winter

Polar Bear Game

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polar bear math game

Today, I have a hands on learning activity for second grade using a polar bear game. This number line games for 2nd grade could actually be used in any age or grade level math, however, the polar bear craft that we used for a second grade math game turned out to be a fun way to work on base ten operations and adding 10’s and 100’s to two and three digit numbers. In second grade, adding two digits is a big deal! This polar bear activity is a fun two digit addition games for 2nd grade (and other grades).

If polar bear crafts and activities are right up your ally this winter, try some of these other polar bear activities, including a polar bear slide deck for distance learning or virtual therapy brain breaks, and this cute polar bear self-regulation activity.

polar bear math game for teaching second grade place value and two digit addition with hands on learning.

Polar Bear Craft

You’ll need a few materials for the polar bear craft. Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

White crafting pom poms
(1 inch) White crafting pom poms
(1/4 inch) Black crafting pom pom
(1/8 inch) Mini googly eyes
Crafting glue

Polar bear craft

To make the polar bear craft, glue the small white crafting pom poms to the white pom pom. These will become the polar bear’s ears.  Glue the black pom pom to the bear’s face. This will become the nose.  Add the googly eyes and your polar bear craft is done.

There are a lot of fine motor skills being addressed in the making of this polar bear craft: pincer grasp, eye-hand coordination, in-hand manipulation, bilateral coordination, and separation of the sides of the hand.

Polar bear craft made with pom poms or cotton balls.

This polar bear craft would pair nicely with our snowball math activity, designed to inspire hands-on learning with gross motor skills. The polar bear math activity described here would also go well with our Winter Fine Motor Kit, which is loaded with polar bear themed fine motor activities and crafts designed to target and strengthen specific fine motor skills.

Polar bear math game for second grade base ten operations concepts like adding 10s and 100s to two and three digit numbers for hands on fun and creative learning with a fun polar bear craft!

Polar Bear Game

We played a polar bear game to boost second grade math skills by working on adding 10’s and 100’s to numbers along the number line.  I showed my daughter how to use a straw to blow the craft pom pom polar bear craft across the table and along the number line.  

We started the bear at zero and tried to see how far she could get the bear to go down the number line.  I then asked her a few questions that I had written out on cards:

  • What is your digit?
  • Is your digit even or odd?
  • What is 10 more?
  • What is 10 less?
  • What is 100 more?

We played a few times and then tried a few different extension ideas for this activity.

  • Starting at where the polar bear lands, count on by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, and 100’s.
  • Start out by saying “We’ll add 100 to the number where your bear lands.” Then, practice counting backwards by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, and 100’s.
  • Use two polar bear crafts to practice single and double digit adding and subtracting.
Make a polar bear craft with craft pom poms and use it in a polar bear game in therapy interventions or the classroom.

This polar bear game would be a great way to work on aspects of numbers with a hands-on approach to learning. Use it along with this Snowman Math-Composing and Decomposing Numbers activity.

Polar Bear Sensory Activity

This activity doubles as a polar bear sensory activity as it offers oral motor skills work. By blowing the straw to move the craft pom poms, children experience proprioceptive input through their mouth and cheeks. This sensory input is calming and can be a regulating tool to help kids focus following the heavy work through their mouth.

Using the straw to blow the polar bear across the table requires some “oomph” because of the weight of the crafting pom poms.  Blowing through a straw is a great way to provide proprioception through a winter-themed oral motor activity. This is a fun activity for sensory seekers, kids who seek out oral motor input, and children who tend to fidget during learning or homework.  

Check out our January Occupational Therapy calendar for more winter-themed sensory activities. 

Challenge oral motor skills with proprioceptive input through the mouth using this straw and cotton ball polar bear craft.

Polar Bear Therapy Activities

If blowing the straw requires too much effort for your child, or you would like to try a fine motor activity, practice flicking the polar bear across the table. Keeping the bear on the table requires precision of fine motor skills, making it another way to use the polar bear craft in therapy and hands-on learning.

Additional polar bear therapy ideas include:

Use this polar bear gross motor activity to work on balance, motor planning, movement changes, and strengthening.

This polar bear science activity challenges fine motor skills.

Use polar bear crafts, pencil control sheets, scissor skills challenges, and more in the Winter Fine Motor Kit.

This Polar Bear Food Chains activity focuses on handwriting.

