This rainbow sort activity is a fine motor skills idea to help kids sort colors while developing dexterity and precision and learning colors. By sorting the colors of the rainbow into small containers, a rainbow fine motor activity is a colorful way to help kids develop fine motor skills. Add this idea to your rainbow theme in therapy interventions, or home activities for developing motor skills.
Extend this activity and sort the rainbow colors to make a Fruit Loop rainbow craft for more fine motor and visual motor fun.
Rainbow Sort
We have been on a rainbow kick recently and have a ton of rainbow projects going on right now. This color sorting activity was a fun one that the big kids and my toddler really got into.
This rainbow sort activity is easy to set up. All you need is colorful craft pom poms and an ice tray or two. The ice trays are the perfect size for the crafting pom poms.
Preschool Rainbow Activities
This color sorting activity is great for toddlers to develop fine motor skills in the preschool and toddler years. Baby Girl (17 months) got right in there.
In the preschool years, fine motor skills are a precursor for handwriting and pencil grasp. This pre-writing activity is perfect for preschool aged children.
Add this rainbow fine motor activity to the preschool classroom or home by adding tongs, tweezers, or scoops to help kids develop the precision, motor coordination, and eye-hand coordination skills kids need at the preschool age.
Plus, this rainbow sort activity is a great way to teach preschoolers colors, too.
To work on pre-writing skills in other ways, try this rainbow prewriting activity available on a free slide deck.
Tongs are a powerful fine motor tool to use in occupational therapy activities that develop fine motor skills. To elevate this fine motor activity, ask kids to make their own craft stick tongs to manipulate these colorful craft poms. Preschool children can sort the colors using different colored tongs that are easy to make.
She is ALWAYS watching the big kids and copies everything!
Look at that concentration. And that cute little baby belly!
I can’t stand the cuteness!
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.
If you are looking for Christmas activities for preschool, then you are in the right place. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, so many of us occupational therapists, teachers, and parents are looking for fun and easy holiday activities for preschoolers. First, check out our Christmas occupational therapy activities for skill-building this holiday season. Then, grab some ideas from our list of Christmas Fine Motor Activities.
Christmas Activities for Preschool
You’ve probably seen the Christmas excitement as kids get amped up for Santa, Christmas trees, candy canes, presents, and the upcoming holiday!
Why not mix therapy and learning with a Christmas theme and build on that excitement?
With the Christmas activities for preschoolers listed below, you’ll be able to add some learning or therapy work into holiday activities, all while getting into the Christmas spirit in the preschool classroom!
Thiscollection of preschool activities with a Christmas theme is part of this week’s Christmas Activities week here on The OT Toolbox. Each day this week, we’re rounding up collections of holiday themed activities, crafts, games, and ideas to fill your therapy toolbox.
Be sure to stop back each day this week to catch all of the holiday fun!
Christmas Activities for Preschoolers
Now on to today’s collection of activities that preschoolers will love all while working on the skills your kids need!
Work on Scissor Skills- Preschoolers are just getting the hang of managing scissors in one hand and the paper in another, all while snipping along a line. This Icicle Scissor Skills Craft is perfect for the preschool age range. It’s got simple lines that can be adjusted in width to meet the child’s needs and can be a huge help in teaching preschoolers to manage and turn paper to cut angles. Then, hang those icicles in the window and your preschooler will feel so proud of their work!
Work on Bilateral Coordination- Kids in preschool are just learning to manage clothing, tools, and other tasks that require coordinated movement of both hands with greater precision. Tasks like buttoning and zippering clothing require bilateral coordination with fine motor work. This Recycled Lid Ornament Garland is a power tool in promoting bilateral coordination and refined dexterity in order to thread and create ornaments. This Christmas activity is another that a preschooler will be proud of. Hang the garland on a tree or across a window sill.
Work on Visual Tracking Skills- Visual tracking is a necessary skill for reading and writing. While preschoolers aren’t at this stage yet, they soon will be! That makes a marble run a fantastic visual processing tool for building a base n the skills kids need down the road. Add a Christmas twist with jingle bells on the marble run! It’s perfect on the floor or in a sensory table and is a fun activity preschoolers will love this season.
