visual motor skills Archives - Page 3 of 11

Tangram Activities

December 8, 2022June 10, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

These tangram activities are designed to develop visual perceptual skills, visual motor skills, and fine motor skills in kids. Tangrams make a great addition to any occupational therapy treatment bag!

Tangram Activities

Tangrams are a great tool for learning and development. The colorful shapes are perfect for building images and working on math skills such as shape identification and patterning.

Tangrams are also an easy way to incorporate visual perceptual skills, fine motor skills, and visual motor integration into play.

Development of visual perceptual skills is essential for tasks like reading, writing, math, movement, self-care, and many other functional tasks. These tangram activities are perfect to improve visual perception in a playful way. You can use tangrams to address visual perception in many more ways, including ideas to help with handwriting.

Try DIY Sponge Tangrams for another version of these activities.

And check out these cardboard tangrams for developing visual motor integration skills.

How to use tangrams to improve visual perception skills needed for reading, writing, and functional skills.

This post contains affiliate links.

Visual perception allows us to take in visual information, process it, and use it to interpret information from our environment. There are many parts of visual perception, but today, I’ve got three visual perceptual skills that can be developed using tangrams.

Visual Percepetion and Tangrams

1. Visual Discrimination allows us to determine similarities and differences based on color, shape, etch. This skill allows us to know that a 6 and a 9 are different and that a p and a q are not the same letter.

Use tangrams to work on visual discrimination:

Place tangram shapes on a piece of paper. Ask the child to locate all of the triangles, all of the squares, etc.
Ask the child to find shapes that are the same even if they are different sizes. This tangram set has several different sizes of triangles, making it a great tool for form constancy.
Use two different shapes to discuss what makes the shapes similar and different.

2. Visual Memory allows us to retain visual information. We need visual memory in order to copy written work.

Use tangrams to work on visual memory:

Use the tangrams for a hands-on game of “Simon”. Place shapes on a piece of paper, taking turns to add one new shape at a time. Each player should recall the previous round before adding a new tangram shape.

Place several tangram shapes on a piece of paper. Allow the child to stare at the shapes for a period of time. Then, cover the shapes with a second piece of paper. Ask the child to recall the shapes that they saw.

3. Form Constancy is the ability to recognize shapes and forms no matter what position they are in.

Use tangrams to work on form constancy:

Use tangrams to build form constancy by positioning shapes in different positions. Ask the child to locate all of the squares, quadrilaterals, etc.
Position shapes on one side of a piece of paper. On the other side of the paper, position shapes that can be combined to make the shape on the first side of the paper. Ask the child to match up the two sides.
Position shapes along one side of a piece of paper. Position matching shapes along the right side of the paper, with the shapes slightly rotated. Ask the child to match up the shapes.

Looking for more ways to build visual perceptual skills? Try these:

Free Visual Perception Worksheets — https://www.theottoolbox.com/free-visual-perception-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.

Free Virtual Connect 4 Game

June 14, 2021April 19, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Today I have another fun virtual therapy activity: A therapy board game Connect 4! This therapy slide deck is a free virtual Connect 4 game designed for occupational therapy services (or other therapy services) that combine motor skills with visual perception and eye hand coordination. Therapeutic games are nothing new; Occupational therapists use board games in therapy services all the time to address function and independence skills. This therapy game is a bit different: it builds skills in kids through game play, and is a fun game for teletherapy.

Grab this free virtual Connect 4 game for building skills in occupational therapy, using a outer space connect 4 game!

Therapy Board Game

We’ve shared virtual games and board games to use in therapy previously on this site. Some games are great for helping kids develop specific skills:

To work on executive functioning skills, try these board games to help with executive functioning.
And, here are more games to work on extractive functioning skills.
Try these games to improve pencil grasp.
For visual processing skills, use these games to improve visual tracking.
For games to use in telehealth, try these teletherapy games.
To address cognitive skills, try these multisensory learning board games.
Kids love these games to help with math skills.

Today’s virtual Connect Four game is just as much fun, and it’s a great tool to add to your therapy toolbox!

