toddler

Scoop, Pour, Transfer Activities

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scooping, pouring, transferring activities

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.  

Use these scooping, pouring, and transferring activities to help preschoolers, toddlers, and older kids develop skills.

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!

Ice is a great scooping activity for toddlers to work on coordination and fine motor skills.

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.

Work on hand dominance and fine motor skills with scooping, pouring, and transferring activiites.

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.

Other areas of fine motor development include

Spoon Scooping Activities

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.

Check out our video below that shows different activities to support the development of scooping with a spoon. This video is also available on YouTube- Using a Spoon: 3 Activities to Target Grasp Patterns.

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:

  • Recycled plastic scoops (We do love our recycled materials activities around here!)
  • 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.  

  1. Simple set out a bowl or tray of beads and scoops in different sizes.  
  2. Show your child how to scoop, transfer, and pour the beads into another bowl.
  3. 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, pouring, transferring beads and developing fine motor skills and hand dominance in Toddlers, Preschoolers, and school-aged kids. Plus learning ideas to use in scooping activities. From an Occupational Therapist.

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.

there are many benefits of scooping, pouring, and transferring. Include scooping activities for toddlers and preschool.

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.
Use beads, scoops, spoons, and bowls to work on scooping for toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarten to develop fine motor skills.
Scoop words for a multi-sensory learning activity that uses scooping and pouring in kindergarten.

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.
Work on hand dominance, bilateral coordination, motor skills, and more by scooping, pouring, and transferring activities.

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.

More fine motor activities you will love

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:

Letters Fine Motor Kit
Kit de motricidad fina de verano
Summer Fine Motor Kit
Outer Space Fine Motor Kit
Space Fine Motor Kit
Spring fine motor kit
Valentines Day fine motor kit
winter fine motor kit
Winter Fine Motor Kit

Or, grab one of our themed Fine Motor Kits to target skills with fun themes:

Want access to all of these kits…and more being added each month? Join The OT Toolbox Member’s Club!

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.

Messy Eating

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Benefits of Messy eating for babies and toddlers

Have you ever noticed that small children eat meals with recklessness? Bits of food covers the face, cheeks, hands, lap, floor, belly, and even hair. Part of it is learning to use utensils and manage food on the fork or spoon. But there’s more to messy eating too! Messy eating for a baby or toddler is actually a good thing, and completely normal part of child development. And, letting a small child get messy when they eat, and even playing with their food as they eat is OK!

Messy eating in babies and toddlers has benefits to developing tactile sensory challenges and fine motor skills in young children.

Messy eating

I’m sure that your mother never told you it was okay to play with your food at the dinner table, but I’m here to tell you otherwise. Playing with food is not only okay, it is vital to development of self feeding skills and positive engagement with food. When young children play with their food they are engaging in a rich, exploratory sensory experience that helps them develop knowledge of texture, taste, smell, changing visual presentation of foods and oral motor development.

When play with food is discouraged it can lead to food texture issues, picky eating, oral motor delays and increased hesitancy with trying new foods later on.

Eating with hands- Messy benefits

When solid foods are introduced to baby, it is often a VERY messy ordeal. There is food on the chair, the bib, the floor, you…everywhere but the baby’s mouth. Often times, parents may feel discouraged or don’t like the mess that is the result, but it is OK. In fact, the messier the better.

Exploring food textures with the hands provides tactile experience to the hands, palm, and individual fingers. Are foods sticky, chunky, goopy, or gooey? All of that exposure to the hands is filed away as exposure to textures.

Picking up and manipulating foods offers fine motor benefits, too. Picking up and manipulating bits of food offers repetition in pincer grasp, graded precision, grasp and release, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, crossing midline, and proprioceptive feedback. All of this is likely presented in a baby seat or high chair that offers support and stability through the trunk and core. When that support is offered to babies and toddlers, they can then work on the distal coordination and dexterity. At first, manipulation of food is very messy as those refined skills are developed, but it’s all “on-the-job training” with tasty benefits!

