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.
Summer is here! My two favorite things are summer and ice cream. What better way to honor these two things than a FREE I Spy Ice Cream printout! Just because the kids are out of school, there is no reason to stop working on essential skills. If you’re looking for a summer occupational therapy activity, then you are in the right place! Pair this I spy activity with our other ice cream activities for themed fun:
Get the free Ice Cream I spy page by entering your email address into the form at the bottom of this page.
In fact, this is the best time, since they are not getting daily reinforcement at school. I have written before about the staggering percentage of information lost during summer holiday. Here is the latest research on the “summer slide.” Using some tools in a Summer OT program like the I spy activity below is perfect because it’s seasonal, yet fun for kids. Summer work and review is especially important for students with special needs, or those who are more prone to setbacks.
I SPY ICE CREAM
The mere mention of the phrase “school work” during the summer, can elicit groans and refusals that can be heard down the street. Head your reluctant learners off at the pass by providing fun engaging summer activities. Create a binder or notebook with lots of the free downloadable worksheets we offer on the OT Toolbox. Start by adding your email below get your hands on this I Spy Ice Cream PDF.
This great I Spy Ice Cream worksheet primarily targets visual perceptual skills, while also throwing some visual motor input in there. As always, it can be adapted and modified to meet the needs and levels of many types of learners.
Visual Perception Overview
As a review, visual perception refers to the brain’s ability to make sense of what the eyes see. This is not the same as visual acuity which refers to how clearly a person sees (for example “20/20 vision”). A person can have 20/20 vision and still have problems with visual perceptual processing.
Good visual perceptual skills are important for many every day skills such as reading, writing, completing puzzles, cutting, drawing, completing math problems, dressing, finding your sock on the bedroom floor as well as many other skills. Without the ability to complete these every day tasks, a child’s self esteem can suffer and their academic and play performance is compromised.
Visual perception can be broken down into seven different sub-categories:
Sensory Processing: Accurate registration, interpretation, and response to sensory stimulation in the environment and the child’s own body.
Visual Attention: The ability to focus on important visual information and filter out unimportant background information.
Visual Discrimination: The ability to determine differences or similarities in objects based on size, color, shape, etc.
Visual Memory: The ability to recall visual traits of a form or object.
Visual Form Constancy: The ability to know that a form or shape is the same, even if it has been made smaller/larger or has been turned around.
Visual Closure: The ability to recognize a form or object when part of the picture is missing
VISUAL PERCEPTION AND THE I SPY ICE CREAM WORKSHEET
After reviewing the visual perception overview, what skills do you think the I Spy Ice Cream addresses? If you said sensory processing, visual attention, discrimination, visual memory, spatial relationships, and figure ground; you would be right!
If the ice creams were different sizes, shapes, and directions, form constancy would also be addressed. There are a lot of worksheets out there that do just that (see below for links!).
The directions for the I Spy Ice Cream worksheet instruct students to color each of the ice cream treats a different color, then find and color the matching items. Lastly, they need to count how many of each item they found, and write it in the boxes.
OTHER SKILLS ADDRESSED USING THIS FREE DOWNLOAD
As mentioned above, visual perception is the key skill addressed with this free PDF of I Spy Ice Cream. There are many other skills being worked on simultaneously:
Hand strength and dexterity – staying in the lines while coloring builds hand muscles and develops muscle control.
Visual motor skills are combining what is seen visually and what is written motorically. It requires coordination to be able to translate information from visual input to motor output. Coloring, drawing, counting, cutting, and tracing are some visual motor skills.
Sequencing – will your learner do the ice cream items in order? Will they look for the easy and/or obvious answers first?
Scanning – does your learner look in methodical order, or search in a haphazard pattern all over the page?
Proprioception – pressure on paper, grip on writing tool
Counting/Learning Numbers – Count the items to understand number concepts in addition to writing them correctly.
Fine motor strengthening, hand development, and grasping pattern
Bilateral coordination – remembering to use their “helper hand” to hold the paper while writing is important for development. Using one hand as a dominant hand instead of switching back and forth is encouraged once a child is in grade school, or demonstrates a significant strength in one or the other.
Strength – core strength, shoulder and wrist stability, head control, balance, and hand strength are all needed for upright sitting posture and writing tasks.
Executive function, following directions, attention, attention to detail, focus, sequencing, planning, task completion, neatness, impulse control, compliance, behavior, and work tolerance are all important skills to learn
Social function – whether working alone, or together in a group, you can address problem solving, sharing materials and space, turn taking, and talking about the activity
Remember, you can assess all these skills at once, or focus on one or two. Some skills above will be addressed without your conscious knowledge, while other skills you can be directly focusing on.
HOW TO ADAPT AND MODIFY THIS ACTIVITY
The beauty of children is they are not all created equal. This can pose a challenge as you try and provide activities for learners of all levels. Fortunately, most of our downloadable worksheets can be graded or modified in some way to meet the needs of different levels of learners.
Lowest level learners can point to the matching pictures without having to use motor skills
Middle level learners can use dot markers or stickers to match the ice cream, instead of coloring. They can also circle the matching pictures if coloring is too difficult
Higher level learners can elevate this task by writing an idea about ice cream treats, then create a story or memory out of this idea. This turns into a multilevel activity to use during many sessions. They can also draw about their ideas, or copy the designs.
