Fun Baseball Matching Game

baseball matching game

This Baseball matching game is another free slide deck to use in digital or face to face therapy sessions while working on a variety of occupational therapy skill areas. It’s a fun way to foster visual perceptual skills and social emotional learning through a baseball theme!

Baseball matching game.

Today we have another social emotional resource for teaching emotions and showing children how to match facial expressions to meaning of emotions this baseball emotions game uses the spot it matching strategies to work on social emotional development as well as visual perceptual skills kids can.

This is a free therapy slide deck, so it can be used in teletherapy services or virtual sessions. However, now that more schools are moving to a face to face setting in the fall, this resource is still a great way to outline therapy sessions. Use the slides as activities with a baseball theme in therapy.

Kids can work on social emotional development skills that they need for communication playing with others and social participation by using the game as a tool for social emotional learning skills such as naming facial expressions.

Baseball matching Game

This baseball matching activity is great for a baseball theme or for kids that love all things sports and baseball.

On the slides kids will notice baseball gloves and baseball mitts that have different facial expressions.

When they play the game they can begin with the first slides that ask them to name and label emotions.

Kids can type right into the slide deck and name the emotions on different baseballs.

Then, the slide deck includes a matching component. Users can look at each circle on the slide and look for one matching pair. When they find the match, they can move the baseball bat to cover the matching baseballs.

Use this game to work on visual perceptual skills such as:

  • Visual discrimination
  • Form constancy
  • Visual attention
  • Visual memory
  • Visual scanning skills

These visual perceptual and visual motor skills are needed for hand writing and copying materials from a written source such as the chalkboard or dry race board.

If you were looking for baseball themed activities for therapy this slide deck is a great resource.

Access this slide deck in by entering your email into the form below and you can receive a free printable PDF which will lead you to the slide deck. This is a great activity for teletherapy or for using to facilitate face-to-face therapy sessions with children who love all things baseball or sports.

Free Baseball Matching Game Slide Deck

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    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.

    Emotions Game (Frog Theme Slide Deck)

    emotions game frog theme spot it activity

    This frog emotions game slide deck is a tool for helping kids to identify emotions based on facial expression. It’s a social skills activity for young children that goes perfectly with this frog writing activity and our cute frog crafts. Use all frog games together as frog themed activities that develop skills.

    Teaching emotions is an important part of social emotional development. That’s why this emotions game (with a cute frog theme) is so much fun, but also a great way to help kids learn to identify emotions, match up emotions by facial expression, and label different feelings. It’s just one of the many free slides here on the site, and one you’ll want to add to your toolbox.

    Emotions game with a frog theme. This free therapy slide deck is a fun social emotional learning game for kids.

    Frog Emotions

    You might be wondering “frog emotions? What does that mean?”

    But we are not talking about the emotions of frogs here…we mean that you can use a fun theme like frogs and toads to talk to kids about emotions and emotional expressions! It’s an activity like this that uses frog emotions to help us explain to kids how they feel, how mood and affect impact their overall wellbeing, and how we all (even the cute frogs in this free slide deck activity) have feelings. It’s empathy skills through play!

    Working with kids in occupational therapy sessions have shown me one thing…and that’s the fact that if we can make things fun and engaging (like the cute frogs in this activity) that we can help kids build skills!

    This emotions game is modeled after several other similar emotions games we have here on the site. You can use all of these in sequence or to fit with different themes in therapy or in the classroom or home. Each emotions game includes a “spot it” type of matching game that allows kids to feel challenged, but also builds essential skills.

    These other emotions games might fit with some of your themes you have planned:

    The emotions games in these activities and in the one shown below, children can label different facial expressions and give a name to the visual emotions. The important thing here is to note that there is no right answer. Some children might have different names for emotions or the feelings that they experience.

    In the frog theme slide deck, there are different facial expressions for each frog’s face. Kids can type right into the slide deck and add a label for those expressions. You can extend this activity in several ways:

    1. Ask kids to mimic the visual facial expression that they see on each frog’s face.
    2. Ask the user to identify a time that they have experienced that particular emotion.
    3. Ask the user to tell about a time that they have seen other’s experiencing that emotion. You can talk about what might lead up to another person experiencing a particular feeling or emotion. This task helps to build empathy for others.
    4. Ask the child to identify ways to reach out to others when they might be feeling particular emotions. How can they help others who are feeling sad or angry? How would they like others to reach out to them when they themselves are feeling a particular feeling?
    5. Ask the child to specify ways that they respond to particular emotions. What do they do when they feel upset, silly, or frustrated?

