We love using math concepts that are learned in school into playful activities at home. Learning through play is a great way to strengthen concepts learned in the classroom. We used apples to count, add, and learn one day, all in the great outdoors!
Apple math activity for Kindergartners and Preschoolers
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We used Sidewalk Chalk and a dice for this activity. I took the kids outside to the sidewalk one afternoon and drew a bunch of apple shapes. We were ready to play.
Note–you could also draw any shape for this activity: pumpkins, smiley faces, geometric shapes, simple houses…any thing would work.
To play the game, I had the kids roll the dice. They had to count the dots on the dice, or simply look at the dots to determine how many dots there were. Big Sister did a lot of dice activities last year in Kindergarten so she was able to glance at the dice and know how many dots there were. Little Guy counted the dots. This is a great early math skill for preschool aged kids.
Once they counted the dots on the dice, I had them color in the same number of apples to correspond to the number of dots.
We used the squares of our sidewalk to wok on Kindergarten math concepts that Big Sister learned towards the end of her school year. Some of the squares had two apples drawn on them, and others had four or more.
This was a great opportunity to review addition.
She added the apples to make the total match the number of dots on the dice.
Little Guy counted along with Big Sister to count the total number of apples filled in.
Coloring in the apples with the chalk requires use of the small muscles of the hand. The sidewalk surface is resistive and the area they colored in was small. This required precision to stay in the lines. Not to mention, coloring in all of those apples really strengthened the hands!
This was such a fun way to review old math areas for the new first grader and introduce new math concepts to the preschooler. Like this math activity? Try a few of these ideas:
It’s that time of year again for all of the apple activities! The kids are headed back to school and crisp, fall days are ahead. The excitement that comes with summer has dwindled, but don’t you worry – we are here to help fill your days with fall-themed fun, starting with Apple Activities to use in occupational therapy sessions or at home to help kids develop skills!
Just think of the hot apple cider, apple picking, and apple pie that lies ahead…along with the opportunities to learn, of course!
We have broken down our activity list into therapy topics, so that you are able to pick and choose what you would like to address that day: sensory, motor, vision, cognition, or social skills!
Apple Sensory Activities
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For heavy work through the hands that offers proprioceptive input AND tactile sensory experiences, try making these baked cotton ball apples. We used them in apple sensory play and fine motor work.
Sensory bins can be a great way to learn by experience. An apple-themed one could look like this: Apple-Cinnamon Sensory Bin. You could hide magnet letters to find and spell out the word “apple”, which would be great practice for children who have difficulty with shape constancy and letter reversals – actually holding the letter in their hand can help wire their memory for future use!
Applesauce oobleck is just like traditional oobleck, a type of slime, but with applesauce! The applesauce adds a new texture that is not often felt in traditional slime, as well as the smell of apples and cinnamon, as an added sensory experience. You can use these types of sensory experiences to address sensory concerns, like hyper or hyposensitivity, or you can use them as a means to address other unrelated concerns. For example, I love making slime as a way to address attention, sequencing and direction following. Additionally, when paired with education or discussion, it can be used as an adjunct to a socioemotional intervention.
For more Fall sensory activities, grab our Fall Sensory Activities Guide for hands-on sensory play with apples and all things Fall.
Apple Fine Motor Activities
To work on fine motor skills, strength, dexterity needed for functional tasks like handwriting, clothing independence, pencil grasp, cutting with scissors, and more, an apple themed fine motor activity is the way to go. Check out our Apple-Themed Fine Motor Math activity for a multi-sensory learning activity with apples.
Kids love these apple stamps using a toilet paper tube. It’s a fun OT craft to work on precision, eye-hand coordination, crossing midline, and much more.
Apple Poke with Toothpicks is a super easy but satisfying sensory and fine motor activity for children of all ages. Holding the thin toothpick requires a fine grasp like a pincer or tripod, which prepares hands for the work of a child (handwriting, buttoning, zipping, etc).
