visual perception

Easy Activity to Help Kids with Reading, Word Searches, & Visual Scanning

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Today, I’ve got a super fun fine motor activity that not only will be a hit with the kids, it will work on a few very important skills.  This fine motor fidget toy is fun for kids to make and works on visual scanning at the same time.  Then, when they are done, you’ve got a creative fidget toy that kids can use over and over again.  Let’s get started!
 
Visual Scanning Activity for fine motor skills and visual scanning in so many functional tasks like reading, word searches, puzzles. This visual motor activity creates a fidget toy to help sensory seekers with fidgeting, too.

But first, What is Visual Scanning?

Scanning a worksheet for keywords, looking through a book for a certain page number, answering a multiple choice test question and scanning the list of options for the correct answer…This is visual scanning.  
 
Looking through a pile of shoes for the matching red one, searching for a friend’s face in a crowded lunch room, doing a word search and looking for letters to make up a word…This is visual scanning.
 
Visual Scanning is the voluntary fixation of the vision from one point in the visual field to another.  Visual scanning is also be called saccadic eye movements.  Scanning, or visual saccades, may be voluntary (such as in reading, or involuntary (such as during fast phases of vestibular nystagmus). We’re going to discuss voluntary saccades in this post.  Gazing between two items (such as in answering multiple choice questions, or copying information from a blackboard) requires visual fixation and voluntary visual saccades.


When a student searches a word search for a specific letter, they need to visually scan in a systematic pattern.  That is, they need to look up, down, left, and right as they search for letter combinations.  For a child who is doing an Easter egg hunt and searching a backyard for brightly colored eggs, they must look on different planes (high, low, near, and far) to find the eggs while avoiding obstacles.  


I’ve shared a few visual tracking activities lately in this Occupational Therapy series that I’ve been doing this month.  You can check those out here and here for more visual processing information, but it’s important to realize that visual scanning is different than visual tracking.  To visually scan, a child needs to view an object (red shoe, letters, or Easter egg) or area (page, corner of a book for book numbers, or lunch room) in order to locate an item or information.  In visual tracking, one maintains visual contact on an object as it moves. 

Visual Scanning Activity for fine motor skills and visual scanning in so many functional tasks like reading, word searches, puzzles. This visual motor activity creates a fidget toy to help sensory seekers with fidgeting, too.

Visual Scanning Activity for Kids

This visual scanning activity is one way to work on scanning for items in functional tasks.  This was a simple set up and used a few materials we had on hand:

Amazon affiliate links:

A Shower Curtain ring

Small Rubber Bands
in many colors


To do this easy Visual Scanning activity, simply scatter the rubber bands out on a surface.  Ask your child to scan the rubber bands to find specific colored bands.  You can call out colors individually or in patterns as they search for and find the correct colored rubber band.  


Make this activity easier (graded down) by removing the number of rubber bands or the amount of colors on the table.  Make it more difficult (graded up) by adding more rubber bands and more colors.  You can also add a larger surface area to make this activity more of a challenge.  Simply spread rubber bands over a larger area with fewer of the specific colors you will be naming.  Children then have to visual scan a larger area.  You can further grade up this activity by adding obstacles to the surface. 

Fine Motor Activity for Kids

Visual Scanning Activity for fine motor skills and visual scanning in so many functional tasks like reading, word searches, puzzles. This visual motor activity creates a fidget toy to help sensory seekers with fidgeting, too.

As the child scans for and finds the correct rubber band, have them thread it onto the shower curtain ring.  What a great fine motor activity for kids! They are working on their bilateral hand coordination as they pull the shower curtain ring apart and place the rubber band onto the ring.  

Visual Scanning Activity for fine motor skills and visual scanning in so many functional tasks like reading, word searches, puzzles. This visual motor activity creates a fidget toy to help sensory seekers with fidgeting, too.

My daughter did this activity one afternoon when my niece and nephew were over for the day.  It was a quiet time activity that kept two four year-olds busy for a long time.  They both wanted to keep adding more rubber bands until their ring was filled.


Visual Scanning Activity for fine motor skills and visual scanning in so many functional tasks like reading, word searches, puzzles. This visual motor activity creates a fidget toy to help sensory seekers with fidgeting, too.

When the ring is filled with bands, you’ve got a fidget toy that can be used during homework or school work tasks.  See more about fidget toys here.  