This Polar Animals Facts Game and this Polar Animals True or False? activity challenges executive functioning skills and scissor skills. 

This Polar Bear Footprint Multiplication activity builds hand strength, arch development, grasp, and coordination.

This Polar Animal Pattern Activity for First Grade focuses on visual perceptual skills. 

This Arctic Animals Sight Words Game develops visual perceptual skills.

For some penguin fun, this Penguin Art Project inspires fine motor development with a penguin craft. This Penguin Addition to 100 with Hundreds Chart builds eye hand coordination and fine motor skills.

Grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit, with 100 pages of done-for-you therapy activities, including polar bear themes. Grab it now before January 9th and you get a bonus of 3 fine motor slide deck activities.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE WINTER FINE MOTOR KIT.

winter fine motor kit

These reproducible activity pages include: pencil control strips, scissor skills strips, simple and complex cutting shapes, lacing cards, toothpick precision art, crumble hand strengthening crafts, memory cards, coloring activities, and so much more.

Play Dough Roll Mats- Use the 6 play dough mats to develop fine motor skills and hand strength needed for tasks like coloring with endurance, manipulating small items, and holding a pencil. Kids can roll small balls of play dough with just their fingertips to strengthen the intrinsic muscles.

Pinch and Grip Strength Activities- Challenge fine motor skills with polar bear and winter themed glue skills page, tong/tweezer activities, lacing cards, finger puppets, 1-10 counting clip cards, 10 toothpick art pages, find & color page, 5 crumble art pages. 

Pencil Control Worksheets- Connect the arctic animals or winter items and stay on the pencil path lines while mastering pencil control.

Arctic Animal Cutting Strips and Scissor Skills Sheets- Work on scissor skills to cut along lines to reach the arctic animal friends or snowflakes, snowmen, and mittens. This is a great way to strengthen the motor and visual skills needed for cutting with scissors.  

Handwriting Sensory Bin Materials- You and the kiddos will love these A-Z uppercase and lowercase tracing cards with directional arrows, 1-10 tracing cards with directional arrows, 1-10 counting cards. 

“I Spy” Modified Paper- Includes: Color and find objects in two themes: winter items and arctic animals; 3 styles of modified paper for each theme: single rule bold lines, double rule bold lines, highlighted double rule. 

Fine Motor Handwriting Sheets- Try the 4 Find/Color/Copy pages in different styles of modified paper, rainbow writing pages in 3 styles of modified paper.

Write the Room Activities- Using a winter theme, these Write the Room cards includes: 5 lowercase copy cards, 5 uppercase copy cards, 5 lowercase tracing cards, 5 uppercase copy cards, 6 cursive writing copy cards, 2 styles of writing pages.

Get the Winter Fine Motor Kit Here.

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.

Polar Bear Gross Motor Activities

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polar bear gross motor activities

 We are continuing with our Polar Bear Theme with all kinds of play ideas.  Check out the polar bear gross motor activities listed here and challenge kids to move, and develop coordination, balance, direction changes, movement patterns, core strength, stability, and more. These polar bear activities go well with our polar bear gross motor virtual therapy slide deck, too, so you’ll want to check that out as well. Add gross motor play to your winter line-up!

polar bear gross motor activities

Polar Bear Gross Motor Activity

For this gross motor activity, you’ll need masking tape, some couch cushions, and other small items (cotton batting, polar bear figures, or other materials can be used).

Start by creating a path with the masking tape. We made a zig zag path across the room, but the options are limitless here.

The masking tape path is perfect for polar bear crawls, toe walking, walking backwards, and knee walking. 

indoor obstacle course ideas with masking tape obstacle course

Masking Tape Balance Beam Ideas

Once the masking tape is positioned on the floor, there are so many ways to use this in therapy in a classroom, hallway, clinic, or therapy at home activity.

I put a couple of pillows at the end to make a “snow pile” for the polar bears.  Your kids can jump or hop into the pillows, or use them as balance challenges.

We put some cotton batting along the path that the kids had to bend and stoop to grasp using one hand or the other. Then, they had to transport the “snow” to the other end of the path.

Polar bear gross motor obstacle course

A balance beam is so great for gross motor skills including coordination and balance.  You can start with normal toe to heel steps, and then increase the balance and coordination needed by asking your child to take bigger steps, side steps, backward steps, tip toe, go fast/slow.

Polar bear gross motor activity for therapy at home or in a clinic.