Adjust as necessary to make this activity your own:
Follow a pattern with colored toothpicks
Encourage fine motor precision by poking on dots or in pre-made holes
Use golf tees or one-sided toothpicks for a safer option
Apple Pointillism is a great way to use one of my favorite tools – the hole punch. Hole punching strengthens important hand muscles, in preparation for skills like handwriting, buttoning, and so much more. Even better, picking up those teeny-tiny circles will encourage a pincer grasp.
Apple Gross Motor Activities
Apple gross motor activities can be used to develop core strength, endurance, balance, position changes, motor planning, and more. All of these skill areas are a must for occupations and functional tasks. Try these gross motor activities with an apple theme:
Check out our Apple-Themed Brain Breaks for plenty of movement-based activities as well as self-regulation through whole body movement.
Ten Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss is a great book for sequencing and identifying numbers, but I think it could be great for gross motor development like coordination, balance and postural stability. Just have your child copy the movements of the animals! For even more challenging fun, cut out felt “apples” so they can balance them on their heads, too!
Just like you would do with tangrams, you could create a pattern fitting for the theme with Lego Apples. Matching an image to another by building a structure is a great way to address visual perceptual skills, problem solving, and spatial awareness.
Plus, here are some more on-theme resources for vision and fine motor skills:
Cooking and executive function go hand-in-hand. To work on executive functioning skill development with an apple theme, try this apple salt dough recipe. It’s great fun and a wonderful sensory and fine motor experience, too.
The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall shows the life cycle of a tree, and even shares a recipe for apple pie! I love using this story for sequencing and attention.
You can address attention, memory, spelling, letter recognition or word recognition with these Red Apple Cups. You could use constructing the cups as an intervention, too – this activity can be used in so many different ways!
Apple Activities for Social Emotional Skills
Social Communication Skills with Apples from the Social Butterflies Club offers great resources to use with kids that encourage social interaction in a structured activity.
We hope that you have been inspired to create your own apple themed activity, or have chosen one that will work great for your kiddos! Check in for more fall-themed activities soon. While you are waiting, take a look at these awesome resources for a great fall: Fall Themed Water Table, Fall Gross Motor Activities, and Fall Fine Motor Crafts.
Apple Theme Activities
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.
A while back, we were on a bit of a Circus Theme in our pretend play. We had a bunch of fun with our circus party ideas and read a bunch of circus books. We did this sensory bin around that time, but are just now getting the chance to blog about it. This was such an easy sensory activity to throw together that we will definitely be playing this again.
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To create an easy Circus Sensory Bin, you will need:
I started by popping some corn. And only ate a few handfuls. Pop extra. Snacks are good.
I put some popped and un popped corn onto a plastic tray. Then, simply added our train set and animals. The scene was set for imagination and pretend fun!
The animals in the different textures was such a fun way to explore animal names, animal sounds, and all in an easy sensory bin.
Baby Girl (age 2) loved this pretend play so much! Not only did we have a blast playing and learning, she got a snack too! Bonus!
Of course, the animals needed feeding, too.
We loaded up the train with popcorn and made deliveries. Such a fun way to play away an afternoon.
This might be the perfect accompaniment to our circus tent craft. Sensory play, craft, and snack…sounds like the perfect afternoon with the kids to me!
Note: Like all of our activities on sugaraunts.com, we encourage playing alongside your kids and in a supervised manner. Some crafts and activities may present a dangerous situation for children who like to put things into their mouths. Please monitor your child with this and any activity you see on our website. Popcorn will present as a choking hazard for small children. Please use your best judgment if you decide to do this activity with your kids.
How many times a day do you hear the phrase, “I’m hungry!” ?? It seems like that’s all I hear all. day. long. One afternoon the kids were extremely hungry. again. and I put together this quick little activity and snack combined.
We practiced a few skills (letter identification, letter matching, visual scanning, eye-hand coordination, fine motor skills) while we enjoyed a little letter snack!
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Letter Matching Activity for Kids
I used a sheet of paper and quickly wrote out the lower case letters of the alphabet. Our snack was a little cup of alphabet cookies. We matched up the upper case letters to the lower case letters. This was a great activity for my preschooler. Little Guy (age 5) was so quick to match the letters (mostly because he wanted to eat them)! Baby Girl (age 2 and 1/2) had some trouble with identifying the upper case letters, but we haven’t really worked on that yet. This is a great activity to introduce letter identification for younger preschoolers. The cookie incentive is sweet!