Have fun working on visual scanning skills and creating this fun toy!  

Visual scanning toys for kids

Looking for more ways to work on Visual Scanning?  These are some fun ideas and toys that you can do to work on visual saccades in a creative and playful way.

Amazon affiliate links are listed below.

  • Word Searches.  Have children scan for letters and highlight all of the letter “A’s” in one color.  They can then go through and search for more letters using different colors.
  • Play Bingo to work on scanning for numbers going up and down a card. 
  • Use Letters and Numbers
    to search and find letters in an activity like the one we did here.
  • I Spy Books
  • Find It Discovery Bottles OR, make your own, like our Alphabet discovery bottle.
  • Games like Battleship and Connect Four work on visual scanning skills. 
  • Spot It!  is another fun game for kids.
  • Maze activities. Our math maze activity is a fun fine motor and hands-on learning tool that builds visual scanning skills.
Visual Scanning Activity for fine motor skills and visual scanning in so many functional tasks like reading, word searches, puzzles. This visual motor activity creates a fidget toy to help sensory seekers with fidgeting, too.Visual Scanning Activity for fine motor skills and visual scanning in so many functional tasks like reading, word searches, puzzles. This visual motor activity creates a fidget toy to help sensory seekers with fidgeting, too.





These are some of my favorite ways to work on visual scanning:

6 Creative Ways to Improve Visual Tracking Using Recycled Cardboard Tubes

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If you’ve been following along with us for long, you know that I love to use every day items and recycled materials in play and learning activities.  Today, I’m excited to share a free way to work on Visual Tracking Skills in kids.  Recently, I wrote a post all about visual tracking skills in kids and why kiddos need them in handwriting and reading tasks.  Today’s post is a collection of creative ways to work on visual tracking using something you might just throw away– cardboard paper tubes!  Toilet paper tubes, paper towel tubes, and wrapping paper tubes are plentiful in a household and are usually just tossed into the recycle bin.  Start saving those cardboard tubes…these are fun ways to get those visual tracking skills going!

 
This post is part of my 31 Days of Occupational Therapy series where I’m sharing a month of inexpensive treatment materials for areas typically treated in Occupational Therapy.  You don’t want to miss this!


Visual Tracking activity using cardboard tubes for recycled creative play and therapy ideas. Use this in Occupational Therapy for working on reading and writing as well as other functional skills.
Visual Tracking is an important skill needed in many functional tasks.  Read more about the why and how here.  ((This post contains affiliate links.))
 
Here is detailed and informative information on saccades and how they make a great impact on learning and reading. 
 


Visual Tracking Activities with Recycled Materials

Some of you have voiced concerns about using toilet paper tubes in play and therapy.  You can skip the toilet paper tubes if you like and stick to paper towel tubes and gift wrapping cardboard tubes.  These can be cut down to the size you need.  Or, try making your own cardboard tubes using recycled cardboard boxes like Hands On As We Grow did.


Use these mazes, ball runs, drop toys, and movable toys in visual tracking with kids.  Children can manipulate and build their own mazes while visually tracking a moving ball or other item.  This is a great way to work on visually tracking an object as it passes through a child’s field of vision.


Hands On As We Grow uses math in their marble run activity.
Use cardboard tubes to create a marble run, like Powerful Mothering did here.
Add magnets to cardboard tubes to make movable tube ramps like Teach Preschool did.
Building a marble run on the wall is a great way to explore engineering, gravity, and speed.  Try this kid-made marble run tube activity from Little Bins for Little Hands.
Inspiration Laboratories made a cardboard tube maze for hexbugs.  How cool is that?
Work on color sorting and fine motor skills in cardboard tube activities like The Imagination Tree did.

Creative Ways to Work On Visual Tracking with a Marble Run or Ball Run

So you have those six fun visual tracking activities to create.  Get your kids in on the creation fun.  They can paint, cut, and build cardboard tubes for fine motor strengthening, creativity, tool use, and self-confidence as they build and watch their marble run in action.  Now, here are some creative ways to play with the marble runs while working on visual tracking skills:

  • Use brightly colored balls for the ball runs.  Have races with different colored marbles or balls.
  • Predict which ball will fall through the track faster.
  • Make a ball run along a long wall, for more visual scanning and peripheral scanning.
  • Ask your child to close their eyes.  Start the ball in the ball run and tell them to open their eyes.  They will need to locate the ball as it rolls through the maze.
  • Write letters and numbers on the cardboard tubes.  As the ball rolls past the letters/numbers, have your child call out the name.
  • Give your child a flashlight and ask them to keep the light on the ball as it rolls through the maze.

