visual motor skills Archives

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.

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.

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.

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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

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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.

Activities for Teaching Colors

December 13, 2023February 22, 2021 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

There are so many ways to include multisensory play in teaching colors to children. Here, you’ll find hands-on, creative ways to teach colors of the rainbow using play that helps kids develop skills, move, and grow. Use these color activities in preschool or to teach toddlers colors. It’s a fun way to develop visual discrimination skills in young children.

Teaching colors and coloring goes hand-in-hand. Our resource on the best crayons for toddlers is a huge help, especially when deciding on the type of crayon to use at the age of teaching colors to toddlers and young children.

Multisensory activities to teach colors to toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners.

I’m including color activities for kindergarten and school-aged children, as well, because this color themes can be used in therapy activities or to help kids develop handwriting, or visual motor skills in the older grades. There is a lot of fun, hands-on activities listed here that help children learn colors and explore through play!

Teaching Colors to Toddlers

Toddler play and development is all about the hands-on exploration of the world. We have a lot of toddler activities designed to develop motor skills and learning here on the website that you’ll want to check out.

To teach colors to toddlers, it’s all about making things fun. These toddler activities will get you started with hands-on development activities.

So many color activities in the toddler years involve sorting colors, identifying colors, and pointing out colors. All of these activities lay the building blocks for visual discrimination that kids will use in reading and writing down the road.

Try these activities for teaching colors to toddlers:

Toddler Color Sorting with Toys– This activity uses toys and items that are found around the home, making the color identification part of every day life. You can use items that the child uses and sees every day.

Teach Color Sorting Activity– This simple color sorting activity is great for families that have a preschooler and a toddler. The preschooler can cut foam sheets and work on scissor skills and then both the preschooler and toddler can sort the paper scraps by color. This is a nice activity that allows siblings to work together to learn concepts and grow skills together.

Color Sort Busy Bag– Toddlers love to drop items into containers, and put things into buckets, bins, and bags…and then take them back out again. It’s all part of the learning process! This color sorting busy bag gives toddlers colored craft sticks or dyed lollipop sticks and has them sort by color. It’s a great activity for developing fine motor skills and coordination, too.

Cup Sorting for Toddlers– This color sorting activity uses items in the home, like plastic toddler cups! There is just something about toddlers playing in the kitchen with baby-safe items…and this one builds pre-literacy and pre-math skills that they will use long down the road…through play!

Talk about colors– Pointing out colors during play, conversation, in reading books, and going for walks…there are so many ways to teach colors to babies and toddlers through everyday conversation. It’s as simple as saying, “look at that blue flower” to add descriptive terms to kids.

Color with painting– Incorporate all of the colors of the rainbow in multisensory activities from a young age. These art play activities incorporates colors into play and learning through art with toddlers.

Teach colors with a ball pit– Use ball pit balls in a baby pool. You can bring a baby pool indoors as a baby ball pit to teach colors. Here are other ball pit activities that can be used to teach colors.

Teaching colors to preschoolers with multisensory learning activities

Teaching Colors in Preschool

In the preschool stage, learning occurs through play! These color learning activities are designed to promote learning through hands-on exploration, because those are the ways that learning “sticks”…when hands are busy and developing motor skills that they will later need for holding and writing with a pencil. Let’s look at some ways to teach colors in the preschool years:

Color by Letter Worksheets– These are great for the preschool age because they are getting the exposure to letters in uppercase and lowercase format but not through writing. the coloring builds hand strength and fine motor skills needed in kindergarten and beyond.

Teaching Shapes and Colors with Rainbow Rocks by Fun-A-Day- This activity is fun because it uses the heavy weight of rocks to teach colors and shapes. But, kids are also strengthening their hands and gaining motor feedback about objects as they explore colors and other discriminating factors like weight and size.

Color and shape sorting– This preschool color sorting activity gives kids fine motor experiences with wikki stix. Ask preschoolers to copy the shapes, too for extra fine motor skill building and visual motor integration.

Fine Motor Color Sort– Grab an old spice container or cheese container, and some straws. This color sorting activity lays the groundwork for fine motor skill development and math skills. Kids can count the straws as they drop into the container and work on sorting colors while developing open thumb web space, separation of the sides of the hand and arch strength.

Color Matching Water Bin– This color learning activity is a sensory motor activity that also teaches letters. It’s perfect for preschool and kindergarten or even older grades as kids are immersed in multi- sensory learning with letters and pre-reading skills.

Clothespin Color Match– Children will love this fine motor activity that builds hand strength in a big way.