Virtual Connect 4

When it comes to teletherapy services, it can be hard to incorporate game play into therapy sessions in a way that addresses functional goals like handwriting, motor skills, or self-regulation. This virtual Connect 4 game does just that!

This game is a Google slide deck and one of our free slides that can compliment therapy services, both online or in face-to-face sessions.

To play the game, you’ll add the free slide deck to your Google drive, pull up the slide deck during therapy sessions, and work on a variety of skills. To use this game in distance therapy situations, you can send the link to students and you’ll each play on your own computers, watching as the edits are made to the slide deck. (Be sure to make a copy and send that specific link to a student- this way your student has their own copy of the slide deck on their Google drive.)

The game is just like the classic Connect 4 game: try to get four in a row and block the other player from getting four in a row.

This particular Connect 4 game has an outer space theme. So, the game pieces are planets! Check out more space theme activities below.

When suing the Connect 4 game in therapy, kids can work on the following skills:

Visual perception
Visual motor skills
Eye hand coordination
Fine motor skills
Mouse use/keyboard use
Finger isolation

The virtual Connect 4 game includes handwriting slides, so that when users place the game pieces, they cover a letter or a number. These are designed to promote handwriting skills and number formation skills.

Use the handwriting slide to work on letter formation, word writing, sentence writing, and copying skills.

Use the number slide to work on forming numbers, writing number words, or even gross motor skills: kids can do a motor activity like jumping jacks to animal walks the same number of times as the number they covered with their game piece.

To reset the game pieces:

When you are done playing, just hit the EDIT HISTORY link.
Look on the right side bar for “Version History”.
Click the box that says “Reset Game”.
Then go to the top left corner of the screen where there is an arrow pointing left. Click this arrow.
All of the movable game pieces will be reset to their original spots. You can start the game over again.

This Space Connect 4 game will be a hit in your therapy sessions (or at home and in the classroom!)

More space activities for therapy

You can add this virtual Connect 4 game to these other Space theme activities, to help with therapy planning:

Outer Space Theme Therapy Slide Deck (includes self-regulation, fine motor activities, handwriting, and movement activities, all with a space theme for therapy sessions)
Space Activities– use these hands-on activities to work on motor skills.
Galaxy and Outer Space Sensory Activities– Use these sensory activities for sensory play, sensory challenges, and multisensory learning.
Space Play Dough Mat– work on hand strength, precision, and eye-hand coordination with a free space theme play dough mat.
Outer Space Visual Perception Worksheet #1- This free printable worksheet addresses visual perceptual skills with planets.
Outer Space Visual Perception Worksheet #2– Be sure to grab this one, too.
Martian Spacing Tool for Handwriting– Make a spacing tool with an outer space theme and incorporate fine motor work as well as visual spatial skills in handwriting.
Bilateral Coordination/Math Space Maze– This space math activity is great for learning concepts, but the therapy benefits are even greater!
Outer Space Books– This collection of space books are fun for incorporating books into therapy sessions.

Free Virtual Connect 4 for Therapy

Want to add this free slide deck to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below and you’ll gain access to this slide deck on your Google drive.

For those using school district, university, or organization emails- You may have trouble accessing the free slide deck due to increased security warnings. To get around this, try entering a personal email address.

NEW RESOURCE: Outer Space Fine Motor Mini-Pack!

Working on fine motor skills? Know a child who loves all things outer space? This Outer Space Fine Motor Mini-Kit is for you!

Work on grasp, hand strength, eye-hand coordination, handwriting, scissor skills, and all things fine motor with this Outer Space fine motor mini-kit.

Addressing hand strength, endurance, and precision is out of this world fun!

Includes:

Fine Motor Mazes
Fine Motor Ten Frames for motor activities
1-20 Star Counting Cards
Bead Copying Strips
Space Alien Directed Drawing Sheets

Grab your copy of this no-prep Outer Space fine motor worksheet set!