Use other items to mark the matches like Bingo chips, pom poms, pennies, pieces of play dough, cereal, Legos, or whatever you have handy.
Laminate the page for reusability. This saves on resources, and many learners love to write with markers! Note: while some learners love to use wipe off sheets, others become upset they cannot take their work with them. For those who want to save their work, consider taking a screenshot of it.
Make this part of a larger lesson plan including gross motor, sensory, social, executive function, or other fine motor skills
Talk about the animals, describe their characteristics, and give context clues to help your learner understand why certain pictures match
Enlarging the page may be necessary to beginning writing students who need bigger space to write, or larger items to color.
Project this page onto a smart board for students to come to the board and write in big numbers.
Different levels or types of prompting may be needed to grade the activity to make it easier or harder
Learners can explore other games they could make using this activity
Work in pairs or in a small group to address problem solving, turn taking, and negotiation skills.
can you believe there are still more ways to adapt and modify the i spy worksheet?
Sensory – add real ice cream treats to explore. Describe it in detail. Talk about how it feels, smells, and tastes, or what emotions it might evoke.
Executive function – hand the papers out with very limited instruction. Record how well your learners can follow instructions without prompting.
Social skills – sharing resources promotes social function. Talking about a themed lesson plan builds social skills.
Have students write on a slant board, lying prone on the floor with the page in front to build shoulder stability, or supine with the page taped under the table
OTHER RESOURCES TO ADD TO THE I SPY ICE CREAM WORKSHEET
Creating a folder or binder is a great way to pre-plan your summer activities or save them for next year. The OT Toolbox is full of great resources for you to explore:
Beach Therapy Kit -This Beach-themed Therapy Kit has everything you need to work on handwriting, scissor skills, self-regulation, motor planning, gross motor skills, and visual motor development…all with a Beach theme!
Summer Memory game – Use the memory cards in writing prompts, sensory play, and fine motor work, too: Kids can color and cut the memory cards, copying the colors from one sheet to the other to really build visual memory and visual scanning skills.
Fairytale Fine motor kit This Fairy Tale Fine Motor Kit, with almost 100 pages of fun fairy tale themed activities is sure to please princes and princesses everywhere!
Become a member of the OT Toolbox and get unlimited access to new and exciting content!
Free Ice Cream I Spy Worksheet
To get this printable, just enter your email address into the form below. We’ll send it to your inbox so you can print it off from any device and from any location (school or home). This printable is also found inside The OT Toolbox membership club.
All this talk about ice cream makes me think about summer treats. I think I hear the ice cream truck coming!
Victoria Wood, OTR/L is a contributor to The OT Toolbox and has been providing Occupational Therapy treatment in pediatrics for more than 25 years. She has practiced in hospital settings (inpatient, outpatient, NICU, PICU), school systems, and outpatient clinics in several states. She has treated hundreds of children with various sensory processing dysfunction in the areas of behavior, gross/fine motor skills, social skills and self-care. Ms. Wood has also been a featured speaker at seminars, webinars, and school staff development training. She is the author of Seeing your Home and Community with Sensory Eyes.
Work on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, scissor skills, and much more so that kids can accomplish self-care tasks, learn, and grow through play all summer long.
This bundle is perfect for the pediatric occupational therapist who needs resources and tools to use in summer therapy sessions.
Summer Memory Game- perfect for playing Memory or using in sensory bins
Summer OT Packet ($20 value)
180 Outdoor Sensory Diet Cards- for when your kiddo is “sooooo bored” or using in sensory diets
BONUS: Summer Sensory Activity Guide
This is a digital product that will last all Summer long!
Summer Fine Motor Kit
The Summer OT Bundle is your ticket to sending the kids back to school in the Fall without worrying about the “Summer Slide”. Each Fall, kids need to catch up on areas that they’ve lost over the summer months. With the Summer OT Bundle, there is no worry about falling backwards. Use the materials to maintain and even grow motor skill development this summer so kids can thrive and jump into learning next Fall.
In this post you will be discovering how to create a calm classroom, specifically tips to avoid the visual noise that distracts learning in the school environment. Classroom décor and organization can directly effect the engagement level of children in any classroom or learning space. When the environment is too visually stimulating, a student’s ability to focus becomes difficult. Keeping children’s attention can become frustrating. When a classroom environment that is soothing and organized is created, children are better able to stay engaged. In this blog, you will learn about the three different ways to make your classroom visually calm.
What is Visual Noise?
When working with children, teachers think about all of the colors of the rainbow, and want to make classrooms bright and cheery. So many classroom theme sets have fun colors, bright designs, and patterns, contrasting bulletin board boarders, etc. Many believe that having a colorful classroom will keep children interested and engaged.
Visual Noise is just that: a visually distracting, or “noisy” visual scene in the classroom. A lot of teachers set up bulletin boards throughout the room with cut-outs in various themes: animal/monster/any theme , alphabet stickers, and painted murals on the walls. Maybe your classroom has a circle time rug that includes the ten different color squares. Perhaps you want to make sure all the children have something they like to do, so you have 20 fine motor choices in the manipulative area.
