons, zippers, shoe-tying, and scissor skills.
Bead Feathers to learn colors
Younger children (Baby Girl is just getting this!) can learn colors and practice naming colors as they pick out the beads and match to the color of the feather.
How many other ways can you think of to make this a learning opportunity?
Patterns, sorting, counting…this is a fun learning op and a great way to get those little hands moving!
The beaded feather activity and the other fine motor tasks listed above are a great addition to our popular 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:
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.
Looking for St. Patrick’s Day activities to work on skills in therapy sessions that use a St. Patrick’s day theme? Here, you’ll find four leaf clover activities, rainbow activities, St. Patrick’s Day crafts, snacks, and more. Use these ideas to foster child development of functional skills using a fun theme.
St. Patrick’s Day Activities for Therapy
How is it March already?? We’ve got lion-like weather yet again around here, but spring, rainbows, and lamb-weather are on the horizon, Yay for warmer weather!
These St. Patrick’s Day theme activities and ideas are great for planning therapy sessions based on four leaf clovers, shamrocks, leprechauns, and pot of gold fun. It’s time to get in a spring-like mood and a fun little themed play date or preschool party sounds like just the thing Check out the ideas below for green-themed party ideas for the kids.
St. Patrick’s Day Theme in therapy
Having a weekly theme in your therapy sessions makes planning much easier. Each St Patricks Day activity can be adjusted to meet different levels and functional goal area depending on the kids that therapists are serving.
Check out all of the St. Patrick’s Day theme activities below. You’ll find resources for teletherapy, fine motor, gross motor, crafts, and more. If St. Patrick’s Day ideas for kindergarten, preschool, or specific age groups are what you’re looking for, you are in luck.
St. Patrick’s Day PDFs
Feeling lucky for some last minute St. Patty’s day treats? These materials are all click and go. You can download the St. patrick’s Day PDFs, print them off, and start using to develop fine motor skills, visual perception, handwriting, and more.
You’ll find shamrocks, clovers, and rainbow activities that kids will love:
There are more free St. Patrick’s Day activities and downloads below, too. We’ve sorted these out by free slide decks, and activity areas.
St. Patrick’s Day theme therapy slide decks
Try these St. Patrick’s Day therapy activities in the format of a free Google slide deck. Therapists can go through the slides with the clients on their caseload and foster development of goal areas.
St. Patrick’s Day Write and Sign slide deck– Work on handwriting with these writing prompt activities. Then use ASL to sign the words, building fine motor dexterity, coordination, finger isolation, and motor planning.
Shamrock Visual Perception slide deck– This slide deck includes 7 different visual perception activities. Kids can move the pieces on the slide decks to work on areas such as visual discrimination, visual attention, visual scanning, and much more.
Four Leaf Clover Balance Exercises– Go through the slides and follow the exercises as kids are challenged to balance a pillow or beanbag in different ways (a stuffed animal or roll of socks works too!). Encourage coordination, motor planning, core strength, proprioceptive input, and more.
Rainbow Visual Motor Activities slide deck– Working on handwriting, but the underlying issue of copying forms and visual motor integration is an issue? Kids can copy simple-to-complex rainbow forms and work on pencil control, eye-hand coordination, and more.
St. Patrick’s Day Fine Motor Activities
Use these St. Patrick’s day theme ideas in working on fine motor skills with kids. Amazon links included below.
6 Fine Motor Activities Using Gold Coins– This printable handout on 6 fine motor activities using coins strengthens those fine motor skills using just a handful of coins. We used plastic gold coins in our activity, but you could use pennies as well.
Shamrock Balance Beam– Cut out shamrocks from paper and use them to make a balance beam to incorporate core strength, coordination, vestibular input, and more.
Finger Isolation Clover Fingerprints– Got paint? Use it to make fun fingerprint 4 leaf clovers and work on finger isolation, separation of the sides of the hand, eye-hand coordination, and more. This would be fun with homemade puffy paints, too (just need flour & water).
Bilateral Coordination Clover Activity– Stick a piece of paper to the wall and draw symmetrical clovers to work on bilateral coordination, visual tracking, visual motor integration, and more.
Four Leaf Clover Deep Breathing Exercise & Coloring Page– Take mindful coloring to the next level with this deep breathing exercise. Kids can color and then use the printout as a deep breathing exercise over and over again.
More St. Patrick’s day Ideas
St. Patrick’s Day Party Snacks for Kids
Every play date needs some snacks. 3 Boys and a Dog has six St. Patrick’s Day treats that are fun and festive. To really build fine motor skills and executive functioning in kids, have them make these healthy rainbow snacks. There is a lot of skill-building to happen in the kitchen.
St. Patrick’s Day Songs for Kids
Get the party started with some Leprechaun Songs for St. Patrick’s Day from Let’s Play Music. Wouldn’t these be fun songs to sit the kids in a circle for a preschool sing-a-long?
St. Patrick’s Day Printable Pages for Kids
Set up a little table with some print outs to keep the kids busy and having fun with friends. These St. Patrick’s Day Coloring Pages from 3 Boys and a Dog would be perfect! Scatter a box of crayons and a pile of printable sheets on a little picnic table are all you need.
Cutting strips of paper or foam craft sheets are great fine motor work for beginner scissor users. If you are looking for St. Patrick’s Day activities for kindergarten and preschool ages, have kids cut strips of colorful paper like we did in this rainbow window activity.
St. Patrick’s Day Games and Activities for Kids
If sensory play is your thing, this green rice sensory bin from Little Bins for Little Hands looks like so much fun…throw a sheet down on the floor (or a baby pool set up indoors would work, too!) and let the kids in on the sensory fun with 3 Rainbow Sensory Bins!
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.
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.
Visual Tracking is an important part of everything we do and visual tracking games can be a valuable resource to improving visual tracking skills! For tasks such as reading and writing, however, the ability to track visually across a line of written text is essential for reading and fluency in reading.
When kids read across a line of text in a book, they are using visual tracking skills to follow the line from word to work. When they follow a finger along lines in a book they are using visual tracking skills. When they shift their vision from one point to another, they use a combination of visual scanning and visual tracking skills. Visual tracking is a multi-faceted topic and you can read more about visual tracking and all that it entails in functional tasks here on the website.