Work on Scissor Skills with a Christmas Tree Craft- Just like the icicle craft listed above, this Christmas Tree Scissor Skills Activity is perfect for preschoolers who are developing and refining their scissor skills. Use thicker paper like cardstock (or even green paper plates!) for younger kids who are still learning to work those scissors! You can encourage preschoolers to cut through to the edge instead of turning the paper when first learning to cut angled lines.
Encourage Sensory Play- The preschool age is the perfect time to encourage sensory play with sensory bins. You can use any sensory bin fillers and create a sensory bin based on infinite themes! Here are lots of Christmas Carol Sensory Bin ideas. Use them to promote visual motor skills like scooping and pouring through tactile sensory play. This Away in a Manger Sensory Bin is just one of the ideas.
Build Shoulder and Wrist Stability on a Vertical Surface- Working on a vertical surface like an easel is a powerful way to strengthen the shoulder and wrist. This Christmas Tree Sensory Activity combines scissor work with fine motor skills and sensory play.
Promote Hand Strength with a Counting Activity- This Christmas Counting Activity is a DIY activity that uses clothespins and fun Christmas decorations to work on fine motor skills and early math.
Work on Pre-Writing Skills- Working on pre-writing lines is a powerful early writing skill for preschoolers. These Christmas Pre-Writing Activities can give preschoolers the tools they need to form letters. Teaching horizontal and vertical lines, crosses, curved lines, diagonal lines, “X”s, and simple shapes can be completed with a Christmas theme to make things fun this time of year.
Work on Direction Following- This Christmas Tree Stamp Art is a process art craft that preschoolers can make as a gift tags or DIY wrapping paper for family! Stamp Christmas trees, while working on fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination to dot on paint decorations with a cotton swab. This stamp art is a hit with kids!
Looking for more Christmas activities? Stop back the rest of this week for more holiday ideas that boost development through movement and play.
Christmas Writing Activity
In preschool, children it is developmentally appropriate to work on letter recognition, saying letters, singing letters, and fine motor play with letters. So often, we see kiddos who are being asked to write letters or even words before they have developed the fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination to even manage a pencil. It happens very often, and it can lead to kids who struggle down the road with pencil grasp, visual motor skills in writing, letter formation, and other concerns.
I wanted to include in this post a link to Christmas paper for older kids. Note that the lined paper below is not recommended for the preschool age set. Even the pre-k kiddos who are 5 who may be working on letter formation, writing numbers, and name writing, shouldn’t be given the Christmas paper. The lines and spacing is just too much for this age.
I did want to include the paper here for our older kids. Many times therapists and parents are seeking out resources that fit a variety of needs in age ranges. The modified lined paper is Christmas and winter-themed for writing with awareness of spacing and lines. Remember that these lined paper resources shouldn’t be used with preschoolers, just school-aged kids on up!
Christmas Preschool Activities for Occupational Therapy
You’ll love incorporating these other activities and ideas into OT sessions with preschoolers:
Make a fine motor egg carton tree craft to support bilateral coordination, precision grasp, and graded resistance in fine motor skills.
Create a Fine Motor Christmas Card and work on precision, hand strength, scissor skills, and name writing. Kids will love to give this holiday card to friends and family!
Finally, use the holiday crafts and activities found in our Christmas Therapy Kit. It’s a great way to develop skills in OT sessions during the holiday season.
Looking for done-for you therapy activities this holiday season?
This print-and-go Christmas Therapy Kit includes no-prep, fine motor, gross motor, self-regulation, visual perceptual activities…and much more… to help kids develop functional grasp, dexterity, strength, and endurance. Use fun, Christmas-themed, motor activities so you can help children develop the skills they need.
This 100 page no-prep packet includes everything you need to guide fine motor skills in face-to-face AND virtual learning. You’ll find Christmas-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.
Here we are covering dressing skills as an ADL that are used in occupational therapy dressing interventions, as well as dressing skills for preschoolers and all ages, specifically the underlying fine motor skills needed for dressing skills.
These self-dressing skills are typically initiated in the toddler years, however if a toddler has little to no awareness or regression in these skills, a look at toddler behavior red flags may be in order. Self-dressing is part of child development at this stage. Let’s cover this in greater detail…
Dressing skills
“I can do it myself!”
It’s a phrase that most parents hear at one time or another as their child begins to develop the skills needed for independence in self-care. Sometimes, however, there are factors that interfere with appropriate development of function.