There is just one problem with using these types of visuals in the classroom, they are distracting!
The bulletin boards all around the room are adorable, and fun to look at. So during circle time, you might find a child gazing at the wall, figuring out what new item is there.
When there are rugs filled with colors, you may notice children looking down at the rug, maybe at the bright colors, while singing the color song in their head.
If teachers provide too many choices in one area of the classroom, children work with one toy for three minutes, then they are onto the next, without honing in, or practicing the skills that were intended.
For young children, and lots of adults, less is more!
visual processing
Humans use vision from birth, to engage with the world around them. The way your brain process what you see, impacts how you interpret your interactions with the environment, and the people around you. To learn more about vision, this amazing PDF discusses visual hypersensitivity and under-sensitivity (or sensory seeking).
There are some visual processing red flags that may indicate difficulties with visual processing or ocular motor control:
Increased sensitivity to light
Easily distracted by visual stimuli, or difficulty sustaining visual attention to an activity
Frequently squints, rubs eyes, or gets a headache after visually demanding tasks such as reading, using a phone/tablet/computer, or watching television
Loses place in reading or writing
Trouble finding things they are looking for, even when they seem to be “right in front of them”
Distractions with reading
Difficulty tracking visual information
Difficulty initiating or holding eye contact
Difficulty focusing on one piece of visual information
Increased fear of, or desire for, being in the dark
Difficulty discriminating between similar shapes, letters, or pictures
How to reduce visual noise when planning your classroom
When planning out your classroom, visual stimulation is important, however there are many ways to make sure there is reduced visual noise, so the environment is not overwhelming.
Think about how you feel when you go to the spa. Those deep earthy wall colors calm your bodies and nerves instantly! The Montessori and Reggio Emilia educational philosophies advise visual components as a way to keep their classroom calm and focused.
The Reggio Emilia philosophy recognizes the environment as the child’s third teacher. What is in a child’s environment, how it’s organized, and what it looks like, directly impacts what a child will learn that day.
two ways to make sure your environment is visually calming
Colors – When picking out colors for your classroom, whether it be for the furniture, rugs, or wall decor, the best way to support a calm visual classroom, is to choose more natural colors. These include blues, greens and browns.
Choose toy baskets, or white bins, as opposed to brightly colored ones.
Consider turning toy shelves around or covering with neutral fabric to further reduce visual noise.
Choose predictable carpet rugs (Amazon affiliate link) like this one, instead of random colorful squares. Carpet samples of neutral colors are an excellent idea to create boundaries while limiting visual distraction.
When decorating your walls, allow for empty blank space, and use more of children’s artwork. Consider the use of cloth and fabric.
Classroom Organization – When choosing how many activities and materials to place in each are of your classroom, keep in mind that less is more! When children have too many options to choose from, this can create a short attention span, and overwhelm from choice overload.
Organization in the classroom can mean stacks of papers, tons of sticky notes, messy desks, and disorganized files, too.
In a typical preschool classroom, there are 8 areas of learning: art, fine motor, science, reading, dramatic play, block, large motor and snack! When you use furniture to visually create specific spaces for each center, the classroom is organized, and children know what is expected of them in each area.
Older classrooms may not have the toys, block areas, and motor components, but there are designated areas: group areas, centers, desks, cubbies, or lockers, teacher areas, information centers, etc. All of these areas can be considered when it comes to visual input.
This blogfrom Lovely Connection, on preschool classroom set up, includes important aspects to think about as you plan your classroom layout. She includes information about including noise, popularity, supervision, boundaries, space, and the race track (when kids run around the room in a circular pattern!)
What happens when children are still overwhelmed, even when the environments are visually calming?
When a child feels overwhelmed for any reason, having a calm down corner, that is easily accessible and they can stay in as long as they need, is a must have. My “Soothing Sammy Emotions Program.” is an effective calm down area because students are excited to spend time with the adorable golden retriever Sammy. Not only does “The Sammy Program” teach children how to calm down, it guides them through communication and problem solving situations in a visual way that isn’t overwhelming.
Check out this great blog about visual processing and visual efficiencyfrom the OT Toolbox archives. When a child has visual processing difficulties, they have a harder time taking in visual information, and processing it in order to make sense of it.
Thisvisual processing bundle, also available in the Toolbox, can support children who are demonstrating visual processing challenges.
The Sensory Lifestyle Handbook (also available on Amazon) written by Colleen Beck of the OT Toolbox, is a great resource to start understanding sensory processing disorders.
A final note about visual noise
Visual noise doesn’t only occur indoors, it can happen outdoors, especially if there is a lot of activity and sunlight. Being mindful of the visual stimuli outdoors, is just as important as setting up an indoor classroom.
If you have a child who is having a hard time visually processing their environment outside, these visual sensory activities can be completed outdoors to support their sensory system.
While considering visual sensory overload in the classroom, also be sure to check out our resource on auditory sensitivities in the classroom. Both are very useful in setting up an inclusive classroom environment for success.
Classroom themes are adorable and cute! When planning your classroom, keep in mind how “busy” and overstimulating different colors and amount of objects can be. This will help keep your students calm and engaged. Although everyone processes their environment differently, anyone can all benefit from a more calming environment, especially when learning new skills!