Visual Tracking Games and Visual Tracking Activities for Kids
So when visual tracking is such an important part of function and skills, how do you address this skill area? There are adaptations that can be put into place to help, such as prompting, cues, physical assists, and other tools. One way to work on visual tracking needed for functional tasks is to use visual tracking games in play and activities.
Visual tracking games and activities can be a valuable asset for increasing this skill area in kids with visual tracking skill deficits or needs.
Read on to find out more about visual tracking games and activities that may help kids improve their visual tracking skills.
But first,
What does a Visual Tracking Problem Look Like?
The games and activities listed below are important for kids who struggle with tracking of words and letters when reading, writing, or completing math. Visual Tracking problems may also present as difficulty with sports or coordination. Visual tracking may be evident in learning. There are many ways that a visual tracking concern can become evident. If one of these areas or functional abilities is a problem for your child, student, or client, then a visual screening can be very useful in identifying specific needs.
Occupational Therapists screen for visual problems in order to determine how they may impact functional tasks. Visual screening can occur in the classroom setting, in inpatient settings, in outpatient therapy, and in early intervention or home care.
This visual screening tool was created by an occupational therapist and provides information on visual terms, frequently asked questions regarding visual problems, a variety of visual screening techniques, and other tools that therapists will find valuable in visual screenings.
This is a digital file. Upon purchase, you will be able to access the 10 page file and print off to use over and over again in vision screenings and in educating therapists, teachers, parents, and other child advocates or caregivers.
Visual Tracking Games for Kids
Kids can play visual tracking games that are free or are fun games out on the market to address this skill area and improve visual tracking skills so that reading and writing are easier.
Try some of these fun visual tracking games to help kids improve their visual tracking skills and they won’t even know they are “working”!
Amazon affiliate links are included below.
Badminton Game – Physical games and gross motor games like this one can help promote visual tracking across all visual fields including peripheral and in all directions (horizontal, vertical, circular, and diagonal).
Pop and Catch Game – Combining fine motor skills like this Pop and Catch game can bring the target close to the body to challenge convergence in kids with visual tracking needs in a visual tracking activity that the whole family can enjoy.
Velcro Ball and Mitt – This visual tracking game combines gross motor and sensory components with resistive work that kids can use to challenge upper body strength while playing. Follow the target ball as it sails toward and away to challenge convergence of the eyes. This activity can easily be modified to meet various needs by using a brightly colored ball or moving closer or farther away. is a game kids can play indoors or outdoors while working on their visual tracking skills.
Scoop ball -Try to scoop the ball while moving, while seated or while in a variety of positions and planes to add a graded component to this visual tracking game.
Wham-O Track Ball -This classic visual tracking game is traditionally an outdoor lawn game for kids or adults, but it makes an awesome visual tracking game! When kids struggle with visual tracking skills, they can benefit from watching a moving target and challenges in visual tracking across various fields of vision. Play this visual tracking game indoors or outdoors. Why not add a prone component by playing while crawling or laying on the floor or while on a scooter board?
Light Up Bouncy Ball – While any ball could potentially be used as a visual tracking tool, this light up ball can be used in a dark room or at night for a visual tracking game that kids can’t resist! Play a slow rolling game of catch or try to invoke spontaneous visual tracking skills by bouncing the ball against a wall in a darkened room. What fun!
Glow in the Dark Ring Toss – This is another glow in the dark game that kids can play in a darkened space. The room doesn’t need to be completely dark to encourage visual tracking with this glowing game. Just close the blinds or play at night with a low light on and the glowing visual tracking can still happen! Ask the child to watch as the ring is tossed away from them. They child can also position themselves on the sidelines when they are waiting for their turn while others play, allowing for visual tracking across planes.
Zoom Ball – This is a great therapy tool because the child can control and feel when the moving target is moving toward them and away from them. Zoom ball games can target visual tracking because the toy requires convergence as the child watches the target move between them and another player.
Rocket Launch – There are many rocket launch toys on the market and any would work as a visual tracking tool. But this one is nice because it has the ability to change the angle so the rocket can be sent higher or at different angles. Kids can watch the brightly colored rocket as it sails through the air into unpredictable tracks and various fields of vision, including the peripheral.
Slingshot Creatures – These fun creatures can be sent at targets or at any plane as a visual tracking tool. Kids will love shooting these creatures or watching them sail across the room!
Parachute Toy – Parachute toys, flying discs, and other flying target toys are great for addressing visual tracking skills. Kids can toss them up or watch as they drop while following the target. This set includes lots of fun extras!
Glowing Finger Slingshots – Flinger slingshots are a fun tool for targeting visual tracking skills. This visual tracking activity is one kids will love to engage with! Try them in a darkened room to encourage visual tracking as the glowing toy flies across the room!
Flying slingshot copter – This is another slingshot activity that kids can shoot themselves while visual tracking as the target soars. Play indoors or outdoors. Visual tracking tools like this are motivating and a fun addition to goody bags or as a small gift idea.
Handheld helicopter drone – This indoor or outdoor drone is a nice visual tracking tool that kids will love to send up and watch as it soars.
Need a resource to address visual tracking or need to know where to start with identifying visual tracking concerns?
The Visual Tracking Screening Tool can help therapists screen for and identify visual problems that interfere with visual tracking, convergence, and other visual skills.
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
This post is highlighting Fingerplay Songs as an excellent developmental tool. An important skill in child development, is the ability to use the fingers individually and together, and finger games are one way to just that! When holding a pencil, pick up cheerios, button, zip, or cut with scissors, you are using two or three fingers, and tucking the rest away! When typing on a keyboard, all of your fingers and thumbs must move individually, but at the same time, in order to type efficiently. Pay attention to what your hands and fingers do in a day, and you may be surprised!
FINGERPLAY SONGS
Finger skills development is essential to the preschool age, however play starts with babies! Check out this article on The OT Toolbox about Baby Play.
There are many ways to encourage this fine motor development, but one of my favorites that doesn’t get enough attention (in my opinion, of course) is fingerplay songs! I do these silly finger plays all the time with my preschoolers during their OT time, or with any of my other students who wants to have fun.