Kids can hold an object and transport it from one end of the path to the other. Ask them to hold the item in their hands, on their head, on their toes, or on their back as they bear walk. Objects can be large or small, heavy or light.

Use couch pillows as pretend ice blocks for the polar bears.

Use tongs and a small plastic ice cube to incorporate fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination skills. You can place buckets or bins along the path for obstacles to place the small objects in while challenging core strength, motor planning, and movement changes.

Add buckets or cones along the path for children to step over or hop over. If cones aren’t available, just use couch throw cushions as an obstacle.

Add a big duvet blanket or other large blanket at one end or both ends as a DIY crash pad for heavy work and proprioceptive input. Crawling into and under the heavy blanket offers heavy work, and that blanket makes a great “igloo” for your little polar bear.

Advance the motor planning and core development by asking kids to stand along the path as they try to catch/toss a ball, navigate turns, curves, hop…There is so much you can do with the masking tape balance beam!  Add more fine motor skill work by using paper snowflakes along the balance beam.

Challenge kids in a masking tape obstacle course with a polar bear theme.

Use a polar bear sensory bin along the path to challenge kids to transport items from one end of the path and to place them into the sensory bin. This is a fantastic occupational therapy or physical therapy intervention that challenges so many skills.

Use masking tape to make an obstacle course in the living room, with a polar bear theme or other animal walks.
 

 

For more polar bear gross motor activities, (and fine motor work), grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit, with 100 pages of done-for-you therapy activities, including polar bear themes. There are sensory bin materials, crafts, and activities designed to boost fine motor skills. These would be great additions to a polar bear gross motor theme in therapy sessions.

Grab it now before January 9th and you get a bonus of 3 fine motor slide deck activities.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE WINTER FINE MOTOR KIT.

winter fine motor kit

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.

Snowman Crafts and Activities

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snowman activities

Looking for a snowman craft to help kids develop fine motor skills during the winter months? These snowman activities and snowman crafts are perfect for using in occupational therapy interventions or to build skills! Here you will find snowman activities for fine motor, gross motor, sensory tolerance, pencil grasp, handwriting, math, scissor skills, sensory experiences, and other learning/school tasks. Use the snowman crafts and sensory activities to make winter fun a skill-building moment! For wintery fun, browse the ideas below.

Add this snowman theme to your weekly therapy theme list for themed therapy activities that are done for you.

snowman activities and snowman crafts for kids to develop skills in therapy and at home.

Snowman Crafts

Let’s start with snowman crafts that build fine motor skills. We know that kids crafts have a powerful benefit when it comes to developing fine motor precision, hand strength, functional use of craft tools like glue bottles, scissors, crafting materials. When kids use these craft items to create, they are using the occupation of crafting to develop skills for that specific task, but also to carryover to other functional tasks. When it comes to occupational therapy, crafts are a means and a technique to functional skill development!

These snowman crafts are just one theme in the selection of winter craft ideas that we have on the website.

Check out the selection of snowman themed crafts below. From the paper snowman, to toilet paper snowman crafts, these creative snowman craft ideas will have you covered on fun ways to help kids build motor skills and executive functioning skills this winter.

These snowman crafts cover a variety of materials and skills. Choose the ones that work for your needs, and available materials. Kids can improve areas including: pinch, grasp, precision, cutting, glue use, bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, and more.

Snowman Glitter Craft

There is just something about kids and glitter! But did you know the fine motor benefits of a glitter snowman craft? Use stamp art to make a snowman but with a sparkly paint when you mix glitter into paint to create this textured snowman. Work on precision, fine motor skills, texture tolerance, and address eye-hand coordination with this stamp glitter snowman craft.

Kids will also love to paint real snow. Here’s how to paint snow using spray bottles to double down on the fine motor skills.

This glittery snowman is a fun craft idea that works on boosting important fine motor skills that are needed for pencil grasp, fastener manipulation, and the opening and closing of containers and food products!  All of these are essential skills needed for a child to become more independent in their daily task performance.

Making a textured snowman is fun with the Disguise a Snowman activity in the Snowman Therapy Kit. Add sequins, glitter, and puffy paint, or other fine motor items like beads, string, and more to disguise a snowman!