Parents may wonder when their child will begin to pull on their shirt or don shoes and socks with independence. The ability to dress one’s self with independence requires the development of many fine motor skills.
This month in the Functional Skills for Kids series, we are exploring Dressing as an activity of daily living. Stop by to see all of the posts in the series here.
Dressing Skills that Require Fine Motor Skills
Pulling on socks, managing buckles, and tugging on a hat. There are many portions of self-dressing that require fine motor skill development;
Pulling socks off requires a pinch grip, strength in the hands, and bilateral coordination.
Putting socks on requires arch development, opposition of the thumb, intrinsic hand strength, bilateral coordination, wrist extension and ulnar deviation.
Pulling pants up requires eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, and wrist and hand stability.
Fastening snaps and pulling up zippers on pants (Clothing fasteners will be addressed in another month’s topic)
Donning and doffing undergarments requires pinch grasp
Threading a belt through belt loops requires bilateral coordination, prehension grasp, pincer/tripod/functional grasp and wrist positioning
Fastening a belt buckle requires tripod grasp and bilateral coordination, hand dominance or preference, extended wrist and ulnar deviation.
Donning and doffing a shirt requires bilateral coordination, crossing midline, extrinsic and intrinsic muscle strength of the hands, and forearm supination and pronation.
Donning an doffing a coat requires bilateral coordination, crossing midline, extrinsic and intrinsic muscle strength of the hands, and forearm supination and pronation.
Clothing fasteners such as buttons, zippers, snaps, buckles, and ties require intrinsic and extrinsic muscle strength, prehension grasp, in-hand manipulation, hand preference and bilateral control and eye-hand coordination.
Pulling on boots requires a hook grasp of the hand, strength, and proximal stability.
Donning a winter cap requires precision grasp, bilateral coordination, and motor planning.
If it seems as though every step of dressing requires fine motor skill development, that is because it’s true! Each step of each dressing task requires many fine motor skills.
Fine Motor Manipulation Skills that are Necessary Independent Dressing
Let’s break down these fine motor skills a bit to see how they are helping a child complete tasks independently.
Fine Motor Skills Needed in Dressing:
Extrinsic Muscle Strength: The extrinsic muscles move the fingers and thumb in full flexion and extension. They enable a power grasp on functional items. The extrinsic muscles are essential for cohesive work alongside the intrinsic muscles of the hands during dynamic grasp patterns.
Intrinsic Muscle Strength: The intrinsics allow us to use graded movements, shape the arches of the hands, and enable dexterity and precision. They control the flexion and extension of the Metacarpophalandeal joints and power movements such as finger adduction, finger abduction, thumb abduction, thumb adduction, thumb flexion and thumb opposition.
Prehension: There are three types of prehension grasps-static grips, gravity dependent grips, and dynamic grips.
In-Hand Manipulation: This fine motor skill typically develops around two years of age. Between 2-3 the child progresses in palm-finger translation and shift. However, at this age, they may prefer to manipulate objects between two hands instead of within one. Read more about in-hand manipulation skills here.
Hand Preference and Bilateral Control: From the age of 2-3, a child will switch hands to avoid crossing the midline, They may show use of a preferred hand, but it may switch between activities.
Eye-Hand Coordination: Eye-Hand Coordination is accuracy of reach and control of the arm in space, guided by vision. During dressing tasks or any functional skill, the reach should be accurate and controlled, and directed by the shoulder’s stability and mobility. In reaching for items, the hands and eyes should work together with smooth visual tracking of the hand and with the eyes guiding the hand.
Precision of Release: There should not be immature releasing patterns noted during dressing tasks. These might include flinging or dropping objects. Rather, the child should be able to release items while their arm is positioned in space and with controlled motions. Read more about precision of release.
Motor Planning: During functional tasks, there should be coordinated movements with appropriate positioning and posturing. Read more about motor planning here.
Separation of the Two Sides of the Hand: Separation of the two sides of the hand allows for stability and power with precision of the thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger.
Biomechanical Postural Control in self-dressing
Before the fine motor skills can be used in functional tasks, such as dressing, there are biomechanical skills that are prerequisite.
These are proximal stability skills that enable distal precision and control.