Research shows that a child moves through a series of exploratory steps before successfully eating new foods. This process involves messy play from the hands, up the arms, onto the head and then into the mouth. The steps of this process cannot happen unless the child is encouraged to touch, examine and play with their food. In today’s culture of sterilization and cleanliness, this often counterintuitive to parents and a hard pattern to break.

Promoting Play with Food

Mealtimes can be rushed affairs, making it hard to play with food, but they are not the only times we engage with food throughout the day.

Cooking and meal prep are two of the most common opportunities for play and engagement with food. These activities present perfect opportunities for parents to talk about color, size, shape, texture, smell and taste of the foods that are being prepared. Use of descriptive words,
over exaggeration when talking about and tasting foods, along exploration opportunities develop a positive interest in foods.

Babies can be involved in kitchen prep as they play with appropriate utensils and kitchen items like baby-safe bowls or pots. Toddlers enjoy being involved in the food preparations and can wash, prep, and even chop soft foods with toddler-safe kitchen tools.

Explore these cooking with kids recipes to get small children involved in all the benefits of the kitchen.

Here are more baby play ideas that promote development.

Food Art

Free play with foods like yogurt, jello and applesauce are also great opportunities to promote messy play and creativity. Utilize these foods for finger painting, or painting with other foods as the brushes. This activity challenges tactile and smell regulation, along with constant changes in
the visual presentation of the food.

Creativity with Food

When presented with food for free play, or at the dinner table encourage their creativity–carrot sticks become cars or paint brushes, and raisins become ants on a log.

The sillier the presentation, and more engaged the child becomes, the more likely they are to eat the foods you have presented to them. Especially, if these foods are new, or are non-preferred foods. High levels of over exaggeration also leads to increased positive experiences with foods, which in turn leads to happier eaters, and less stressful mealtimes
down the road.

Ideas like these flower snacks promote healthy eating and can prompt a child to explore new textures or tastes in a fun, themed creative food set-up.

Messy Eating and Oral Motor Development

Not only does play promote increased sensory regulation and positive engagement with foods, it also promotes oral motor skill development.
Oral motor skill development is promoted when a variety of foods are presented and the mastered skills are challenged.

Here is more information on oral motor problems and feeding issues that are often concerns for parents. The question of feeding concerns and picky eating being a sensory issue or oral motor motor concern comes up frequently.

Foods that are long and stick like such as carrots, celery and bell peppers, promote integration of the gag reflex, along with development of the transverse tongue reflex that later supports tongue lateralization for bolus management.

Foods such as peas, or grapes promote oral awareness and regulation for foods that “pop” when bitten, and abilities to manage multiple textures at one time.

Messy Eating and Positive Mealtimes

Whether you have a picky eater, or are just trying to make mealtimes fun, play is the way to go!

Play with food is critical to development of oral motor skills and sensory regulation needed to support positive meal times. Through the use of creative play, exposure, and over exaggeration these milestones can be achieved.

Although the goal is for your child to eat new foods there are many steps we need to conquer before getting there. Don’t worry, these can be fun and stress free! 

Let me ask you a question. If you were presented with a new food, something so new and anxiety provoking that you don’t want it near you and you definitely don’t want to touch it; do you think you would want it anywhere near your mouth? About in your mouth? Even more, how about swallowing it? The answer for most would be NO WAY! 

Well, we can’t expect the same from our kids. If they don’t want to look at or touch a food, they most definitely will not want to eat it! So before getting kids to put new foods near or in their mouth, we need to take several steps back and learn how to interact with it. This is where the fun can come in! 

This week we are going to experiment with various ways of play or interacting with foods. Remember, the goal in not to eat it. The goal is simply to interact with it and hopefully to start getting messy with it! Let’s kid you child comfortable with touching food and have fun doing it. This will not only get them a few steps closer to eating it, but it will also build positive associations with the food and also make them more comfortable with various aspects of it. This can include the color, texture, shape, smell, etc. The more foods we play with, the more of these they are feeling comfortable with. So in short, let’s start our food journey with our hands and our eyes by getting messy! 