Jeana Kinne is a veteran preschool teacher and director. She has over 20 years of experience in the Early Childhood Education field. Her Bachelors Degree is in Child Development and her Masters Degree is in Early Childhood Education. She has spent over 10 years as a coach, working with Parents and Preschool Teachers, and another 10 years working with infants and toddlers with special needs. She is also the author of the “Sammy the Golden Dog” series, teaching children important skills through play.
Occupational therapists work on many aspects of handwriting to ensure that legible writing is a functional means of communication for children and students. One aspect of that is addressing the margins in handwriting. When margins are omitted or neglected, handwriting moves from functional to difficult to read.
Poor use of margins when copying written material is a handwriting problem that looks like different things. When using margins is difficult in handwriting, it leads to illegibility and trouble copying written work.
Margins in handwriting
One thing that comes up frequently in school based OT, is the use of margins when writing. I’ve worked with many students that struggle with knowing to move their pencil to the next line when writing. Other students cram letters into the right margin of the page and then move to the next line only to slightly move over a bit. This means that the left margin slowly creeps across the page.
You’ve seen it before. A child is writing a journal entry or a writing response on a piece of paper and each line of the paragraph creeps in toward the center of the page.
The margins in their handwriting are just all over the place! By the end of the passage, the left margin is half way across the page. You might see them start halfway across the page and try to squash letters in by the time they get to the right side of the page.
It’s hard to read and even the kiddo has trouble reading back over their work. The thing is, the student may not even be aware they are writing like this…
When a child has poor use of margins when writing, there is typically a problem with spatial organization and page orientation.
Decreased spatial awareness can happen due to trouble with visual perceptual awareness.
It may carry over to handwriting that appears very messy with words that are squashed up against one another or spaced with very large spaces between letters.
what are margins in writing
Margins are the edges of the paper. When we write, we move our pencil up to the edge of the right side of the paper, but we stop before we move to the next line to continue writing.
The right margin on a page is where the student will stop writing, but so often, I’ve seen students that cram words right up to the edge of the paper because they can’t conceptualize how much space is needed to fit the word onto that line of the paper. They might end up cramming the whole word so the letters are very small or squished up to the edge of the page.
The left margin is the edge of the page where the next line begins on the paper. I’ve also seen many students who write or copy a list of words, or are writing a paragraph on lined paper. When they move to the next line, the move their pencil over just slightly because they are aligning the word with the written material on the line above. Eventually, you see a margin that creeps across the page toward the middle of the page.
Why kids struggle with margins in handwriting
So, why do we see those handwriting samples where the lines of written work slowly creep over to the middle of the page? With each line that the student writes, they start writing just a bit more away from the margin?
There could be a few different things going on here that impact margin use:
1. There could be a visual perception difficulty going on.Visual perceptual skills could lead to trouble with margin use. Specifically, it could be a problem with visual spatial relations. Spatial relations, or poor spatial awareness difficulties shows up frequently in handwriting.
This presents as poor spacing between letters and words, poor use of margins, or written work that drifts in toward the center of the page. Kids may struggle with knowing when to stop writing on the end of a line of the page and try to squash the material in rather than stopping to move to the next line.
Left to right use of paper or writing spaces on worksheets can be a problem. Other size aspects of handwriting including letter size, placement of letter “parts”, and consistency in sizing can be difficult for the child with visual spatial concerns.
Visual spatial relations can also impact placement of objects or the child’s body parts in relation to other objects, other people, or in movement. This can show up as poor coordination, poor balance, poor self-awareness, poor self-confidence, and even impaired social emotional relations.
Spatial awareness is the ability to perceive the world around one’s self and position themselves or objects accordingly. Awareness of space relates a lot to the proprioceptive and vestibular systems as well as the visual system.
A child who demonstrates poor spatial awareness in handwriting tasks most likely shows some variances of difficulty with gross motor movement, understanding directions, abstract concepts, and language.
2. There could be an oculomotor component. The movement of the eyes in activities is complex! When we see issues with margins, there could be a couple of oculomotor issues happening. At a basic level, the eyes move to take in information and process that information for use.
One oculomotor skill that may be in play with margin trouble are visual saccades/visual scanning. Saccades are the ability to visually scan information. Saccades require the ability to fixate on information in the visual fields.
Saccadic movement, or more commonly known as visual saccades, is the ability of the eyes to move in synchrony from point A to point B rapidly WITHOUT deviating from the path. When kids move their eyes to the next line of a paper, they jump to the nearest anchor (which will be the letter above on the last line of text they just wrote.) They will then scoot their pencil over and under that letter, resulting in written work that drifts in toward the middle of the page. Here is more information on visual saccades and learning.
We cover more about oculomotor skills and how they result in functional issues in reading, writing, and daily activities in the free Visual Processing Lab here on The OT Toolbox.
3. It might be developmental. In this case, kids just need more experience with writing paragraphs of text. They place their written material anywhere on the page or drift over on the line when starting to write. Visual and verbal cues…and more practice can help.