Virtual Visual Motor Room

December 20, 2022April 13, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

If you are looking for online games to target visual perceptual skills, and ways to build visual motor skills when working virtually, then this virtual visual motor room (or virtual visual perceptual skills therapy room) is for you. This virtual therapy room is based on our virtual sensory room and is designed to develop and strengthen visual motor skills, visual perceptual skills, visual figure ground, and eye-hand coordination. Let’s play!

This Visual Motor Skills Virtual Therapy Room is going to be a hit with your caseload.

Free virtual visual motor activities for online occupational therapy activities

Online Visual Motor Activities

For therapists working in teletherapy, online puzzles, virtual games, and remote therapy games are one way to help kids build the skills they need for visual perception, visual motor, eye-hand coordination, and even executive functioning.

That’s where this virtual visual motor room comes in.

Therapists can access the free virtual therapy room from their Google drive and use the tools in teletherapy sessions.

This slide deck is just one of the many free slide deck collections available here on The OT Toolbox.

For more teletherapy games and tools that can be done remotely with kids on your therapy caseload, check out this resource on virtual therapy games.

Virtual Visual Motor Activities

There are so many awesome visual motor resources that can be used in occupational therapy teletherapy. In the virtual therapy room, you can find games and activities like these:

Online Sudoko
Virtual Connect 4 game
Online Snakes and Ladders
Virtual Bingo
Qwirkle
Uno
Yahtzee
Online Tic Tac Toe
Tangrams
Connect the dots
Geoforms
Shape building activities
Counting and graphing activities
Visual memory activities
Mazes
Word searches
What’s missing puzzles
MUCH more

All of these virtual therapy activities can be used to challenge kids’ visual perceptual skills, visual motor skills, and motor skills.

You’ll also see links to hands-on visual motor activities listed here on The OT Toolbox as well as a link to our free visual perception packet. Use these hands-on and printable therapy tools along with the virtual games and activities.

Virtual therapy room for visual motor skills.

When you click on the images in the virtual therapy room, you’ll be sent to links to videos, exercises, and resources to promote visual perception activiites and visual motor activities. T

This therapy room is a great resource for kids of all ages. You’ll find therapy activities for all levels of visual perceptual skills and visual motor integration.

Free virtual therapy room slide deck

Want to add this therapy slide deck to your OT toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below and you can access this resource from your email.

NOTE: Lately email addresses from school districts, organizations, and those with strict security walls have had our slide decks blocked. Consider using a personal email address to access this slide deck.

Add heavy work with these heavy work exercises to incorporate many themes into therapy and play.

heavy work cards for regulation, attention, and themed brain breaks

Click here to grab these heavy work cards.

Flower Visual Motor Therapy Slide Deck

December 8, 2022March 21, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Flower visual motor exercises for therapy

This week’s occupational therapy theme is flowers and so today, I have a free flower visual motor therapy slide deck for you. In this free Google slide deck, you’ll find various aspects of visual motor skill work. With the official start of Spring, flowers are starting to pop up all over, so if the daffodils, lilies, and tulips make you smile, these visual motor flower activities are sure to brighten your therapy session!

Flower visual motor therapy exercises for therapy

Flower visual motor therapy activities

If you are looking for Spring occupational therapy activities to help kids develop skills, this flower visual motor slide deck is it. Add this virtual therapy activity to some hands on flower activities and you’ve got a therapy plan for the week. It’s a great way to make a weekly occupational therapy plan and use the same activities again and again all week, saving yourself time and planning hours. Simply adjust each activity to meet the needs of each child on your therapy caseload to work on their specific goals.

Flower visual motor activities for occupational therapy teletherapy sessions with a free Google slide deck for therapy.

As you know, visual processing breaks down into smaller components that all work together to allow us to take in visual information, process that input, and complete motor operations so we can complete functional tasks. Visual motor skills include eye-hand coordination, visual perception, and visual skills like tracing, convergence, and other skill areas. All of these aspects of visual processing are important parts of performing day to day occupations.

That’s why I created this flower theme therapy slide deck that includes different vison exercises.

In the slide deck, you’ll find pre-writing line activities that ask the user to trace along the forms using a movable flower icon. This eye-hand coordination task requires visual tracking, visual attention, and motor integration with visual input.