10 Ways to Support a Child’s Milestone Development at Home!

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Support milestone development in natural environments at home

Every home is different, but here are some options for you to be able to swiftly encourage milestone development during your normal, everyday life. While they do have their benefits, child growth and development doesn’t require fancy play centers, playgroups, and activity centers. Here you will find easy ways to integrate child milestone development right into the daily family life at home. Here is information on child development to get you started.

Use these easy ways to support milestone development at home when getting out of the house is difficult.

If you just read the word “milestones” and still aren’t so sure what that means, you are not alone! You can also pop on over to The Child Mind Institute to learn more about what milestones are.


You don’t need a bunch of fancy equipment to help your child reach their milestones, even if they show signs of delay. I hope that this list of ideas will spark ideas of your own so that your family’s needs can be met in ways that work for you.

That is really what the natural environment is all about. Contrary to its name, it isn’t about green trees and blue skies or organic fruits and vegetables. The natural environment is wherever your child spends their time. Often, it is considered their home, but it could be the library, or the park, or grandma’s cabin. The point is that the natural environment is somewhere that is a recognizable, comfortable, and safe place for your child.

It just so happens that this magical place is where most of their development takes place, and that is why it is so important to use these spaces effectively for the naturally-occurring learning opportunities they provide!

These strategies to support milestone development can happen in the home.

How to Support Milestone development at home

For starters, I would like to kick off this list with a few overarching ideas to support development right in the day-to-day tasks of everyday life at home. There is so much development to be had by involving your child in things that are done in and around the home.


ONE: PUT THEM TO WORK
Playing and chores alike help your child reach their developmental milestones. In order to reach fine motor milestones and gross motor milestones, those little muscles need to be challenged!


TWO: INTEGRATE INTO YOUR LIFE
If you are doing laundry, your kiddo can help push laundry baskets to develop their gross motor muscles. If you are making pancakes, they can pop little chocolate chips in one by one to work on fine motor skills. Setting aside extra time for your baby’s milestones is not always necessary.


THREE: SHARE WITH YOUR BABY
In some ways, treating your infant or toddler to a friendly conversation is all that it takes to give them a little extra boost in communicative and cognitive development. Talk to your baby, share your interests, show them your work. This will strengthen their understanding of your spoken
language, and encourage them to use their mouths and faces for communication, too!

5 WAYS TO SUPPORT YOUR CHILD’S MILESTONES IN THE
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

1. Support your child’s Development with family workouts

Family workouts are a great way to support milestone development and health and wellness of the whole family! Use at-home workouts to ensure that your baby gets in their tummy time (and more!) is to encourage your baby to work out with you. If you lift weights, your mischievous 18-month-old can lift his stuffed animals, books, wooden blocks, or whatever else may be around.

Or, maybe you are more of a yoga mom, and you and your toddler can work on balancing poses or squats like chair pose or goddess pose. You’ll feel great not only because you got in some exercise time – but also because you are helping your child become stronger!

2: Support developmental milestones in the kitchen

Use meal preparation times to your advantage! Cooking with kids in the kitchen offers powerful experiences for child growth and development. If you like to bake, offer your little one some dough to smash and squeeze between their fingers. Their blossoming fine motor skills, like handwriting, will thank you.

Baking is often rich in sensory experiences as well; the smells, the
textures, the tastes! Sensory-rich experiences like these are integral to the healthy development of the sensory system.

There’s more; cooking offers opportunities to develop direction-following and other cognitive development as well.

The next time your game-day guacamole needs smashing, you’ll know who to call.

3: Support motor skill development with chores

We know how much of your days are filled with laundry. It feels like it’s a never-ending cycle (no pun intended). Why not recruit some help? Your little one can help you out at their level. If they are able to distinguish between colors and reach, grab, and place objects, then they can
separate your whites from your colors. Maybe that is a bit too advanced: instead, they can take your sorted piles and throw them in the washing machine. When you’re done, have them push, pull, drag, carry – whatever they can manage – that laundry basket to its destination.