Even children without visual perception difficulties may tend to drift their handwriting in toward the middle of the page as they write paragraphs. This is especially apparent in free writing, journal writing, or writing prompts. You will see that children who are developing their ability to form thoughts in paragraph form. As they write, it is common to see the lines start to drift toward the middle of the page. Here is more information on development of eye-hand coordination.
3. It might be speed of writing or visual inattention. Basically, you might see a kiddo who just isn’t paying attention when they are writing. In this case, students might be writing so quickly that they are focusing on the content of the writing versus the layout of the page and where they are placing their written work.
This happens when kids are taking notes and trying to quickly get the information on the page. You may also see the lines of text drifting over during free writing or timed writing tasks. In these cases, a visual cue can help but it might just take a verbal prompt. Point out how the margins are creeping over and see if that helps. Here is more information on visual attention.
4. Look at reflexes. One thing that might be contributing to margin use is a retained ATNR reflex. Check out our resource on retained primitive reflexes. Here is information on primitive reflexes in general and how these movement reflexes impact function.
5. Look at midline crossing. Delays with crossing midline can impact movement across the page as the student writes. Read about midline and then try some of these midline activities. In this case, bringing attention to the margin can help. Use the strategies we have listed at the bottom of the page.
This visual processing checklist can be a helpful tool in screening for visual processing difficulties prior to a full evaluation. It can be a way to collect qualitative information to include in assessment write-ups as well.
Tips for Handwriting Margins
Today, I’ve got some tips for helping with spatial awareness in handwriting, including how to help with margins when writing. These tips can help kids with writing on the paper and using handwriting that is legible so they can come back and read what they’ve written. (And so the teacher or parent can read that handwriting too!)
Visual perceptual skills are needed for so many functional skills. You’ll find easy and fun ways to work on visual perceptual skills through play here. These are creative ways to work on the underlying issues that might be playing into trouble with margin use in handwriting as a result of spatial awareness difficulties.
This post contains affiliate links.
QUICK tips for improving spatial awareness:
For some of the issues mentioned above, such as an underlying visual perceptual or oculomotor problems, further help and interventions will be needed. Seek out assessment from an occupational therapist for individualized treatment and intervention plans. Use of our visual processing checklist to help to identify a specific area related to visual processing needs.
The strategies that I’ve listed below are tools for helping students use margins when writing and copying onto paper. I love using some of the visual prompts because it helps to draw visual attention toward the prompt. Some of the strategies below are fun for kids and unexpected, so that visual prompt helps them to remember where to start or stop their pencil along the margins.
Try some of these strategies to help with margins:
There are ways to accommodate for difficulties with spatial awareness. One quick tip is to use a highlighted left margin. This is a great way for those kids whose writing drifts over to the middle of the page as they write or kids who start in the middle of the page.
Use stickers placed along the right margin of to cue the student that they are nearing the edge of paper when writing.
Draw a line down the left margin for a starting point. Then use a different color to draw a vertical line down the right margin.
Place a thin piece of tape along the left margin. This can serve as a visual and physical cue as the place to start writing. It’s a visual anchor that helps with visual scanning.
Draw boxes for words on worksheets for them to write within.
Place small green dots on each line along the left margin. These are the “green lights” so students know where to start writing. Place small red dots on each line along the right margin. These are “red lights” so students know where to stop writing.
Take a look at the ATNR. This could also be an issue impacting margin use.
This activity is part of our month-long handwriting series where we are sharing creative and easy ways to address common handwriting issues in our 30 Easy Quick Fixes for Better Handwriting series.
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.
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
Fine motor skills are a complex thing, but one thing that plays a major role in fine motor coordination is finger dexterity. The precision movements and endurance in small motor activities is driven by the ability to maneuver fingers and isolate the joints in holding and manipulating small objects. Let’s explore the role of manual dexterity in fine motor skills.
The finger dexterity activities and exercises in this post can be used along with manual dexterity goals to support functional tasks.
Fine Motor Dexterity
Fine Motor Skills in kids are so important for independence in self care tasks. Children need to develop the ability to manipulate their fingers in a coordinated manner in order to skillfully maneuver buttons, zippers, shoe laces, pencils…and the tools of learning and play…TOYS!
Dexterous movements are used in everyday activities throughout our day.
What is finger dexterity?
Finger dexterity refers to the ability to use coordination and manipulation of objects in the hands with precision. Dexterous motor skills can be broken down into areas: grasp and release, coordination with in the hand (in-hand manipulation), and proprioception (knowing how much effort is needed to manipulate objects without dropping them). There are many other contributions that impact finger dexterity and we list these below.
Together, these precision skills enable us to pick up an object with the right amount of pressure and motor dexterity so you can grasp the object accurately taking eye-hand coordination skills into consideration.
After grasping the object without overshooting or missing the item, it is necessary to position or rotate the object within the hand. Isolation of the joints of the fingers and thumb allow for precise movements and coordination when manipulating objects in functional tasks.
Children develop their hand skills from infancy. Hand strength develops from the time a small baby is placed in tummy time. You’ll start to see finger dexterity in action when a baby picks up cereal pieces using a pincer grasp.
Finger dexterity requires components such as:
The terms that make up finger dexterity are explained in each of the blog posts in the list.