Work on visual motor skills with this flower theme slide deck in occupational therapy.

Also, the slide deck includes copying activities. Users can copy the simple and more complex flower forms as they challenge aspects of visual motor skills that are needed for handwriting and math tasks.

There is a handwriting portion as well. Kids can trace the letters on the slide deck using the movable flower piece. This makes the slide deck interactive, as they can work on mouse work, use of a stylus, or finger isolation to trace the flower along the letter. Then, the slide asks them to write words or phrases so they can incorporate handwriting work.

Then finally, the slide deck includes several visual perception activities. Kids can complete each slide, typing or writing out their responses as they work on skills like visual discrimination, form constancy, visual memory, figure-ground, etc. All of these visual perceptual skills play a role in visual motor tasks that we perform on a daily basis.

Free Flower Therapy Slide Deck

Want to add this free slide deck to your therapy toolbox? Use it in teletherapy sessions, home activities to work on visual motor skills and visual processing, and to make therapy planning easier!

Enter your email address into the form below to add this slide deck to your Google drive account.

NOTE- Due to an increase in security measures, many readers utilizing a work or school district email address have had difficulty accessing resources from the delivery email. Consider using a personal email address and forwarding the delivery email to your work account.

Spring Fine Motor Kit

Score Fine Motor Tools and resources and help kids build the skills they need to thrive!

Developing hand strength, dexterity, dexterity, precision skills, and eye-hand coordination skills that kids need for holding and writing with a pencil, coloring, and manipulating small objects in every day task doesn’t need to be difficult. The Spring Fine Motor Kit includes 100 pages of fine motor activities, worksheets, crafts, and more:

Spring fine motor kit set of printable fine motor skills worksheets for kids.

Lacing cards
Sensory bin cards
Hole punch activities
Pencil control worksheets
Play dough mats
Write the Room cards
Modified paper
Sticker activities
MUCH MORE

Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

Grab your copy of the Spring Fine Motor Kit and build coordination, strength, and endurance in fun and creative activities. Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

Bilateral Integration Activity Draw a Clover!

March 8, 2021March 4, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Bilateral coordination visual motor integration

This bilateral integration activity is a powerful way to help kids with a variety of skills. Add it to your line up of hands-on, St. Patrick’s Day theme activities for therapy and promoting child development. Kids can draw the four leaf clover but also work on developing bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, visual motor integration, visual scanning, visual convergence, core strength, and so much more. Integrating all of these areas into functional tasks involves many components of development, and this activity can help in so many ways.

Kiddos with sensory or developmental problems might have trouble crossing mid-line. You might know a child who has trouble making both hands work together to accomplish a task like handwriting, cutting with scissors, tying shoes, buttoning a shirt, or catching a ball. Bilateral coordination is necessary for many functional activities!

Bilateral Integration and Functional Activities

Bilateral coordination activity with a clover theme works on visual motor coordination, kinesthetic sense, peripheral vision for improved gross motor and fine motor bilateral activities.

Bilateral integration is an area of child development that involves different movements and systems. Coordination of visual systems include visual tracking and scanning as well as depth perception and peripheral vision. All of these skills need to be integrated into movement so that coordinated movement patterns can occur.

Then, there is the crossing midline component. Crossing the midline occurs developmentally, and this milestone is an important one that translates to laterality and coordinated use of both hands together in functional tasks.

Then, visual motor integration, where the eyes and body works together to perform daily tasks is another piece of the puzzle. One part of the developmental progression of these skill areas is symmetrical bilateral integration.

Symmetrical Bilateral Integration

In this stage of development, children bring their hands together at the midline. You’ll see this in small infants that bring their hands to their mouth. They then start to hold toys together with their hands. Later down the road, symmetrical bilateral integration skills are needed to clap, zipper and button a coat, and gross motor tasks, too such as hopping, jumping, and completing tasks like jumping jacks.

Progression beyond symmetrical development relies on this developmental stage. And skills like asymmetrical bilateral integration, crossing the midline are founded on progression of this early developmental stage.