    You can even use this as an emotions check in activity with kids. Ask them how they are feeling right now. It’s a tool for emotional regulation.

    The next part of the slide deck includes matching activities in a “spot it” type of emotions game. The slide decks are interactive, meaning that kids can move the lily pads to cover the matching emotion on each slide.

    Each slide has only one matching facial expression, and the player can look at each image and try to find the matching expression.

    Frog Emotions Game

    As an occupational therapist, I’ve found that incorporating themed activities like a frog emotions game can be incredibly beneficial for children. This type of activity not only targets emotional regulation skills but also adds an element of fun and engagement to therapy sessions.

    Children are often drawn to themed activities because they provide a novel and exciting experience, making therapy feel less intimidating and more enjoyable. The frog theme adds a playful twist, allowing kids to explore and express their emotions in a lighthearted manner. By integrating games like this into therapy sessions, we can create a motivating environment that encourages active participation and enhances the overall effectiveness of treatment.

    The frog theme activity is a social emotional learning game that kids can use to build awareness and strategies, too.

    After playing the emotions matching on the slide, then focus more on building awareness of emotions and social development. After the child finds the match, they can identify the expression that is depicted on that frog’s face. T

    hen, go back to what was covered in the beginning with some of the same questions: how do they think that frog feels? When did they experience that expression? If they felt angry (or frustrated, silly, sad, etc.) in school when they need to complete an assignment? How would they feel if they were playing a game and experienced feelings of frustration?

    All of these questions allow the child to think in situational experiences so they can be ready to function. Situational awareness, empathy of others, and social emotional development are all learned skills, and having experience, the words to use, and tools in their back pocket will allow them to function in future tasks or situations.

    After you are done playing, just go to the slide deck edit history and click “reset slides” to revert them to their original set-up. You can then play again…just click the lily pads and drag them to cover each matching frog face, and work on labelling emotions again and again!

    Free emotions game slide deck

    We have a free frog themed emotions activity in slide deck form.

    To add this free emotions game to your therapy toolbox, enter your email address into the form below. You’ll receive a printable that you can use in therapy, the home, or the classroom.

    NOTE- Email addresses on a school or work server may block the email delivering your file. Consider using a personal email address for better deliverability.

    Free Emotions Game (Frog Theme) Slide Deck

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      Add the Frogs and Toads Motor Skills Mini-Pack to this activity and build stronger, more refined motor skills in children. The mini pack includes:

      • Fine Motor Mazes
      • Fine motor paths
      • A-Z frog letters for word building
      • “Froggy Says” gross motor game
      • 1-20 Number Building Mats
      • Play Dough Mat
      • Handwriting Pages
      • I Spy page
      • Gross motor directionality sheets

      Done for you motor skills activities and FUN frog and toad themes combine in the Frogs and Toads Motor Skills Mini-Pack. Work on grasp, hand strength, eye-hand coordination, handwriting, scissor skills, heavy work, gross motor skills, coordination, and all things fine and gross motor skills in this 43 page printable packet.

      frog and toad activities motor skills packet

      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.

      Frog Writing Activities

      frog writing activities

      Today we’re talking all about frog writing! These frog writing activities are part of a free slide deck to outline therapy sessions and to use to foster visual perceptual skills and handwriting skills. Add these frog writing activities to this list of cute frog crafts which are designed to develop and refine fine motor skills in kids.

      You’ll also love our frog emotions activity as another tool to add to your frog theme of activities!

      The frog writing prompts included in this therapy slide deck are perfect to add to your frog theme or use in a weekly occupational therapy theme (or at-home theme for learning, play, and building developmental skills!)

      Frog writing activities including frog writing prompts and a frog I spy activity to work on writing skills in kids, with a frogs and toads theme!

      Frog Writing

      The kids that I’ve worked with in OT sessions love this frog writing activity…and they don’t realize all of the work they are putting into the task because it’s a fun way to target OT goals.

      In my experience as an occupational therapist working in schools, incorporating fun themes into handwriting sessions has been incredibly effective for improving skills that impact learning. A frog theme set of activities is one way to do that!

      The frog writing activity supports fine motor skills, visual motor skills, pencil control and overall handwriting skills. Utilizing frog writing prompts and activities not only adds an element of fun for the children but also provides valuable opportunities to address fine motor and visual motor considerations essential for handwriting.

