Read below to learn about visual saccades and learning in kids, including how saccades affect learning, more about what are visual saccades, or visual scanning, and what saccadic movement looks like. You’ll also find information on saccades and smooth eye movements and the visual processing needs that impact learning. This information on vision can be helpful for the occupational therapist working with a child or student with vision related learning challenges as a result of visual saccades.
As therapists, we are often asked to provide consultation services to a child who cannot copy from the board, from one paper to another, frequently loses their place while reading, and has frequent errors in spelling and writing tasks, along with sloppy handwriting. These children are typically in first or second grade, maybe even third. They are good students who appear to be struggling for some unknown reason. An underlying vision concern may be the culprit of these student’s difficulties, with the underlying concern being impaired saccades, or visual saccadic movements.
What are Saccades?
Have you heard the term, visual saccades before? Maybe not! Let’s break this down into an explanation…
Saccades Definition:
Saccadic movement, or more commonly known as saccades, is the ability of the eyes to move in synchrony from point A to point B rapidly WITHOUT deviating from the path.
Typically, we look for these patterns to be established in left/right and top/bottom patterns as they are the easiest to identify.
However, if the saccadic movement is not impaired, the eyes should be able to move in all directions in synchrony between two or more given points.
Difference between Saccades and Pursuits
Before moving on, I want to clear up the difference between saccades and smooth pursuits.
These two are often confused, but are really very difference. Saccades and smooth pursuits are the two parts of eye teaming.
Smooth pursuits allow visual tracking of a moving item while saccades allow synchronized, rapid eye movement between two or more given points such as in visual scanning.
What are Impaired Saccades?
Impaired saccadic movement is when the eyes do not move in synchrony in a designated pattern such as left/right and top/bottom.
They may jump randomly or move in uncoordinated patterns that can lead to confusion of where the child was previously in reading and written work.
What Does it mean to have Problems with Saccades
Below is a simple passage that we would expect a first grader to be able to read and what they might read with an impairment of saccadic eye movement.
The black cat sat next to the pumpkin.
The black cat liked the pumpkin. The black cat meowed at the pumpkin.
This is what a child with impaired saccadic eye movement may have read:
The cat sat to pumpkin. The black cat liked pumpkin. The cat meowed the pumpkin.
This example is a demonstration of the “jumping” that may occur when reading or copying a sentence. While the child was reading, they may have stumbled and corrected themselves realizing they were not in the right spot and missing words along the way.
Children who present with impaired saccades ofen times are shy when reading out loud to peers and adults because of this.
Identifying Saccadic Impairments
Impaired saccadic movements are very difficult to see in screenings. The most common presentation of impaired saccadic movement is slight jerks, or jumps at the midline or outer edges of field of vision. They are so small, that they can be missed or mistaken for a twitch. Despite their small outward appearance, impaired saccadic movement can have significant impacts on the child’s learning.
In therapy or a classroom setting, having a child read the letters of a simple word search from left to right and top to bottom can provide an indication if they are unable to follow structured patterns with supports such as pointing with a finger, or covering up the lines under the one the child is looking at.
It is unclear what causes saccadic movement impairments in children. It is clear however, that the child’s eyes have not learned to move in structured patterns between two points rapidly, which can significantly inhibit the learning process.
Why Visual Attention Matters for Learning
Visual attention is the ability to focus your eyes and brain on what matters while filtering out distractions. It plays a key role in how kids learn and function in the classroom. From reading across a line of text to copying from the board or tracking moving objects, visual attention is essential for school success.
This skill overlaps closely with saccadic eye movements. The quick jumps our eyes make from one visual point to another. When visual attention is weak, a child may lose their place while reading, skip lines, or struggle to copy from a distance. These issues often present as trouble with reading fluency, handwriting, or task completion, especially in fast-paced classroom settings.
The Impact of Shortform Video on Visual Skills
Many children today spend hours watching shortform video content like YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and TikToks. These videos shift scenes rapidly, are designed to grab attention instantly, and rarely require sustained focus. While entertaining, they don’t promote the kind of prolonged visual engagement kids need for schoolwork.
Instead of training the brain to hold attention on a steady visual target, this kind of content encourages constant scanning and shallow focus. Over time, this can affect a child’s ability to engage in tasks that require visual endurance…needed for tasks like reading, writing, or completing a worksheet. The visual system becomes wired for quick novelty rather than sustained attention, which is a skill required for academic success.
What Parents and Teachers Can Do to Help
Parents, educators, and therapists can help by being intentional about building visual attention through meaningful activities. Set limits around passive screen time, especially shortform video content. Encourage games and play that involve scanning, searching, and visual tracking. Some ideas include:
“I Spy,” memory games
Word searches
Flashlight tag
Scanning a wall for alphabet letters or shapes
In therapy sessions, focus on saccadic exercises that also build visual endurance. This can be activities like:
Tracking a moving object with the eyes
Scanning for items in a cluttered scene
Using printable worksheets that require visual jumps between targets.
Simple adjustments like minimizing background clutter and increasing contrast in materials can also support attention and reduce fatigue
Finally, communicate with families about what you observe in therapy and how they can support visual attention at home. Offering structured breaks, reading together without distractions, and incorporating movement-based eye activities can help balance screen exposure and support the development of strong visual systems.
Signs of Saccadic Movement Impairments in the Classroom
Like many underlying vision concerns, screenings alone cannot determine impairments.
Some supporting signs that a child may have a saccadic movement impairment can be found below:
• Difficulties copying work from the board to a paper without errors or omission of words • Difficulties copying work between two papers without errors or omission of words • Difficulties reading passages of work, specifically 2 or more lines of text • Losing place when reading frequently • Utilizing a finger to track when reading • Frequent errors when spelling • Poor spacing and orientation to the line when writing
Final Note on Impaired Saccadic Movements
Saccades plays a crucial part in eye teaming, reading and writing. When it is impaired, the child may experience high levels of frustration, embarrassment and difficulties with their daily reading and writing tasks. Like many underlying vision deficits, impaired saccadic movements has many variations in presentation, and should be monitored closely by therapists and educators to ensure referrals to the developmental optometrist are made when necessary.
Looking for more information on vision? Check out my OT Vision Screening Packet for helpful handouts and a screening tool.
Occupational Therapy Vision Screening Tool
Occupational Therapists screen for visual problems in order to determine how they may impact functional tasks. 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 access 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.
More Visual Processing Posts you will love:
Learn how the eyes work together with this explanation of what visual convergence is and why it matters for reading and learning.
Some visual challenges aren’t always obvious. Read about the visual problems you cannot “see” that impact classroom performance.
For even MORE on visual saccades and the impact visual skills play in learning, you will want to join our free visual processing lab email series. It’s a 3-day series of emails that covers EVERYthing about visual processing. We take a closer look at visual skills and break things down, as well as covering the big picture of visual needs.
In the visual processing lab, you will discover how oculomotor skills like smooth pursuits make a big difference in higher level skills like learning and executive function. The best thing about this lab (besides all of the awesome info) is that it has a fun “lab” theme. I might have had too much fun with this one 🙂
Join us in visual processing Lab! Where you won’t need Bunsen burners or safety goggles!
This spacing tool is an alien craft that kids can make and use as a spacing tool for handwriting. A spaceman writing tool is a powerful device to help kids with spacing in handwriting, specifically space between letters and words when writing. We’ve come up with a few different spacing tools in the past, and this space themed spacing tool helps kids better understand the concepts of spatial awareness for better legibility in written work.
Teaching proper letter spacing in handwriting doesn’t have to be boring—meet your new writing sidekick: the Spaceman Writing Tool! This fun, kid-made spaceman for writing helps children visually and physically separate words on the page. Whether you call it a word spacer tool, spaceman spacer, or star spacer handwriting tool, this simple craft stick Martian is a fun and effective way to improve spacing between words.
Perfect for occupational therapy for writing, classroom handwriting instruction, or home use, this DIY spacing tool for writing gives students a concrete visual cue to help keep their words from crowding together. It’s a space-themed handwriting exercise that brings structure, independence, and just the right amount of fun to writing practice.
This space martian spacing tool goes really well with our block light saber spacing tool!
Sometimes, a child’s handwriting doesn’t improve given time and practice in the classroom. You might see a child copying words or sentences and squishing all of the words and letters together in a long string. There might be no space or inconsistent spacing between letters and words. It can be frustrating for the child and their parent or teacher.
Spacing Tool
This spacing tool will help with spacing in handwriting in a fun way. My second grader and I had fun creating this Space Martian Spacing Tool and using it to practice spacing between words.
Spacing Tool for poor spacing in handwriting
This post contains affiliate links.
Poor spacing in handwriting can be a visual tracking problem. It could be visual inattention or poor hand eye coordination. Sometimes, spacing is just something that needs more practice and a visual prompt like this space alien can help.
We’ve shared other versions of spacing tools to support these needs:
This Writing Spacer Craft uses just a pipe cleaner to space between letters and words.
This pointer stick spacer uses a craft stick to create a spacing tool pointer stick, perfect for visual perceptual needs.
The spaceman writing tool that we made is a small, craft-based object (like a decorated popsicle stick) used to teach word spacing in handwriting. It’s commonly used in classrooms and occupational therapy for writing sessions to give students a consistent way to mark space between words.
Benefits of Using a Word Spacer Tool
I love using a visual tool like this one for several reasons.
Encourages consistent spacing
Improves legibility
Builds independence
Supports spatial awareness (important in OT)
Engages young writers in a multisensory way Include how this tool supports distal finger exercises by giving physical feedback between words.
Try this easy DIY version is actually a spaceman spacer for writing…but the alien version!
Make a Spaceman Writing Tool
You can easily make this spacing tool with just a few materials:
sticky back foam letter sticker “C” are all you need.