Other ideas to work on visual tracking is using a Marble Run in sensory play like we did with oobleck and waterbeads.


Like this activity and creative idea for working on visual tracking?  Stop by and look through our Visual Perception page where I’ve got a bunch of ideas to share.


More Vision Activities you may like:

http://www.sugaraunts.com/2015/10/visual-tracking-tips-and-tools-for.html
Visual Tracking Tips and Tools | Visual Discrimination | Visual Scanning Activities |  What is Visual Memory | Hand-Eye Coordination
 

Alphabet Discovery Bottle

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 Sometimes learning letters can be tricky for preschoolers and kindergarteners.  Remembering all of those letters (26 is a lot!) is frustrating and difficult and kids just aren’t into identifying the letters of the alphabet.  Many times you have a child who picks up on letters right away.  You can see posts on Facebook where proud parents are touting their two year old who knows all of the letters and the sounds they make.  They are proud mamas and papas and deserve to share their excitement with all of their friends on social media!  But sometimes, you have kids who just aren’t into learning letters.  As much as you try to introduce the ABC’s, some kids just have more trouble recognizing the way a letter looks, recalling the letter name, and identifying the letter’s sound.  Creative and multi-sensory teaching techniques can help with kids who are resistant in trying yet another letter learning activity.  We made this ABC letter identification discovery bottle to practice letter recognition. Have you made a sensory bottle yet?  These are very cool calming sensory tools in learning and play!


Alphabet letter recognition discovery bottle for preschool and kindergarten aged kids. This discovery bottle is fun for creative learning and sensory play with letter identification and recognition in kids.


Alphabet Letter Recognition Discovery Bottle

My three year old is always up for an interesting activity.  She is my little helper when it comes to our cooking with kids recipes.  Whenever I have an activity set up, she is always game to play!  This sensory bottle was just for her as we practiced naming the letters of the alphabet.  She helped me make our letter discovery bottle and that was part of the fun! (I’m including affiliate links in this post.)
Alphabet letter recognition discovery bottle for preschool and kindergarten aged kids. This discovery bottle is fun for creative learning and sensory play with letter identification and recognition in kids.
To make a sensory discovery bottle based on letters, you’ll need just two items:

Foam Alphabet Puzzle
(This is not the type of puzzle we used in our bottle. We found ours at a garage sale long ago. However, these foam letters would work in your discovery bottle. And if you find a puzzle like ours at a yard sale, grab it up!)

Scented bath salts
Alphabet letter recognition discovery bottle for preschool and kindergarten aged kids. This discovery bottle is fun for creative learning and sensory play with letter identification and recognition in kids.
So making this scented scenory letter activity is beyond easy.  First, dump out half of the salts into a large bowl.  Add in your foam letters.  Kids will LOVE doing this part of the activity.  Ask them to help you name the letters as you drop them in one by one.  Then, when you’ve got all the letters (or as many as your bottle can handle), start scooping in the remaining bath salts.  This is such a great sensory activity for kids.  The sense of scent (or olfactory sense) is one linked to recall.  How many times do you recognize a scent form your past and recall memories associated with that smell?  Invite your child to sniff the air as you scoop the salts back into the container.
 
**NOTE** Be sure to stay with your child as you do this part, and any parts of this activity.  Children should not taste the bath salts and if your child may put items into their mouth, refrain from allowing them to scoop the bath salts.  As with any activity on this blog, be sure to use your best judgement with your child’s needs and abilities and provide direct supervision.
 
