Word Scavenger Hunt

Sight words written in chalk on bricks of a sidewalk. Text reads Multisensory word scavenger hunt

This word scavenger hunt is a hands-on play activity to work on sight words, spelling words, or common words. Use this creative sight word activities for kindergarten and active learning. While we used this activity many years ago to practice sight words, you can definitely use the idea to practice reading words and spelling words. Kids love these sensory word ideas to practice reading words with multisensory learning and gross motor play.

word scavenger hunt

We started practicing sight words.  One day we took them outside for a little movement and learning. 


Word Scavenger Hunt

Setting up a word scavenger hunt is easy. We used bright yellow cards to write the words to make it easier to spot the letter cards, but you could use any type of paper, or even letter rocks to spell out sight words. 

Another idea is to use clothes pins in the scavenger hunt. This is a great adaptation to the activity because you can foster hand strength, too.

I wrote our sight words on the sidewalk and had the kids match them up with our cards. 
 
They jumped on the word as I called it out and then could put the card on top.  This was a good gross motor coordination warm-up for our Scavenger Hunt.

 



Sight Word Scavenger Hunt

 
Big Sister went off and closed her eyes so she couldn’t see (with a little peeking…) and I hid the cards in different places in our yard.
 
Sight Word Scavenger Hunt
 
When all of the cards were hidden, I had her come back to the sidewalk and I would say one of the words.  She ran off and tried to find the word.
 
We had sight words hidden all over!  The kids had so much fun with this.  Even Little Guy, who hasn’t been practicing the sight words, got in to the action.  He loved helping Big Sister hide the words for me to find too.
 
 
 
When it was my turn to find the words, Big Sister would read one of the words on the sidewalk and I had to go find it.  I would ask her, “is this pan…?”  So she could read the word on the card, too.
 
 
 
After the Sidewalk Sight Words and Scavenger Hunt, we put the cards in the water bin with some bird seed for fun sensory play.
 
 
We’ve been doing a bunch of different activities with our sight words.
 
Looking for more ways to practice building words and spelling using letter cards or manipulatives? Grab our Letters Fine Motor Kit.
 
 
 

Want printable handwriting and sensory motor activities to target the visual motor skills needed for letter writing? Grab a copy of our Letters! Fine Motor Kit. The printable PDF contains 100 pages of hands-on letter writing practice for multisensory handwriting!

Letters Fine Motor Kit

Inside the Letters Fine Motor Kit, you’ll find:

  • A-Z Multisensory Writing Pages: Roll a ball of dough letters, ASL sign language letters, gross motor movement, small-scale letter box writing task, finger isolation letter trace, and writing practice area
  • Alphabet Fine Motor Clip Cards– Clip clothespins or paper clips to match letters with various fonts to strengthen the hands and focusing on eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, visual processing skills, and more.
  • Cut and place Fine Motor Mazes– Cut out the letter pieces and trace the maze with a finger to work on eye-hand coordination and finger isolation. Place a small letter on the letter spots to address in-hand manipulation and dexterity skills.
  • A-Z Cotton Swab Cards– Includes upper case and lower case letters. Dot the cards using a cotton swab or laminate the cards and use them over and over again.
  • A-Z Pattern Block Cards– These cards include a section for tracing with a finger tip for separation of the sides of the hand, eye-hand coordination, and finger isolation during letter formation. There is also a space to “finger write” the letter using the fingertip. This multisensory letter formation activity can be a great brain break during handwriting or literacy tasks. Learners can then form the letter using parquetry blocks.
  • Fine Motor Letter Geo-Cards– These geo board cards include A-Z in upper case forms. Users can copy the letter forms in a variety of multi-sensory strategies.
  • A-Z Color and Cut Letter Memory Cards– These upper case and lower case letter cards can be used to color for letter formation. Then use them in fine motor matching tasks or in sensory bins.
  • Color By Size Sheets– Help learners discriminate between tall letters, small letters, and tail letters. This visual perception activity invites learners to color small areas, using hand muscles for strengthening and handwriting endurance.
  • A-Z Building Block Cards– These LEGO block cards invite users to copy the cards to form letters using small building blocks. Users can place the blocks on the cards or copy the letter to address visual shift and visual memory. This activity set comes in upper case and lowercase letter forms.
  • A-Z Play Dough Letter Formation Cards– Print off these cards and laminate them to create play dough mats. Learners can form the letters using the arrows to correctly form letters with play dough while strengthening their hands and visual motor skills. Each card includes a space for practicing the letter formation, using a dry erase marker if the cards are laminated.
  • Graded Lines Box Writing Sheets– Users can trace and form letters in boxes to work on formation of letters, line awareness, starting points, and letter size.
  • Alphabet Roll and Write Sheets– Roll a dice and form the letter associated with the number of dots on the dice. This is a great way to work on letter formation skills using motivation. Which letter will reach the top first? This activity is easily integrated with a rainbow writing task to increase number or repetitions for letter practice.
  • Pencil Control Letter Scan– Use the letter bubble tracks to scan for letters. Users can fill in the letters of the alphabet to work on pencil control skills.
  • Color and Cut Puzzles– Color the pictures to work on hand strength and letter formation skills. Then cut out the puzzles and build visual perceptual skills.