      Sometimes, having a set of themed activities set-up for therapy sessions is a “must” to keep therapists sane. It’s not about using the same activities with each student; Using a theme in therapy activities allows the therapist to use the same materials. And having the skilled ability to adjust for each individual is just part of an OT’s skillset. To make your life much easier as a busy therapist, head over to this free slides library and grab all of the therapy themes that fit your interests and those on your caseload.

      That’s where these frog writing activities come into play.

      The free slide deck includes several frog writing activities for users to build specific skills, depending on their needs and goal areas.

      You’ll find frog I Spy game and several frog writing slides to work on handwriting skills.

      More Frog Writing Ideas

      There are more ways to work on fine motor and visual motor skills with this frog writing activity.

      • Copy the words to work on letter formation and copying skills
      • Use other frog activities as a warm up
      • Try tracing frog outlines for pencil control
      • Hop and leap along frog-themed letter paths
      • Do frog-themed mazes to target pencil control
      • Play Froggy Says, like a Simon Says activity for gross motor skills needed for writing posture.
      • Use tweezers in fine motor activities that mimic the movements involved in catching or feeding frogs, such as using tweezers to pick up frog-themed manipulatives. This further strengthens fine motor skills essential for precise handwriting.
      • Fold paper into origami frogs

      Frog I Spy

      The first activity is a warm-up of sorts. You’ll find a frog I Spy game where users can locate, count, and find individual frog and toad images. This is a great visual perceptual skills activity to build and develop skills in areas such as:

      • Visual discrimination (needed for identifying differences between letters)
      • Visual scanning (needed for scanning a writing piece for where you’ve left off in copying materials)
      • Form constancy (knowing that a form or letter is the same no matter the positioning. This skill is needed for recognizing letters in different fonts and sizes)

      When kids find the individual frogs and toad images they can type the number into the interactive slide deck.

      This frog I spy game is available as a printable worksheet in our Frogs and Toads Motor Skills Mini-Pack. Find the items, then write the numbers in the boxes. Kids can also color or circle the items to build pencil control and fine motor skills. The packet is 43 pages of fine and gross motor skill activities with a frogs and toads theme. Not bad for the cost of a cup of coffee!

      Frog Writing Prompts

      Next in the frog writing activities are a few writing prompts. I’ve included both frog word writing prompts and also sentences as an open-ended writing prompt to foster creative writing.

      The frog words include things like froglet, pond, lily pad, and words that are easily read and recognized by younger children.

      Pair this activity with frog lifecycle activities for handwriting practice of letter formation, letter size, legibility, and even cursive handwriting for the older elementary ages.

      The next piece is a frog writing prompt slide. This slide includes three writing prompts that users can use for longer writing samples.

      All of these writing prompts are open-ended so that you can easily adjust the therapy sessions or home programing to meet the needs of the child or individual.

      Free Frog Writing Slide Deck

      Want to add this free slide deck to your therapy toolbox and work on handwriting and visual perceptual skills in written work? Grab this resource and outline writing activities so the kids you serve can work on areas like letter formation, copying skills, and more. You’ll need to enter your email address into the form below and the file will be delivered to your inbox. (School email addresses/work email addresses may block this email as it contains a link to access a file. A personal email address may work better for deliverability.)

      Free Frog Writing Activities Slide Deck

        We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.

        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.

        frog and toad activities motor skills packet

        Add the Frogs and Toads Motor Skills Mini-Pack to this activity and build stronger, more refined motor skills in children. The mini pack includes:

        • Fine Motor Mazes
        • Fine motor paths
        • A-Z frog letters for word building
        • “Froggy Says” gross motor game
        • 1-20 Number Building Mats
        • Play Dough Mat
        • Handwriting Pages
        • I Spy page
        • Gross motor directionality sheets

        Done for you motor skills activities and FUN frog and toad themes combine in the Frogs and Toads Motor Skills Mini-Pack. Work on grasp, hand strength, eye-hand coordination, handwriting, scissor skills, heavy work, gross motor skills, coordination, and all things fine and gross motor skills in this 43 page printable packet.

        Left Right Discrimination Slide Deck

        left right discrimination activity

        Working on left right discrimination with kids? It can be difficult to teach left right awareness, especially in a virtual environment like teletherapy sessions require. Today’s free therapy slide deck is a left right discrimination activity with a picnic theme, going perfectly with our virtual picnic therapy activities slide deck just released to the site.