This strengthens so many skills. We’re talking fine motor, gross motor, cognitive, and sequencing skills. Plus, you can make something as dull as laundry day a bit more interesting.

4: Promote child development with day-to-day tasks

Supporting cognitive milestones can be done right in the home. Anytime you need to get some grown-up desk work done, your child can do their work, too! Offer them a pencil and paper – I am sure they would love it if they got to use something from your work bag – and let them get to it! Now they are kept busy so that you can have a few
moments to complete your schedule, email your colleagues, or document your tasks that week.

Allowing them the opportunity to use various writing utensils, instead of just one kind of chunky crayon, gives their little hands and fingers a challenge.

Strengthening their grasp will improve handwriting outcomes as well as things like dressing ability (hello, buttons and zippers!) and independent skills in achieving feeding developmental milestones. Not to mention the visual motor development that coloring can offer.

5. Support child development with downtime

Some days, all you can do is keep everyone alive. Maybe it’s putting on some Bee Gees and dancing to their classic hits because if you didn’t, mental breakdowns would ensue.

Dancing is great for growing bodies! Or maybe you just need time away inside of a good book, and your baby can cuddle your chest while you read. They can also peruse a book of their own while you take your escape. No matter their age or abilities, don’t overwhelm yourself, do what you need to do to keep your family safe and happy.

Looking for more? Click here to learn more about occupational therapy for babies!

For more ideas on milestone development and child development, head over here to get ideas for play based on your child’s age.

References

  1. Woods, J. (2008). Providing early intervention services in natural environments. The ASHA
    Leader, 13(4). https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.FTR2.13042008.14
  2. Butcher, K. & Pletcher, J. (2016, December). Cognitive development and sensory play. Michigan State University Extension. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/cognitive_development_and_sensory_play
  3. The Center for Vision Development. (2020). Visual motor integration.
    https://www.thecenterforvision.com/visual-motor-integration/

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.

Christmas Activities for Toddlers

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christmas activities for toddlers
Need a few Christmas Activities for Toddlers? This time of year, there is just not enough time to search for activities that the kids will love. Today we’re sharing Christmas activities for kids that help to promote underlying skills like fine motor, gross motor, coordination, and balance. These are holiday games and Christmas activities for 2-3 year olds with a focus on fun. The best part is, they are here and all in one place for you!
 

Christmas Activities for Toddlers

Use these Christmas activities for toddlers to promote fine motor skills, gross motor skills, bilateral coordination, crossing midline, and other skills that toddlers learn through play!
 
The toddler years is a busy time as kiddos are learning, moving, and are on the go! The Toddler stage of development is a critical one as kids are developing the underlying fine motor and gross motor experiences skills they need down the road for tasks like pencil grasp, handwriting, coordination, and gross motor tasks. These are Christmas activities that 2 and 3 year olds will love!
 
Use the Christmas Activities for toddlers below to create motor experiences for toddlers, all with a Christmas theme!
 
This post is part of our Christmas Activities week here on The OT Toolbox. You’ll want to catch all of the updates here on the site this week as we are sharing tons of therapist-approved Occupational Therapy Christmas Activities for Kids. 
 
These are activities, games, and ideas for kids with a Christmas theme that can be used in occupational therapy treatment in the home, school, or clinic!


Looking for Christmas ideas for older kids? This series has a collection of Christmas Activities for Preschoolers too!
 
If you missed the announcement post on our Christmas Activities for Kids series, you’ll want to check it out. We’ll have a different theme each day this week!
 

Christmas Activities for kids

Jingle Bell Sort- Toddlers will love this Christmas Jingle Bell Sort activity and won’t even realize they are building skills they need for development. This activity can be used all season long to help kids develop in-hand manipulation and separation of the two sides of the hands as kids sort colored jingle bells.

