Do you ever look around the house and think, “Why do we have so many toys??!!”
If your house is like mine, your kids play with couch cushions, old cardboard boxes, and piles of paper, and cardboard tubes waaaay more than they play with toys. Sometimes, it’s the simple things that are just more fun.
DIY Pick Up Sticks
These DIY Pick-Up Sticks are one of those items. It’s a homemade toy that is just so simple, it’s simply appealing. Not only are these bright and colorful pick-up sticks fun, they are easy to make, and are used in so many play and functional skill areas.
Making these colorful pick-up sticks is easy peasy. Read how we made them here. Do you know what we used to make them? Lollipop sticks. Yep! A simple lollipop stick is the perfect accessory to play dough, the ultimate letter building tool, counting manipulative, fine motor workout, and a fabulous visual motor item.
Today, you’ll see how we use them to play pick-up sticks.
How do you play Pick-Up Sticks?
It is super easy to play pick-up sticks. Dump the sticks out on a table. Attempt to pick up a stick without moving any other stick. You can slide, pull, tug, or wiggle a stick, but you can not move any other stick. If another stick moves, your turn is over. The player with the most sticks at the end of the game winds.
Skills worked on when playing pick-up sticks:
Ohhh, this is an Occupational Therapist’s dream tool. If you know an OT, he or she probably has a set of pick-up sticks in her treatment bag or clinic supply closet. There are so many skill areas worked on while playing pick-up sticks!
- Hand-Eye Coordination
- Visual Scanning Visually scan the pile and each player can pick up only one or two certain colors to make the game harder.
- Visual Motor
- Pincer Grasp is encouraged by picking up the sticks. Children need a pincer grasp for managing items like zippers, buttons, and snaps.
- Color recognition
- Precision grasp and release is a needed skill for fine motor tasks and manipulating small items.
- Open Web Space Picking up the sticks encourages an open space between the thumb and pointer finger, needed for handwriting.
- Figure Ground
- Spatial Relations
- Visual Discrimination
If your child loves playing Pick-Up sticks, try these modifications and ideas:
Affiliate links are included.
- Play with Pipe Cleaners
. The fuzzy, bendable sticks make dexterity more difficult. Don’t move any other pipe cleaners!
- Play with Glow Sticks
.
for a glow in the dark game of pick-up sticks. - Try this set
for a gift idea. - This Melissa & Doug Suspend
game builds sticks upward for a unique twist on the game of pick-up sticks. - Younger kids will love this Play Visions Pick Up Snakes
with flexible snakes instead of sticks. - Children that need a challenge will love this Playroom Entertainment Catch a Falling Star
that is on a vertical plane. This game really works on the precision of grasp and release while encouraging an extended wrist. It’s an OT winner! - For more precision and fine motor fun, try Ker Plunk Game
.
You will love to use your DIY Pick-Up Sticks like this:
to work on scanning for numbers going up and down a card. 
in sensory play like we did with 
. I wrote out each word from the spelling list, adding in a few that contain the -CH and -TCH ending diagraphs. 
and a 
. Figure out the important tasks that your child must do each morning. These can be jobs that they do on their own, or initiate with prompting. We decided that the important steps of our morning are getting dressed, brushing teeth, eating breakfast, brushing hair, putting on shoes, coat, lunch/backpack, and going to the bus stop. You can add any other important steps in your morning, like making the bed, feeding pets, packing a lunch, etc. 
, fill in the outlines of the shapes. You will need a 
for the small painting, or you can snip the bristles of a regular paint brush to stay in the lines.
and write pairs of synonyms on the back of the puzzle. When you practice the synonym pairs with your child, you can place just two pieces out to start with. Show them that the pairs match up based on the matching synonym words and can be positioned according to the way the words are written. For older children or for a more complex activity, write the words in different directions so they need to work on matching up the puzzle pieces. 
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and is more age-appropriate for my daughter who is just finishing up first grade. We used a 