        Left right discrimination with a picnic theme to help kids with left right awareness in functional tasks.

        We’ve talked before about mixed dominance vs. ambidexterity, which is a concern that comes up when kids don’t use one hand or one side for motor tasks. You’ll want to start there to read more about this issue.

        The thing is that the confusion between left and right becomes an issue in play or learning tasks, especially when children are asked to follow directions that require a knowledge of left and right. When children don’t have a strong awareness of left and right, you’ll see confusion and even embarrassment in a group setting.

        This other post on hand dominance offers 3 activities to work on left right awareness, and can be a great way to expand this left right discrimination activity to hands-on activities that build motor skills.

        Left Right Discrimination Activity

        In this particular interactive activity, kids can use the right left discrimination occupational therapy activities to help with these discrimination skills needed for handwriting or establishing a dominant side.

        The slide deck is an interactive tool that allows children to sort items that are directionally pointing to either the left or right sides on the screen. There are several left right discrimination activities to work through on this picnic themed slide deck:

        Left Right Awareness with Hands

        First up is a visual graphic that helps kids to understand their left and right hands using their left hand as a visual reminder.

        On the slide deck, kids can look at the visual and follow the directions:

        1. On both of your hands, stick out your thumb and your pointer finger.
        2. Now look at what shape that made on each hand! One hand looks like the letter “L” and the other is a backwards “L.”
        3. The word “left” starts with the letter “L!” This means that the hand with the “L” shape is your left hand!

        Kids can use this trick to help them remember which way is left and which way is right.

        Left Right Direction Activity

        After kids have a kinesthetic and visual approach to remembering left and right, there are slides that work on sorting images into categories of left vs. right.

        This interactive portion allows kids to click on the images and sort them into left or right.

        If the user needs prompts, remind them to use their hands to make the L with their fingers to recall which side is their left side. This can help to establish memory by using several sensory methods: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic within several repetitions.

        Left Right Sorting Activity

        Next, you’ll see several slide decks that ask the user to move a circle to cover the item facing either the left or the right. The directions are written at the top of each slide deck and changes on each slide. You can again remind users to use their hands to remember which side of the screen is their left and which is their right.

        This can be helpful for teaching left right discrimination because through a screen like in teletherapy services, it can be difficult to address the left or right awareness (especially if there is a screen flipping issue that comes up with teletherapy services).

        The picnic themed visuals are fun for a picnic theme and includes things like a grill, hot dog, picnic kids, backpackers, etc.

        Left Right Discrimination Matching Activity

        Finally, there are several slides that ask the user to move the circle to cover a matching image across the slide. This visual perception activity addresses several areas typically developed through therapy activities:

        The user can also address eye-hand coordination as they move the mouse or click and drag to move the circles to cover each matching item.

        Again, work on left right discrimination by asking the child to name the direction that the item is facing: Is it facing the left or is it facing the right?

        All of these left right discrimination activities are powerful ways to help kids with directionality that is needed for functional tasks.

        Free left right discrimination slide deck

        Want this picnic themed therapy slide deck to work on left right discrimination? Enter your email address into the form below to grab this teletherapy activity.

        When kids go through the slides, you can reset the movable items to their original state by clicking the history link at the top navigation bar. Simply click the “last edit” link and then go to the right side bar. You’ll see a link that says “reset slides”. Click this link and then go to the top navigation bar again and click the button that says “Restore this version”. Then, all of those movable pieces on the whole deck will reset to their original spots and you can restart the therapy activities.

        Don’t forget to also grab the virtual picnic therapy activities slide deck, too!

        Left Right Discrimination Picnic Theme Activities

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          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.

          Virtual Picnic Therapy Activities

          virtual picnic therapy slide deck

          This week’s free slide decks are fun virtual picnic therapy activities that can be used to encourage motor skills in therapy sessions. I love the picnic theme for the upcoming warmer weather this summer, but also as a fun way to spend the last few weeks of the school year. Kids will love this virtual picnic in therapy or at home! Also be sure to grab this left right discrimination picnic theme slide deck.

          Virtual picnic therapy activities for building gross motor skills and handwriting activities in therapy sessions or home therapy programs.

          Virtual Picnic

          When you use this virtual picnic to facilitate gross motor skills, kids can move, strengthen core stability, work on bilateral coordination, crossing midline, motor planning, eye-hand coordination, body awareness, muscle memory, and many other skills.