They won’t even know they are developing important motor skills while doing these finger play rhymes. Let’s break down the skills used in the most popular finger play song: Pat-A-Cake.
Fingerplay Songs and Fine Motor Skills
This is a classic finger play rhyming activity for thumb and index finger isolation! The term “finger isolation” will come up a few times in this article, so why is it important?
When babies are born, their fingers all move together as one unit, and one hand tends to copy each other! The body of an infant can be seen as one moving piece, in comparison the movement as we develop, which is a complex system of moving pieces. In order to develop skills as we age, it is important to learn to isolate the movements of our hands and fingers from each other.
Activities that use the hands to complete motor tasks, sequencing of movements, and dexterous games include other fine motor skills too, including:
You can see why fingerplay songs support child development!
Pat-a-cake fingerplay song
First, motor plan a pattern of movement. Add motor planning and bilateral coordination skills by alternating movements of patting hands on lap and clapping hands while chanting the words:
Pat-a-cake pat-a-cake baker’s man,
Bake me a cake as fast as you can.
Roll it. (rolling hands one over the other)
And pat it. (patting hands to lap)
And mark it with a B. (Index finger isolation to draw a B with your finger)
Put it in the oven for Baby and me! (reaching forwards with both arms)
There are many ways to develop fine motor skills through play in addition to these fingerplay activity songs. Check out this post on Hands on Preschool Activities
WHERE IS THUMBKIN Fingerplay song for preschoolers
This video does a great job of explaining the motions to this simple, easy to learn fingerplay rhyming song. The song starts at about marker one minute and thirty (1:30) seconds.
Fingerplay songs for fine motor
Of course fine motor development comes from more than just fingerplay songs and rhymes, here is an article on developing Fine Motor Skills.
FIVE LITTLE DUCKS interactive finger play song
Here is a fingerplay song where the individual and cohesive movement of fingers really get to shine. This video demonstrates the hand, finger, and arm movements to be used while singing. I find it best to sing to your child once you know the song, instead of playing the video for them. Make sure to show your child how it’s done by doing it with them! This is true for all of the preschool songs and fingerplays we share.
While you watch the video and learn the movements, notice:
Finger isolation while counting,
Cohesive movement for the “quack, quack, quack”
Wiggling of the fingers as the ducks waddle away
There are many books written to correspond to this song. Here is one I tend to reach for: Five Little Ducks. This one is “interactive” with little doors on the page that require a pincer grasp to pull open. This is another way to encourage important fine motor skills!
More fine motor resources for preschool
If you are looking for more interactive books, to develop fine motor skill development, the OT Toolbox has you covered!
Exploring Books Through Play: 50 Activities for developing finger and hand development
ITSY-BITSY SPIDER silly fingerplay for preschoolers
This is preschool fingerplay activity is by-far my favorite way to increase finger isolation and motor patterns in reluctant kids. In the video below, check out the wrist movements, wiggling fingers, and more, while interacting with a well recognized song!
Many young children, especially those with delayed fine motor control, are not able to motor plan the spider moving up the spout as shown in the video. However, they will adapt and create their own way, using the movement of only two or three fingers, while the rest are tucked away. This pattern is the building block for mature grasps. Sometimes, I teach the spider as the index fingers and thumbs touching in a circular pattern, instead of the L shape in the video. This adaptation may be less confusing for some. See what makes your child most successful!
boosting childhood development with action rhymes:
Boosting Child Development with Action Rhymes and Fingerplay Songs
OPEN AND SHUT THEM fingerplay chanting rhyme
“Open and Shut Them” is a song I have used for years to keep babies occupied while I change their diapers. I knew a kindergarten teacher who used it to help transition her students to carpet time. This fingerplay song is useful for many different purposes, not just fine motor development and rhyming. It is a perfect addition to this list. There are many different versions of this song you can find online, but here is a video that clearly demonstrates the many different actions the hands and fingers can do!
Did you notice the pinky finger isolation? What about the movement of two fingers, with the rest tucked away? These are advanced movements that are motivating and fun!
You may have noticed all of these fingerplay preschool songs are repetitive. This is perfect for increasing opportunities to practice and learn a new skill. They integrate movement of both hands and fingers in a particular sequence, which teaches and enhances motor planning. Additionally, singing songs such as these familiar preschool finger play rhymes in a group, or one-on-one develops social skills, and can build rapport with one another. It’s a win-win method to teaching important skills.
If you are interested in teaching more fine motor skills, check out these resources from the OT Toolbox:
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:
Sydney Thorson, OTR/L, is a new occupational therapist working in school-based therapy. Her background is in Human Development and Family Studies, and she is passionate about providing individualized and meaningful treatment for each child and their family. Sydney is also a children’s author and illustrator and is always working on new and exciting projects.
Do you know a child that is obsessed with dinosaurs? If so, these dinosaur activities are perfect for developing skills through play. Or, use the dino activities to teach dinosaurs to preschoolers, kindergarteners, and older students learning about the dinosaur age. If your kiddos are anything like mine, then dinosaurs are a year round theme that never disappoints! Finding new and engaging activities to meet that “just right” challenge, while staying on-theme, can be quite the task. We have collected a variety of free dinosaur-themed activities to add to your repertoire for all the aspiring paleontologists in your life. Use these to satisfy fine motor, gross motor, handwriting, vision, and sensory integration interventions.
Best of all, when kids are interested in learning about dinosaurs, these ideas can use these ideas to encourage multi-sensory play through learning! Add these movement and play activities to introduce a dinosaur theme in the classroom or home.
Dinosaur FINE MOTOR ACTIVITIES
For kids that love all thing dinosaurs, these dinosaur fine motor activities develop motor skill dexterity and coordination through play. Whether it’s tracing dinosaurs, creating a dinosaur craft, or handling tools in a dinosaur dig, these fine motor activities are fun!
Here’s the thing: fine motor skills are used every single day! They are integral to just about every occupation and a big part of what occupational therapists work on in their treatment sessions. Use the activities below to increase skills like handwriting, buttoning, zipping, typing, and more! Why NOT incorporate dinosaur fun into fine motor development?!