Gross motor and fine motor activities are needed for activities where each hand does the same job (jumping jacks, movement games like the Hokey Pokey, and pulling up pants). Other tasks require both hands to do different jobs in a coordinated way (holding the paper and writing with a pencil, holding paper and cutting with scissors, tying shoes, fastening a zipper, weaving a loom, or putting on a coat).

Bilateral Integration Activity for Kids

This activity is one that’s been on my mind for a while. As an OT, I’ve done versions of this activity many times with kids who have trouble with kinesthetic sense, visual perceptual skills, and bilateral coordination.

This post contains affiliate links.

This activity is a version of the Brain Gym program, which uses whole body movements to improve skills, including learning and functional tasks. Brain Gym can be just one tool in a toolbox of strategies to progress development of skills that kids need to function.

In Brain Gym, there is an activity called Double Doodles, which involves doodling with both hands, with a piece of crayon or chalk in each hand.

The activity encourages children to use both hands together. The point of the activity is to establish direction and orientation relative to the child’s body. The movement activity addresses hand-eye coordination in different visual fields, promotes spatial awareness and visual discrimination, addresses left and right awareness, improves peripheral vision, promotes body awareness and coordination with specialization of the hands and eyes, and works on gross motor movement skills.

Brain Gym is just one way to promote whole body learning through simple and fun movement activities.

Four Leaf Clover Bilateral Activity

In our gross motor bilateral coordination activity, we’re using visual motor integration. While creating a four leaf clover shape, the child is using his visual sense to guides movement through peripheral vision.

This is an easy activity to set up. Tape a large piece of paper to the wall. Poster board (like we used) works great, but that can get pricey. A nice option is using a large roll of paper like easel paper or butcher paper. You can also perform this activity at a large chalkboard or dry erase board in classroom settings.

First, draw a large and symmetrical four leaf clover shape on the paper. Provide the child with a crayon, pencil, marker or chalk for each hand.

Standing in front of the clover, ask them to stare at the center of the paper. You can draw a dot for them to look at, if needed.

Then, show them how to start both hands at the top center of the clover and to slowly trace the lines of the clover to meet at the bottom center.

We included a stem on our clover, but you can just draw the four leaves.

Tell the child to not worry too much about staying right on the lines. The object is to have both hands move together doing symmetrical motions. Repeat the lines again and again. Add colored crayons/markers/pencils to create a rainbow four leaf clover.

A few things to watch for:

While drawing, watch the child for stiffness in the hand, wrist, or arm.
Be aware of whole body movements. Arm motions should come from the shoulders.
Remind the child to keep their eyes fixed on the dot at the center of the clover.
Remind the child to keep the writing utensils in contact with the paper. They shouldn’t lift the crayons at all.
Watch for bilateral coordination, ensuring that both arms are moving at the same speed, distance, and positioning.

Other ways to extend this activity:

Draw the four leaf clover on paper and have the child sit to perform the re-tracing activity.
Do this activity on a driveway or sidewalk using chalk.
Draw in the air with pointer fingers.
Draw in a sand table.
Use finger paints.
Use ribbon sticks in the air.
Use musical instruments like bells or maracas.

More Visual Motor Activities you will Love:

Finger dexterity exercise

Tracing Letters: Letter Formation Handwriting Practice with Chalk

Tracing Lines with a DIY Light Box

Pencil Control Worksheets You Can Make At Home

Dinosaur Gross Motor Game

Gross Motor Apple Tree Balance Beam

How Balance Beams Help Kids

Core Strength and Attention

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.

Rainbow Ladder Visual Motor Activity

March 1, 2021March 1, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Rainbow ladder visual motor integration activity

This rainbow ladder activity is a rainbow themed visual motor activity that is perfect for building visual motor integration skills needed in handwriting and reading. Visual motor integration activities like this one help kids to work on the skills needed to form letters and numbers correctly, to write on lines, and to copy words and sentences from a model, and make a great addition to rainbow activities that promote child development of essential skills. Kids will love to create a rainbow ladder with this scented marker activity as they work on skills they need in a creative and fun way!