          Plus, the virtual picnic activities includes a visual perceptual skills activities, and picnic handwriting activities.

          These virtual picnic activities go hand-in-hand with picnic crafts, fine motor activities, mindfulness activities, making a full week of camping themed or picnic themed fun for kids.

          Combine the picnic therapy activities on this slide deck to some other, hands-on picnic themed activities to round out the therapy theme:

          And, when you have a picnic, making picnic foods with kids is a must…further building fine motor skills, cognitive skills like planning, preparation, impulse control, and other executive functioning skills, and independence in daily tasks! Try these cooking with kids activities that help to build skills, but are GREAT picnic foods for kids to make:

          Kids can participate in the virtual picnic by making one of these cooking activities (as long as they have a helper at home for their cooking activities) or, make pretend food and work on direction following, sequencing, planning, and task completion.

          So, you can use these ideas to combine therapy recommendations for the home OR use these ideas in therapy sessions to create picnic themed therapy activities!

          Want to add virtual picnic activities to your sessions or home programming? This week’s free slide deck covers several different occupational therapy intervention areas (and are great for physical therapy sessions, too.)

          Picnic Gross Motor Activities

          The first part of the slide deck includes picnic gross motor activities.

          Kids can look at the image on the slide deck and pick out one piece of visual information in order to act out the picnic scene. Each picnic scene includes several people that are in various gross motor positions to challenge core strength, coordinatin, midline crossing, bilateral coordinaiton, motor planning, and more.

          Kids can also work on visual perceptual skills such as visual discrimination, visual figure ground, visual closure, etc.

          Children can then use this part of the slide deck to foster muscle memory, visual memory, and sequencing. You could go through this part of the slide deck several times and work on recalling physical motor sequences or play a memory game. The slides are pretty open-ended to facilitate a number of goal areas when it comes to gross motor skill, coordination, visual skills, etc.

          Picnic Handwriting Activities

          The next several slides in the slide deck are open-ended picnic writing prompts. There are more picnic scenes that include a variety of picnic items.

          Children can scan the image and pull out words to write on paper, or they can use the list on the slide deck to copy and then find the hidden items in the picture.

          To grade this activity, ask kids to compose a sentence using the picnic words on the slide. Or, ask children to circle the items on the slide using a shape feature on Google slides. These activities challenge the visual perceptual skills and visual motor skills needed for handwriting and copying written work.

          Use these picnic handwriting activities to focus on letter formation, spacing, sizing, and overall neatness in handwriting skills.

          Free Virtual Picnic Slide Deck

          Want to add this virtual picnic slide deck to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below to access this slide deck. Don’t forget to check out all of the Free Slides that we have available for teletherapy and for facilitating therapy sessions with kids!

          Free Virtual Picnic Therapy Activities Slide Deck

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            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.

            Truck Handwriting activity Slide Deck

            truck handwriting activities

            This truck handwriting activity is another free slide deck, but one that uses truck themes to help with writing, letter formation, and working on legible, functional handwriting. Perfect for kiddos that love all things construction vehicles, this truck handwriting activities go well with our recent construction vehicle brain breaks.

            Truck handwriting activities and truck writing prompts in a free therapy slide deck for teaching handwriting virtually.

            Truck Handwriting Activity

            Use this truck handwriting activity is great for virtual therapy (one of the many free slide decks here on the site) but can be used to outline therapy sessions in a face-to-face manner as well.

            In the handwriting slide deck, you’ll find truck words that kids can copy. There are different types of construction trucks. Users can visually scan to copy the words. Expand the activity in a few different ways to work on more handwriting skills:

            • Write the words in alphabetical order to work on visual scanning, visual memory, and visual scanning.
            • Write the words into sentences to work on spacing between letters and words, margin use, and size.
            • Describe a truck on the screen and ask students to write the word from memory to work on visual memory.
            • Work on cursive writing, uppercase letters, or lowercase letters to address letter formation.
            Truck writing prompts to help kids with writing words and sentences in to practice handwriting.

            Truck Writing Prompts

            Also included in the truck handwriting activities are writing prompts. Kids can copy the writing prompt and then continue the writing task to finish the thought. This can be a great way to work on spatial awareness, writing speed, margin use, and functional handwriting.