Mom only snuck a few cookies.
Visual Scanning Activity for Kids
Visual scanning is essential for handwriting skills, puzzles, word searches, mazes, and many many functional tasks. Scanning a room for a missing sock may be difficult if a child demonstrates difficulty with visual scanning.
When matching the upper case letters to the lower case letters, the child must scan the whole page in order to search and find the correct letter. Younger children or those working on visual scanning skills may require modifications to this. You could fold the page in half, offering only half of the options.
Fine Motor Activity for Kids
Picking up those cookies and laying them flat on the paper is a fun way to practice fine motor skills. Don’t let those cookies crumble by pinching too hard! Children will use a tip to tip grasp to pick up the cookies from the table surface, may tuck one or a few cookies into their palms, and transfer the cookies one at a time (hopefully!) into their mouths. What a great fine motor experience!
Hand-Eye Coordination Activity for Kids
Hand-eye coordination is using the information received through the vision system to coordinate the hands with control, in order to complete a task, such as handwriting or catching a ball.
Is there a song or nursery rhyme that is a huge hit in your house? You know the one that is said over and over (and over) again? Right now we are on a This Little Piggy Went to the Market kick. Baby Girl (age 2 and a half) loooooooves This Little Piggy. She will ask me to do the finger play rhyme on both feet and then both hands again and again. I’ve even heard her saying it to herself…with lots of adorable mistakes. It’s beyond cute. I love when she asks me, “Mom, what does this piggy do?” and points to a toe. What a cutie!
When we made this piggy craft, Baby Girl very excited. I told her we were making a This Little Piggy craft and she was so happy!
This Little Piggy Went to the Market craft for Toddlers
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This craft for toddlers is very easy and a great opportunity for some learning, too. You can talk to your Toddler about circles and sizes (big and little). Toddlers are learning concepts such as size awareness and you can show them the big and little circles as you build the pigs.
I started with 5 big circles cut from pink construction paper and 15 small circles. We counted out the big circles together.
I helped Baby Girl fold ten of the small circles in half. These will be the pigs ears.
Big Sister helped out a little with counting out our piggy ears.
Baby Girl is all about using the glue stick. This Little Piggy Went to the Market + glue stick
= Baby Girl’s best day ever! She went crazy gluing on the big circles, ears, and snouts.
After all of the pieces were glued in place, I drew on little faces. We had fun saying the finger play while using our five little piggys to join in on the fun. Baby Girl played with these little piggys all day!
Visual Motor Integration is also known as eye hand coordination. Essentially, this skill is the ability to coordinate the hand in an effective manner directed by vision. When relying on visual motor skills, a person coordinates their movements based on what they see. A child requires effective visual motor skills in order to do so many tasks…forming letters, writing on a line, coloring within lines, cutting along a line, catching a ball, completing puzzles, reading, and so much more.
This fun (and colorful) activity is easy to create at home and a fun way to work on visual motor integration. We added a color matching component to our activity, but you can adjust this activity to include what ever best keeps your child’s attention.
Visual Motor Color Matching Activity
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I started by drawing small circles all over a sheet of construction paper. I used a bunch of different colors that matched the colors of stickers we had. These rainbow stickers are the perfect size for little fingers to peel and work on fine motor skills.
I had Baby Girl (aged 2 and a half) peel off the stickers and place them on the circles. Scanning for the matching color works on those eye-hand coordination abilities and also works on color identification.
This was also a great way for Little Guy (age 4) to work on his visual motor skills. He’s working on letter formation and ability to write in a smaller space with better control. The fine motor and visual motor work in the activity are perfect for the new hand writer.
This is such an easy way to work on so many skills. We’ll be doing this activity again, for sure, with a few modifications. Instead of matching colors to colored circles, try matching letters, numbers, emotions, and more!
What are other ways you can work on visual motor skills at home?
This pipe cleaner busy bag is a creative way to use pipe cleaners while helping preschoolers to develop fine motor skills and visual motor skills. Add this pipe cleaner busy activity to your list of preschooler activities!