Postural Control– Proximal to the arm is the upper body. Postural instability will effect the use of the forearm, wrist, hand, and fingers and complicate the motor planning and use of the hands in functional reach. When we reach with two hands, we shift our weight and move our body’s center of gravity. Without dynamic control of one’s posture, shifts in weight will result in over or under reach of distal motions.
Shoulder stability with motion– Fine motor use of the hands requires stability of the shoulder joint. The joint needs to maintain stability even during motion and in all planes for controlled arm positioning.
Control of the forearm– The arm between the elbow and wrist moves in supinated and pronated motions. Supination is essential for many precision tasks and allows us to see what our fingers are doing in tool or fastener use. Pronation is typically used for power grasps and hook grasps in functional tasks.
Wrist Position– A functional wrist position is essential for precision grasp and manipulation. Extension of the wrist controls the length of the finger flexor muscles to an optimal position for grasp and precision. Positioning the wrist in 40 degrees of wrist extension allows for efficient muscle function. The wrist also moves with radial and ulnar deviation. A position of 15 degrees of ulnar deviation promotes stability and force in the ulnar side of the hand.
Palmer Arches- While palmer arch development is a component of fine motor skill development in itself, it is also a proximal stability source for precision of the distal fingers. Appropriate arch development provides positioning and stability to allow for fine motor dexterity of the fingers.
Tips to Promote Independence in Dressing Skills
When fine motor skills are the problem area behind decreased independence in self-dressing, it is helpful to build individual skills.
Children should be provided with many repetitions of self-care skills in environments where dressing tasks are happening naturally.
Dressing practice happens at the beginning and end of the day but there are many opportunities for working on the fine motor skills needed in dressing tasks.
Donning shoes and socks can happen before going outdoors and when coming into the home.
Toileting is a way to practice lower body clothing management throughout the day.
Children can further build independence with dressing through pretend play by using dress-up clothes.
Repetition can be a strategy for increasing opportunities for practice.
Provide various dress-up clothes in different social roles for many ways to practice dressing skills.
Encourage role play as a technique to build fine motor skills in dressing: Children can dress a baby doll.
Provide alternate opportunities to practice fine motor skills needed for dressing such as toys to help kids practice dressing skills.
Develop fine motor skills needed for functional tasks with these activities:
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
Today we’re sharing how we use an every day game and household item like checkers in math for preschoolers and a pre-coding activity. Coding for kids is a new and very important skill. You can swing by our coding for kids Pinterest board for more ideas. Checkers are a basic manipulative that can be counted, patterned, sorted, and used in step-by-step tasks for pre-requisites to coding without a computer or app.
We play a game of checkers
a few times a week. It’s always a hit when we need a little down time or quiet game. We’ve been using my husband’s old checkerboard from his younger days, so it’s a game that we’ve always had around the house. Recently, we’ve been using the game pieces in math activities with my preschoolers and school-aged kids.
The bright and bold colors of the checkers pieces makes them a great patterning tool. Preschool-aged kids can practice AB, ABA, ABB, BAA, and more complicated patterns. Patterning is a skill needed in coding, so this is a great beginning skill to develop.
Ask your preschoolers to sort the colors into stacks and piles of red and black chips. Manipulating the chips really can be challenging to a child’s fine motor skills. Be sure to read up on our manipulating coins fine motor post for information on in-hand manipulation, translation, stacking with coins and chips.
Work on counting with the chips. Count them out into columns of tens. Practice counting by base ten and and adding ones to get double digits. Remove single chips to practice subtraction from double digits.
Pre-Coding Activity for Kids with Checkers
A big part of coding (at least what I understand from my husband) is the task of getting from one point to another in a problem while thinking out the process before it happens. We love to play a game of “Shifting Pyramids” with our checkers board.
To play Shifting Pyramids:
Use the pieces to form a pyramid with ten red chips on one side of the checkerboard and a pyramid with ten black chips on the opposite side of the checkerboard. Only black squares are used for the game. Players move their men forward, either by single spaces or by jumping their own or their opponents’ men in a single jump or a series of jumps. Men that are jumped are not removed from the board. The winner is the player who re-forms his pyramid on the opposite side of the checker board.