Kids will love this rainbow visual motor activity to address the skills needed for handwriting.

Rainbow Ladder Activity

This post contains affiliate links.

You’ll need just a couple of materials for this visual motor integration activity:

Markers in a rainbow of hues (We used Mr. Sketch scented markers for a fun alternative.)
Paper

To prepare this activity, you’ll need to draw dots in a vertical column down the left side of the paper and matching dots in a column down the right side of the paper. Then, use a black magic marker to make vertical lines for the sides of the “ladder”.

Try this rainbow visual motor activity to help kids work on handwriting in a creative way.

Visual Motor Integration Activity

When doing this activity, be sure to ensure the child is connecting the dots from the left to the right. Try these tips to make sure the child is building those visual motor skills:

Ask the child to start the marker on the left dot. If they miss the dot, use verbal or visual cues to help them with the remaining dots.

Use this rainbow visual motor activity to work on handwriting skills.

Watch the child’s horizontal lines across the page. If the line goes up or down below 1/4″-1/2″ from an imaginary strait line, use verbal and visual cues for the remaining trials.

Ask the child to stop at the right dot. If the line stops before the dot or extends beyond the dot, use verbal or visual cues for the remaining trials.

Use the black vertical lines as a visual cue to slow down the marker stroke for improved accuracy.

Work on visual motor integration with this rainbow visual motor activity.

More ways to extend this activity to address visual motor development:

Use large paper (easel paper or butcher paper) hanging on the wall.

Stand at an easel or dry erase board.

Try making diagonal lines or arched lines like in this occupational therapy slide deck for working on prewriting skills and line formation in a visual motor letter rainbow.

Kids will love to make this rainbow ladder while working on visual motor skills.

Try these visual motor activities for more fun ways to build skills needed for handwriting:

Visual motor integration activities using paper

visual processing and visual efficiency problems

Eye-Hand Coordination Activities using Paper
Bilateral Coordination Visual Motor Integration Clover

Jumbo Fine Motor Threading Activity

Visual Processing and Visual efficiency-Problems you can not see

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.

Rainbow Drawing Slide Deck

February 23, 2023February 26, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This rainbow art drawing help kids with visual motor skills of copying images and figures. When kids demonstrate the ability to copy shapes and forms, they are building the skills needed for copying words, letters, and sentences. This rainbow slide deck is a teletherapy activity that helps with visual motor skills needed for handwriting. Add this free Google slide deck to your occupational therapy teletherapy services (or home programs) and start building skills in visual motor integration.

Starting with drawing milestones is a good idea, especially if you are wondering about using this rainbow drawing activity with a range of ages.

This therapy virtual activity is great to use along with some fruit loop rainbow craft ideas for hands-on rainbow themed fun.

Rainbow Drawing Art

If you take a scroll on YouTube, you’ll find a lot of directed drawing videos that walk kids through “how to draw a rainbow”… or how to draw hundreds of other images, cartoons, and drawing art ideas.

But, one thing that I have been looking for is simple forms that help kids with visual motor skills like copying simple and complex shapes…that are FUN and motivating.

Here’s the thing: when kids copy shapes, they are developing so many visual motor integration skills that translated to forming letters and numbers, copying sentences, and the eye-hand coordination needed to move a pencil in the way it needs to move so that letters and numbers are placed on lines. It’s all connected!

Copying simple lines and shapes are part of pre-writing skills. By the way, be sure to grab this rainbow pre-writing lines Google slide deck. It’s a freebie that you’ll want for your younger or lower level kiddos.

AND, when kids progress to copying more complex shapes, drawings, and forms, they are developing stronger skills in moving the pencil accuracy, spatial awareness, line awareness, and position in space. All of these skill sets are so necessary for handwriting.

Draw a Rainbow Activity

Kids can copy the different basic rainbow forms and develop these skills using our free rainbow drawing slide deck.

Each slide includes simple or more complex rainbow drawings that challenge kids to copy forms, making this a fun Spring activity that helps to build visual motor skills.