Stomping like brontosaurus, crashing like a T-Rex, and running like a velociraptor means that dinosaur gross motor skills encourage coordination, balance, endurance, and motor planning skills!
Gross motor movements are made by the “big” muscles in the body. Gross motor control allows for walking, running, bending, stooping, balance, and many other skills that we use every day. Not only are these movements great for a child’s development of strength and coordination, but they also strengthen the connection between the brain and the body – so, get those bodies moving with dinosaur fun!
Use these ideas to have Dinosaur Brain Break. This activity encourages various gross motor movements: stomping, crashing, jumping, balancing, and more.
Develop your own movements, or use the options provided, to meet therapy goals in a Dinosaur Movement Game. These free printables can be used in so many ways to develop gross motor skills.
Use dinosaur feet to stomp, sneak, crawl, or tiptoe! Draw dinosaur feet onto paper. Place them around the room to create a dinosaur footprints path where kids can look for the next prehistoric footprint. They can hop, crawl, creep, or tiptoe along the dino footprint path!
Change up your wording for these exercises to dinosaur-themed ones:
Tight-rope walking → Velociraptor Tip Toe
Boat Pose → Fallen Over T-Rex
Frog Jumps → Dinosaur Jumps
Flamingo/tree pose → Flying Pterodactyl
Bear Crawl → Creeping Stegosaurus
Dinosaur Crafts
The beauty of dinosaur crafts is that they build fine motor skills, bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, motor planning, executive functioning skills, visual motor skills, and more. All of these skills are developed through the process of creating. Best of all, when a child prefers dinosaurs as an interest, they have ownership and a sense of self-confidence with a dinosaur craft that they are proud of!
Try adding these ideas to your dinosaur theme:
Make a cupcake liner dinosaur craft. Fold the cupcake liner in half. Then use it as a dinosaur head or back. Cut out smaller pieces of paper to add details like legs, scales, a long neck, or a long tail.
Draw dinosaur feet. Cut them out and trace onto paper. Then, you can use those dinosaur feet to make a path for gross motor play such as a balance beam.
Make a handprint dinosaur craft. Press the hand into green paint. Press the handprint onto paper. Then add details like an eye, long legs, a long neck, and googly eyes.
Make a dinosaur paper plate craft. Cut a paper plate in half to make a dinosaur’s back. Then add legs and triangles along the back. Add a small face and tail and you’ve got a stegosaurus craft that develops scissor skills.
Dinosaur HANDWRITING Activities
For older kids, a dinosaur theme still works! There are many ways to incorporate dinosaur literacy activities, dino letter recognition, and letter formation into handwriting tasks. Some of these include dinosaur worksheets, but others do not. That’s the beauty of these ideas: you can use what you’ve got on hand to meet the individual needs of a child or classroom.
Handwriting is one of the most important skills of a child. Legible handwriting is integral to the success of a student, as so much of their work is presented through written material. Occupational therapists in the schools often assist students and teachers on this subject, including working on visual and motor skills to perfect the skill of handwriting.
To develop visual discrimination skills and letter form constancy, check out this Dinosaur Letter Tracing activity idea – so cute!
Form constancy is one skill that is necessary to understand letters and use them to write words and sentences (and to read!). Form constancy is the idea that any given letter or shape continues to be the same even when written in another environment or at an angle. For example, the letter “A” is still the letter “A” when written in a different font, on a piece of paper, or on the chalkboard.
Matching uppercase to lowercase letters is a great way to assess a child’s understanding in preparation for writing with the correct letter case. It can be hard to remember – especially for letters that aren’t obvious. These Dinosaurs can help make the hard work fun!
This on-theme printable handwriting book gives kids the opportunity to trace, copy, and independently write upper and lower case letters.
Dinosaur VISION Activities
When it comes to adding dinosaur visual perceptual skills to play, the theme can go many ways. Use one of our dino worksheets, OR create a table-top vision activity using toy dinosaurs. These ideas are open-ended!
Vision is a highly complex skill – it is not just about if you need to wear glasses or not! Visual processing is the connection between the brain and the visual environment. Sometimes the way that the brain processes that visual information is not very clear, that’s where an OT can step in! Use these activities to challenge visual processing skills.
This Dinosaur Print Matching activity can assess and address visual processing concerns, but make you feel like you are an archaeologist.
Dinosaur sensory bins, messy fossil digs, dino small world play, and sculpting dinosaur eggs…these sensory play ideas build skills!
Sensory processing skills are used to define the world around us – we explore our environment through sight, feel, taste, smell, and our body position. Increasing sensory awareness can improve body awareness and understanding of our environment, which can in turn help us adjust and feel comfortable. Below are some great options to explore our senses!
Add heavy work for body awareness, self-regulation, attention, and whole body movements with these dinosaur proprioception activities. They are great for sensory seekers and addressing interoception needs.
These Egg Carton Dinosaurs use bumpy muffin cups, smooth googly eyes, soft and sharp pipe cleaners, and of course, an egg carton (so many different textures possible here) to give a multi-textured experience while defining fine motor skills.
Make a paper mache dinosaur egg- Mix up messy, textural paper mache with paper, flower, and water and sculpt an egg around a balloon. Let it dry and then pop the balloon. Now you can decorate your dinosaur egg!
Have dinosaur figures, or mini dino toys? Use them to create a dinosaur small world for pretend play, self-confidence, self-talk, and problem solving.
Tearing paper has always been one of my go-to activities to address fine motor and sensory concerns. This easy Tissue Paper Dinosaur activity can increase texture tolerance in a way your dinosaur-lover will appreciate.
Make a dinosaur sensory bin on a train table, or in a large bin. Add materials like dry beans, corn, or shredded paper. Or add messy wet materials like slime, water beads, water, or shaving cream.
Use a fossil dig activity for dry sensory play. Kids can chisel and chip away at a chalky substance to find dinosaur bones. Then, use the pieces to trace and make their own fossils for more fine motor, sensory fun.
Can’t forget the sensorimotor activities! Dinosaur dance parties, dinosaur stomping, dinosaur copycat, the options are endless.
Dinosaur Self-Awareness Activities
Some of the previously highlighted activities incorporate a sense of self-awareness, including the heavy work activities, and sensory play ideas. But to take self-awareness and celebrating the differences among us, is this book, Dinosaurs are Different.