Get your copy of the Letters Fine Motor Kit today!

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.

Color Matching Lego Matching

 Legos and Play Dough to Match Colors

This was a super easy and very fun fine motor activity we did one day.  Perfect for the littlest ones who find dinner-prep time is time for Mom to hold her while sautéing chicken
…cough, Baby Girl, cough…
Pull out one color of play dough and one matching color of Legos.  Baby Girl loves her mega blocks and we play with them daily.  This was perfect for her because she could press the blocks into the dough and see an imprint of squares and circles.  Great for language development, as well as color identification. 
She liked that she could press the little circle “buttons” (and this works those little muscles of the hand and index isolation). 





We’ll be pulling out the play dough and Lego blocks again, for sure!

“I Spy” sight word sensory bottle

We made this sensory bottle

and sight word “I Spy” bottle

for an easy little learning activity.  Two of us Sugar Aunts were together one afternoon for a little play session with the kids and this was quick and easy to put together. 
One bottle of sand.
A handful of foam sheet shapes (we wrote a few beginner sight words on front and back of each shape).


 It was perfect for the different age groups of the kids (5, 4, 3, 2, and 1!)
And these kids seem to LOVE anything they can put into something else. The little fingers were everywhere when we told them to drop the shapes into the bottle opening! This is Awesome for tripod grasp skills.
This was great for the 5 and 4 year olds who are learning their sight words.  We used some beginner reader words that they recognize (Their current favorite book around here is “Sam I Am”.  Seeing those words in a new place is pretty cool way to emphasize reading confidence, I think!)
The 3 year old knows most of his shapes (that rectangle gets him every time!) so this was good for his learning level.
The two year old could point to the colors (and with only three options in the bottle, it was not overwhelming for him).
And for the one year old, this was overall great for language development!
((and super fun to shake !!)
We had fun with our sensory sight word bottle.  Have you done one of these? Link them up in the comments, we would love to see them!

Fine Motor Strengthening Color Match

When I saw how the thread matched the color of some of the crafting poms, I knew we had to do a color matching activity. 

Fine Motor Strengthening

I wrapped the thread around the ends of the clothes pins.

We received a great package in the mail one day from http://www.craftprojectideas.com/.  This was just a small part of the free goods we received… There are SO many project ideas and crafting supplies on their website. 
(we have a lot more crafting to do!!)

And Big Sister helped, too.  What a GREAT fine motor and bilateral hand coordination manual dexterity task!  She reaaaallly had to concentrate on this.  It was such a novel task for her.  It was neat to see her watch me wrap the thread, follow my verbal directions and cues, and as it became easier for her…wrap that thread around faster and faster!

Big Sister and Little Guy liked matching up the colors to the clothes pins. 
After they sorted the poms, we changed it up just a little.  I pulled out washable markers in the same four colors and Big Sister wrote right on the plastic tray.  She is learning to sound out words so we worked together on the letters to spell out the colors.

Pre-handwriting Warm-up Exercise

The pinching and fine motor strengthening with the clothes pins is a great mini-hand exercise to warm up the hands before a handwriting task.
This was such a fun activity!

Fine Motor WATER PLAY

This is part 2 of a two-part outdoor messy play activity.  If you missed part one, Sensory Paint Play(Part1)  was very fun…Check it out!  We left the bubble wrap/blue paint dry right in the bins overnight.


 
The next day was another super hot and sunny day.  Add a bin of water and some empty plastic bottles, and let the fun begin.

Sensory Play

The paint-y, texture-y, messy play returned when the water was added.
Plus, it’s just fun to pour water from bottles.
And put the bottles on your head, of course.
What a fun sensory play experience!

 Fine Motor Play

Baby Girl thought it would be pretty fun to drop the gems and beads into the plastic bottles.  She did this for a LONG time.  That little ‘bonk’ sound was pretty cool!
and, such a great fine motor task.
{{LOVE this picture!}}

Colors

When all of the water was added, we had a blast on this 85 degree day in our BLUE water bin!
Looking for more BLUE play activities:

Sensory Paint Play

This sensory paint activity used bubble wrap for a wonderful tactile experience. We loved to feel the bubble wrap sensory activity. Kids can use this as a way to work on sensory touch and tactile defensiveness, or just for fun, creative painting!

Sensory Paint

This sensory paint idea is easy. You’ll need just a couple of items:

  • Paint
  • Bubble wrap
  • Paper to press onto the bubble wrap

How to do this bubble wrap sensory play

When you get a package in the mail that has bubble wrap, it’s a special day!  After some jumping and a little popping, we used the bubble wrap in a fun sensory play activity.
 
Finger paint, and a handful of beads, and glass gems made this extra special.

 

This sensory painting activity is a great activity for sensory exploration. Add it, along with this rubber duck painting activity to your painting ideas!
 