            There are four different truck writing prompts included in the slide deck:

            • If I drove a dump truck, I would…
            • I was digging in my backyard with a backhoe and I found…
            • A steam roller was making a road and it rolled over…
            • If I could drive any truck, it would be…and I would…

            Kids that love construction vehicles will love these truck writing prompts. Working on handwriting skills doesn’t need to be boring, it’s all about meaningful handwriting to make handwriting motivating and fun that build skills!

            What's missing pictures like this truck "what's missing" picture help kids with visual perceptual skills like visual discrimination, figure-ground, visual scanning, form constancy, and other visual perceptual skills in handwriting.

            Truck “What’s Missing” Activities

            Also included in this truck activity are different truck “What’s Missing” pages. These visual perceptual activities are challenges to help kids work on visual perceptual skills like:

            • visual discrimination
            • visual figure-ground
            • visual scanning
            • visual attention
            • visual memory
            • form constancy

            Turn these what’s missing activities into a motivating handwriting activity by asking kids to write the names of the truck words that are missing from the image on the right.

            Draw a Truck Activity

            Finally, kids can work on visual motor skills, pencil control, size and spatial awareness to draw a truck! There are several truck drawing slides included that challenge kids to draw different forms.

            Free truck handwriting activities slide deck

            Know a kiddo that loves all things trucks and construction vehicles? Grab this free slide deck to work on handwriting skills.

            Enter your email address into the form below and access these handwriting activities.

            Note: Try to use a personal email address, as work email addresses have been blocking the email delivery due to increased security issues.

            Truck Handwriting Activities (free slide deck)!

              We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.

              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.

              The Handwriting Book is a comprehensive resource created by experienced pediatric OTs and PTs.

              The Handwriting Book covers everything you need to know about handwriting, guided by development and focused on function. This digital resource is is the ultimate resource for tips, strategies, suggestions, and information to support handwriting development in kids.

              The Handwriting Book breaks down the functional skill of handwriting into developmental areas. These include developmental progression of pre-writing strokes, fine motor skills, gross motor development, sensory considerations, and visual perceptual skills. Each section includes strategies and tips to improve these underlying areas.

              • Strategies to address letter and number formation and reversals
              • Ideas for combining handwriting and play
              • Activities to practice handwriting skills at home
              • Tips and strategies for the reluctant writer
              • Tips to improve pencil grip
              • Tips for sizing, spacing, and alignment with overall improved legibility

              Click here to grab your copy of The Handwriting Book today.

              play dough mat writing prompts

              Add the Roll and Write Play Dough Mat Writing Prompts to your therapy toolbox and build fine motor skills and handwriting in fun and engaging ways.

              Construction Truck Brain Breaks

              Construction Truck Brain Breaks

              These construction truck brain breaks are heavy work fun with a truck theme! The gross motor activities that kids can use as a brain break or a heavy work activity to help with attention, focus, and sensory input. The construction truck activities are great for kiddos that love all things trucks! You can access these heavy work activities in a free therapy slide deck and use it in teletherapy sessions or in face-to-face therapy (or at home and in the classroom, too!)

              These are perfect for kiddos that love all things garbage trucks, backhoes, excavators, cranes, steam rollers, and more. We’ve got all the construction vehicle activities covered in this therapy set!

              Construction truck brain breaks for kids that love all things construction vehicles.

              Construction Truck Brain Breaks

              I love using brain breaks in themed activities that kids love. The thing is that children are drawn to certain topics or themes, and construction truck themes are no different. There is just something about garbage trucks, dump trucks, backhoes, cement trucks, and excavators that are irresistible to children.

              These particular construction truck brain breaks offer an opportunity for kids to gain much-needed heavy work input in the way of proprioception. You can read more about proprioception and brain breaks here.

              The truck activities also allow children to move while gaining vestibular input as well. Adding movement in a variety of planes and directions in conjunction with input from the eyes, and heavy work feedback from muscle and joint receptors, is able to contribute to posture, coordination, and appropriate response of the visual system.

              Another reason to use heavy work activities like these truck brain breaks, is for the benefit of improving body awareness. Heavy work improves body awareness by incorporating proprioceptive input, with motor planning, attention, and “self-checks” that allow us to know where our body is in space during tasks. This is so important for kiddos facing more and more screen time than ever.

              For more heavy work activities, try these heavy work cards that come in a variety of themes.

              Free Construction Truck Brain Breaks

              You can grab these construction truck activities and use them in teletherapy sessions, in face-to-face therapy sessions, in the classroom, or in the home. They are presented in a Google slide deck, so that they can be easily accessible from different devices and situations, using a Google drive.