The book is a silly take that celebrates all of our differences and can be a fun dinosaur tool to address skills such as self-awareness, body awareness, internal differences and external differences in all of us.
Use this book to incorporate into mindfulness with kids, grounding techniques, discussions on emotional awareness, social skill development, and responsibility exercises with kids.
Dinosaur Books
I always love to include books in our themed activities, as a way to encourage an early love of reading, but also to further develop the understanding of our topic. As you can imagine, there are TONS of dinosaur books available to further explore your dinosaur theme.
Here are some dinosaur books and related activities to get started:
How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? Be sure to check out all the books in the series! They can help with skills like manners, asking for help, and cleaning their room!
Sydney Thorson, OTR/L, is a new occupational therapist working in school-based therapy. Her background is in Human Development and Family Studies, and she is passionate about providing individualized and meaningful treatment for each child and their family. Sydney is also a children’s author and illustrator and is always working on new and exciting projects.
Scooping and pouring. Toddlers pour, and dump toys (or cereal, a cup of water, a bin of diapers…) as soon as they discover that they can. It’s a developmentally appropriate skill that happens as mobility develops. When little ones pick up a bowl or cup and turn out the contents on the floor, it may be frustrating to a mama that’s just picked up all of the toys in the house for the third time, but it is such a great function that is the occupation of play.
These scooping and pouring activities can also help with questions of being ambidextrous or simply having a mixed dominance present.
Today, we’re exploring how scooping, pouring, and transferring materials benefits toddlers and preschoolers, in big ways. You can use this fun fine motor and visual perceptual motor activity with children at the toddler, preschooler, and school-aged levels to improve the precision of skills, practice math, and discover skills, all through scooping, pouring, and transferring small items.
Scooping Activities for Toddlers
There are so many benefits to scooping, pouring, and transferring materials. These scooping activities for toddlers are an easy way to help to build motor skills in toddlers and preschoolers, at just the right stage of development. It’s during the toddler years that children develop more motor control, stronger eye-hand coordination skills. They are starting to gain more control of their arms in a coordinated manner, especially when manipulating tools like scoops, spoons, cups, and bowls. It’s through play and the weight of sensory materials that the benefits of scooping, pouring, and transferring of materials builds motor control, more refined movements, and tolerance of a variety of sensory materials.
But, you don’t need to stop at the toddler years. Manipulating tools and sensory materials to pour, scoop, and transfer is great for preschoolers, too!
Benefits of Scooping, Pouring, and Transfering
Fine Motor Benefits of Scooping and Pouring– By manipulating sensory materials, cups, scoops, and bowls, toddlers and preschoolers refine and build motor experience in fine motor skills. Areas of development include: pincer grasp, precise wrist movements, arch development, wrist extension, and separation of the wrist from the elbow.
Development of these areas promotes a more distal motor control while using the proximal arm (shoulder and elbow) to stabilize and support the movements of the distal arm (wrist, hand, thumb, and fingers).
This separation of the proximal stability from the distal mobility is a needed motor development for coloring with the hand and fingers instead of using the whole arm to move the crayon.
You can show a child of this age how to dump the dry cereal from the scoop into a large tray. Kids in the Toddler range would benefit from scooping and pouring using larger scoops or small cups.
In order to scoop food when eating or scooping like in this play activity, kids need precision of very small wrist motions.
Moving the wrist from side to side is called radial deviation (moving the wrist towards the thumb side) and ulner deviation (moving the wrist towards the pinkie finger side).
In addition, slight wrist extension (the wrist slightly bent back in the direction of the back of the hand) is needed to accurately and efficiently scoop and pour.
Simply holding the scoop is an activity for grasp development by refining the arches of the hands and intrinsic muscles.
When kids have trouble with holding a spoon to eat, you can try targeting functional grasp patterns so the child can feed themselves. This is possible with spoon scooping activities that target specific grasp patterns. While this can be accomplished through play and scooping play materials, it’s a great transfer of skills to scooping foods.
Hand dominance with Scooping, pouring, transferring– Hand dominance is an area that they can be working on, depending on their age. It takes experience, or muscle memory through activities to refine and establish a dominant hand or side of the body. By scooping, pouring kids can hold the container, bin, cups, or bowls with their non-dominant hand while scooping and pouring using a spoon, cup, or bowl with their dominant hand.
As children establish a hand dominance, this refined motor coordination becomes easier to control. Toddlers can start with larger objects and larger scoops. Progressing to more fluid or smaller materials like smaller pellets, flour, or liquids can help preschoolers further refine coordination and manipulation of materials.
Self-Awareness Benefits of Scooping and Pouring– Pouring and dumping is discovery and exploration of gravity, weight, muscle control, cause and effect, and self-awareness. Not only are toddlers discover what they can do by pouring, they are learning about their environment while working on so many skills.
Motor Skills Benefits of Scooping and Pouring– Scooping small items is important in development and refinement of motions needed for managing utensils during self-feeding. This is an important independence step in the Toddler range. The establishment of visual input and motor output results in eye-hand coordination skills.
Also needed is the muscle memory or “experience” in pouring materials. You’ll see this in action when pouring a liquid or something that really “flows”. You don’t want to pick up a pitcher of milk and pour with speed. The liquid will splash out of the cup and onto the floor. It takes motor skill development and experience to know that pouring different materials, liquids, and containers take different amount of force, accuracy, and controlled movements.
Learning by Scooping and Pouring- Adding in learning objectives makes this play activity a bonus. You can add themed materials, counting cards, letter cards, or sensory bin cards. Add math and reading activities by counting or using sight words. Add sensory bin cards. the options are limitless when making pouring and scooping activities educational. One idea we love is using water beads like in our purple sensory bin.
Scoop and Pour for Bilateral Coordination Skills- When pouring and manipulating containers, a development of bilateral coordination skills occurs naturally. A weighted material is in one hand, while the non-dominant hand stabilizes. This transfers to bilateral coordination tasks such as holding the paper while coloring or writing, using two hands in clothing fasteners, cutting with scissors and holding the paper, and the very functional task of pouring materials in cooking!