To make the spacing tool, ask students to use glue to add a small dot of glue to the back of the googly eye. What a great fine motor precision and eye-hand coordination job.
2. Next, stick the googly eye onto one end of the green craft stick.
3. Cut the letter C foam sticker in half. Glue each piece to the craft stick above the googly eye.
And that’s it! If you don’t have foam letter stickers, you could use small pieces of pipe cleaners or scraps of paper.
Here’s a video showing how to make this space alien spacing tool:
Use this handwriting spacing tool between letters and words. Encourage your child to move the spacer over between words. Sometimes, just that visual cue is enough to help. The physical act of moving the craft stick to space between words can provide enough input to a child that they become more aware of the need to space, and are able to carryover the skill without using the physical reminder for spacing.
HANDWRITING SPACING TOOL
Another easy way to make a handwriting spacing tool involves materials you have around the home, like buttons. The main thing to address with a handwriting spacing tool is a spatial awareness and using a craft that kids can make adds meaning and motivation to work on spacing between letters and words.
When kids learn to write, it can be difficult to work on all of the parts of handwriting. There is holding the pencil, and using muscles to maintain a grasp while writing sentences. Then there is letter formation. Putting it all together can be challenging.
In Kindergarten, children really work on letter formation, and especially lower case letter formation. When you throw in the lines and spacing to writing, it can be a real frustration for a new writer! That’s where using a fun spacing tool comes into play. It allows for appropriate spatial awareness in handwriting is accurately spacing letters within words and spacing words correctly within a sentence.
For another spacing tool idea, try this easy (and inexpensive!) way to create a Spacing tool using buttons. This spacing tool can be used in handwriting tasks, as a tool for spacing between letters and words.
How to make a spacing tool with buttons
Spacing between words and letters can be easy with this button spacing tool. It’s easy to make and can be created using items you already have. The cost of this activity should be very inexpensive, especially if you use items you already have.
To make spacing tool you’ll need just a couple of items: (This post contains Amazon affiliate links.)
Craft stick
Glue
Buttons
We used a colored craft stick and brightly colored button that we received from www.craftprojectideas, but you could use any material you have in your home. Have a bin of beads or crafting pom poms in your craft supplies? Use beads instead of buttons. Other ideas include craft pom poms or pipe cleaners.
First, glue one button to the end of a popsicle stick or even a pipe cleaner.
Let it dry.
Then, use the spacing tool while your child is writing words and sentences. Show them how to place the button spacing tool between words and sideways between letters.
This post is part of our 31 Days of Occupational Therapy where I’m sharing tips and tools for many developmental areas using free or inexpensive materials. For more spatial relations related to handwriting, check out our Visual Tracking activities.
Occupational Therapy Tips for Teaching Spacing with a Hands-On Approach
In occupational therapy sessions, teaching proper spacing between words often involves visual cues, as well as other areas in a multisensory learning experience. We need to see motor planning, spatial awareness, and self-monitoring during written tasks.
The spaceman writing tool is an excellent way to incorporate proprioceptive feedback and tactile input into handwriting instruction. Here’s how to make it more hands-on:
1. Physically Move the Pencil with Intention
After completing a word, instruct the child to set their pencil down briefly, pick up the spaceman tool, and place it against the end of the word. This pause gives their body and brain time to reset before starting the next word.
Then, the child uses their dominant hand to hold the pencil and their non-dominant hand to hold the spacer in place, which promotes bilateral coordination and fine motor precision. As they slide the pencil to the other side of the spacer, they get a physical sense of space, which helps internalize how much room to leave between words.
2. Add a Cueing Routine
Teach a routine like “Write-Stop-Space-Slide-Write” to support sequencing and executive function during written tasks. These verbal prompts paired with physical actions help students self-monitor spacing over time.
3. Use Heavy Work and Movement Breaks
Incorporate heavy work before writing (e.g., wall push-ups, towel wringing, or chair pushes) to activate proprioceptive input and support postural stability, which improves writing control and precision.
4. Encourage Consistency Across Settings
Have students take their spaceman spacer tool between home and school (or OT sessions and class) as part of their self-regulation and academic routines. This builds confidence and consistency in their handwriting performance, especially for children working on functional school-based goals.
Know a kiddo that loves all things space, astronauts, and planets? The Outer Space Fine Motor Kit is your chance to develop fine motor strength, dexterity, and coordination skills.
Addressing hand strength, endurance, and precision is out of this world fun! The Outer Space Fine Motor Kit includes:
Fine Motor Mazes
Fine Motor Ten Frames for motor activities
1-20 Star Counting Cards
Bead Copying Strips
Space Alien Directed Drawing Sheets
This fine motor kit includes 24 pages of printable resources. Included in this printable pack are:
Two pages of color coded bead copying strips
Two pages of blank bead copying strips
Four pages of “draw and write” directed drawing activities with a space theme (Includes 3 styles of handwriting lines: highlighted lines, single rule, and double rule)
Nine pages of fine motor mazes
1-20 Outer Space Counting Cards
Four pages of fine motor ten frames activities
These printable activities extend to work on a variety of other functional areas, too: handwriting skills, numbers, math, adding, subtracting, one-to-one correspondence, scissor skills, coloring, and more.
The Handwriting Book is a comprehensive resource created by experienced pediatric OTs and PTs.
The Handwriting Book covers everything you need to know about handwriting, guided by development and focused on function. This digital resource is is the ultimate resource for tips, strategies, suggestions, and information to support handwriting development in kids.
The Handwriting Book breaks down the functional skill of handwriting into developmental areas. These include developmental progression of pre-writing strokes, fine motor skills, gross motor development, sensory considerations, and visual perceptual skills. Each section includes strategies and tips to improve these underlying areas.
Strategies to address letter and number formation and reversals
Ideas for combining handwriting and play
Activities to practice handwriting skills at home
Tips and strategies for the reluctant writer
Tips to improve pencil grip
Tips for sizing, spacing, and alignment with overall improved legibility
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.
For kids that struggle with body awareness, position-in-space, and overall spatial understanding, spatial awareness toys are fun ways to develop a specific set of skills that impact function of every day tasks. Occupational therapy toys like these space-based play support development of these areas. Want to help kids become more aware of their body position, the space that they need to function, write, and perform tasks through play? Here we are talking spatial awareness toys!
Let’s talk toys to support spatial awareness skills.
Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post. As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Spatial Awareness Toys
In this post, we’ll cover a few different things:
Spatial Awareness Definition
Spatial awareness activities
An easy spatial awareness tool for handwriting
Spatial awareness toys
Kids are often motivated by play as a means to support development of skills. When games and toys develop skills in which they struggle, it can be meaningful and engaging for the child. They may not even realize they are developing those skill areas through play. Before we get to the toy ideas, let’s go over spatial awareness in more detail.
Spatial Awareness Definition
First, let’s cover the definition of spatial awareness. You might be thinking…ok, I know a child who might be having issues with awareness of space during functional tasks… But exactly what is spatial awareness?
The definition of Spatial Awareness is being aware of oneself in space. Incorporating body awareness, visual spatial skills, and orientation, spatial awareness involves positioning oneself and/or functional items (pencil, a ball, a bag of groceries, etc.) in relation to oneself and the world around.
Spatial awareness means several things:
Awareness of spatial concepts can look like reaching for items without overshooting or missing the object.
It can mean use of a map to navigate streets or a new middle school.
It can incorporate spacing between letters and words in handwriting.
It can mean navigating a crowded hallway while carrying a backpack and a stack of papers.
Being able to reason about the space around us, and how to manipulate objects in space, is a critical part of everyday life and everyday functional tasks. This specific skill allows us to safely cross a street, fold clothing, load the dishwasher, place objects in a locker, put together a piece of “some assembly required” furniture, and other functional cognitive tasks. And these skills are especially important for educational success in particular handwriting tasks, math, STEM, and science.
Most of us realize as we walk through a doorway that we need to space ourselves through the middle of the door. Those with poor visual spatial skills may walk to closely to the sides and bump the wall.
Visual-spatial skills are used when a middle school or high school student uses a map to navigate a new school. Orienting yourself on the map and then relating that to the real world to make turns, movements in a large space takes a complex set of skills guided by visual spatial relations.
Spatial awareness skills also involve the fine motor tasks of coordinating handwriting with writing in spaces allowed on paper, placing letters within an area (lines), and forming letters in the correct direction.
So what is spatial awareness? Let’s break it down even further…
Spatial awareness and spatial perception
Spatial Awareness can be broken into three areas, specifically related to spatial perception: position in space, depth perception, and topographical orientation.
Position in Space– where an object is in space in relation to yourself and others. This skill includes awareness of the way an object is oriented or turned. It is an important concept in directional language such as in, out, up, down, in front of, behind, between, left, and right. Children with problems with this skill area will demonstrate difficulty planning actions in relation to objects around them. They may write letter reversals after second grade. They typically show problems with spacing letters and words on a paper.
Depth Perception– Distances between a person and objects. This ability helps us move in space. Grasping for a ball requires realizing where the ball is in relation to ourselves. Kids with deficits in this area may have trouble catching a ball or walking/running/jumping over an obstacle. Copying words from a vertical plane onto a horizontal plane may be difficult and they will have trouble copying from a blackboard.
Topographical Orientation– Location of objects in an environment, including obstacles and execution of travel in an area. Kids with difficulties in this area may become lost easily or have difficulties finding their classroom after a bathroom break.
Visual Spatial Skills develop from an awareness of movements of the body. If a child has true visual spatial skills, they will likely demonstrate difficulties with athletic performance, coordination, and balance. They may appear clumsy, reverse letters and numbers in handwriting, and may tend to write from right to left across a page. They will have difficulty placing letters on lines, forming letters correctly, and forming letters with appropriate size.