Playing Shifting Pyramids requires a player to think ahead as they attempt to flip their pyramid to the other side of the checkerboard. We typically play with only one pyramid to begin with (all red or all black pieces) to work out the steps of flipping the pyramid. Often times, a pattern of chip movements develops. Further the activity by using the red and black chips as symbols and create a message with the “code”.
To work on more pre-coding skills, stop by and visit our coding for kids Pinterest board. You’ll find activities related to patterns, strep-by-step thought processes, abstract thinking, using symbols, and more.
Looking for more coding games and activities? Try some of these pre-coding games for kids:
These nursery rhyme crafts are preschool crafts and activities that support development of motor skills using engaging and fun craft ideas. You’ll want to check out these preschool resources and all of our kids crafts that support child development.
Nursery Rhyme Crafts
When young children create these nursery rhyme crafts, they’ll develop skills in many areas:
Nursery Rhymes are the classic stories to tell to kids. What a wonderful way to bring together generations through stories, rhymes, and classic tales we’ve all heard since childhood. These crafts are a great addition to these nursery rhyme actions that build motor skills.
There is something about the sing song rhythm of nursery rhymes that pull in a child, lull them to a calm before sleep, and bring a smile to their faces.
We joined up with a team of wonderful children’s activity bloggers to bring you nursery rhyme crafts and activities. These are the projects you will want to do with your toddlers and preschoolers after reading classic nursery rhymes. Each day this week, a new blogger will bring you a craft or activity that goes along with a nursery rhyme. Each day, us Aunts will update this page with the new crafts and activities. We’re excited to see all of the fun and can’t wait to share it with you!
Nursery Rhyme Crafts and Activities for Kids
We’ve got 10 days of 10 different nursery rhyme projects for you. This is going to be fun!
This foam sheet activity builds fine motor skills while playing on a vertical surface, to create a fine motor rainbow. This foam sheet activity is a fun and engaging rainbow activity for kids.
Foam sheet activity
This activity is one we did on a window, but you could use on a bathroom shower wall or a dry erase board to engage an extended wrist.
It’s also a great activity for core strength, upper body strength, and eye-hand coordination.
We have had a fun little activity going on here alllll week.
We cut foam sheets into strips and gold coins.
But didn’t have a black foam sheet for the pot of gold.
What could be used…oh, a take out container would work!
This was on the little table and I put it by the door:
Foam strips, foam gold coins, foam black pot, and a little bowl of water.
Everyone had so much fun with this! They played for a looong time.
And ever since, when a piece falls down, they will go into the bathroom and wet the piece under the sink and put it back up.
Baby Girl loved this activity! It took a whole 15 minutes before she drank the water in the bowl. I was surprised it took that long. 🙂
We have been doing so many fun Rainbow play activities this week. Little Guy has a new line when we say the colors of the rainbow: “Don’t forget the indigo and violet, Mom”.
This pipe cleaner fine motor activity is a fun one that we used for many years to target fine motor skills like dexterity, pincer grasp, hand strength, and more. Plus, this pipe cleaner activity is great for toddlers. But, kids of all ages love this activity! Let’s break it down…
Pipe Cleaner Fine Motor Activity
This fine motor pipe cleaner activity is very simple to set up. You need just two items:
Pipe cleaners cut into half or one thirds
A cardboard box
To set up the activity, first cut the pipe cleaners into smaller sections. For younger children use longer lengths of pipe cleaners and for older kids, target more precise fine motor skills but cutting smaller sections.
Then, use a screwdriver and poke holes all over the cardboard box.
You’ll want to poke holes on the top of the box, but also on the sides of the box. A larger box is best for this activity, because the holes on the sides of the box encourages a wider range of motion, including wrist extension.
You’ll also see more diverse movements when a larger cardboard box is used: bilateral coordination, visual scanning, crossing midline, and more.
This was the invitation to play that I had set up for the kids. A cardboard box with holes poked all over, and pipe cleaners.
This was the end result 🙂
They all had so much fun creating a work of art with pope cleaners, all while working on their fine motor dexterity, tripod grasp, and eye-hand coordination.
(These two were pushing each other to get in there. They are WAY more like siblings than cousins…)
Have you seen our recent post Pipe Cleaner Fun where we shared how to explore colors with pipe cleaners? There are so many fun ways to use them for fine motor development with kids!
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.