You can ask kids to copy the rainbows onto paper in different ways to extend this activity:

Ask kids to copy the shape in a specific space.
Ask kids to fold their paper into columns and rows. They can copy a rainbow form into each space on the paper.
Ask the child to copy the rainbow in a very large size on a dry erase board or large chalk board to use whole body movements and crossing midline. Air writing is another option.
Copy the forms with different sensory materials: chalk, water colors, paint, rainbow writing, writing on sandpaper, etc.
Copy the rainbow form from memory.
Copy the forms in a very small size.
Copy the forms into a sensory writing tray. Here are ideas for sensory writing trays.

Want this Rainbow Visual Motor Activity?

Enter your email into the form below to access this free Google slide deck.

Vision 101 Course

December 7, 2020December 4, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

You might know that there is a lot of vision information and resources on visual processing here on the website. Today, I’m excited to bring you all of those vision resources in one place and to to share information on Vision 101, a new vision course that you will find useful.

The Vision 101 course is a giveaway item today in the Therapy Tools and Toys Giveaway series. (Giveaway now closed)

Vision 101

Vision problems are very common in children that receive occupational therapy.

If you are looking for information on visual processing and vision in kids, then you are in the right place. Check out the various resources and tools available here on The OT Toolbox:

Free Visual Perception Packet– Print and go! These free visual perceptual skills worksheets cover a variety of topics and themes. Work on visual closure, visual scanning, visual discrimination, and more.

Vison Screening Packet– Use this vision screening packet to screen for vision issues that impact occupational performance and education in learning and school tasks.

Vision Information– Check out all of the vision blog posts here on the website.

Vision Activities– Let’s break down vision! These vision activities address specific skills in fun and creative ways. You’ll find information on vision definitions and activities to work on each aspect of visual processing.

Free Visual Processing Lab– This free email course covers tons of information on visual processing and breaks down this massive topic into visual motor integration, visual perception, and visual efficiency…and then explains each aspect.

Visual Processing Checklist– This printable checklist is perfect for screening visual needs in the school setting.

Vision’s Impact on Learning– The fact is that children with vision issues are impacted in their learning. Here’s what you need to know.

Visual Motor Skills– Let’s face it. Much of what we do on a daily basis involves visual motor integration. Here is all of the info and resources to address visual motor skills in kids.

Visual Processing Bundle– This resource is a must-have for all things vision. It includes 17 products that you can use in therapy sessions to work on vision needs impacting occupational performance.

Want to gain continuing education credits while you learn how to apply vision interventions into your school-based practice? Vision 101 is your resource!

Vision 101 course for occupational therapy practioners

Vision 101 Course for School-Based OTs

Vision 101 is a course created by my friend Jaime at Miss. Jaime OT. She’s created this AOTA-approved course as a tool to help you improve your skills as a school-based occupational therapist. In the course, you can learn how to detect, screen for, and treat the visual difficulties that impact students’ learning

Vision 101 for School-based Occupational Therapy Practitioners is a tool to help you understand how vision deficits impact a child’s ability to learn and participate in school work.

The course offers resources on how to help students learn and participate in school tasks.

Included in the Vision course is information on:

Vision and the school-based therapist
Recognizing possible visual impediments to learning
Understanding visual diagnoses
Assessing and documenting eye movements
Visual characteristics of common pediatric diagnosis
Treatment Ideas
Vision and telehealth

Vision in the school setting

Check out the blog comments below for common questions about vision in the school setting.

Cookies Activities for Therapy

December 3, 2020December 3, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Cookies activities for occupational therapy intervention

I am excited to share another free slide deck for virtual occupational therapy! This cookies activities slide deck includes cookie themed activities for building skills in therapy. The virtual slide deck goes nicely with our recent gingerbread man virtual activity slide deck. It’s a free slide deck that is interactive AND addresses areas such as working memory, eye-hand coordination, visual motor skills, visual attention, and other areas.

Cookie activities for occupational therapy with a virtual therapy slide deck.