You may want to glue the lid shut at this point, before allowing your child to play with the discovery bottle.
Alphabet letter recognition discovery bottle for preschool and kindergarten aged kids. This discovery bottle is fun for creative learning and sensory play with letter identification and recognition in kids.
Next, start playing!  Allow your child to shake, roll, shake some more with the discovery bottle.  Invite them to shake until they find and can identify the letters in the bottle.  Shaking the bottle has weight and provides proprioceptive input to kids.  Depending on the size of your bath salts bottle, it can be on the heavy side.  Use this activity as a warm up to fine motor tasks such as handwriting or drawing.  
Alphabet letter recognition discovery bottle for preschool and kindergarten aged kids. This discovery bottle is fun for creative learning and sensory play with letter identification and recognition in kids.
Alphabet letter recognition discovery bottle for preschool and kindergarten aged kids. This discovery bottle is fun for creative learning and sensory play with letter identification and recognition in kids.
Alphabet letter recognition discovery bottle for preschool and kindergarten aged kids. This discovery bottle is fun for creative learning and sensory play with letter identification and recognition in kids.
 
Alternate ways to play with this letter sensory bottle:
  • Look and search for letters.  As you find one, name it with your child.  Ask them to shake the bottle and search until they find that letter again.
  • Shake and roll the bottle and ask your child to name the first letter they see.  Have them shake and roll until they find letters in alphabetical order.
  • Ask your child to find a letter that starts the word “apple, ant…”.  Name words for each letter and ask your child to find those letters in the sensory bottle.
  • When your child finds a letter, ask them to name words that start with that letter’s sound.
  • Use the empty puzzle.  Point to a letter spot and ask your child to name that letter and then find it in the discovery bottle.
  • Ask your child to shake the discovery bottle and find a letter.  Ask them to point to that letter’s spot in the empty puzzle.
  • Ask your child to find a letter in the discovery bottle.  When they do, ask them to use the discovery bottle like a pointer and draw that letter in the air, using both hands on the bottle.  Provide hand-over-hand assistance, if needed.
  • Look around the room and play “I Spy”.  Say to your child, “I Spy  something that starts with the letter B.”  Have them guess the item in the room, then shake the sensory bottle and find the letter “B” in the discovery bottle.
Alphabet letter recognition discovery bottle for preschool and kindergarten aged kids. This discovery bottle is fun for creative learning and sensory play with letter identification and recognition in kids.
Alphabet letter recognition discovery bottle for preschool and kindergarten aged kids. This discovery bottle is fun for creative learning and sensory play with letter identification and recognition in kids.



Looking for more discovery bottle ideas using dry materials?   You know: rice, corn, paper, seeds…how many dry materials can you think of to use in a discovery bottle?  

 
More creative letter learning ideas that your child will love:
 
Name Soup Writing Your Name | Building Letters Cotton Swabs | Fizzy Dough Letters | Handwriting Cookie Cutters

Preschool Books and Activities

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Children can explore books through their senses and with a hands-on approach while learning and making memories. These preschool books and the activities that we’ve come up with…are popular children’s books that are fun to read, and fun to play along with! These are book extension activities that we’ve read and come up with book-based sensory play ideas, regulation ideas, fine motor activities, crafts, and more. Check out the list below, because these are some of our favorite ways to use books in therapy activities and learning!

The fine motor activities for preschoolers page is another great place to find activity ideas to meet the needs of preschool children. Many of the book activities here incorporate developmentally appropriate play activities using these concepts.

Preschool book extension activities to use to explore children's books through play. Use these preschool books in activities for kids!

Preschool ACTIVITY Books

We love coming up with fun crafts and activities based on favorite books.  This is a collection of crafts and activities that go along with some fun books for Preschoolers, Toddlers, and School-aged kids.  

Kids remember the activity that you create for a book long after they’ve read a book.  So often, my kids will say (out of the blue), “Hey Mom, remember when we made bear puppets?” in reference to our We’re Going on a Bear Hunt activity.  

We love to create multi-sensory play and learning enrichment activities to extend themes of books.  We’ve covered many Preschool books and activities in our blogging days, but also many school-aged books with creative play and learning ideas.  We’ll be adding to this page, so be sure to stop back for more fun ideas!

Related, these friendship activities for preschoolers are more great tools to address social emotional learning in young children.

 

Book activities for kids
 
 
 

Preschool, Toddler, and School-aged Children’s Books and Crafts Activities

This post contains affiliate links.