Mindfulness Benefits of Scooping and Pouring- There is a mindfulness component to sensory play too. Have you ever tried using a zen garden to rake or manipulate sand using a sand tray? If so, then you know the power of mindfully manipulating sensory materials. This mindfulness activity works with children too. Many children find a scooping and pouring activity fun and relaxing. Use the scooping and pouring activity as a heavy work activity that adds calming proprioceptive input with visual attention. Help kids to focus on the sensory material as it slowly pours from the hands or from a cup to another cup.
If kids are moving too quickly or if they become overly excited with the sensory material, add slow movement, a calm environment, a set of “rules” before beginning the scooping and pouring activity, and a broom to clean up!
Sensory Benefits of Scooping and Pouring Activities– By experimenting with pouring, scooping, and transferring materials, children gain sensory benefits. This occurs through the proprioceptive input from manipulating the materials, as well as tactile sensory input.
I’ve found pouring and scooping activities to be very calming for children. They love to watch the beads as they fill the scoop and watch them fall into the bowl as they pour. Other children can become overly excited by the visual stimulation of scooping beads and soon the beads will scatter all over the table. You can eliminate mess by doing this activity in a large bin like an under the bed storage bin.
Scooping and Pouring Activities
This post contains affiliate links, but you can use items that you already have in your home. We used plastic scoops found in food like cocoa powder, coffee, or iced tea mixes. For the scooping, we used plastic beads that we already had, however, this activity will work with any small item such as rice, dry beans, field corn, pebbles, or sand. Use what you’ve got on hand to make this activity free!
Materials for this scooping and transferring activity include:
Small Plastic beads OR other materials to pour and scoop (Toddler-aged kids can use dry cereal or edible items. See below.)
This activity is very easy to set up.
Simple set out a bowl or tray of beads and scoops in different sizes.
Show your child how to scoop, transfer, and pour the beads into another bowl.
Play!
Precautions for Pouring and Scooping Activities with Toddlers
Just be sure to keep a close eye on your little one. Materials like dry cereal are great for starting out. However, if you try scooping activities with other materials like beads, toys, corn, dry beans, etc, it can be easy for them to forget they are scooping beads and not cereal!
As with any activity found on this blog, use your best judgement with your children. This activity, while beneficial developmentally, is especially a choking hazard for young children. Always stay within hands-reach of young children with a developmental activity like this one.
If you are concerned with your child placing beads in their mouth, simply don’t do this one and put it on hold for a few weeks of months.
Development of Scooping and Pouring skills in Toddlers
Note: Use edible materials for this activity with Toddlers. Dry baby cereal or broken up finger foods (like Cheerios) are great. For Toddlers, they will be focusing on simply scooping and pouring with accuracy.
Grasping pellets (bead-sized items) is a fine motor skill that typically develops around 11 months. Children at that age can grasp small pellets with their thumb and the pad of their pointer finger, with their arm positioned off the table. Holding a scoop with either the dominant or non-dominant hand typically develops around 13 months of age.
Toddlers will use an exaggerated elbow motion when they first begin an activity like this one and until those small wrist motions are developed.
At around 15 months, Toddlers will be able to scoop and pour from a small scooping tool, although as soon as 13 months, many children are able to complete this activity.
Managing a spoon during self-feeding happens around this age, as well, as children scoop food and bring it to their mouth. It is messy, but they are able to get food to their mouth.
Using a scoop to move beads or spoon to eat develops with more accuracy at 15-18 months.
At around 12-13 months, children will begin to develop unilaterality in hand dominance. They will begin to show a preferred hand that manipulates as the other, non-dominant hand assists in holding the bowl or tray.
(Other kids don’t define a hand dominance until later. You can use this activity in the preschool years to work on hand dominance!) You will want to use a wide tray or large bowl for improved accuracy in both scooping and pouring. Try using a spoon for scooping the cereal pellets, too.
Scooping and Pouring Preschool Activity
In the preschool years, sensory bin play with a concentration on scooping, pouring, and transferring is very powerful. It’s at the preschool age that motor skills become more refined. The dominant hand becomes stronger in preparation of pencil grasp and handwriting. The muscles of the hands are used in coloring and cutting activities.
Preschoolers can use scooping, pouring, and transferring activities for functional tasks and learning activities, but also development of motor skills needed for tool use like pencils, scissors, crayons, etc. Use crayons based on development, as we covered in a resource on the best crayons for young children.
Helping kids establish a hand dominance can be a pivotal moment for addressing fine motor skill development concerns. Kids can refine motor actions by using a preferred hand consistently.
Preschool aged children can refine their scooping and pouring activity using beads.
Hand preference in Preschool
While Toddlers begin to show a hand preference, a true hand dominance doesn’t typically develop until 2 to 3 1/2 years. That is such a huge age range! That is because while a toddler can show a hand preference, hand usage is experimented with during different activities throughout the Toddler and Preschool years.
There is typically variability in hand preference as toddlers and young preschoolers poke, pick up, throw, color, and play. Another consideration is that often times, kids of this age are influenced in which hand they choose by position of toy, location of the adult or playmate, method materials are presented, and sitting position of the child. True hand dominance may not be completely integrated in the child until around 8 or 9 years of age.
Knowing all of this, use this activity to practice and play while working on a hand preference. If your child shows a preferred hand, set up the activity to work on scooping with the typically used hand. If your kiddo uses their right hand most of they time in natural situations (You will want to watch how they do things on a normal day and in a variety of activities.), then set the bowl of beads on the left side of the child and the scoop on the right side.
When using pouring and scooping activities in preschool, try these strategies:
Show them how to scoop from left to right. A set up like this one also encourages the left-to-right motion of reading and writing.
Use a variety of materials: dry beans, rice, beads, dry cereal, flour, sand, shaving cream, water, etc.
Use a variety of scoops: spoons, coops, small bowls, cups, pitchers, mixing cups, measuring cups, etc.
Kindergarten Scooping, Pouring, and Transferring Activities
For children in kindergarten and older, scooping, pouring, and transferring activities are powerful as well! You can use this pouring and scooping activity in math, learning, and sensory play-based learning.