Paper snowman Craft-

There are many ways to make a paper snowman, and when kids cut and paste, they are building fine motor skills with basic, everyday craft materials. Plus, there are tons of fun and creative ways to make a paper snowman, too, so this is a wintery craft idea that can be extended while working on motor skill development. Try some of these paper snowman craft ideas:

  • Use junk mail to make a paper snowman collage.
  • Cut and paste a Snowman countdown craft to make a paper chain snowman.
  • Make a snowman suncatcher and build fine motor skills.
  • Create a sensory tolerance activity with this shredded paper snowman.
  • Work on letter identification with this snowman letter craft.
  • Cut round circles and glue them together to build a snowman from paper.
  • Build a paper snowman using the templates in the Snowman Therapy Kit. The materials are all there for you. Kids can color the objects and cut them out while working on scissor skills. The paper snowman templates are large, so this is a great gross motor task for building or attaching to a bulletin board or magnetic wall to work on core strength and working on a vertical, too.

Egg carton snowman-

Egg cartons are a great therapy tool, but when you make an egg carton snowman, you get many fine motor benefits too. Work on in-hand manipulation and eye-hand coordination skills with this cute egg carton snowman!

For another way to use egg cartons to make a snow friend, try this Egg Carton Snowman. It’s a another fun craft idea that children will love and it works on important fine motor hand skills to include a tripod grasp, intrinsic hand strength, arch development, and an open web space. How? By implementing the use of scissors, bottle glue, marker, and skewers. Easy to create, but so effective in skill development and children will have so much fun doing it!

Toilet paper Snowman Craft-

Grab a toilet paper tube or a paper towel roll and start painting it white. Then, cut the paper tube into sections. These make great tacking tubes to work on fine motor skills and bilateral coordination. Add a few snowman details like a scarf, black dots for buttons, and coal. Draw on a carrot and you’ve got a fine motor toilet paper snowman!

Stacking toilet paper snowmen is really cute way to work on fine motor skills while building snowman towers!  That’s right, towers of toilet paper snowmen in which a child uses tongs (or hands) to pick up and sort snowmen into towers by stacking them on top of each other.  Sort, build the tallest tower, or simply just stack! This activity easily works on fine motor control, strengthening and endurance, and grading of movement. 

Sticker Snowman Craft-

We used paper reinforcement stickers to create a snowman craft with big fine motor benefits. This is a great way to work on precision and dexterity with this fine motor snowman craft. Kids can peel off the small paper reinforcements and place then precisely on paper using neat pincer grasp, eye-hand coordination, and separation of the sides of the hand in order to make the sticker snowman. Plus, kids love using paper reinforcement stickers!

Cotton Ball Snowman Craft

Using cotton balls or craft pom poms to make a snowman is a fun way to build fine motor skills, too. We used craft pom poms to make this clothespin snowman but cotton balls would work, too.

For more cotton ball snowmen, try these ideas:

  • Stamp and paint to make this snowman art activity using materials in your home.
  • Dab a cotton ball into glue (pincer grasp) and then press it onto paper or a textured background (arch development and hand strength) to build a 3D snowman.

Paper Plate Snowman Craft-

Emotion Snowmen Paper Plates is an easy to create paper plate activity that works on facial emotion identification and awareness with the theme of snowmen. Kids can make their own emotional faces or they can be premade to work on social emotional skills. Make duplicate plates and create a matching game as a way to work on visual memory too!

For another paper plate snowman idea use the snowball templates in the Snowman Therapy Kit. Kids can cut out the large snowball circles and glue them to paper plates. Then, build a snowman using the paper plates. Kids can then decorate their snowman and work on fine motor skills.

Snowman Activities

Below, you’ll find more snowman fun. I’ve broken these snowman activities and therapy ideas into areas designed to help kids develop specific skills. You’ll find snowman activities for fine motor development, gross motor skills, and motor planning. You’ll love the craft ideas that challenge visual perceptual skills and sensory tolerance. Each activity can also build on several skill areas.

Deep Breathing Snowman is a fun mindfulness, deep breathing printable to use as a sensory coping strategy with kids throughout the winter season. Simply print and teach children to follow the visual prompts on the snowman to trace and pause at each white dot and hold their breath to achieve a calming effect.

Snowman Brain Breaks- Kids love the self-regulation strategies using whole body movements with a snowman theme. These exercises get kids moving, and are a great way to add mindful movement during the winter months when it can be a challenge to get outdoors. You can find these snowman brain breaks in the Snowman Therapy Kit.