Quick as a cricket book activity   
 
 
 
 
 

Big Red Barn puppets  

 
 
 

   

 
 
 

    

   

 
 
 

   
 
Mix It Up! Sand Fingerprint Art and Candle Holder
 
 Bears on Wheels Letter Match
 
 We’re Going on a Bear Hunt snack puppets

    

 
 
 

      

 
 
 
Book extension activities for kids


Books We LOVE (Book Lists):

   
 
Circus Books
 
 Library Book List
 
 Mother’s Day Books
 
 Winter Books
 
  
 
Books to Say I Love You
 
 Books About Siblings
 
 Outer Space Books
 

The books Preschoolers LOVE:

Activities and crafts based on Preschool and Toddler books. This blog has so many quick and easy ideas for kids!

hands-on activities to explore social emotional development through children's books.

Love exploring books with hands-on play?  

Grab our NEW book, Exploring Books Through Play: 50 Activities based on Books About Friendship, Acceptance, and Empathy, that explores friendship, acceptance, and empathy through popular (and amazing) children’s books!  This digital e-book (or physical book, available on Amazon), contains 50 hands-on activities that use math, fine motor skills, movement, art, crafts, and creativity to support social emotional development. This resource includes activities, crafts, hands-on play ideas, and so much more. There are activities based on 10 popular children’s books:
 
A Sick Day for Amos McGee
The Day the Crayons Quit
Leonardo the Terrible Monster
Boy + Bot
Little Blue and Little Yellow
Red
The Adventures of Beekle
Chrysanthemum
Penguin and Pinecone
Whoever You Are
 
Each activity is designed to be hands-on and encourage acceptance, empathy, and friendship through play and sensory exploration. This book allows children to explore their favorite children’s books with their senses! Includes printable resources. 
 
 
Amazon affiliate link:

Cardboard Tangrams and Visual Memory

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We’ve had these DIY cardboard shapes in the house for a couple of years now.  These easy Tangrams are made from recycled cardboard and large enough that small hands can manipulate and build while learning shapes and colors.  We used our cardboard building shapes to create two and three dimensional shapes while encouraging shape identification for my soon-to-be Kindergarten aged son.  
Building and copying shapes with these tangrams is a great way to practice the visual perceptual skills needed in copying letters and numbers, including visual memory and visual discrimination.


Make cardboard tangrams and work on visual memory, visual form discrimination, and more visual perceptual skills in kindergarten and first grade kids. Shape identification, colors, copying, patterns and more

We’re including affiliate links for your convenience. 


Extra Large DIY Tangrams

We made these cardboard tangrams using a recycled cardboard box.  Cut the cardboard into shapes.  The nice thing about this project is that you can make the shapes as small or as large as you like.  

Depending on your child’s age, you may want to create one inch shapes in complex shapes like pentagons and hexagons.  We made our cardboard tangrams about 2-3 inches in height.  

This size is perfect for small hands of preschool aged-kids who are just learning shape identification.  Use paint to add color to the cardboard. (THIS is my favorite brand of paints.)

Make cardboard tangrams and work on visual memory, visual form discrimination, and more visual perceptual skills in kindergarten and first grade kids. Shape identification, colors, copying, patterns and more
Use the cardboard tangrams to build shapes, patterns, and pictures with your preschooler.
Make cardboard tangrams and work on visual memory, visual form discrimination, and more visual perceptual skills in kindergarten and first grade kids. Shape identification, colors, copying, patterns and more

Using Tangrams in Visual Memory

Kids can copy the shapes with tangrams.  Model how to build a combination using different colors and shapes.  Your child can copy the form as they build, copying from your design.  For a more complex activity, build a form using different shapes and colors and cover the design as you build.  They, show your child the finished form and ask them to build by copying.
For an even more complex visual memory activity using the tangrams, build a form using shapes and colors.  Show your child the design for 10 seconds.  Then cover the form and ask them to build the form from memory.
 
All of these activities challenges your child’s visual memory skills.  This is such an important area to develop for handwriting and copying letter and number forms, and then copying spelling words from a chalk board, and then recalling how to form letters and numbers by memory.  
Working on visual memory, visual discrimination, and visual scanning are so important in copying letters, recalling how to make a specific letter while quickly writing a spelling word during a spelling test, and placing letters on lines in handwriting.  
Then there is the line awareness and spatial awareness needed for cutting with scissors.  All of these areas can be worked on by playing with tangrams.  You can read more about Visual Memory here.
Make cardboard tangrams and work on visual memory, visual form discrimination, and more visual perceptual skills in kindergarten and first grade kids. Shape identification, colors, copying, patterns and more
 
Complete even more complex tangram puzzles by stacking the shapes on top of one another to build layered and textures.  You can also build three dimensional shapes using the cardboard.  These a
are fun ways to challenge your kindergarten and first grader in shape and 3D shape identification.
 