              Check out all of the free therapy slide decks we have available here on the site.

              Want to add this resource to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below.

              NOTE: Try to add a personal email address for deliverability, as work emails (who have a strict security wall in place) may block the deliverability of the PDF email.

              Construction Truck Brain Breaks (free slide deck)!

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                Heavy work cards

                Use the Heavy Work Activity Cards in play, learning, and brain breaking!

                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.

                Superhero Gross Motor Activities

                superhero gross motor activities slide deck

                Today, I have a fun therapy slide deck to share: Superhero Gross Motor Activities! These superhero exercises are movement activities that challenge motor planning, balance, core strength, and crossing midline. When kids move through the superhero movement activities, they can build and develop many areas. Grab this gross motor activity set and start building those motor skills!

                Superhero Gross motor activities for kids

                Superhero Gross Motor Activities

                I wanted to create a gross motor activity set to go along with our superhero writing activity deck, so be sure to grab that free resource as well. This is just one of the free teletherapy slides for OT and PT that are available on the site.

                The gross motor activity set includes 24 different slides and superhero exercises that challenges users to complete different movement patterns. Users can go through the exercises in order and work on various gross motor skills that can be a challenge to incorporate into teletherapy sessions, sometimes.

                By following along with the different superhero gross motor positions, kids can challenge and build:

                These various gross motor skills can help children with self-regulation, attention, and other areas.

                Add these other superhero activities for more skill-building:

                Free Superhero Gross Motor Slide Deck

                Want to add this slide deck to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address below and you will receive a PDF containing a link to copy the slide deck onto your Google drive. Save that PDF file, because you can come back to it again and again and send it to the kids on your caseload (or classroom) so they can make their own copy on their Google drive.

                Note- You many need to use a personal email address in this form due to increased difficulties with sending deliverables to school district emails, organizations, and those with high security networks.

                Free Superhero Gross Motor Therapy Slide Deck!

                  We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.

                  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.

                  Superhero writing

                  Superhero writing slide deck

                  This superhero writing activity is a free therapy slide deck that can be used in telehealth sessions or face to face occupational therapy interventions. Get ready for superhero handwriting fun, because those pencils are about to be superheroes! Your kiddos will love these superhero writing prompts, superhero drawing prompts that make handwriting practice fun!

                  This is another one of the many free therapy slides available here on the site.

                  Superhero writing slide deck

                  Superhero Writing

                  The cool thing about this free therapy slide deck is that it includes a superhero craft to get those hands warmed up for writing practice. Kids can make the pencil superhero craft and then use their pencil superhero to write with for the writing portion of this therapy activity.

                  The slide deck includes superhero words that children can copy. I’ve included many different words that are scattered all over the slide. When users visually scan for the superhero images, they are working on a few different visual perceptual skills:

                  • Visual memory
                  • Visual attention
                  • Visual scanning
                  • Visual discrimination

                  All of these skills are used when copying words or math problems from a distance like when students copy math problems or a homework list from a smart board in the classroom. They need to visually shift from near to far and find their place in order to copy the information without missing letters or other information.

                  Superhero Writing Prompts

                  Also included in this slide deck are several superhero writing prompts. Users can use the slides as a starting point for handwriting tasks that are longer in nature. Then, work on areas such as spatial awareness between letters and words, line use, margin use, letter formation, and overall writing legibility. You can help children to check over their written work using this handwriting self-assessment list to build carryover of writing skills.

                  Superhero writing activities

                  Draw a Superhero

                  Finally, in the superhero writing slide activities are several slides that invite kids to draw a superhero. The superhero drawing prompts include various pencil line forms that are easy and more complex to meet a variety of needs.

                  When drawing and copying from a form, kids work on visual motor skills that are needed for letter formation, eye-hand coordination, spatial awareness, and pencil control. Plus drawing a superhero is fun!

                  Add these other superhero activities for more skill-building:

                  Superhero writing activity for therapy

                  Free Superhero Writing Activity

                  Want to add this free therapy slide deck to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below and a PDF will be delivered to you. Use that to access the Google slide deck for therapy sessions. Have fun writing about superheroes!

                  NOTE- You many need to use a personal email address in this form due to increased difficulties with sending deliverables to school district emails, organizations, and those with high security networks.

                  Free Superhero Handwriting Slide Deck!

                    We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.

                    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.