Cookies Activities

This is the time of year for holiday baking. Because perhaps this year needs a little more of the comfort that holiday cookies bring, I thought that a Christmas cookies theme would be appropriate.

These cookies activities are meant to be motivating and an encouraging way to work on specific therapy skills.

This year, especially, it’s all about getting creative with motivating strategies to work on the skills kids need support with.

These Cookies Activities are therapy activities that work on the following therapy areas:

Working Memory
Visual Attention
Visual Memory
Visual Perception (visual figure ground, visual discrimination, form constancy, visual spatial relations, form constancy, visual closure)
Visual Efficiency (visual scanning)
Visual Motor Skills
Handwriting

use this holiday cookies activities for therapy planning using a cookie theme in teletherapy.

Cookie Theme for Therapy

This therapy slide deck is an outline of therapy activities for this time of year and addresses different areas that can be worked on in occupational therapy sessions, and even speech therapy!

Cookie activities for working on working memory, visual perception, handwriting and more.

Working Memory Activity with a Cookie Theme

The first several slides include “I Spy” cookies activities, with a direction to locate specific cookies in the kitchen. Students can follow that direction and move the interactive cookie pieces to drag that specific cookie onto the baking sheet.

The directions are text boxes, so that therapists using this slide deck can adjust the directions as needed. You can make the directions more complex or easier, depending on the needs of your client, student, or child. Add 2 or multi-step directions or work on positional terms, too.

The cookies are in the same place on each slide so that children can work on working memory as they look for specific details according to each slide’s directions.

TIP: After your child’s therapy session, click on history at the top of Google slides and reset the slide to it’s original state so that all of the cookies are positioned at the original placement.

Visual Perception Cookie Activities

There are many visual perceptual skills that children can work on with this slide deck:

Visual figure ground– Scanning the image and identifying and locating items hidden in a busy background. This is a skill needed for reading, finding items in a drawer, locating a paper in a homework folder, and other similar tasks.

Visual discrimination– Students can visually scan the kitchen slide deck and identify differences and similarities between the cookies to locate the correct item. Visual discrimination is a skill needed for handwriting, reading, math and other skills.

Form constancy– This visual perceptual skill allows us to recognize similarities and differences between forms and images. This skill is needed for reading, writing, math, and functional tasks.

Visual spatial relations– Understanding positional terms is an important skill. This slide deck works on this area by moving the cookies to different places on the slide. Therapists can make this part of the activity more or less difficult to grade the activity to meet the needs of the child by adding additional directions to the slide to work on positional concepts. Try adding directions that ask the child to move a specific cookie to a different place in the kitchen on the slide.

Form constancy– Students that need more work with this visual perception skill can have several of the cookies duplicated and added to the slide. Then, work on size differences and positional concepts by moving the cookies to different places. You can adjust the directions to ask the child to find all of the same cookie.

Visual closure– Students can work on this visual perception skill by moving some of the cookies to partially hide behind other items on the slide.

Cookie activity for handwriting with kids.

Handwriting Cookie Activity

The next part of the slide deck is handwriting prompts in a write the room style of handwriting practice. Students can copy the word in print or cursive, depending on their needs. They can write a sentence using the word, if writing sentences is something they need to work on. Work on letter formation, legibility, and copying skills.

Use this cookie activity for visual motor skills in kids.

Visual Motor Cookie Activity

The last part of the cookie activity slide deck includes figure copying tasks. The slides include basic cookie forms that students can copy while working on visual motor skills. This is a nice activity to help children with the visual motor skills needed for forming letters and numbers.

This cookie slide deck should be a motivating a fun way to work on so many areas!

Free Cookie theme Slide Deck for therapy

Want to add this cookie slide deck to your therapy toolbox? Enter your email address into the form below and a PDF will be sent to your inbox. Save that PDF, because you can use this slide deck each year to work on therapy goals with a holiday cookie theme.

When you click the link in the PDF, you will be prompted to make a copy of the slide deck onto your Google drive. Make a copy for each student on your caseload so they have their own slide deck and you can adjust the slides according to their needs.