When kids struggle with the ability to perceive where they are in space…when children are challenged to identify how much room they need to navigate the world around them…These are all examples of spatial awareness skills.
Letter size and use of margins also fall under the term “spatial awareness”. Use these spacing tool ideas to support spatial awareness in handwriting.
You can use a spacing tool to support spatial awareness skills in kids.
visual spatial relations activities
Addressing spatial awareness can occur with a handwriting spacing tool like the one we made, but other spacing activities can help with visual spatial relations, too. Try some of these activities:
Create an obstacle course using couch cushions, chairs, blankets, pillows, and other items in the house.
Try this activity for teaching over, under, around, and through with pretend play.
Create a paper obstacle course. Draw obstacles on paper and have your child make his /her pencil go through the obstacles. Draw circles, holes, mud pits, and mountains for them to draw lines as their pencil “climbs”, “jumps”, “rolls”, and even erases!
Write words and letters on graph paper. The lines will work as a guide and also a good spacing activity.
Use stickers placed along the right margin of to cue the student that they are nearing the edge of paper when writing.
Highlight writing lines on worksheets.
Draw boxes for words on worksheets for them to write within.
Play Simon Says. Print off these Simon Says commands to target specific skill areas in therapy sessions or at home.
Practice directions. Draw arrows on a paper pointing up, down, left, and right. Ask your child to point to the direction the arrow is pointing. Then have them say the direction the arrows are pointing. Then create actions for each arrow. Up may be jumping. Down may be squatting. The Left arrow might be side sliding to the left, and the Right arrow might be a right high kick. Next, draw more rows of arrows in random order. Ask your child to go through the motions and try to go faster and faster.
spatial awareness Activities
For more multisensory learning and hands-on play incorporating the development of spatial awareness skills, visit these blog posts:
Visit our Visual Motor Skills page for more activity ideas in all thing visual perception and kids!
Looking for more tools to improve visual spatial awareness? The toy ideas below are great for improving visual tracking and visual scanning in fun ways. These toys, games, and ideas may be a great gift idea for little ones who have visual perceptual difficulties or problems with spacing and handwriting, body awareness in space, letter reversals, detail awareness, or maintaining place while reading.
SO, save these ideas for grandparents and friends who might ask for gift ideas for birthdays and holidays. These are some powerhouse spatial awareness ideas!
When working on spatial awareness in handwriting, kids can count the number of holes in the pegboard in this Construction and Building Toy. (affiliate link) Copy instructions to build 3D structures while working on spacing of pieces and awareness of details in this fun engineering toy.
Mini erasers (affiliate link) as a spacing tool. Kids can write while keeping the small eraser on their desk. When they space out words, use the eraser as a measuring tool, just like our button buddy. You can also encourage them to finish their writing task and then go back and check over their work for spatial concepts with the eraser.
Practice spatial awareness of the edges of the page by using a Clear Rulers. (affiliate link) Kids can place the ruler along the edge of the paper to know when to stop writing and to use as a visual cue. Sometimes kids try to squish a word in at the end of a line when there is not enough room. Line the ruler up along the edge and as they write, they can see that they are nearing the edge of the paper.
Use a highlighter (affiliate link) to draw dots between each word, to provide a visual cue for spacing between words. You can also draw a line along the edge of the paper for a visual cue that the child is nearing the edge of the paper.
One study found that children who play frequently with puzzles, construction, and board games tend to have better spatial reasoning ability.
To get the whole family in on a spatial reasoning game while working on placement of pieces, try IQ Twist (affiliate link) for a game of logic as you place pieces in this puzzle.
This related IQ Arrows game (affiliate link) develops spatial relations but is great for adding to an occupational therapy bag. Use the arrows in play dough to work on directionality with heavy work through the hands. Make mini fine motor obstacle courses and other spatial relations activities on a smaller scale.
Kanoodle (affiliate link) works on pattern recognition, spatial reasoning, and is a great way to practice spacing needed in handwriting.
A toy like a geoboard allows a child to copy forms while counting out spaces of pegs. Try these Geoboards. (affiliate link)
Here are more spatial awareness games and specifically spatial reasoning games: These are Amazon affiliate links.
These toys specifically address body awareness and directional awareness to help with overall spatial awareness development. Position in space impacts functioning in daily tasks at home and in the community. This plays a part in social emotional development and overall confidence as well. When a child feels confident in their body in space awareness, they can navigate the world around them with ease.
And, in regards to handwriting, sometimes, spacing problems on paper have to do with difficulties with directional awareness.
Use Arrows (affiliate link) to start at the basics and practice naming left/write/top/bottom. Use them in whole-body movement activities where the child copies motions based on the arrow placement. Watch to make sure kids are not over stepping their allotted space.
Use Wikki Stix (affiliate link) for spacing on paper with physical cues for margins and spacing. Use the wikki sticks to space between words and a “ball” of the wikki stick to space between words.
Want a printable copy of our therapist-recommended toys to support spatial awareness?
As therapy professionals, we LOVE to recommend therapy toys that build skills! This toy list is done for you so you don’t need to recreate the wheel.
Your therapy caseload will love these SPATIAL AWARENESS toy recommendations. (There’s space on this handout for you to write in your own toy suggestions, to meet the client’s individual needs, too!)
Enter your email address into the form below. The OT Toolbox Member’s Club Members can access this handout inside the dashboard, under Handouts. Just be sure to log into your account, first!
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.
Here we are covering all things visual tracking, including what visual tracking means, how to improve visual tracking skills, and visual tracking toys to support development of this visual processing skill.
Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post. As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases.
What is Visual Tracking
Visual tracking is typically defined as the ability to efficiently move the eyes from left to right (or right to left, up and down, and circular motions) OR focusing on an object as it moves across a person’s visual field.
This skill is important for almost all daily activities, including reading, writing, cutting with scissors, drawing, and playing. According to typical development of visual processing, the ability to visually track objects emerges in children around the age of five.
Reading a paragraph without losing their place, copying a list of homework from the chalkboard, misalignment of vertical and horizontal numbers in math problems, confusion in interpreting written direction, mixing up left/right, persistent letter reversals…Does any of this sound familiar? It’s all visual tracking!
Vision and visual tracking are tasks that happen without us even realizing. The brain and it’s jobs is an amazing thing and our eyes are moving, tracking, scanning, focusing, pursuing, and accommodating without us even realizing. There are many ways to work on visual perception in playful and creative ways.
Related is the visual figure ground piece, which allows us to pull visual information from a busy background, and track that visual input.
Visual Tracking Exercises
Using visual tracking exercises like the one described below can be a powerful way to use eye exercises to improve vision in kids. These are the visual skills needed not for visual acuity, but rather, those unseen visual problems that impact visual processing skills.
You might see problems with these tasks if a child has difficulty with visual tracking:
Losing place when reading. Re-reads or skips words or lines.
Omits, substitutes, repeats, or confuses similar words when reading.
Must use finger to keep place when reading.
Poor reading comprehension.
Short attention span.
Difficulty comprehending or remembering what is read.
Confusion with interpreting or following written directions.
Writing on a slant, up or down hill, spacing letters and words irregularly.
Confusion with left/right directions.
Persistent reversals of letters (b, d, p, q) when naming letters.
Reverses letters when writing (persistent reversals after 2nd grade.)
Errors when copying from a chalkboard or book to paper.
Misalignment of horizontal and vertical series’ of numbers in math problems.
Also related to visual tracking and very similar while being involved in many of these problem areas, is visual scanning.
It is important to note that not all of these difficulties indicate a true visual tracking and or visual scanning problem. For example, many children demonstrate poor reading comprehension and may show a short attention span while not having visual scanning problems.
All children should be evaluated by a pediatric physician, behavioral optometrist, and occupational therapist to determine true visual processing and visual tracking or visual scanning deficits. These recommendations are meant to be a resource.
Visual Tracking Activities
Today, I’m sharing an easy visual tracking activity that will help kids with many functional difficulties. This post is part of our new series where we are sharing 31 days of Occupational Therapy using mostly free or inexpensive materials.
Today’s activity should cost you at most $2 unless you already have these items in your craft cupboard or office supplies. Add this activity to your treatment bag for multiple activities. Read on:
Amazon affiliate links below.
This Visual tracking activity is easy to set up. Gather recycled bottle caps. I used round dot labels (affiliate link) from our office supplies to color the inside of each cap. You could also use a marker or paint to color the bottle caps. Use what you’ve got on hand to make this treatment activity free or almost free! Next, gather matching crafting pom poms. (affiliate link) These can be found at the dollar store for and inexpensive treatment item.
Skills Related to Visual Tracking
It’s important to mention that there are several skills related to visual tracking. These sub-areas should be identified as a piece of the overall puzzle. Areas related to visual tracking play a role in the eyes ability to fixate on an object and follow it as it moves. These skills include:
Visual fixation
Peripheral tracking
Visual pursuit
Visual Fixation Activity: (Maintaining vision on an item in the visual field) Work one eye at a time.
Have your child close one eye and place a colored crafting pom pom onto a matching bottle cap. They need to use one hand to place the pom pom into the corresponding bottle cap and not move bottle caps around on the table.
After the child has filled all of the bottle caps using one eye, repeat the task with the other eye.
Then complete the activity using both eyes.
You can also do this activity by placing the label dots on a paper. Match the bottle caps onto the dots.
Visual Stare Activity (the amount of time the eyes can fixate on an object without eye movements)
Hold up one bottle cap on your nose.
Ask your child to sit about 18 inches from you and stare at the bottle cap. Note their eye movements as they stare.
Keep track of time that the child can stare at the target without visual saccades (eye movements).
Peripheral Tracking Activity (visually tracking from the peripheral visual fields)
Arrange the bottle caps on the table.
Place a pom pom in the center of the table, with the bottle caps all around it.
Ask your child to stare at the pom pom. While keeping their head still and only moving their eyes, ask them to quickly find a bottle cap with the same color.