More visual perceptual activities you will find interesting: 
   
Visual Motor Integration | What is Visual Memory
Figure Ground | Spatial Relations | Hand-Eye Coordination | Visual Discrimination 

Fine Motor Color Math

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You may have noticed that we like to share easy and (mostly) free activities for kids here on our blog. This Fine Motor Count and Color Match Activity is no exception.   Moms and Aunts are always looking for simple prep and low cost when it comes to learning at home.  We made this counting math activity using a few materials we had on hand.  You could cheaply re-create this activity using supplies in your home while working on preschool math and color recognition.


Fine motor color math with push pins and a foam cup. This is great and a simple activity for preschoolers to do at home! Work on counting, addition, subtraction, and color recognition with materials you already have at home (free or almost free materials for homeschool or learning extension activities at home!)

This post contains affiliate links.  

This post is part of the 31 Days of Homeschooling Tips.  You can find homeschooling and learning at home tips from 25 other bloggers this month.  We’ll be sharing 31 days of learning at home in the series. 


Math and Fine Motor Color Match with Foam Cups:

Fine motor color math with push pins and a foam cup. This is great and a simple activity for preschoolers to do at home! Work on counting, addition, subtraction, and color recognition with materials you already have at home (free or almost free materials for homeschool or learning extension activities at home!)
This is such a simple activity and one we did after having so much fun with our rainbow order color stacking cups.  We used foam cups
and plastic push pins along with the colored strips from our stacking cups post.  This is such a simple and fun activity that my 5 year old son really got into.  We worked on the tripod grasp needed for handwriting by pushing the pins into the resistive surface.

I had my preschooler work on matching the colored push pins with the colored band at the bottom of the cups.  We kept the foam cups positioned so the opening of the cup was flat on the table to avoid any pinches to hands.  We added wadded up paper towels to the inside of the cups to prevent any scratches as well.  This is an activity that will require supervision with younger kids.
Fine motor color math with push pins and a foam cup. This is great and a simple activity for preschoolers to do at home! Work on counting, addition, subtraction, and color recognition with materials you already have at home (free or almost free materials for homeschool or learning extension activities at home!)

Math with push pins:

To work on beginning math skills with my preschoolers, we counted the pins as they pushed them into the cups.  We then counted any pins that were grouped together and counted the total number of pins.  Extend this activity further by adding a dice to add and subtract push pins.  Roll the dice and push in the rolled number of push pins.  When all of the pins are added to the cup, remove pins by rolling the dice and removing the rolled number of pins.   

More Math activities you will enjoy:
number order | skip counting
Bottle Caps Math | Snowman Math
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Lowercase Letter Formation Baked Cotton Swabs

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Have you ever made baked cotton balls?  Today we’re sharing one of our newest creative play ideas with baked cotton swabs!  These are a colorful manipulative for learning and fine motor play.  Today we’re sharing how we made baked cotton swabs and using them in a Kindergarten Preparation busy bag to build letters.  This is something you definitely need to make.  You and the kids will love it!
Building letters with baked cotton swabs

How to make baked cotton swabs for sensory play:

 
(This post contains affiliate links.)
Start with a batch of Cotton Swabs and food coloring.  Just like making baked cotton balls, you want to mix together flour and water in a 1:1 ratio.  I scooped a bit of the flour/water mixture into a water bottle ice cube tray.
Add a few drops of food coloring to each section.  
Dip the cotton swabs into the mixture and place on a sheet of aluminum foil.  Continue to dip all of the cotton swabs.  Position the aluminum foil on a baking sheet and place in the oven.
Baked Cotton swabs for sensory play, learning, and loose part play
 
Bake at 350 degrees F for 10-15 minutes.  Keep a close eye on the cotton swabs.  You’ll want to make sure the stick part of the swabs don’t start to turn brown.  Pull the cookie sheet out of the oven and let cool.
 
Now you are ready to play!

Getting Ready for Kindergarten: Writing Letters

 
So how can you use your baked cotton swabs in play and learning?  We used them to build letters, numbers, shapes, and pictures.  Kids can match and identify colors.  Use the cotton swabs to count, sort, and pattern.  Work on visual memory by coping shapes and asking your child to recreate letters, numbers, and shapes.  
 