Work on measurement
Work on reading, spelling, and letter awareness. This sight word scooping activity is a great multisensory reading activity for kindergarten.
Use scooping in math to add or subtract scoops
Count the number of scoops it takes to fill a container
Use letter or word cards in reading or handwriting activities
Work on prediction- Ask them to predict how many scoops it will take to fill different sized cups and bowls. They can count the number of scoops and see if their prediction was correct.
Incorporate addition and subtraction as they move scoops of beads from one container to another.
Address motor skill development- Scooping works on important skills like bilateral hand coordination, including using the non-dominant hand to assist as they would in holding the paper in writing, coloring, and cutting with scissors.
Pouring, Scooping and Transferring Activities
Try these various pouring scooping and transferring activities with each age range to develop specific skill areas depending on the individual child:
Use a variety of materials for scooping besides beads to work on fine motor control and dexterity. Other ideas include wet sand (heavier and great for coordination and strength) and a light material like foam pillow filler (for more coordination and dexterity).
Water Sensory Bin Ideas– Use a bin and water, along with some scoops and other materials to work on motor skills, coordination, and refined movements. Scooping water takes precision and control, but it’s a great functional task for children.
Scoop Nuts– Use seeds or nuts to scoop and work on scooping different sizes, different weights. This is a great activity for graded precision, sorting, and eye-hand coordination.
Scoop Ice– This simple scooping and pouring activity uses just ice, water, and scoops. Children can work on eye-hand coordination skills to scoop up ice within a bin of water to work on controlled motor skills, utensil use, visual tracking, and more.
Scoop, pour, and transfer dry corn– Grab some un-popped popcorn and some bins or spoons to transfer materials from one container to another. This simple scooping and pouring activity is easy to set up and works for all ages.
Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.
Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
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! This is such a fun creative painting activity!
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:
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
Today, I have an update on a very old blog post for a specific reason. This fake snow messy sensory play activity is a valuable tool in addressing tactile defensiveness, or tactile sensitivity. In general descriptions, this simply means an over-sensitivity to touch, or over-responsiveness to touch sensations. For kids with sensory issues, this can be a very big deal. Tactile defensiveness can mean poor tolerance to certain clothing, textures, food sensitivities, closeness of others, wearing socks or the feel of seams or clothing. Sensitivity to these touch sensations can look like many different things! Today we are discussing all about tactile sensitivity, what that looks like in children, and a sensory challenge that can be used for tactile sensitivity.
I briefly explained the meaning of tactile defensiveness above, but let’s break this down further.
The tactile system is one of our 8 sensory systems: touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing, proprioception, vestibular, and interoception. The sense of touch is a very big piece of the whole picture.
The Tactile Sensory System is one of the earliest developed senses of the body, with studies telling us this sensory system begins to develop at around 8 weeks in utero. The sense of touch completes its development at around 30 weeks in utero when pain, temperature, and pressure sensations are developed.
Types of touch
The skin performs unique duties for the body, based on different types of touch input, and tactile sensitivity can be considered to occur in the various aspects of touch. These types of touch include: light touch, pressure, discrimitive touch, pain, temperature.
Most importantly for our ancient ancestors, especially, the skin protects and alerts us to danger and discriminates sensation with regard to location and identification. This is important because touch sensations alerts us to both discrimination and danger. These two levels of sensation work together yet are distinctively important. And furthermore, the skin is the largest and the most prevalent organ.
Touch discrimination- Discrimination of touch allows us to sense where on our body and what is touching us. With discrimination, we are able to discern a fly that lands on our arm. We are able to sense and use our fingertips in fine motor tasks. We are able to touch and discern temperatures, vibrations, mount of pressure, and textures and shapes of objects.
Danger perception– The second level of the tactile system alerts us to danger. It allows us to jump in response to the “fight or flight” response when we perceive a spider crawling on our arm. With this aspect of touch, we are able to discern temperature to ensure skin isn’t too hot or cold. We can quickly identify this temperature or sharpness of an object and quickly move away to avoid burning, freezing, or sharp objects.
When either of these levels of sensation are disrupted, tactile dysfunction can result. This presents in many ways, including hypersensitivity to tags in clothing, a dislike of messy play, difficulty with fine motor tasks, a fear of being touched by someone without seeing that touch, a high tolerance of pain, or a need to touch everything and everyone.
Sensitivity to touch can mean over responding to touch input in the form of textures, temperatures, or pressure. Touch sensitivities mean that the body perceives input as “too much” in a dangerous way. The touch receptors that perceive input are prioritized because the brain believes we are in danger. The body moves into a state of defensiveness, or safe-mode in order to stay safe from this perceived danger. This is tactile defensiveness.
What does Tactile Defensiveness looks like?
Hyper-responsiveness of the tactile sense may include a variety of things:
Overly sensitivity to temperature including air, food, water, or
objects
Withdrawing when touched
Avoids certain food clothing textures or fabrics
Dislikes wearing pants or restrictive clothing around the legs
Avoidance to messy play or getting one’s hands dirty
Avoidance of finger painting, dirt, sand, bare feet on grass, etc.
Avoids touching certain textures
Clothing preferences and avoidances such as resisting shoes
Resistance to nail clipping, face washing
Resists haircuts, hair brushing
Dislikes or resists teeth brushing
Overreacts to accidental or surprising light touches from
others
Avoids affectionate touch such as hugs
Dislikes closeness of other people
As a result of this avoidance, development in certain areas can be delayed, in a way that functional performance of daily tasks is impacted. What you see in as a result of a poorly integrated tactile sensory system:
Delayed fine motor skills
Rigid clothing preferences
Behavioral responses to tasks such as putting on shoes or coat
More information on sensory processing of each of the sensory systems and how that impacts daily life can be found in The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook. You’ll also find practical strategies for integrating sensory diets into each part of every day life, in motivating and meaningful ways. Check out The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook for moving from sensory dysfunction to sensory function!
How to help with tactile sensitivity
There are ways to help address these areas, so that the child is safe and can function and perform tasks in their daily life. While addressing tactile sensitivities doesn’t mean changing the child’s preferences, it can mean understanding what is going on, what the child does and does not prefer in the way of sensory processing, and it can mean providing tools and resources to help the child.