Christmas Coloring- Use the crayons for toddlers that support development of fine motor skills and visual motor skills. Use aa blank page and draw or color simple holiday themed shapes. Or, use a Christmas coloring book as a quiet time activity. Don’t have these items? They make great stocking stuffers for toddlers!

Christmas Discovery Bottle- A sensory bottle is great for toddlers. It’s a tool that can help them as they discover how their hands move to shake a bottle to make noises from the filler. What an experience in cause and effect! This Christmas Discover Bottle uses green split peas and holiday themed foam shapes. 
 
Christmas Sensory Bin- Something as simple as throwing cookie cutters, ribbons, and bows into a low bin can be a great discovery sensory bin that is perfect for Toddlers. This Christmas Sensory Bin is an activity that requires close supervision (like all of the activities listed here). Toddlers can explore different items while moving items, sorting, experiencing different textures. 

Christmas Water Play– Freeze a few holiday shaped ice cubes, toss them into water, and add some scoops and spoons. Toddlers can work on scooping, bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, and other skills, all with a simple set-up activity that Toddlers will love. We used Christmas shaped ice cube trays but any ice cubes would work. Here is more information on scooping ice as a fine motor activities for toddlers.

Easel Art- Working on a vertical surface is a great way to strengthen promote balance, coordination, and bilateral coordination. In this easel art activity, we used red, white, and blue paper scraps, but it could easily be re-created with green and red Christmas colors!

 

Fine Motor Activity for Toddlers- Work on fine motor skills with toddlers by using red and green crafting pom poms and a recycled plastic bottle to promote development of the fine motor skills kids need down the road for fastening clothing fasteners, coloring, and writing with a pencil.

 
Fine Motor Pipe Cleaner Activity for Toddlers– Use that recycled plastic bottle again to work on even more fine motor skills in toddlers by using red and green pipe cleaners. Add a handful of jingle bells to create a sensory bottle that is as much fun to create as it is to play with.
 
Sorting ornaments and playing with ornaments is a toddler activity that can help small kids with fine motor skills and other areas in play!


Ornament Explore– Toss a handful of plastic or shatter proof ornaments into a basket for a toddler-safe exploration play. This is a great way for little ones to explore textures, promote bilateral coordination, visual motor skills, crossing midline, and other skills, all in a safe way!

Empty Box Fine Motor Activity- Wrap an empty box with wrapping paper. Using a screwdriver, poke holes in the box. Then, show your toddler how to push pipe cleaners into the holes. Using pipe cleaners for fine motor was a HUGE hit when I had toddlers in my house. It’s a great activity for developing precision, coordination, crossing midline, bilateral coordination, grasp development, and more!
 
Sensory Light Box- This time of year, it seems like there are cardboard boxes arriving at the house every day. Use an empty cardboard box to make a sensory light tunnel. All you need is a big box, and a strand of Christmas lights to create a sensory calm down zone and Toddler play space.
 
Don’t forget to stop back tomorrow for more occupational therapy Christmas ideas. You can also catch all of the Christmas Activities for kids here.
 
Christmas activities for toddlers make fun activities and Christmas play ideas that help toddlers learn through play in the activities that they can use to promote fine motor skills and other skills.

Rainbow Chain Toddler activity

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Color sorting activity
This rainbow chain can be used in a toddler activity to teach colors and color matching in a creative, hands-on approach to teaching toddlers colors. This is an activity that I’ve used over and over again with my own toddlers. Older siblings can make and build the plastic chain links to make a rainbow chain…and younger siblings can sort the colors of the chain links. This is a chain link activity that builds so many skills!
 
Today’s learning with manipulatives activity uses something that I LOVE.  I had these plastic chain links in my therapy bag for years, and used them daily in school based and outpatient occupational therapy treatment.  Now, I get to play with my kids using these plastic rainbow chain links. Today, we used them with my toddler to practice color sorting. 
 