Snowman Executive Functioning Activity (Make a Snowman Treat)- Cooking in the kitchen is a powerful way to develop fine motor skills and executive functioning skills. Use cucumbers and vegetables to make this snowman snack. Click here for the snowman snack directions.

Pin the Nose on a Snowman- This gross motor snowman activity is a great way to develop specific gross motor skills like hopping, skipping, squatting, and balance. The coordination tasks are on the snowman noses and when kids pin the nose on the snowman, they get a gross motor movement break, too. You’ll find this winter activity in the Snowman Therapy Kit.

Snowman Self-Regulation Activity– This deep breathing activity can be a coping tool or a sensory strategy to help with self-regulation skills. Included is a free printable deep breathing worksheet. Click here for a snowman deep breathing activity.

Snowman Puzzles- There are so many reasons why I love these snowman puzzles. Kids can trace the snowman, color in the picture, and then cut out the paper puzzles. Plus, they can build the puzzle and work on visual perceptual skills, too. In the Snowman Therapy Kit, you’ll find simple and complex snowman puzzles and a variety of puzzle tasks for this winter theme.

Snowman Sensory Activity– Use this baking soda dough recipe to make a sensory and fine motor material that kids can use to build skills. The baking soda dough provides a resistant material for strengthening hands. Click here to for the snowman baking soda dough directions.

Snowman Gross Motor (slide deck)– Incorporate bilateral coordination, motor planning, crossing midline, and other gross motor skill areas with this snowman activity. Kids can follow along to the slide images. This makes a great brain break activity, too. This is a free Google slide deck. Click here for the snowman bilateral coordination activities.

Snowman Fine Motor Activity– This counting/adding/subtracting activity builds eye-hand coordination, and fine motor skills. Make snowmen from recycled egg cartons. This is a great activity for breaking down numbers. Click here for this snowman math activity.

Another great fine motor snowman activity is the bead copying cards in the Snowman Therapy Kit. Kids can cut out the bead cards and then copy the patterns to make a string of beads while developing fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, and visual motor skills.

Snowman Eye-Hand Coordination Activity- We’ve made a ton of virtual therapy Slide decks for occupational therapy services, and this snowman themed task is one more. Use this build a snowman activity in virtual lessons or teletherapy to work on eye-hand coordination, visual scanning, handwriting, or typing.

Graph a Snowman- For kids working on executive functioning skills like metacognition, organization, task completion, prioritization, and planning, a “graph a snowman” task is a great activity. You’ll find this printable resource in our Snowman Therapy Kit.

More Snowman Crafts and Activities for Therapy

Kids are loving our latest therapy kit! The Snowman Therapy Kit covers all aspects of therapy skill areas: gross motor, fine motor, self-regulation, visual perception, executive function, handwriting, scissor skills, and more! Read all about the Snowman Therapy Kit here.

Snowman Therapy Activity Kit

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.

Polar Bear Therapy Slide Deck

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Polar bear therapy activities

This week, we’re all about the polar bears. You’re going to love this polar bear therapy slide deck, and actually, my kids are loving it, too! The polar bear gross motor activities go well with an arctic animal theme. We’ve been using the gross motor activities as a warm-up for the Winter Fine Motor Kit and all of the winter activities in that resource. You’ll want to grab this therapy slide deck to get your new year off to a great start and get the kids moving with whole-body movements.

Free gross motor therapy slide deck with a polar bear theme. Use in virtual therapy sessions or as a polar bear brain break.

Be sure to grab the free polar bear deep self-regulation activity. It’s a wintery breathing exercise that went up earlier today. You’ll find a bunch of other polar bear activities listed in that blog post, so that your therapy theme for the week is full of movement-based activities that help kids develop skills.

Included are some slides to incorporate propriocepetion and vestibular input as well.

Because incorporating gross motor skills in teletherapy is sometimes a challenge, this gross motor slide deck was designed for teletherapy in a way that instructs kids to copy various positions as they balance and strengthen their core. All of these skills can be addressed with this gross motor slide deck in teletherapy sessions:

  • Core strength
  • Stability
  • Balance and equilibrium skills
  • Coordination
  • Range of motion
  • Flexibility
  • Motor planning
  • Crossing midline
  • Movement patterns
  • Posture and postural control
  • Muscle tone
  • Proprioceptive input
  • Vestibular input

Polar Bear Resource: DON’T MISS IT:

Grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit, with 100 pages of done-for-you therapy activities, including polar bear themes. Grab it now before January 9th and you get a bonus of 3 fine motor slide deck activities.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE WINTER FINE MOTOR KIT.

winter fine motor kit

More therapy slide decks


Be sure to check out these other slide decks to use in OT teletherapy sessions, distance learning, or homeschooling:

Try this Alphabet Gross Motor Slide Deck.