 
 
 
 

 
This was SO much fun!  Perfect outdoor play for a hot day.
 
 
 
Don’t you just want to get messy and play with this???
 
 
 
It was such a neat sensory experience…and very BLUE.  After we were done playing, we squirted the kids off with the hose.  I left the blue bubble wrap, beads, and everything right in the bin until the next day.  I had plans…
 
*stop back tomorrow to see what we did the next day after the whole mess dried!*
 
 
UPDATE: Here is the post for the next part of this two-day sensory play activity…PERFECT for a hot, sunny, outdoor messy play day! Fine Motor/Sensory/Water Play (Part 2)
 
 
We did use a little of that wet blue paint for some face painting.  Big Sister gave me a nice smiley face on my foot 🙂
 
 
 

Real-Toy “I Spy” Game

Many years ago, we created this I Spy toys game, using real life toys and manipulatives. It was a fun visual perceptual skills activity that is perfect for toddlers, preschoolers, and big kids! Let’s cover how to make your own I Spy toys game and what skills this builds.

I Spy Toys Game

To set up your I spy activity, all you need is items you have around your home. We used:

 

DIY “I Spy” game with real toys… 

 
You have a lot of little pieces to toys, Little People, action figures, cars, trains…TONS of little THINGS all over the house, right??
 
Put all of those little bits and pieces to work and create your own I Spy game in your living room. 
 

Learning Concepts with “I Spy” game

The I spy books are so great for many early concepts for little ones…
 
 
I spread out a bunch of little objects on the white surface of our train table and started asking questions.  The big kids loved little riddles:
“I Spy with my little eye, a red form of transportation.”
 
The little kids (18 month old Baby Girl, and niece and nephew) just liked to explore the items.  I would ask them: “Can you find the cow?” 
They were able to grab it…and carry it off to chew away 🙂
 
 
There are a lot of different ways to grade this activity to meet the needs of different-aged kids…all in the same room.  Big Sister liked to copy down words and check them off as she found them.  (work on handwriting practice!!)
 
…she’s really into making check marks these days!
 
She also loves the game where she covers her eyes and I take something away. Then she has to figure out what’s missing.
 
For the younger set, grab all the items of the same color and concentrate on learning one color, or finding the object that is a different color.
 
 
 
This was a fun way to spend a rainy and cool afternoon. 
Enjoy!
 

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.

Blue Sensory Play for Toddlers

This was a fun activity that the toddlers around here loved.  I put a bunch of little objects out on a tray, all in shades of blue.  Different textures, shapes, and sizes were perfect for little exploring hands.  Baby Girl and my niece and nephew played with these for a while.
Once they had enough of that activity, I poured the whole tray into the sandbox and we had a ball covering everything with sand, finding little things, and starting all over again.  


We’ve been on a blue kick around here.  It started when we filled our bird feeder and had a Blue Jay in our front yard. 
We’ve been playing with blue, sorting blue, crafting blue, eating blue (berries), and even reading  about blue…

Toddler Sensory Tray

((I love the little knuckle dimples in these pictures!!))
Watch this space for more BLUE play and craft activities!

Create Your Own Race Track…fine motor play with Wikki Stix

There are many ways that Wikki Stix are used for fine motor skills and this homemade floor race track is a favorite! We loved getting down on the floor…hello, core strength!) to make this DIY race track with wikki stix, but the fine motor benefits are even greater! Let’s break it down…

wikki stix for fine motor skills

If you aren’t familiar with wikki stix, then you should be because they are an occupational therapy prover’s favorite tool!

Wikki Stix are sticky strings that you can peel off and stick to things, but then they can re-stick. As an occupational therapist, this is one of my favorite OT tools! Build skills in:

  • Pincer grasp
  • Eye-hand coordination
  • Separation of the sides of the hand
  • Tactile defensiveness/discrimination (they have a sticky texture)
  • Motor planning
  • Range of motion
  • Hand strength
  • Visual motor skills
  • Core strength

Plus, you can use wikki stix on various surfaces:

  • Paper for tactile input to create borders around coloring areas
  • Lines on paper, chalkboards, dry erase boards for a bumpy baseline
  • The floor…like we did below!
  • Windows to create a fun suncatcher
  • Walls to work on the vertical plane
  • SO many more ways!

Wikki Sticks Fine Motor Activity

We had a ton of fun with this activity this past week.
Have you played with Wikki Stix (also called Bendaroos…) This set came in a book that Big Sister had, but Wikki Sticks are widely used by OT’s working on handwriting, line awareness, fine motor skills…
We used them for a little fine motor play, visual perceptual skills, and most importantly, fun play with some matchbox cars!
We lined them up on our dining room floor and made a super fun race track for Little Guy’s cars.  Pressing the sticky stings together requires a little pinch of fine motor strength, so this is excellent for working the little muscles in little hands.
Matching up the ends correctly, and creating two parallel lines is perfect for visual perceptual skills and line awareness.  Both of these skills are vital for letter placement in handwriting.
We had SO much fun making roads, gates, and even a little parking lot.
We will definitely be playing racetrack again…soon!