Ask them to scan to another bottle cap of the same color until they’ve found all of the caps with that color.
You can add a level to this task by writing letters or numbers in the bottle caps and asking the child to find letters in order or numbers in order.
Visual Tracking Pursuit Activity (watching and tracking a moving object)
Set one bottle cap on the right side of the table.
Place another at the left side.
The adult should blow a crafting pom pom from the right to the left and ask the child to follow the pom with his eyes, without moving their head.
Repeat by blowing the pom pom from the left to the right, front to back, and back to front in front of the child.
Visual Tracking Tracing Lines (Watching a pencil line as it is formed, and following the line with eye-hand coordination to trace with a pencil or marker)
Set one vertical row of bottle cap on the left side of the child.
Place another vertical row on the right side.
The adult should draw a line from one bottle cap on the left side to a matching bottle cap on the right side.
Instruct the child to follow the pencil as you draw. Nest, trace the line with your finger.
Ask the child to trace the line with their finger.
They can then trace the lines with a pencil or marker.
More eye tracking Strategies
Complete mazes
Do puzzles.
Use a newspaper or magazine article. Ask your child to highlight all of the letter “a’s”.
Draw or paint pictures.
Place a marble in a pie pan. Rotate the pan around and watch the ball as it rolls. Don’t move your head, only your eyes!
Find as many things shaped like a a square in the room. Repeat the activity, finding all of the circular shaped items in the room.
Play flashlight tag on walls and ceilings. The adult an child each holds a flashlight. As the adult shines the light on walls, the child keeps their light superimposed on top of yours. Start with simple strait lines. Then add curved lines, then a circle. Tell them what you are drawing next. Advance the activity by drawing shapes without telling them what you are doing next.
Roll a ball between you and the child. Roll from left-right, right-left, front-back, back-front, and toss the ball.
Visual tracking Toys
Looking for more tools to improve visual tracking? The toys below are great for improving visual tracking and visual scanning in fun ways. These toys, games, and ideas may be a great gift idea for little ones who have visual perceptual difficulties or problems with visual tracking and handwriting, body awareness in space, letter reversals, detail awareness, or maintaining place while reading.
SO, save these ideas for grandparents and friends who might ask for gift ideas for birthdays and holidays. These are some powerhouse visual tracking ideas!
Use Pattern Blocks and Boards (affiliate link) to work on visual fixation of shapes and sizes of shapes.
This Wooden Tangram Puzzle (affiliate link) has many different shapes and forms that can be copied from instructions. Copying from a diagram is a great way to practice visual tracking.
For younger kids, this Wooden Stacking Toy encourages tracking for color sorting. Try some of our pom pom activities that we discussed above!
Mazes are excellent for fostering and building on visual tracking skills. Particularly those that involve a moving ball such as a Marble Run (affiliate link) or a labrynth (affiliate link).
Watching a ball or moving object that is thrown around a room (like a balloon) is a great way to work on tracking in a big area. These Sportime Sensory Balls SloMo Balls (affiliate link) are lightweight and move more slowly than a typical ball, allowing kids to visually track the bright color. These are very cool for games of toss and rolling in all planes and directions. Use them to address peripheral tracking as well.
A flashlight can be used in so many visual tracking activities. Shine the light on words or letters taped to walls. Play “I Spy” in a dark room, shine shapes like this flashlight (affiliate link)can for visual tracking and form tracking.
More visual Tracking Toys
These visual tracking toys are Amazon affiliate links.
Want a printable copy of our therapist-recommended toys to support visual tracking skills?
As therapy professionals, we LOVE to recommend therapy toys that build skills! This toy list is done for you so you don’t need to recreate the wheel.
Your therapy caseload will love these VISUAL TRACKING toy recommendations. (There’s space on this handout for you to write in your own toy suggestions, to meet the client’s individual needs, too!)
Enter your email address into the form below. The OT Toolbox Member’s Club Members can access this handout inside the dashboard, under Handouts. Just be sure to log into your account, first!
Let’s talk visual perception toys. These games, toys, and play are designed to promote visual perceptual skills: a complex combination of various visual processing skills. These visual perceptual skills are necessary together and in coordination with one another in order for use to see information. Occupational therapy toys that visual information to create responses support functional abilities like movement or processing.
Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post. As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Visual perception Toys
Visual perception is our ability to make sense of what we see. Visual perceptual skills are essential for everything from navigating our world to reading, writing, and manipulating items.
Visual Perceptual Skills and how they are used to complete tasks like reading, writing, manipulating items, and functioning in everyday tasks:
Visual Memory– This is one’s ability to store visual information in short term memory. This skill allows us to recall visual information. When completing hidden picture puzzles, kids visually store images of items they are looking for when scanning to locate a specific shape or image. This skill is necessary for handwriting tasks when copying information from a source, such as lists of words, homework lists, and copying sentences.
Visual Closure– This visual perceptual skill allows us to see part of an object and visualize in our “mind’s eye” to determine the whole object. When we see part of an item we use visual closure to know what the whole item is. This skill requires the cognitive process of problem solving to identify items. Visual Closure is used to locate and recognize items in a hidden picture puzzle. In written work, we use visual closure to recognize parts of words and letters when reading and copying work.
Form Constancy– This skill allows us to visually recognize objects no matter their orientation. When completing a hidden picture puzzle, children can recognize the missing object whether it is upside down or sideways. In handwriting skills, we use this ability to read and know letters and numbers no matter which direction we see them.
Visual Spatial Relationships- This visual perceptual skill allows us to recognize and understand the relationships of objects within the environment and how they relate to one another.
Visual Discrimination– This visual perception skill enables us to determine slight differences in objects. In hidden picture activities, this skill is needed to determine and locate different hidden objects. When writing and reading, visual discrimination allows us to perceive the difference between “p” and “d”. Puzzles including ones like the wooden letter puzzle described below address visual discrimination. There are many puzzles on the market that meet different age and grade levels. Here are a variety of puzzles (affiliate link) to consider.
Visual Attention- This visual perceptual skill allows us to focus on the important pieces or parts of what we see. When we “take in” a scene or image in front of us, we are able to filter out the unimportant information. In this way, a student is able to focus our eyes on the teacher when she teaches. Driving down a road requires visual attention to take in the road so we can drive safely. Visual attention is important in copy work as students copy information from a Smart Board or book onto a piece of paper. As they visually scan from one point to another, they attend to the place they left off. Visual attention is also important and very needed in reading.
Visual Sequential Memory- This visual perceptual skill is the ability to visually take in and then later recall the sequence or order of items in the correct order. This skill is important in reading and writing. Visual sequential memory is important in spelling words correctly and recognizing that words are not spelled correctly.
Visual Figure-Ground– This skill enables us to locate items in a busy background. Finding hidden items in a hidden pictures puzzle works on this skill by visually scanning and identifying items within a busy scene. In handwriting, visual figure ground is necessary for copying written work from a model and locating the place left off when shifting vision.
Toys to Improve Visual Perception
Highlights Hidden Pictures book set– (affiliate link) Hidden pictures are a fantastic tool for helping kids develop and strengthen visual perceptual skills like figure ground, visual attention, visual discrimination, form constancy, and visual memory. This set of hidden pictures is a nice stocking stuffer that disguises “work” as a rainy day activity.
Self-Correcting Heads & Tails Animal Match Puzzle– (affiliate link) Puzzles like this one helps kids address visual perceptual skills like visual discrimination, figure-ground, visual attention, form constancy, and visual memory. These are easy puzzles that can be used with younger children. Add this game to an older child’s visual perceptual activities by asking them to write stories or sentences based on the puzzle pieces while sneaking in visual perceptual skill work.
Self-Correcting Counting Puzzle– (affiliate link) This puzzle is very similar to the previous match puzzle, only it uses math concept to match. Work on visual perceptual skills with a math component.
Uppercase & Lowercase Alphabet (affiliate link) Help kids develop skills in upper/lowercase letter matching by addressing visual discrimination, form constancy, spatial discrimination, form constancy, visual memory, and visual discrimination.
Preschool Alphabet Animal Wooden Puzzle (affiliate link) Visual discrimination is a skill needed for noticing differences in letters like letters b and d. It’s a skill that carries over to reading and noticing the differences between words like can and car. visual discrimination skills enable the eyes to notice differences between the orientation and parts of letters and can promote a more fluent reading ability. This skill is also important in math and spelling. Puzzles like this one also help with form constancy, visual figure ground, among other visual perceptual skills.
Pixy Cubes -(affiliate link) Noticing small differences in colors and direction is an important part of visual discrimination and reading, writing, math, and spelling. These skills are important for fluency as children age and need to complete reading and math skills at faster levels appropriate for grade advances. Matching and figuring out visual puzzles like this one address skills like visual attention, visual memory, visual sequencing, spatial relationships, and visual sequencing.
Learning Resources iTrax Critical Thinking Game– (affiliate link) This visual perceptual toy allows children to copy and build designs using blocks of different sizes. Children can develop and boost visual perceptual skills such as visual figure-ground, visual attention, visual memory, visual sequencing, and spatial relationships in order to create the mazes that they see on the cards. There are various levels of mazes, allowing for development of skills.
Learning Resources Dive into Shapes! “Sea” and Build Geometry Set– (affiliate link) This building set is a visual perception activity that develops various visual perceptual skills needed for skills such as handwriting and reading. Using double-sided activity cards, children can develop skills such as visual figure-ground, visual attention, visual memory, visual sequencing, and spatial relationships while they copy the three-dimensional figures they see on the cards. This activity is a powerhouse therapy tool as children can strengthen fine motor skills while building with the pieces.