And, here’s a little preview for you: We went a little crazy with playing with these chain links.  I’ve got a bunch of fun chain link ideas coming your way, soon!
 
Color sorting activity for toddlers using rainbow plastic chain links for learning and fine motor skills. This is an Occupational Therapists recommended tool for so many skills: bilateral hand coordination, tripod grasp, intrinsic hand strength, open thumb web space, extended wrist, and so many more.
 
 

Rainbow Chain

This post contains affiliate links.
 
Chain links are completely awesome for find motor skills in kids.  Linking the chains together and pulling them apart requires intrinsic muscle strength, bilateral hand coordination, tripod grasp, and pronation/supination of an extended wrist.  
 
These chain links are tools that can used to work on so many goal areas.  From using two hands together, to a functional pencil grasp, to using spoons and forks with an appropriate write positioning, to holding a zipper with the right wrists angle…these little guys are great skill builders!
 
Linking the chains together requires a bit of muscle oomph, so for preschoolers and school-aged kids, building chains are a great strengthening activity.  
 
Color sorting activity for toddlers using rainbow plastic chain links for learning and fine motor skills. This is an Occupational Therapists recommended tool for so many skills: bilateral hand coordination, tripod grasp, intrinsic hand strength, open thumb web space, extended wrist, and so many more.

 

Rainbow Chain Link Activity

Color sorting activity for toddlers using rainbow plastic chain links for learning and fine motor skills. This is an Occupational Therapists recommended tool for so many skills: bilateral hand coordination, tripod grasp, intrinsic hand strength, open thumb web space, extended wrist, and so many more.
 
For this activity, we used our Learning Resources Link n Learn Links.
 
(This set comes in a big bucket of 500, so you’ve got plenty for multiple kids playing at the same time, or different age-appropriate activities happening with the chain links)
 
You’ll also need colored card stock in matching colors.
 
 I cut squares of equal sizes and placed them out on the table. I figured this would be a great activity for older toddlers, but my 19 month old completely surprised my by correctly placing the colored links
on the matching paper squares.  I had a few links in place to show her what to do and she was able to put them on the correct squares.  
 
I even put an incorrect colored link on a different colored square and she was able to fix the mistake.  It was a proud mama moment!
 
Color sorting activity for toddlers using rainbow plastic chain links for learning and fine motor skills. This is an Occupational Therapists recommended tool for so many skills: bilateral hand coordination, tripod grasp, intrinsic hand strength, open thumb web space, extended wrist, and so many more.
 
Color sorting activity for toddlers using rainbow plastic chain links for learning and fine motor skills. This is an Occupational Therapists recommended tool for so many skills: bilateral hand coordination, tripod grasp, intrinsic hand strength, open thumb web space, extended wrist, and so many more.
 
 
Looking for more learning activities using rainbow manipulatives?  Stop by our Learning With Manipulatives team to see what they’ve come up with:
AND, be sure to stop by Instagram and check out the #toolsforlearning hashtag to see them all.  Tag your hands-on learning ideas using rainbow manipulatives, too! We would love to see them!
Graphing with Rainbow Bears from Still Playing School 
Color and Size Sorting with Rainbow Counters from Line Upon Line Learning
Alphabet Formation Compare Bears from Adventures of Adam
Size and Color Sorting {Learning with Rainbow Bears} from Squiggles and Bubbles 
Animal Counters Sensory Bin & Color Sort from Raising Little Superheroes 
Color Graphing with Rainbow Bears from Schooltime Snippets 
Rainbow Bears Sensory Bin from Something 2 Offer  
Rainbow Bears Addition Cards from The Kindergarten Connection 
Measuring with Rainbow Bears from Mom Inspired Life 
 
 
 
More fine motor activities you will LOVE:
 
 
 
Colors Handwriting Kit

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.

Click here to get your copy of the Colors Handwriting Kit.

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.

Rainbow Play: Foam sheets on the window

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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”.
 