There are developmental milestones for fine motor development that are necessary for independence each stage of childhood. When kids struggle with handwriting, manipulating small objects, hand fatigue in small motor tasks, finger dexterity and the underlying contributions should be considered.
Children also need to demonstrate dexterity in order to manipulate objects. They need to maneuver their fingers independently of one another (this is called finger isolation) and with separation of the two sides of the hand.
Without these skills, modifications or adjustments are often made by the child. We’ll cover more specifics about the relationship of finger dexterity and these components below.
Finger Dexterity and Separation of the two sides of the hand
When using the small muscles of the hands in dexterity tasks, one uses the side of the thumb-side of the hand.
The precision side of the hand is the thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger. These are the fingers needed for dexterity tasks and fine motor skills.
The ring finger and pinkie finger are involved in providing stability during precision tasks. When the index and thumb are involved in a small motor activity, the ring finger and pinkie finger are tucked into the palm and proved a support during handwriting and shoe tying.
They also provide power during grip and the force behind a gross grasp.
So when will you see the two sides of the hand separated during activities?? Tying shoes, pulling a zipper, fastening a button, and manipulating small pegs into a pegboard are some examples of separation of the two sides of the hand.
Finger Dexterity and Finger Isolation
Finger isolation is a key part of finer dexterity and begins when an infant begins to point at objects with one finger.
Using the fingers independent of one another is needed for tasks like turning a page in a book, typing, molding dough, sign language, and finger plays (“where is Thumbkin” and other fingerplay songs are great ways to practice finger isolation and dexterity!)
Finger dexterity Activity
This finger strength exercise is actually a game, which makes it a great activity for developing precision in those little muscles of the hands, isolating fingers, and separating the two sides of the hand…all SO important in independence and play.
Our finger dexterity activity began with a little prep work. We used acrylic paints to paint circles on the back of bubble wrap paper.
I painted the back side of large bubble wrap with different colors. We let these dry (and it was slightly difficult to remain patient!!)
Once our paints were dry, we got our fingers ready to play some finger dexterity games! I had Little Guy get his fingers ready by making “legs”.
This is a great way to encourage use of the two sides of the hand. He tucked his pinkie and ring fingers into the palm of his hand and got his pointer and middle finger busy as they “walked” around.
We played a color matching game with the colored bubbles. I called out a color and he had to “walk” his fingers to the color and pop the color. He was working on color awareness at the same time as we practiced finger dexterity.
As I called out different colors, he had to “walk” his fingers around to the different colors. He really worked on those finger isolation skills as he searched for a bubble that was not yet popped.
Other ways to work on finger isolation and separation of the two sides of the hand include using small objects in manipulation like crafting pom poms.
Even Baby Girl wanted to get in on the fun! This finger dexterity exercise is a great way to “warm up” the hands before a handwriting or typing task for older children. Using handwriting warm ups prepares the hands for tasks like writing with a pencil.
When there is weakness in the small muscles of the hands, it is often times, difficult for children to write, color, or type with appropriate grasp and positioning of the fingers and wrist.
A dexterity exercise like this one is a fun way to play and get those muscles of the hand moving and strengthened in order to improve endurance and positioning.
Manual Dexterity Activities
Looking for more fun ways to practice manual dexterity of the fingers? These are some fun games and activities you may want to try:
Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.
Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:
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 our kids who are challenged to visually observe their environment, or who struggle to demonstrate visual tracking in reading or other learning experiences, activities designed to promote smooth pursuits and eye movement can be helpful. The visual activities listed here can be helpful in addressing the smooth pursuits of visual input. Visual pursuits or tacking is an oculomotor skill that is necessary part of visual processing. Read on for various eye exercise that can be done in fun ways as a part of occupational therapy geared toward visual processing skills.
Activities to improve smooth visual pursuits
There are several activities to improve smooth visual pursuits that are used in occupational therapy to target smooth pursuits of the eyes. These smooth pursuit exercises are typically fostered through play, especially in occupational therapy interventions.
Below, you’ll find ocular pursuit activities, but first, let’s cover what visual pursuits are and how they impact a child’s learning.
What are visual pursuits?
Visual pursuits are another term for visual tracking. Visual tracking is an oculomotor skill that is essential for learning, reading, and so many tasks we perform.
Smooth visual pursuits refer to the eye movements that enable us to track moving objects smoothly and accurately with our gaze. It’s the eye following a moving target through coordinated motion of the eye muscles.
When we watch a moving object, follow a moving object with our eyes, or follow a moving ball, our eyes move smoothly to follow the visual input. This allows us to maintain visual focus on the object as it moves. We can use that visual information to understand how fast and far the item is moving based on the object’s trajectory, speed, and direction.
Here are more information about visual tracking activities. You will also love checking out these activities to improve visual tracking.
Visual processing skills have a huge impact on learning. In fact, it is one of the visual skills that can impact learning in a way that isn’t always directly observable.
Visual skills like visual tracking, or smooth visual pursuits are a visual processing skill that allow us to perceive and retrieve visual information. This is an essential part of reading and learning.
Want to learn more about HOW visual pursuits and other aspects of visual processing impact learning (in a really big way)? Scroll below to join our free visual processing lab. It’s a 3 day email series where you will learn SO much about visual processing and how it impacts everything, but especially learning and cognitive skills.