Pipe Cleaner Busy Bag
I have been trying to think of activities to keep my 3-year-old son busy lately. He is a busy little guy a
nd always wants to be involved in what we are doing in our homeschool. I typically have little busy-bag activities for him to do and needed to add in some new ones.
We have lots of pipe cleaners so I decided to make a pipe cleaner shape matching activity. I created some simple pictures for him to use to create shapes with pipe cleaners or yarn. You could really do this with any shapes, but I thought it would be fun to make it a more creative picture with nature scenes.
I made several different printable pages that can be used in a busy bag or just for anytime.
We tried doing the activities with yarn as well and it is a little easier to shape them for younger 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:
We are loving all things Spring these days. One rainy morning, Baby Girl and I played with this play dough fine motor activity while Little Guy was away at preschool. She loves play dough and was very excited to Grow a Garden with a few extras thrown in there to make a fun flower garden.
Play dough is such a great way to work on fine motor skills and this garden activity hits the mark when it comes to strengthening those little muscles in the hands. Not only that, it’s totally fun and happy!
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I started by making a bunch of flowers. I used my circle paper punches and glued circles together to make flowers.
Baby Girl and I stuck them onto green paper clips. It was a great way to get started on the fine motor work in this activity. She was really focused on putting the paperclips onto the flowers.
Next, I pulled out the green play dough and we started planting flowers!
Rocks were needed for our flower garden, of course!
Fine Motor Activity for Kids
We tried clay and play dough for this activity. The clay was more resistive to press the paper clips into, and a better strengthening tool…but it seemed to stick more to the paper clips. Play dough worked better for us, and was just as good a fine motor strengthening work out.
Pressing the paper clips into the play dough is a great way to encourage a tripod grasp while strengthening the intrinsic muscles of the hands. The small muscles within the hand are so important for arch support and control in many fine motor tasks (coloring, zippering, buttoning…)
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know how much we love to do fine motor activities. Scissor activities for kids is one of our favorite fine motor topics and we’ve got a bunch of creative ways to practice them! This fun fine motor color sorting activity was part of prep for another activity we were doing (watch this space to see these foam squares again!), but we had so much fun with it, that we had to share!
Scissor Skills Activity for Kids
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We started with the wooden crates from our Melissa & Doug Food Groups. Besides being a totoally fun pretend play toy, the packaging is completely re-usable and perfect for sorting activities. We shared the picture of our four crates on Instagram and had some great comments about how awesome these crates are for all kinds of play.
I lined the bottom of the four crates with different colors of foam sheets, and drew thick lines on matching colors of foam sheets.
This was a great way for Little Guy to practice his cutting with scissors. The thickness of the foam sheets is great for new scissor users because it provides greater resistance and therefore slows the scissors more than regular paper. The thickness of the lines is another way to grade down the cutting task for new scissor users.
Slower cutting speed is good when the little one needs verbal and physical prompts to hold the scissors correctly, and how to position their assisting hand on the foam.
Little Guy is working on his scissor skills and needs prompts to hold the foam/paper close to his body and to move the scissors when he’s cutting, and not hos whole upper body. Strait lines are a good start for him for practice. Older kids or those who are doing a little better with their scissor skills would benefit from thinner lines, curved lines, or even using construction paper instead of the foam sheets.
Once we had all of the foam squares cut out, we were ready for our sorting. This interested Little Guy for a little while, but Baby Girl was the one who was really into this part of the activity.
She was able to sort the colors into the correct bin. We worked on naming the colors along the way.
Sorting the squares was a fun way to play and learn!
We had a great time with this cutting and sorting activity. Let us know if you do this at home, we would love to hear about it!
Looking for more scissor activities? You may like some of these:
are the perfect size for little fingers to peel and work on fine motor skills.
and glued circles together to make flowers.
. It was a great way to get started on the fine motor work in this activity. She was really focused on putting the paperclips onto the flowers.
. Besides being a totoally fun pretend play toy, the packaging is completely re-usable and perfect for sorting activities. We shared the picture of our four crates on 
, and drew thick lines on matching colors of foam sheets.
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