 

Pipe Cleaner Fine Motor Activity With a Cardboard Box

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Pipe cleaner fine motor activity

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:

  1. Pipe cleaners cut into half or one thirds
  2. 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.

Another pipe cleaner fine motor activity to try is dropping pipe cleaners into a bottle. Toddlers love that activity, too!

 

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:

Letters Fine Motor Kit
Kit de motricidad fina de verano
Summer Fine Motor Kit
Outer Space Fine Motor Kit
Space Fine Motor Kit
Spring fine motor kit
Valentines Day fine motor kit
winter fine motor kit
Winter Fine Motor Kit

Or, grab one of our themed Fine Motor Kits to target skills with fun themes:

Want access to all of these kits…and more being added each month? Join The OT Toolbox Member’s Club!

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.

Body Parts Activities for Toddlers

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This body parts activities for toddlers is a fun activity to teach young kids about body part names using a baby doll. We love this body parts activities for babies, too because babies AND toddlers can relate to using a baby doll and adding band aides to different body parts!

body parts activities for toddlers

This body awareness activity is perfect for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. Kids LOVE to peel bandages and stick them onto a baby doll. They can stick the bandages (or paper or felt bandages for a pretend version) to use a baby doll to teach body parts.

 
I got this idea after Baby Girl had her most recent well child doctor’s visit, and she had a couple of vaccinations.  The next day, she was sooooo interested in her new band aides that the had nurse put on her leg. 
 
Baby Girl is getting pretty good at pointing to her body parts when we say “where is your head, where are your toes…” and you better act fast if you ask her “where are your eyes”.  The girl will come at ya with a pokey finger ready to show YOU where YOUR eyes are!
 
When a baby and toddler begins to show finger isolation to poke or point, this is finger isolation. This progression of fine motor skills is a progression from pincer grasp.
 
Our resource on fine motor milestones further breaks down this progression.
 
To further develop these fine motor skills with babies and toddlers, try fingerplay songs.
 
So, I used some of our felt sheets and cut up a few colored band aides.  I wanted them to be felt so they would sort-of stick to Baby Girl’s clothing if we laid them on her pant leg or sleeve…and I thought it would be fun for her to stick them to her favorite felt-y feeling baby doll.
 
body parts activities for toddlers
 
 
 
I set the felt band aides out along with some real band aides and some pieces from a play doctor’s set.
 
 
Playing with band aides is a really great fine motor task for preschoolers.  Peeling them open, and pulling the backs off of the sticky part…Sticking them down…All so perfect for fine motor dexterity, bilateral coordination, & tip-to-tip pincer grasp. 
 
If you find some band aides on sale or at the dollar store, pick them up.  You can use those buggers in all kinds of fun pretend play and craft activities.
 
 
 
See, she will poke eyes!! You gotta watch this girl, people! She pokes while she says in the cutest possible little voice, “Eyyyyyyyeeessssssss”.  At least while your eye is being poked out, you can hear that cute little word haha!  (You may not have vision from that eye for  a few minutes…but still.)
 

 

Big Sister and Little Guy had so much fun playing doctor and giving the baby shots, applying band aides, checking her temperature/ears/heartbeat…
 
Older kids can also use our bone names activity for learning bone names.

 

 

 
And Baby Girl was busy doing what she does best…
 
Being Her.
 
“hmmm. Yup, I think I better spill these last drops of milk on the table.  Yes. That was a great idea.”
 
 
 

 

She did do a pretty great job with the body part thing!  She showed me the baby’s chin and leg.

 

 
We stuck the felt band aides to Baby Girl’s elbow and belly.  They stuck pretty well on her fleece top.  And then stuck them in the same places on her baby doll. 
 

 

 
I have no idea why (or how) there suddenly was a sticker on the back of Baby Girl’s head.  I’m thinking Little Guy had something to do with this one.
 
Brothers.
 
 
This baby had a rough day.

 

 

 
Big Sister finished up by giving baby a little bath time. 
 
 
 
And then of course, baby needs swaddled.
 
and chest compressions, apparently.
 

 

 

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.

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