Activities to improve visual pursuits
These visual tracking activities are easy and creative ways to work on eye movement and smooth eye movements. Kids can perform these activities as part of a therapy program and while working on functional skills within an occupation.
1. Relaxing breathing eye stretches- This visual tracking activity is a way to work on smooth pursuits in a very mindful way. Just like yoga brings awareness to the body and a sense of being present, this eye stretch activity is a great way to calm a class during a busy school day.
Combine slow and deep breathing with deliberate eye movements. Kids can watch and follow directions to take deep breaths combined with slowly looking in a single direction. As they look up and breath or look to the left and breath, kids can even use this activity as a coping strategy.
2. Flashlight Tag- Use a flashlight to help kids follow a target in various directions. Try a circle, uppercase letter “H”, triangle, straight/diagonal lines, etc. To make this activity more fun, try adding a deflated balloon to the top of the flashlight. Encourage kids to keep their face steady as they use just the eyes to follow the light.
3. Craft Stick Puppets- Create small craft stick characters puppets to make a visual cue as a visual prompt for follow movement patterns. These barnyard animal puppets make a great DIY puppet tool for a visual pursuit and tracking activity.
This pirate puppet is one idea that builds fine motor skills, too.
4. Marble run activities- There are many marble run products on the market that provide an opportunity for improving smooth pursuit of the eyes. Here are DIY marble run activities that make a great activity in themselves for kids.
We love to add slow moving items to marble run games too, to provide a slower object for visually tracking, encouraging smooth pursuits of the eyes. Encourage kids to keep their face steady while using their eyes only to watch the item fall through the marble run.
5. Roll a ball- Roll a ball up a slanted surface and ask the child to keep their eyes on the ball! Some ideas include creating a sloped surface with a poster board and books.
Simply roll a small ball slowly up the ramp and kids can watch the ball as it rolls. Also try having the child to sit in front of the ramp and be in charge of rolling the ball. Mark off where the ball should reach and stop so the child works on graded movement at the same time.
Sitting in front of the ramp encourages visual convergence and binocular fusion as well. This activity works well with a large ball such as a kick ball and a sidewalk ramp, too.
6. Double Light Eye Tag- Use two different colored lights (light-topped pens work well). Flash one color on and then the other. Kids can move their eyes from color to color or follow directions to look at the two lights when they change.
Hopefully, these activities to improve visual pursuits is a helpful addition to your therapy toolbox. Use these strategies to work on various visual processing skills and oculomotor skills.
7. Hands-on visual tracking therapy activities- Use the ideas below to target visual tracking skills through play:
For even MORE visual tracking and pursuit activities to use in your occupational therapy practice, 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!
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.
In The OT Toolbox Membership, you’ll find oculomotor tools that support visual tracking, smooth pursuits, and much more.
This resource includes visual motor skills by age and lists visual motor integration developmental milestones. Visual motor development is part of hand eye coordination skills that happen from a very young age. From shaking a rattle and reaching for baby toys, to holding a pencil and writing letters, the developmental milestones are something to guide functional skill achievement! Let’s explore these visual motor developmental milestones!
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Visual Motor Skills by Age
If you’ve followed along with us here at The OT Toolbox, then you know that I love to pull my background as an occupational therapist into posts. The crafts and activities that we do are more than just fun and cute. There are important skills that a child develops through play.
Visual Motor Skills are needed for many functional tasks like handwriting and pencil use, scissor use clothing management, and many more tasks.
How does Visual Motor Integration develop in kids? We put together this list of developmental milestones for a general idea of development and so parents can tell when a problem might be present.
It is important to note that every child is different and every child develops differently. These milestones are organized by developmental stages. Be sure to contact your pediatrician for medical advice. If occupational therapy is needed to assist with delays in visual motor integration, an assessment from a licensed occupational therapist is necessary to determine individual needs and treatment.
Visual motor integration is often times presented a Hand eye coordination. It is the ability to use your hands and eyes together in a coordinated manner.
However, visual motor integration has some difference: The visual perceptual skills that are necessary for the visual component of visual motor skills play a major part in perceiving and interpreting visual information.
Visual motor development is needed for many functional tasks:
Shake a rattle
Reach for toys
Bring toys to the mouth
Reach for a face when held (babies)
Pick up food from a high chair tray
Reach for a bottle or cup to the mouth and putting it back down
Releasing objects or toys (babies dropping things from their high chair continuously and love seeing someone older pick it up and put it back so that they can drop it again reinforces this skill)
Coloring with crayons- progression of coloring skills happens with age along the milestone achievement
Scribbling
Playing with toys- shape sorters, puzzles, cause and effect toys, etc.
Holding a pencil and drawing shapes, forming letters- This level of visual processing is necessary for copying forms and identifying inconsistencies in written work. It plays a part in letter reversals and letter formation.
So many more tasks that require visual motor skills!
In eye-hand coordination specifically, the eyes and hands work together to move the pencil, catch a ball, thread beads on a pipe cleaner, or other tasks that require the eyes and hands to fluently coordinate in actions.
You can see how, with development of both the eyes and motor skill dexterity and strength of the hands, feet, core, and legs allows for progression of skills.