All of these activities are a great way to prepare children for Kindergarten.  When a child goes off to kindergarten, they are often times presented with handwriting and letter formation for the first time.  You can work on a little Kindergarten prep work with making letters at home in a fun way.  Use the cotton swabs to make letters with your child, and then have them create letters on their own.  
 

Letter formation Busy Bag

letter-building-letter-formation-free-printable



We created a free printable for you to use as a busy bag activity using the baked cotton swabs.  Children can copy and build letters with the cotton swabs using an upper case and lower case letter form.  

 Build letters with cotton swabs, dyed lollipop sticks, play dough, pipe cleaners, string, or other manipulatives.
Just for our newsletter subscribers, we’re offering our FREE upper case and lower case letter builder printable.  

Use these printables to work on letter formation with your little ones.  An adult can write the letter on the left side and kids can trace the letter.  Use manipulatives to build the letters.  Print off the sheets as many times as you need: one for each letter or laminate the sheets and use them over and over again for all of the letters.  (If you laminate the sheets, you can use a white board marker to work on writing letters over and over again.  

Ish Book Activity Block Sculptures

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This week, the Preschool Book Club brings you activities and crafts based on the book, Ish by Peter H. Reynolds.  What a great message this book has!  We loved reading Ish (again and again!) and came up with our take on the book and it’s encouragement of creative flow to build Ish-inspired block structures.  Our block creations were full of creativity and tons of expression as the kids built and created stories and play.
Block sculptures based on the book Ish by Peter H. Reynolds

Block Structures and Creative Play inspired by the book, Ish:

 
This post contains affiliate links. 
When we read Ish , by Peter H. Reynolds, we loved the feeling of being encouraged to TRY and to use our imagination.  When Ramon creates “-ish” drawings, we loved his fun ideas!  We decided to use something that we play with almost every day to create and imagine just like Ramon did.  We pulled out our wooden blocks and started building “block-ish” sculptures!
Little Guy started with a trio of “airplane-ish” shapes that took off and flew around the dining room.
We used our imaginations to create creatures, steps, and more and started telling stories about our structures.  I love to hear the stories my kids tell and it was fun to hear the way they created once I started adding “-ish” to the structures.  They kept up with the -ish terms as they told their stories: The “dog-ish” guy went up the “steps-ish” area so he could be “taller-ish”.
 
We had SO much fun with this simple imagination building activity!
Block sculptures based on the book Ish by Peter H. Reynolds
There were “ice cream-ish” treats…
…”Butterfly-ish” creatures…
…”present-ish” gifts…
…and a little block-ish tasting from the baby!
We ended up with a “tent-ish” neighborhood.
Block sculptures based on the book Ish by Peter H. Reynolds
And a “truck-ish” vehicle…
Block sculptures based on the book Ish by Peter H. Reynolds
 
…which lead us to a dining room full of “road-ish” streets.  This became a whole afternoon of pretend play and creative thinking.
Block sculptures based on the book Ish by Peter H. Reynolds
What can you create with a basket full of blocks and inspiration from Ish?
 
Be sure to stop by the other Preschool Book Club bloggers to see their crafts and activities based on Ish:
 
 Artwork Candles from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails
Emotions Charades from Homegrown Friends
Crumbled Paper Art from Buggy and Buddy
Math Estimation Jars from Mama. Papa. Bubba. blog
hands-on activities to explore social emotional development through children's books.

Love exploring books with hands-on play?  

Grab our NEW book, Exploring Books Through Play: 50 Activities based on Books About Friendship, Acceptance, and Empathy, that explores friendship, acceptance, and empathy through popular (and amazing) children’s books!  It’s 50 hands-on activities that use math, fine motor skills, movement, art, crafts, and creativity to support social emotional development.

Heartbreaker Valentine’s Day Activity Smashing Peanut Shells

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Smashing peanut shells is a messy but fun fine motor and sensory motor activity for kids!

Sometimes, you need to let out a little steam.  Valentine’s Day comes with a season of hearts, pink, and love everywhere.  This heart breaker Smashing Peanut Shells activity is perfect for the broken hearted…or for just having fun with a fun holiday!  Add it to an occupational therapy Valentine’s Day themed session or two. 
 