Tumble Trax Magnetic Marble Run– (affiliate link) This marble run building set is a visual perception activity that develops various visual perceptual skills needed for skills such as handwriting and reading. Children can copy different levels of marble run forms using activity cards while developing skills such as visual figure-ground, visual attention, visual memory, visual sequencing, and spatial relationships. The magnetic pieces can be used on surfaces such as a refrigerator or large magnetic sheet on the wall. It’s a great tool for strengthening the upper body, developing balance and core stability, and shoulder stability while working on a vertical surface.
Code & Go Robot Mouse Activity Set– (affiliate link) Use the activity cards to copy maze forms while developing visual perceptual skills such as visual figure-ground, visual attention, visual memory, visual sequencing, and spatial relationships. The maze is a great self-confidence booster for children as they complete mazes for the battery operated mouse. This game provides an opportunity for developing and introducing coding skills. When watching the mouse as it travels through the mouse, children can enhance visual scanning skills.
Let’s Go Code! Activity Set– (affiliate link) This visual perception game requires children to hop, turn, step, and move through a gross motor maze of directions. Children can develop visual perceptual skills such as visual attention, visual memory, visual sequencing, and spatial relationships. Directionality is enhanced with movement activities such as this one and is much needed in tasks such as writing and identifying direction of letters and numbers.
Spot It– (affiliate link) This game is a fun way to help children develop and strengthen visual perceptual skills like figure ground, visual attention, visual discrimination, form constancy, and visual memory. The game is small enough to be used as a busy activity while waiting at restaurants and appointments. It’s a game that boosts skills and can be used during family game night, too.
Q-bitz Jr.– (affiliate link) Noticing differences in colors, forms, and directions are important skills needed in visual discrimination for reading, writing, math, and spelling. These skills are important for fluency as children age and need to complete reading and math skills at faster levels appropriate for grade advances. This game is a fun way to address skills like visual attention, visual memory, visual sequencing, spatial relationships, and visual sequencing.
Wooden Pattern Blocks Set– (affiliate link) These copying puzzle activities is a great way to develop skills like form constancy and visual discrimination. Children can look at the picture card and recreate the form using three dimensional blocks. It’s a nice way to develop visual perceptual skills like visual attention, visual memory, visual sequencing, spatial relationships, and visual sequencing.
Classic Tangoes– (affiliate link) Similar to the tangrams above, children can view the image on a card and use tangrams to re-create the picture in this classic game. This activity develops visual perceptual skills like visual attention, visual memory, visual sequencing, spatial relationships, and visual sequencing, form constancy, and visual discrimination, all needed for handwriting and reading. Read more about using tangrams in visual perception and handwriting.
Equilibrio Game– (affiliate link) This building activity requires players to copy forms from a puzzle book while re-creating buildings that challenge balance and gravity! When copying and building the forms, kids develop and build eye-hand coordination skills and visual perceptual skills like visual attention, visual memory, visual sequencing, spatial relationships, and visual sequencing, form constancy, and visual discrimination.
More Therapy Toys
Looking for more toys to address specific skill areas? Check out these occupational therapy toys:
Want a printable copy of our therapist-recommended toys to support visual perception?
As therapy professionals, we LOVE to recommend therapy toys that build skills! This toy list is done for you so you don’t need to recreate the wheel.
Your therapy caseload will love these VISUAL PERCEPTION toy recommendations. (There’s space on this handout for you to write in your own toy suggestions, to meet the client’s individual needs, too!)
Enter your email address into the form below. The OT Toolbox Member’s Club Members can access this handout inside the dashboard, under Educational Handouts. Just be sure to log into your account, first!
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.
This is an older blog post on left-right discrimination, and includes left right discrimination activities, information, and even a free, hands-on slide deck activity you can use in right left discrimination occupational therapy activities to support these areas.
Working on left right discrimination with kids? It can be difficult to teach left right awareness because there’s so many areas of development that play into this awareness.
We’ve talked before about mixed dominance vs. ambidexterity, which is a concern that comes up when kids don’t use one hand or one side for motor tasks. You’ll want to start there to read more about this issue.
The thing is that the confusion between left and right becomes an issue in play or learning tasks, especially when children are asked to follow directions that require a knowledge of left and right. When children don’t have a strong awareness of left and right, you’ll see confusion and even embarrassment in a group setting.
This other post on hand dominance offers 3 activities to work on left right awareness, and can be a great way to expand this left right discrimination activity to hands-on activities that build motor skills.
Left Right Discrimination Activity
In left right discrimination activities, kids can gain more awareness of their body and how it moves during functional tasks.
As pediatric OTs we might try a variety of activities to support development of right left discrimination.
These strategies might be accommodations or modifications to functional tasks or it might be occupational therapy activities to help with these discrimination skills needed for handwriting or establishing a dominant side.
First, let’s talk about why an awareness of left and right is important.
Left right confusion can make functional tasks very challenging.
Why Worry about Left Right Awareness with Hands?
Left-right discrimination can be memory, attention, or visual perceptual. If left/right confusion is a memory problem, it is probably the easiest to remedy with a visual prompt like a sticker on the hand. A lot of the OT practitioners I know simply use pictures, labels, games, or the trick with the “L” in the left hand. What are some easy tricks you can think of to send reminders of left and right?
Often left-right discrimination difficulty is more than just attention or memory. It is a perceptual issue.
Visual perception is the way we “perceive” information that our eyes see. People with visual perceptual difficulties might perceive items backward, or different each time. The “L in the left hand” technique is not reliable for these people, because they can never be sure they have the L in the correct direction.
While you are working on improving visual perceptual skills, use the labels, or tricks listed above. These labels and hints may need to be used long term, because not all visual perceptual deficits will be remediated.
Once you have learned to identify which is the left and right side of the body, it gets trickier. What if you have discrimination issues and someone says to move your right arm forward, or your left leg to the right? Directionality is even more confusing than left/right discrimination.
Another difficulty with directionality is, it changes. If you are facing forward, the left might be toward the front of the class, but as soon as you turn around, the left is at the back of the class.
This translates into map reading and directionality, or following directions through space during movements. If you are facing north, east is to your right. But if you are facing south? I love when the car says “head west on elm street” What? West is left if I am facing north, but what if I am facing east? Is it behind me? Usually I pick one direction, and if it says “rerouting”, or “proceed to the route”, I know I guessed wrong.
Left/right is not always clear either. Is the left side of the stage when I am standing on it, or facing it. I am thinking the left side of the car is the one I am driving on, but if I look at it from the front, that is the right side.
We have an RV that usually requires me to help with the parking. My job is to tell my husband which way to turn. If I say left, is that my left or his? Should he move the RV to the right or left? Or the car? Which needs to go left, the front of the camper or the back? Do not get me started on trying to think which way he needs to turn the wheel to get the camper to go in reverse to the right. I end up pointing, but even that is not clear. Luckily, we find humor at these times in our lives, and are still married.
Left Right Confusion and Shoe Tying
Another example of left right confusion shows up during daily self care tasks like Tying shoes. You see the left right confusion as struggling to follow the motor directions when you are not clear which side is which. “Am I using my left hand, or my right hand?”
Not only are you trying to keep left/right straight, but then use this information to complete a challenging task.
Think of shoe tying for example. To teach a child to tie their shoes, we use one step directions all based on left or right. We might say, “Take the left lace and put it over the right. Now slip the left lace under the X that was formed by crossing the laces. Once you get that part sorted, you need to find one to make a bow (left for lefties, and right for righties).” Then, there are the nuances of shoe tying where right-handed kids loop the shoe lace counterclockwise, while lefties go clockwise around the loop.
Because shoe tying is such a struggle with directionality, we often provide visual examples such as colored laces, visual diagrams, or songs that do not use left/right.
Left Right Confusion and Cutting with Scissors
As if left/right discrimination was not hard enough, directions are often reversed for lefties.
For the student with left right confusion, this is a real challenge in the classroom, when things move quickly. The teacher might hand out papers, tell students to cut out sections of a worksheet and glue them onto the page in the right spaces. The rest of the class might be done with the activity by the time our student with left right confusion has even figured out which hand to use to hold their scissors.
Cutting with scissors requires an automatic awareness of how to hold the scissors and how to cut around shapes.
Did you realize that “righties” cut counterclockwise, while “lefties” cut clockwise?
The differences continue with reading. While we lefties scan left to right and read books from front to back, it is not natural. I prefer to flip through magazines from the back. It makes some articles confusing, but feels more natural.
I am on a line dance team, and as I am new to the team, there are some struggles I experience with body awareness and directions. Directionality and discrimination have been a challenge, even though I am sure of my left and right. We go one direction facing one wall, then another direction facing the next wall. I have to depend on my body direction, rather than using visual cues for help. When we are facing the front wall, I tend to center myself thinking about heading toward the door, or the mirror. Once we turn around, I am lost all over again. If I feel lost, I tend to look at my peers to see what they are doing. Sometimes we end up facing different directions, and I can not figure out who is wrong.
The good news for shoe tying, dancing, driving, parking an RV, and 100 other things we learn is muscle memory. We talked a bit about the muscle memory in tasks in our blog post on handwriting, because there is an automaticity piece to this puzzle.
After a while you no longer think of the left and right lace or stomping the right foot, your body takes over. As I was describing the shoe tying above, did you have to take your shoes out to figure out which side you make the loop on, or close your eyes and picture the movements? Me too. Fortunately, we do things so naturally after we learn them, we do not have to keep thinking of each direction as we do each task.
Our muscles build a plan with our brain to create a pattern. Imagine how tough touch typing would be if you never remembered where the keys were. How much of a challenge would it be to write a sentence if we needed to stop and think about which direction the lines in each letter go. It’s a motor plan that’s been established and marked into our brains.
People with sensory processing difficulties have difficulty with motor planning or creating muscle memory. They need to rely on directions for much longer. This can be especially difficult for the child with sensory processing difficulties, AND directionality struggles.