This should involve an occupational therapist who can take a look at sensory processing and integration and make specific recommendations.
Some strategies that can impact tactile sensitivity include:
Understanding the child’s sensory systems, and integration in the daily life of the child. Grab the Sensory Lifestyle Handbook to read more on sensory diets that are meaningful and motivating. These are sensory activities that can be integrated right into tasks like baths, tooth brushing, hair brushing, dentist visits, clothing changes, etc.
Take a look at clothing sensitivity red flags for areas of sensitivity to clothing that stand out for the individual child.
Read more on proprioception and the connection of heavy work input as a calming and regulatory tool for sensitivities.
Work on touch discrimination with activities at the level of the child.
Provide verbal input to warn the child prior to light touch
Provide visual cues and schedules for tasks that must be completed such as tooth brushing or hair brushing.
Trial tactile experiences at a graded level, introducing various sensory experiences in a “safe space” at a just right level for the child.
Tactile Defensiveness Sensory Activity
That’s where this messy sensory play activity comes in. By taking out the “messy” part of this sensory experience, children who dislike messy play or touching certain textures can explore the sensory activity and challenge tactile exposure. In this way, they are experiencing a new and novel texture (temperature and squishy, messy experiences), but at a safe level, or “just right” level for them.
This snow sensory play activity has the opportunity for tactile challenges, but it uses a plastic bag to contain the actual mess, allowing for a mess-free sensory experience, at different grades of texture exposure.
Fake Snow Recipe
We made fake snow one recent weekend, when we had a big cousin sleep over. There were six kids aged five and under staying overnight at our house. I had this activity planned for us to do together, (because I procrastinated ) and had to get it together to take to a Winter Festival at our church the next day. It was a fun messy play idea for indoor snow.
We’ve made this fake snow before and I have the recipe listed on our Messy Play Day post.
This fake snow is easy, because it includes only 2 ingredients:
Toilet paper
Ivory soap
With these two ingredients, there are many opportunities for tactile sensitivity challenges, and each child can experience sensory exploration at a level that suits their preferences. Some children may enjoy experiencing the dry texture of the toilet paper. (See the kids below…they sure enjoyed this texture.)
Other children may prefer (or avoid) the tactile experience of touching and manipulating the squishy, warm soap texture.
Others may tolerate mixing the two textures together.
Still others, may prefer none of these textures. In this case, move to the last level of this tactile experience, which is placing the fake snow into the plastic baggie. Then, they can squeeze and touch the sensory fake snow with a barrier in place. they will still experience the warm temperature and firm, heavy work of squeezing through their hands, but they will experience this sensory input in a “safe” level with that plastic bag barrier.
Fake Snow Dry sensory Bin
Step 1: Tear the toilet paper into shreds. Keep this in a bin or large container. We used an under-the bed storage bin because I was making a large quantity of fake snow for our Winter Festival.
We shredded the toilet paper and the kids had a BLAST! It started out so neat and kind. Tearing the toilet paper is a fantastic fine motor activity for those hands, too. It offers heavy work input through the hands which can have a regulating, calming impact on the joints of the hands. This can be a nice “warm up” exercise for the tactile challenge of exploring and manipulating the dry toilet paper texture.
For kids with tactile sensitivities, this might be “too much” for them to handle. Try using tongs and ask them to explore the toilet paper shredding sensory bin to find hidden items. Some of the paper cards and winter words in our Winter Fine Motor Kit are great additions to this sensory bin.
And then turned in to this.
And this.
Slightly off-course in our sensory bin, but of course it did. Why wouldn’t it when you have 6 cousins together? ((Ok, that part of this post was NOT mess-free…the end result is mess-free. I promise.)) So, then we popped the Ivory soap into the microwave…
Fake Snow Wet Sensory Experience
Step 2 in the tactile sensory experience is the wet fake snow portion. Following the fake snow recipe, we popped a bar of ivory soap into the microwave and ended up with a cloud of sensory material.
Children can touch and explore this sensory material for a warm, sensory experience.
Step 3 in the tactile challenge is mixing the dry material with the wet material. This can definitely be a challenge for those with tactile defensiveness or touch sensitivities.
If it is too much of a sensory challenge, invite the child to mix with a large spoon or to touch with a finger tip.
Other children may enjoy this part of making fake snow. The melted soap can be mixed with the toilet paper…to make fake snow!
Fake Snow Sensory Play for Tactile Sensitivities
THIS is the mess-free part that many children with tactile defensiveness may enjoy. 🙂
Simply place some of the fake snow material into a zip top plastic bag. You can tape the top shut to keep the material in the bag.
By manipulating the fake snow in a safe sensory manner, kids get exposure to a calming warm temperature. This is one low-level challenge to the tactile system. The warm temperature is a calming, regulating aspect that can be powerful in self-regulation.
Children can also squeeze, manipulate, pound, and spread the fake snow within the plastic baggie. This offers heavy work input through the hands and upper body in a way that is calming and regulating.
By placing the fake snow into a bag for sensory play, kids are exposed to tactile experinces in a way that may help with tactile discrimination by incorporating the proprioceptive sense.
Challenge motor skills further by adding items such as foam snowflake stickers, glass gems, and glitter. This was so much fun for my crew of kids and nieces and nephews and I hope it’s a tactile experience you get to play with as well!
Products mentioned in this post:
The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook– The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook is your strategy guide for turning sensory diets and sensory activities into a sensory lifestyle.
A Sensory Diet Strategy Guide The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook is a strategy guide for sensory processing needs. With valuable insight to the sensory system and the whole child, the book details how sensory diets can be incorporated into a lifestyle of sensory success. The thoughtful tools in this book provide intervention strategies to support and challenge the sensory systems through meaningful and authentic sensory diet tactics based on the environment, interests, and sensory needs of each individual child.
This print-and-go winter fine motor kit includes no-prep fine motor activities to help kids develop functional grasp, dexterity, strength, and endurance. This 100 page no-prep packet includes everything you need to guide fine motor skills in face-to-face AND virtual learning. Includes winter themed activities for hand strength, pinch and grip, dexterity, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, endurance, finger isolation, and more.
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