Bear Sees Colors Book and Activity– We used a snack to explore colors with a beloved preschool book. This is multisensory learning at its finest.

Gross Motor Color Games– There are many ways to explore and teach colors using games. Try some of these to add movement and play into learning colors at the preschool level:

Color I Spy- Call out a color and kids can run to touch something that is that color. Add variations of movement by asking kids to skip, hop, leap, crawl, or bear walk to touch the colors.
Color Simon Says- Call out directions based on clothing colors that kids are wearing. Add as many variations of movement and auditory challenges. This is a great activity for building working memory skills in preschoolers.
Color Tag- Kids can play tag and when they tag another player, they need to say a color for that person to go to. Another variation is having the players who are tagged run to a color that the tagger calls out.

Teaching colors to kindergarten children with multisensory learning activities.

Teach Colors in Kindergarten and older grades

Once children are school-aged, teaching colors doesn’t end. In the school years, children explore color mixing, learning about primary colors, and more. Look at all of these color experiences that kids learn during the school years:

Spelling color names
Learning Primary Colors
Learning secondary colors
Color mixing
Color theory
Color wheel
Complimentary colors

Try some of these color activities for older children:

Color I Spy free therapy slide deck- This color themed scavenger hunt will get kids up and moving, using the items they have in their home as they work on visual perceptual skills, handwriting, and more. Kids can visually scan around their home to match the colors on the slide deck. Then, there is a handwriting component. This is a great slide deck for anyone working on handwriting skills with kids, virtually.

Color Exercises– Use gross motor exercises and stretches as well as fine motor exercises to get kids moving while working on SO many skill areas: bilateral coordination, motor planning, strengthening, core strength, precision, dexterity, visual motor skills…

Rainbow Deep Breathing Exercise– This free printable PDF is super popular. There’s a reason why: kids love the deep breathing activity and We love the mindfulness, coping skills, calming, and regulation benefits. Great for all ages.

Rainbow Binoculars Craft– Kids can use paper towel tubes in a craft that helps them look for and identify colors. Use these rainbow binoculars in visual scanning, visual discrimination, visual figure-ground, and other perceptual skills.

Colored pencils activities– All you need is a couple of colored pencils (or substitute with a regular pencil if that’s all you’ve got on hand) to work on pencil control, line awareness, pencil pressure, and letter formation.

Benefits of coloring with crayons– Just grab a box of crayons and build so many fine motor and visual motor skills.

Make crayon play dough– Explore colors with heavy work input through the hands and arms using all the colors of the rainbow. This crayon play dough recipe is a popular sensory recipe here on the website.

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.

Enjoy!

Want more VIRTUAL LEARNING SLIDE DECKS?

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Here is a Self-Awareness Activities Slide Deck.

Here is a Strait Line Letters Slide Deck.

Here is a “Scribble theme” Handwriting Slide Deck.

Teach Letters with an interactive Letter Formation Slide Deck.

Here is a Community Helpers Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a Football Theme Slide Deck.

Here is a slide deck for a Social Story for Wearing a Mask.

Here is a Space Theme Therapy Slide Deck.

Here is a Therapy Planning Interactive Slide Deck.

Here is a Back to School Writing Activity Slide Deck.

Here is an Alphabet Exercises Slide Deck.

Here is a Self-Awareness Activities Slide Deck.

Here is a Strait Line Letters Slide Deck.

Here is a “Scribble theme” Handwriting Slide Deck.

Teach Letters with an interactive Letter Formation Slide Deck.

Vision Problems or Attention

June 14, 2021November 13, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Visual deficits and occupational therapy interventions go hand in hand. And, the connection between vision problems or attention issues impacts children when it comes to ADD and ADHD. In fact, the connection between visual deficits and attention is especially a factor in OT treatment. Trouble paying attention, difficulty with reading, finishing work on time and staying on task can be signs of both attention issues or a vision issue. So, how do you tell the difference, and what do you do about it? Knowing if a visual impairment is present can mean the difference between accommodating for vision difficulties and a different diagnosis, such as attention deficit disorder.

Vision or Attention Deficit Disorder

Children with vision deficits work twice as hard, and use more “brain” power to make their eyes work correctly as compared to peers without vision deficits.

Children with vision deficits may also experience fatigue more quickly, have frequent headaches, or blurry vision.

When they begin to experience the above symptoms, it is easier for the child to look away, leading them to appear to be “staring off into space” or lose focus. These behaviors are often mistaken for ADD in the classroom setting. Vision deficits that may be behind these symptoms and actions include:

Poor tracking
Poor teaming
Poor convergence and divergence
Eye muscle imbalances

All of these issues can impact learning.