Just thinking about all these directions makes my brain hurt. I am realizing how much of a struggle this is in our lives every day. So much of our day includes some sort of direction. Next time you think someone is “cheating” doing an activity, take a moment to see if they are compensating rather than cheating. This may be their effort to get the task done and fit in. It is actually very clever to check the people around you for guidance. Use this as a clue to see where the struggle lies.
So what are some activities to support left right awareness?
left right discrimination Activities
First up is a visual graphic that helps kids to understand their left and right hands using their left hand as a visual reminder.
On the slide deck (below), kids can look at the visual and follow the directions:
On both of your hands, stick out your thumb and your pointer finger.
Now look at what shape that made on each hand! One hand looks like the letter “L” and the other is a backwards “L.”
The word “left” starts with the letter “L!” This means that the hand with the “L” shape is your left hand!
Kids can use this trick to help them remember which way is left and which way is right.
Want to know the quickest way to determine who does not know their left from right? Play a group game of Simon Says or dance the Hokey Pokey. You can quickly see who not only knows their left and right, but who does it with confidence, versus following along.
Circling back to Simon Says. Be especially mindful of who is “cheating” or depending on others for information. Are they unsure which is the answer, or just relying on their peers? It is natural to check those around you to see what your peers are doing, but how can you be sure your peer is correct? What if you are the one that is correct? Or are both wrong?
You do not need to remember left and right, just one. If you know which left is, you will know the other one is automatically right
If your child knows what left/right means, but can not remember, start labeling things. Put an L inside of the left shoe for example. Check out these cute stickers (amazon link)! I like that these stickers do not specify left/right, but have puzzle pieces that fit together correctly to show which shoes go on which feet.
Wear a bracelet or watch on the same side each time. Memorize which side it is on. The watch is always on the left, this is my left side.
Learn which hand you write with. I write with my left hand, and I can easily raise that one.
Make a mark or label on your child’s arm/hand daily to give a visual reminder
We have put together a slide deck of activities to help with left right confusion.
Left Right Direction Activity
The slide deck is an interactive tool that allows children to sort items that are directionally pointing to either the left or right sides on the screen. There are several left right discrimination activities to work through on this picnic themed slide deck
Today’s free therapy slide deck is a left right discrimination activity with a picnic theme, going perfectly with our virtual picnic therapy activities slide deck.
The slide decks in this post not only give practice to picking the item on the left or right, but ask which way the item is facing. The item may be on the right but facing left, or visa versa. Woah! That became tricky very quickly.
When using these slide decks, be sure your child has the basics before trying the more challenging cards. You may need to start at the beginning, labeling items left and right for a while before moving on to determining which item is on the left or facing that way.
After kids have a kinesthetic and visual approach to remembering left and right, there are slides that work on sorting images into categories of left vs. right.
This interactive portion allows kids to click on the images and sort them into left or right.
If the user needs prompts, remind them to use their hands to make the L with their fingers to recall which side is their left side. This can help to establish memory by using several sensory methods: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic within several repetitions.
Left Right Sorting Activity
Next, you’ll see several slide decks that ask the user to move a circle to cover the item facing either the left or the right. The directions are written at the top of each slide deck and changes on each slide. You can again remind users to use their hands to remember which side of the screen is their left and which is their right.
This can be helpful for teaching left right discrimination because through a screen like in teletherapy services, it can be difficult to address the left or right awareness (especially if there is a screen flipping issue that comes up with teletherapy services).
The picnic themed visuals are fun for a picnic theme and includes things like a grill, hot dog, picnic kids, backpackers, etc.
Left Right Discrimination Matching Activity
Finally, there are several slides that ask the user to move the circle to cover a matching image across the slide. This visual perception activity addresses several areas typically developed through therapy activities:
The user can also address eye-hand coordination as they move the mouse or click and drag to move the circles to cover each matching item.
Again, work on left right discrimination by asking the child to name the direction that the item is facing: Is it facing the left or is it facing the right?
All of these left right discrimination activities are powerful ways to help kids with directionality that is needed for functional tasks.
Free left right discrimination slide deck
Want this picnic themed therapy slide deck to work on left right discrimination? Enter your email address into the form below to grab this teletherapy activity.
When kids go through the slides, you can reset the movable items to their original state by clicking the history link at the top navigation bar. Simply click the “last edit” link and then go to the right side bar. You’ll see a link that says “reset slides”. Click this link and then go to the top navigation bar again and click the button that says “Restore this version”. Then, all of those movable pieces on the whole deck will reset to their original spots and you can restart the therapy activities.
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.
This apple activity is a fine motor activity for occupational therapy sessions with kids that builds many skill areas. I love this fine motor apple activity because you can make it work for the needs of each child. There is power to using hole punch activities with kids! Working on hand strength? Use the hole punch to build skills. Working on dexterity? Pick up the small red circles to place them on the felt apple tree. You can even incorporate it into a vertical plane activity or add apple brain breaks to the session. The sky is the limit!
I love this apple tree activity because you can use dice to work on hand mobility, small apple dots that are precision work, and you can incorporate other skills into the activity.
Pair this apple tree activity with our apple tweezer activity for even more apple themed fine motor fun.
Fine motor strengthening is a hot topic when it comes to back-to-school time. Kids go back into the classroom and need to get back up to speed on all of the fine motor requirements in the classroom. What better way to work on fine motor strength than with a Fall apple theme? This apple themed fine motor activity adds a bit of math, too and it’s super easy to create for hands-on play, learning, and fine motor work.
Fine Motor Strengthening Activity
This apple tree activity is a fun way to build the intrinsic muscle strength of the hands as well as gross grasp strength. It’s an easy activity to throw together, and the steps of the activity help to build strength of the hands, too.
Materials needed to make this apple tree activity:
Scissors (Here are my favorite scissors and why to use each type of scissors for different needs)
To create the apple tree, cut the green felt into a tree-ish shape. Cutting felt is a complex scissor task, so older kids can help with this part. If you are able to use stiff felt, cutting through the material is a strengthening exercise in itself.
Next, cut the brown felt into a trunk shape, by simply cutting strait lines. Consider allowing the child to cut the trunk shape as cutting strait lines on a material such as felt is easier, yet the flimsy material makes it difficult to cut. A stiffer material would work well for this part as well.
Next, cut the red cardstock into small, thin strips of paper. This is not necessary for the end result of the activity, however there is a fine motor benefit to the extra step. Kids can hold the thin strips of paper with a pincer grasp using their non-dominant, helper hand. Using the small strips of paper requires precision. Kids will then be required to slow down while using the hole punch so that they don’t cut the holes over the edge of the strip of the paper.
Need a hole punch that requires less effort for younger kids or those who need to build their gross muscle grip strength? Try this one.
Hole Punch Activity
Before we move on, I want to take a moment to talk about this portion of the activity.
Cutting paper strips and using a hole punch along the strip is an easy fine motor activity that you can set up with items you probably have on hand….Cut strips of paper. Use different grades and remember that cutting thicker paper means more resistance which is good for strengthening the hands.
Use the brown cardstock to make a small apple barrel shape. This can be used in the math part of this activity.
A slower cut with the hole punch allows for the muscles of the hands to exercise with prolonged tension and increases blood flow. Using the hole punch with slow repetitions builds gross grasp strength.
Once the apple tree and apples are created, kids can place them on the tree. The cardstock will not stick permanently to the felt, but they will stay in place for temporary play. Scatter the red cardstock circles, (those are your apples!) onto the table. Show your child or student how to pick up the apples and place them onto the apple tree. Picking up the small cardstock circles is a real workout for the intrinsic muscles of the hand.
To make this activity easier, place the cardstock circles on a piece of felt.
Apple Fine Motor Activity
Add a bit of math to this activity with a pair of dice. Show your child how to roll the dice and then count the number of dots on the dice. They can then add and count the number of apples and place them on the tree.
There are several ways to build on this activity:
Use the dice to add apples.
Subtract by taking away apples from the tree.
Create multiple step math problems by adding and them subtracting the numbers on the dice to put on and then remove apples.
The Apple Therapy Kit is full of fine motor, visual motor, and sensory motor tools to support fine motor skill development needed for handwriting and other functional tasks.
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.
We made these dyed lollipop sticks many moons ago, (2015!) as a fine motor and visual motor tool to use in color sorting and other fine motor activities. The colorful sticks are fun and provide countless opportunities in your OT sessions for creative exploration, problem-solving, and hands-on learning.
We made these dyed lollipop sticks last month and have been playing with them a lot. Counting, patterns, fine motor play, art, visual perceptual work, and imagination are fun with these colorful rainbow sticks. They are so easy to dye with just a little food coloring, and very fun. We’ve used these rainbow sticks in a few different ways recently and will be sharing soon on the blog!
This post contains affiliate links.
Dyed Lollipop Sticks for play and learning
How gorgeous are rainbow lollipop sticks? Don’t you want to play with them?
How to dye lollipop sticks
We had a ton of extra lollipop sticks left over from various parties. The idea to color them in rainbow shades came to me after seeing them in the baking bin next to food coloring. A rainbow of manipulatives would be fun for all kinds of play. I put a handful of sticks into small plastic baggies and added a few drops of liquid food coloring. More food coloring will bring out brighter colors.
Shake the baggies around to coat the sticks.
Spread the lollipop sticks out on wax paper and allow them to dry.
Once dry, you are ready to play! These things are completely gorgeous and we had fun just naming all of the colors, rolling them back and forth, and sorting.
Fine Motor Skills with Dyed Rainbow Lollipop Sticks
We pulled a plastic bottle from the recycle bin and practiced fine motor skills by dropping the rainbow sticks into the plastic bottle one by one. Drop by colors and work on color identification. Practice beginner math skills by counting one-to-one correspondence as the child names the number of each color. Practice a tripod grasp on the lollipop sticks and pre-handwriting skills.