The visual component and the motor skills begin working together at a very young age and continue to develop in efficiency as a child grows. This is visual motor development!
Visual Motor and Developmental Milestones
Developmental Milestones for Visual Motor Integration
These visual motor developmental milestones are listed by age of typical development, however, these are general guidelines of development. There can be many other considerations impacting skill achievement. If a child hasn’t achieved a skill by the dates listed below, it’s not a huge issue. It could be that the path to skill progression is varied, and that’s ok!
If you have questions about these milestone skills and dates, especially if it seems there are many skills that aren’t being achieved within months of the dates listed below, it may be beneficial to seek out input and individualized evaluation from a pediatric occupational therapy professional.
A lot of the activities listed below can help you to drive therapy interventions. As an OT working with a child, we have to pick and chose the activities that are “just right“. That means selecting an OT intervention that is just above the child’s ability that will be a challenge for them, but not too difficult. This is part of skilled OT!
For example, if I’m working with a baby on motor skill development, vision comes into play big time! I will come up with some activities that support development and hold an interest.
Visual motor activities for a baby in early intervention might include:
Using texture books with soft pages
Stuffed animals, rattles, or toys to encourage them to reach and touch the toy. Use it to encourage visual scanning and tracking with their eyes as you move the toy in front of their field of vision.
Activities to strengthen core, positioning, and trunk strength. This includes tummy time!
Encourage supine positioning with gaze stabilization and visual fixation. Use toys and overhead mobiles for this.
A lot of the activities for baby involve the parent or guardian in play activities. This is important for occupational therapy providers to educate the parent on.
Visual Motor Therapy for Toddlers
When we get to the toddler stage, we can definitely still be using the activities listed above. It again goes back to that “just right” level and each child we work with in OT sessions will be different.
Other toddler activities might include:
Eye-hand coordination activities like a shape sorter
Color sorting activities– Use anything you have on hand! I like using colorful balls, or even just sorting toys by color. I also like to use colored popsicle sticks because it’s a novel item. For example, we did this block sorting activity and used the containers that the blocks came in.
Use color sorting activities along with a scavenger hunt. This color scavenger hunt is one fun idea.
Roll a ball to the child and have them roll it back along the floor or table. Have them keep their eyes on the ball as it rolls.
Tracing cars along a race track on the floor. Then make masking tape roads on the wall for more tracing work with work on gross motor skills and crossing midline as they visually track the car.
Stacking toys
Pouring and scooping activities in a sensory bin. This is a great way to work on functional visual fixation and gaze stabilization.
Visual Motor Integration Activities for Preschool
At the preschool age, we see more organized play, play with peers, and play on sports teams like T-ball or a preschool soccer team. A lot of kids this age do dance classes, too. These are great activities for preschoolers because they really challenge motor planning, motor coordination, AND visual motor skills!
Some ways that I like to work on visual motor integration with preschoolers are with these occupational therapy interventions:
Flashlight tag- Preschoolers get a kick out of this game!
Go through a picture book and find all of the letter A’s or objects that are a certain color.
Put a glow in the dark bracelet or glowstick in a balloon. Tie the balloon in a knot and then play balloon volleyball. They have to visually track the balloon in all ranges.
Roll and catch a ball in different planes or in different positions- laying on the floor, sitting, sitting on an unstable surface, kneeling, etc.
Mazes
Marble mazes
Bouncy balls and throw at a target
Visual motor activities for School-aged kids
For our kids receiving occupational therapy who are school-aged (elementary and higher), we can work on more complex fine motor activities as well as board games that involve executive functioning skills. Some ideas I like to use are:
Play UNO
Spot It games
Perfection
Rush Hour or Rush Hour, Jr.
Word searches
Connect the dot activities
Geoboards
Cut stacking activities
Tangrams
Drawing on graph paper- make a symmetry picture
Visual Motor Skills By Age
Below is a list of visual motor milestones that kids typically move through.
ONE MONTH:
Tracking a rattle while lying on back
Tracking a rattle to the side
TWO MONTHS:
Infant regards their own hands
Tracks a ball side to side as it rolls across a table left to right and right to left
Tracks a rattle while lying on back side to side
THREE MONTHS:
Extends hands to reach for a rattle/toy while lying on back
FOUR MONTHS:
Reaches to midline for a rattle/toy while lying on back
While lying on back, the infant touches both hands together.
SIX MONTHS:
Brings hands together to grasp a block/toy while sitting supported on an adult’s lap
Extends arm to reach up for a toy while laying on back
SEVEN MONTHS:
Transfers a block/toy from one hand to the other while sitting supported on an adult’s lap.
Touches a cereal piece with index finger
Bangs a toy on a table surface while sitting supported on an adult’s lap
Folds a piece of paper in half with the edges parallel
Colors within lines
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Activities to help develop visual motor integration
When it comes to play, visual motor integration is part of every play activity. Some informative resources that include the sensory motor integration of visual input and motor output include the underlying skills that are all related.
These specific activities will support visual motor skills and visual motor skills play a pivotal role in these areas:
Use the fine motor kits to support development of visual motor skills and visual perception development through hands-on, play-based activities:
Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.
Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:
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.
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