Vision and Social Skills

Like kids with ADD, kids with vision deficits often appear to have poor social skills. Behaviors include a lack of response to their name, missing social cues or facial expressions, and not attending to others in the room.

This apparent “lack” of social skills is also related to how hard they are working on using their eyes. When this happens, the level of executive function left for other tasks significantly decreases.

This may also make the child appear “scatter brained” or disorganized.

Attention Deficit Disorder Symptoms

Vision concerns outside of acuity are FREQUENTLY missed due to limited vision screening protocols and the desire to quickly remediate behavior.

In addition to limited vision screening, vision deficits are not widely recognized as a potential reason for distracted or inattentive behavior.

Attention issues and vision Problems

If you have concerns, or concerns have been brought to your attention, regarding your child and ADD, rule out vision deficits first. A trip to a developmental ophthalmologist may help better explain your child’s behavior concerns and provide them the help they truly need.

WHAT IF YOU SUSPECT VISION PROBLEMS?

Now what? When vision problems are suspected after a screening by the OT, it is best practice to refer the family to a developmental optometrist.

A developmental optometrist will complete a full evaluation and determine the need for corrective lenses, vision therapy or a home program to address vision concerns.

As occupational therapists, it is imperative that we rule out vision problems before treating handwriting or delays in visual motor integration, to ensure the best possible trajectory of development and success for the child.

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY VISION SCREENING TOOL

Occupational Therapists screen for visual problems in order to determine how they may impact functional tasks. Our newest Visual Screening Tool is a useful resource or identifying visual impairments. Visual screening can occur in the classroom setting, in inpatient settings, in outpatient therapy, and in early intervention or home care.

This visual screening tool was created by an occupational therapist and provides information on visual terms, frequently asked questions regarding visual problems, a variety of visual screening techniques, and other tools that therapists will find valuable in visual screenings.

This is a digital file. Upon purchase, you will be able to print the 10 page file and print off to use over and over again in vision screenings and in educating therapists, teachers, parents, and other child advocates or caregivers.

Click here to read more about the Visual Screening Tool

Visual screening tool for vision problems in kids

Christmas Suncatcher Craft

November 11, 2020November 10, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This Christmas Suncatcher craft has been something we’ve been thinking about for a while. This Christmas craft for kids is a fun one to add to your holiday line-up. With the sun streaming in through the dining room window, it’s the perfect place for sun catchers. And this Christmas themed craft is the perfect addition to our big dining room window. We went a little crazy with the sequins on this craft. Our Christmas suncatcher craft is very sparkly, and just right for the season! Big Sister loved making this project and the fine motor work involved was just right for her age.

Christmas Tree Sun Catcher

This Christmas fine motor activity is a fun craft for working on specific fine motor skills such as pincer grasp, in-hand manipulation, and precision, including distal mobility. While we used sequins for our Christmas tree suncatcher, you could use practically any crafting material, from tissue paper, to foam stickers, to pressed flowers or pine needles. Use your imagination and make it an open-ended craft for the kids.

Kids can make this Christmas suncatcher craft with paper and sequins.

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This craft started with some major Sequins, and two triangles cut from green Construction Paper.

Make a Christmas suncatcher craft with kids.

Such a cute Christmas suncatcher craft for kids.

How pretty are these sequins?? LOVE the colors and sparkles in this Christmas craft!

Love this Christmas suncatcher craft for a Christmas tree craft that kids can make.

I cut two triangles of Clear Contact Paper, just slightly smaller than the green triangles. Big Sister started placing the sequins on the contact paper.

Work on fine motor skills with kids with this Christmas tree suncatcher craft.

This was such a great fine motor activity for that Neat Pincer Grasp. To pick up the sequins from the table surface and place them onto the contact paper requires tip to tip grasp of the index finger and thumb. All of those sequins was a great workout! She did a ton of them, but we ended up sprinkling even more sequins on to the contact paper to give our sun catcher a REALLY sparkly look.

Cute Christmas craft for kids that makes a beautiful suncatcher craft.

Next came Big Sister’s favorite part. Do all Kindergarteners love tape as much as she does? This girl loooooooves tape! We stuck the two pieces of contact paper together to sandwich the sequins in the middle. Then we taped the contact paper onto on of the green triangles.

Kid craft for Christmas activities that builds fine motor skills.

A little glue held the top triangle in place and our sun catcher was complete! Let us know if you do this craft. We love to see our projects come to life with your kids!

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