We shared just a couple of ways to use dyed lollipop sticks in developing sensory motor skills. Here are more ideas:
Color Sorting: Have children sort the dyed lollipop sticks by color into matching containers or on a color mat.
Pattern Making: Create and replicate patterns with the sticks, such as alternating colors or building sequences.
Counting and Number Matching: Use the sticks for counting activities or to match with numbers written on paper or cards.
Stick Building: Encourage children to build simple structures or shapes by gluing the sticks together.
Letter and Shape Formation: Have kids use the sticks to form letters, numbers, or shapes on a flat surface.
Tactile Tracing: Glue the sticks to create raised lines on paper for children to trace with their fingers, enhancing tactile feedback.
Matching Games: Write letters or numbers on the sticks and have children match them to corresponding cards or objects.
Sensory Bins: Add the dyed sticks to a sensory bin filled with rice, beans, or sand for children to find and sort.
Stick Weaving: Weave yarn or string around and between sticks placed in a grid pattern, working on fine motor skills.
Craft Projects: Incorporate the sticks into art and craft projects, such as making frames, collages, or decorations.
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.
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.
As a pediatric occupational therapist, I’ve used wooden building blocks in occupational therapy many times. For my own children, I’ve used regular wooden blocks as a fine motor tool too! In fact, building with blocks is a fine motor skills that kids need in order to fine motor development many, many, (MANY) times. Wooden blocks are a tool that are used for development of goal progression in treatment activities and in assessment of fine motor developmental level. They are used in visual perceptual skills, and are the perfect open-ended play item.
Occupational therapy practitioners use block toys to support fine motor skills and visual motor skills.
How to Support Fine Motor Skills with Blocks
Also be sure to check out our activity using cardboard bricks as a tool for developing many areas.
Blocks are a great toy for development because you can use different types of blocks for different ages.
Many parents ask “is stacking blocks a fine motor skill?” The answer is YES! As a Mom and OT, I’ve made sure my kids have a lot of wooden blocks (and a couple of varieties of toddler large blocks of the foam and plastic blocks, too!)
Today, I’m sharing how to use wooden blocks in fine motor skill development with kids…all while they play and don’t even realize their fine motor skills are being assessed or worked on! This is a great way to address skills for children and adults…anyone who needs to work on fine motor skill development.
Stacking blocks supports grasp development with various grasp patterns.
Fine Motor Skills and Building Blocks
Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
Stacking blocks is a fine motor skill. And, when children stack blocks, they develop and refine fine motor skills. Check out the list of benefits of playing with blocks that are described below. Each area of development can be developed using a set of building blocks.
Looking at various building blocks from the perspective of an occupational therapist, my favorite wooden blocks are Melissa and Doug Wood Blocks Set. The set is huge and comes with a variety of bright colors in solid wooden blocks, which are sized just right to help kids build fine motor skills.
Fine motor skills and building blocks go hand-in-hand…literally! There are SO many benefits to playing with blocks. Let’s break down all of the benefits of playing with blocks…
There are many benefits of building blocks!
Benefits of Playing with Blocks
Building with blocks help kids develop grasp- From the time toddlers can grasp a block with their whole hand, grasp development begins. Blocks are a fine motor power tool when it comes to working on grasp development! Read below for the specifics of small kids playing with blocks. By picking up on block, manipulating it in the hand, and placing it on a stack of blocks, children progress from a gross grasp to a radial palmer grasp and then to a digital palmer grasp, followed by a tip-to-tip grasp using the pointer finger and thumb.
2. Building with blocks helps kids develop graded fine motor skills- As small children progress through typical grasp progression, they begin to gain more control over those motor skills. This occurs on a stability basis (use of the core and shoulder to stabilize the arm) and on a dexterous basis (precise, small, and graded movements of the fingers). By gaining these skills, children are able to pick on one block from a stack without toppling the entire block tower. They are also able to place a block onto a stack of blocks without knocking over the entire tower. These graded movements are essential for precision and dexterity in functional tasks as children gain a sense of personal awareness and how their body moves through space in order to pick up and manipulate objects.
This blog post on fine motor precision and graded release explains more on this skill and has a fun fine motor activity to develop graded precision in fine motor skills.
3. Building with blocks helps children develop eye-hand coordination- From a very young age, when babies develop the ability to see and move their arm to reach for a block, those eye-hand coordination skills are beginning to develop. Visual motor integration is a main piece of the visual processing skills puzzle, and coordinating movements with visual information is essential for so many functional tasks in learning and play. Catching a ball, writing with a pencil, cutting with scissors, are just a few examples of eye-hand coordination tasks that rely on the baseline skills developed from a young age. Toddlers can manipulate and build with blocks while developing this skill through play. Stacking, knocking blocks over, building a block train, making towers, and using blocks in constructive play are powerful tools to developing eye-hand coordination skills.
4. Building with blocks helps children develop bilateral coordination– Establishing a hand dominance and laterality is an important fine motor skill that transfers to tasks like writing with a pencil and holding the paper with the nondominant hand. Another example is mastering a zipper while stabilizing the material with the other hand. Still another example of bilateral coordination is cutting with scissors while holding and manipulating the paper with the nondominant hand. All of these tasks requires one hand to manipulate objects with more precision and dexterity while the other acts as a stabilizer. Building with blocks builds bilateral coordination as children stabilize a stack of blocks with one hand and use the other hand to release a block at the top of the stack with graded precision.
5. Building with blocks helps children develop motor planning skills– Motor planning is a physical action that requires observing and understanding the task (ideation), planning out an action in response to the task (organization), and the act of carrying out the task (execution). Building with blocks is a great way to build these sub-skills as kids attempt to build with blocks to construct with blocks.
6. Building with blocks helps children integrate the proprioceptive sense– Proprioception is one of our sensory systems that focuses on awareness of how one’s body moves through space, and how much effort is needed to move in certain ways. The proprioception system receives input from the muscles and joints about body position, weight, pressure, stretch, movement and changes in position in space. Our bodies are able to grade and coordinate movements based on the way muscles move, stretch, and contract. Proprioception allows us to apply more or less pressure and force in a task. Instinctively, we know that lifting a feather requires very little pressure and effort, while moving a large backpack requires more work. We are able to coordinate our movements effectively to manage our day’s activities with the proprioceptive system. The brain also must coordinate input about gravity, movement, and balance involving the vestibular system. Building with blocks is a great way to develop and refine this skill. How much effort is needed to pick up a block and place it in a specific spot without moving other blocks while building a tower of blocks or a block building?
To take this a step further, use larger blocks that require gross motor skills, and more awareness of proprioception skills. Here are DIY cardboard blocks that we’ve made for this very purpose.
7. Blocks help children integrate midline awareness– Crossing midline can be developed from a young age when playing with blocks. This is a great way for babies and toddlers to work on crossing midline, by reaching for blocks, building, and creating.
8. Blocks help children develop visual motor skills- Visual motor skills (and visual motor integration) are needed for coordinating the hands, legs, and the rest of the body’s movements with what the eyes perceive. Visual motor skills are essential to coordinated and efficient use of the hands and eyes. Visual motor integration is a skill we require for functioning. There is more that plays into the integration of visual motor skills into what we do and how we use our hands in activities. Building with blocks helps children develop skills in visual perception, eye-hand coordination, and visual processing skills play a part in the overarching visual motor skill development so we can perceive and process visual information and use that information with motor skills to manipulate and move objects in tasks and activities.
By building with blocks, areas like form constancy, visual attention, visual discrimination, spatial relations, visual memory, visual sequential memory, and visual figure ground are developed in accordance with eye-hand coordination, and visual efficiency.
9. Building with blocks develops learning too! Beyond fine motor skills, building with blocks helps kids develop other skills too. What will your toddler learn by picking up Wood Blocks Set, placing them into a container, and stacking towers? (Among other skills):
Did you know there are developmental milestones for stacking blocks?
Building Blocks and Development
From developing a palmer grasp transition to a radial grasp to a tripod grasp and precision with graded release of motor skills, building with blocks help kids develop so many skills. For today’s activity, we pulled out the one inch square blocks from the set and we used classic Alphabet blocks. (This set has been chewed on and played with by all four of my kids so they look well loved aka have chew marks!)
First up in developing fine motor skills with wooden blocks is the grasp. This is important in fine motor skills in toddlers. Blocks, for toddlers are a fine motor tool that builds on so many areas.
There is a developmental progression of playing with blocks…aka stacking blocks milestones.
Stacking Blocks milestones
One resource that is helpful for occupational therapy providers and parents is knowing stacking blocks milestones. This is because we can help kids achieve fine motor and visual motor skills through play based on the level they are at and based on their age.
We’ve listed the progression of stacking blocks and included the typical age after each task.
The developmental ages of this progression are as follows:
Grasps a block with whole fist, lifting it off a table surface without dropping: 5 months
Grasps a block with all fingers: 6 months
Drops one block when given another: 6 months
Brings hands together when holding a block: 6 months
Grasps a block between the thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger (radial-palmer grasp): 7 months
Transfers a block from one hand to the other: 7 months
Bangs to wooden blocks together with both hands: 9 months
Grasps a block between the thumb, and the pads of the pointer and middle fingers with space between the block and the palm (radial-digital grasp): 11 months
Places wooden blocks into a container: 11 months
Builds a tower of three wooden blocks given a visual example: 15-16 months
Copies and builds a tower of 5 blocks: 19-20 months
Copies and builds a tower of 6 blocks: 21-22 months
Builds a tower of 8 blocks: 25-26 months
Copies a four block “train”: 29-30 months
Builds a 10 block tower: 29-30 months
Copies a three block pyramid or “bridge”: 31-32 months
Copies a four block “wall”: 35-36 months
Builds “steps” using six blocks: 51-52 months
Builds a six block pyramid: 53-54 months
Stacking blocks milestone development happens in natural play. Some ways to foster this skill include:
Modeling shapes and using them in floor play.