Smashing Peanut Shells with a Hammer

 
DISCLAIMER- This sensory play activity has sensory benefits, but it is not for everyone! Be cognizant of peanut allergies as the activity can leave peanut residue in the air or play space. Children who may place small items in their mouth should not participate in this activity. Use protective eyewear such as safety goggles as the peanut shells may fly. As ALWAYS, use common sense when choosing an activity to do with a child. The OT Toolbox is not responsible for your use of this activity. 
 
Now that the important stuff has been addressed, let’s get onto the fun stuff. I love to pull sensory play into our activities.  
 
This smashing peanut shells activity was a great one for getting out a little aggression and adding a little proprioception into our day.  Kids will need to use their visual perceptual skills for this activity as well, so this was definitely a way to work on sensory in a very fun Valentine’s Day-themed way!
 
Broken heart? Celebrate Valentines Day with a smashing good time! Proprioception activity for kids with peanut shells.
 
 
 
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Valentines Day nuts. I'm nuts for you!
 
We started with just a few items.  A bag of peanuts, red and pink 

acrylic paints, and the wooden hammer from our peg pounding toy.


I started by cracking some peanuts.  The kids were happy to join in for a snack they love.  Let those kids crack their peanuts! Cracking peanuts is a fabulous fine motor activity.  When we had a pile of shells, I gave them a quick rinse under cool water to remove the salt and any peanut dust.  We popped the shells into an oven set at 200F for about 10 minutes to quick dry the shells.  You could let them sit overnight as well.


Once the shells are dry, pull out the paints.  I painted hearts on a few, and painted the rest red or pink.  Little Sister (age 3) helped out with this part.  She is my paint-loving kid.  Painting the peanut shells was a fun twist on her favorite activity and a pretty cool way to be creative.

Paint peanut shells for a sensory experience with kids. This is fun for Valentines Day. I'm NUTS about you!

Let the paint dry. Admire the adorable-ness.

 

Valentine’s Day Proprioception Activity

Now for the fun part!  My kids were anxiously waiting for those peanuts to dry!  Once we were ready to start, I pulled out our big cutting board and we got started with our shell smashing fun.


This activity is awesome for proprioceptive input.  

What is proprioception?  



Proprioception is a sensory process of the body that allows input to be regulated and responded to with motor movements and positions.  Whaaat, you ask?  

 
SMASH!  CRUNCH!

 

Valentine’s Day Visual Perceptual Activity:

 Visual perception is anther piece of the sensory systems in the body, and this Valentine’s Day activity is a great way to practice visual scanning and eye-hand coordination.

What is visual perception?

Visual perception is the ability for the eyes to process information, resulting in sight.  Visual perception includes many abilities including scanning, figure ground, tracking, visual memory, visual closure, form constancy, visual discrimination, and eye-hand coordination among other skills that allow us to see and use that information for function.
 
Locating the red and pink nuts on the surface of the cutting board requires visual scanning.  Using the hammer in a coordinated way to bring it down and hit it requires eye-hand coordination.  
 
What a lot of systems the body is using to do a simple (and fun!) activity!
 
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But, if you are concerned with bits of shells and the mess is a concern for you, I would consider doing this activity outside.  
 
 
Other options would include a large shallow pan or working on a table cloth that can be shook out over the garbage can.  
 
 
Also note that kids with allergies should not participate in or near this activity.  As always, use your best judgement with your kids.  If they tend to put small items in their mouth, this is not an ideal activity.  Hold onto it, Pin it.
 
And come back to it at another time.  All activities that we document on this blog are supervised.  The information on this website should not be used as medical advice.  Please contact a therapist for an individualized evaluation if therapeutic advise is needed.
 

Side-note:  (This is your warning!) This activity makes a MESS! As much effort as I used to keep the dust and nut fragments contained, we still had shell pieces everywhere!  I had the kids playing right on our hardwood floors, so clean up wasn’t too bad.  A quick sweep up with the broom did the job.  

 

 
I’m nuts about YOU, readers!
 
 

The proprioceptive 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.

Banging that hammer and smashing those nuts requires work to smash the nut shells.  You can place the hammer on the nut and press down to get a satisfying “crunch” or you and hold the hammer over your head with both hands and swing it down HARD on the peanut shell.  Either way is fun (and we tried both techniques!)

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.