Using block creations in pretend play with small toys, and using toys that the child prefers like specific cars and figures.
Starting with easier block forms and then working up to more complicated forms.
The one thing to keep in mind about all of these activities listed below is to consider DIR Floor Time. Blocks are a natural tool to use in this technique because most often, blocks are used on the floor.
Step 1- Make a block line.
This might look like making a single line of blocks in a pretend play activity. You can tell the child that you are making a fence for animal figures or a house for doll figures. They might join in and help you build the line of blocks. If not, invite them! When you are making a line of blocks the goal is to make the blocks touch but not knock over or push blocks when setting them up. You also want to make sure there isn’t too much space in between the blocks or if the blocks don’t line up in a straight line. This is a great fine motor coordination activity and wonderful floor play.
The block line is horizontal on the floor and there is not height to the line of blocks.
Step 2- Stacking blocks: After you place blocks in a line you can work on stacking one block on top of another block. When you move to stacking two blocks, you have a few other components happening that require more developmental progression of fine motor and visual motor skills:
Grasp pattern and type on the block- As grasp is developed, you’ll see more precision and dexterity meaning more complex block designs and stacking.
Thumb web space which is needed for precision in grasp and release. If you see a child holding the block with a closed web space and little precision in the distal joints of the thumb and index fingers, you’ll see less graded precision in both placement and release of the fingers on the block.
Stable wrist needed for proximal support and distal mobility. When the wrist is in a flexed position, you don’t see as much dexterity and refined movements. The neutral wrist positioning with slight extension in the wrist is key.
Step 3- Make a block train. To move from a line of blocks to creating a block wall in progression, we can ask the child to copy a block train. This is a combination of a line of blocks with two stacked blocks to create the stack of the train. Typically, you’ll want to do this step after stacking two blocks because of the combination of skills.
Step 4- Begin stacking blocks. After you have a block train, you can create higher and higher stacks of blocks. The more blocks you add to the stack, the more precision skills and graded release of the hands (arch development, grasp, eye hand coordination, and open thumb web space). More blocks require more precision, because of the placement of the blocks on a higher stack of blocks. If the wrist isn’t stable or the distal joints of the fingers aren’t mobile, you’ll see less precision in placement.
Step 5- Make a block wall. For this stage you want to stack up two or more lines of blocks to make a wall. Start with just two levels and work up from there. You can tell the child that you are making a wall for a castle or a house. The goal here is to stack the blocks with precision to place the blocks on top of one another and not over placing the block so that it’s not stacked up on the bloc below it. You also want to make sure their blocks are not going over the edge so that you end up with a leaning wall. This can be more challenging for little ones, especially when it comes to precision in placing the block and in graded release of the block in its place in the wall.
Step 6- Make a block pyramid. For this stage of stacking blocks milestones this stage requires more complex fine motor precision and visual motor skills. There is a combination of placement of the blog in a line with aligning blocks to the one beside it as well as on top of the block below it in the stack. Additionally, there is placement of the blocks with shift to create steps on each side of the block pyramid.
From here, we can create higher and higher block pyramids.
Activities to Reach Stacking Blocks Milestones
So, now that you know the ages that kids can typically stack blocks, let’s talk about how to support these skills with different block activities.
We love using alphabet blocks because you can incorporate different areas of learning like letter identification, form constancy (different letter fonts are on the different sides of the blocks), and handwriting.
A baby can hold blocks to work on grasp and release.
This Radial Palmer Grasp of wooden block is a beginning grasp in toddlers.
After a radial palmer grasp, children progress to using a Digital Palmer Grasp of a Wooden Block. When children progress in development is the digital palmer grasp of holding a block, fine motor skill development speeds up fast. By holding a block with the pads of the thumb and pointer and middle fingers, kids are working on the in-hand manipulation skills they will need for manipulating a pencil. Make it fun while working on this area: Spin the block around with the tips of the fingers.
How does rotation in the hand help with functional skills? You need simple and complex rotation to complete these tasks:
Rotating a pencil when re-positioning while writing
Opening a toothpaste lid
Turning a paper clip
Turning knobs
Rotating the dial of a combination lock
Use colored blocks in block stacking games in OT sessions.
Block Stacking Games
Now that you’ve read through the benefits of playing with blocks, and the stacking block milestones that impact fine motor skills in children, let’s cover ways to play with blocks while building these essential skills.
While stacking blocks and knocking them down are a fantastic way to help small children build essential skills, there are so many more ways to play with blocks, too.
These block stacking games and block activities can be used for fun block ideas while building skills at home or in occupational therapy sessions.
With my toddler, we used the blocks to build small towers. So, how can you make this a fun activity? Usually, just playing with your kiddo and showing them how to build a tower and knock down a tower makes building with blocks fun at this age.
These Alphabet blocks are great for working on rotation of the fingers. Have your child look for specific shapes and letters on the sides of the blocks.
3. Add small toys like animal figures. Have the animals walk up and down the block steps.
4. Add play dough. Have the child create “mortar” using the play dough between each block.
5. Create a train track and push coins around a masking tape track.
6. Build a wall to divide animal figures into a miniature zoo.
7. Build a small bridge for small doll or animal figures.
8. Build a pyramid and place a coin on each level.
9. Sort the blocks into piles according to shape or color. Create patterns with colors or shapes. Make lines of the blocks and see which line has the most.
10. Build blocks in water. Use foam blocks or plastic blocks in a low tray of water. How does the water impact stacking? Can you add soap foam? What happens then? There is so much cause-and-effect happening with water and block play! Here you can see how we used water and foam blocks for fine motor skills.
Let your child use their imagination! The best thing about blocks are the open ended-ness that happens when playing. You can create houses, roads, animals, and any imaginative scene possible with just a set of blocks!
Copying Block Designs in Occupational Therapy
Beyond the fine motor skills listed above, there are visual motor skills that develop as well. This was covered briefly above, but to expand, copying block designs in occupational therapy is a skill that builds visual motor and visual perceptual skills needed for handwriting, reading, math, finding items like a utensil in a drawer, and so much more.
When children copy block designs, occupational therapists are working on areas such as spatial awareness, visual discrimination, visual attention, visual sequential memory, visual memory, form constancy, position in space, and other areas.
From top right and going clock-wise: 3 block pyramid or bridge, wall, pyramid, steps, and train.
You can also include the colored blocks to work on skills.
Copying specific shapes works on the eye-hand coordination, grasp, precision, and visual perceptual skills needed for functional tasks like handwriting, cutting with scissors, manipulating small items, managing clothing fasteners, and tying shoes, among so many other tasks.
To make copying shapes with blocks fun, try these ideas:
Build a block design alongside the child.
2. Build a block design using only one color of blocks.
3. Build a block design and then cover it with a small dishtowel. Can the child remember the design and build the same design?
4. Build a design and describe the blocks positions. Is one color on top or next to another? Use positioning words like next to, above, below, beside, to the left, to the right, etc.
5. Build bridge block designs and use small figures to cross the bridges.
6. Use different types of blocks. Try using LEGO, duplo blocks, rock blocks, or other three dimensional shapes. The part to focus on is coping forms in the three dimensional aspect, regarding position in space. There are so many different types of blocks on the market that work well for developing these skills.
7. Try building a small block form and then drawing it on paper.
8. Play “What’s Missing”. Build a block design and ask the child to look at the design for 20 seconds. Then, cover the design with a small dishtowel and remove one or more of the blocks. Can the child then look at the block design and figure out what is missing?
9. Make and build- Use colored paper to cut small squares that match the blocks you have in your set. Students can use the paper to “build” a two dimensional block design on paper or on the table top. Then, use real blocks to copy the paper design. This is an exercise in spatial concepts as students need to figure out any blocks that are out of view to hold up the block design.
10. Build block designs in a window or in a sunny place where the design creates a shadow. A flashlight or small lamp could also work as well. Then, place a piece of paper alongside the block design. Ask students to trace the shadow outline.
11. Create block forms that resemble real-life shapes, figures, and other relatable objects. Kids can copy block forms that resemble their favorite animals, people, and things like ice cream cones, presents, toys, vehicles, etc.
A Building Block Maze Activity focuses on gross motor skills and builds spatial awareness skills as well as body awareness and self-awareness to position in space.
This Building Tens Castles is a nice way to help preschool and kindergarten aged students with the concept of tens and place value as they group blocks into groups of tens.
This Word Family BINGO! challenges kindergarten and first grade students to build words by using blocks. It’s a hands-on learning activity that also develops visual perceptual skills, and visual scanning.
Letter matching with this Superhero Alphabet Matching Activity uses blocks to work on letter awareness, recognition, as well as visual perceptual skills.
This Sight Word ABCs with Blocks allows younger elementary school children to work on sight words as well as visual perceptual skills, eye-hand coordination, and motor planning.
For a gross motor activity that gets kids moving, use blocks to work on letters and sounds with this Letter Sound Scavenger Hunt.
Symmetrical awareness is a test of visual discrimination, form constancy, and visual memory. Work on symmetry with this Symmetry with Building Blocks activity.
This word building activity focuses on Building CVC words with Blocks and challenges children with visual perception and visual motor skills.
Working on visual attention, visual memory, and visual discrimination is easy with a block activity like this Making Patterns with Building Blocks idea.
How do you like to play with blocks? Have you tried working on fine motor skills using wooden blocks? Let us know!
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.
left over from various parties. The idea to color them in rainbow shades came to me after seeing them in the baking bin next to food coloring. A rainbow of manipulatives would be fun for all kinds of play. I put a handful of sticks into small plastic baggies and added a few drops of 
. More food coloring will bring out brighter colors.