Here is a Space Theme Therapy Slide Deck.

Here is a Strait Line Letters Slide Deck.

Try this self-awareness slide deck with an animal theme.

Kids love this football theme slide deck.

There are gross motor activities in this outer space slide deck, too.

Polar Bear Therapy Slide Deck

Use this polar bear theme therapy slide deck in virtual therapy sessions or as a brain break.

Be sure to make a copy of this slide deck and not change the url to indicate “edit” at the end. When you make a copy of the slide deck onto your Google drive, you will end up with your own version that you are free to adjust in order to meet your student’s needs. By changing the url to “edit”, you can potentially mess up the original version that many other therapists and The OT Toolbox users are given.

You can grab a copy of this Google slide deck and use it to work on specific skills.

Enter your email address below and you will receive a PDF containing a link to copy the slide deck onto your Google drive. Save that PDF file, because you can come back to it again and again and send it to the kids on your caseload (or classroom) so they can make their own copy on their Google drive.

Please use the copy of the slide deck and do not change the url.

FREE Polar Bear Gross Motor Therapy Activities!

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    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.

    Indoor Winter Activities for Kids

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    indoor winter activities

    Here you will find indoor winter activities for kids and indoor winter activities for families. These indoor activities are designed to help kids develop skills when it is too cold to go outside. We’ve used many of these occupational therapy activities when the weather is icy or frigid outside. Fun indoor winter activities can be essential to help kids get their energy out during winter days. This year, indoor therapy ideas may be needed to meet teletherapy needs, as well. Related: Add our Winter Fine Motor Kit to your daily toolbox, to help kids develop fine motor strength and dexterity with easy, no-prep activities.

    An indoor winter activity like a winter crossword puzzle is a fun way to spend a winter day, while building skills. Let’s cover a few more indoor ideas…

    Indoor winter activities for kids and indoor activities for families to help kids develop skills.

    Indoor Winter Activities

    I’ve sorted these activities into areas so that you can find activities to meet therapy needs. Included below are indoor activities designed to boost fine motor skills, gross motor skills, visual motor skills, sensory input, regulation, and more.

    Winter Activities for Fine Motor Skills

    Here are a bunch of winter fine motor activities that we’ve shared in the past.

    Use these winter crafts to develop fine motor dexterity and strength.

    Here are winter bird crafts and activities.

    This icicle craft builds visual motor skills and scissor skills, too.

    Use these winter books to pair with a fine motor craft or activity based on the book.

    Make this snowman painting craft to build precision and dexterity.

    Cut mini snowflakes for a fine motor activity that builds hand strength and heavy work input.

    Play tic tac toe with miniature snowflakes. This is also a great sight word activity, too.

    This winter snowflake stamp art is a fun fine motor activity that looks great and the kids love.

    The Winter Fine Motor Kit has materials to print-and-go, including arctic animal finger puppets to develop finger isolation, toothpick art activities with winter themes, crumble art pages, coloring and pencil control activities for building strength and endurance in the hands. All of these materials are included in a 100 page packet with winter themes: snowmen, mittens, snowflakes, penguins, polar bears, arctic animals, and more.

    Indoor Winter Activities for Gross Motor Skills

    Here are winter-themed bilateral coordination activities to work on motor planning and coordination skills.

    Here are indoor recess activities to use during the winter months

    Use these winter brain break activities to add movement and gross motor work during the indoor months.

    Try this snowflake theme balance beam for indoor play, balance, coordination, and motor planning.

    Use this indoor snowball fight to work on eye-hand coordination skills.

    Winter Sensory Activities

    Try these snow and ice themed activities.

    Here is a snowflake themed proprioceptive activity that helps kids develop motor planning skills, coordination, and strengthening.

    This indoor snowball activity adds vestibular input as well as eye-hand coordination skills.

    Use a blanket to create a sensory winter themed heavy work activity.

    These winter mindfulness activities can help with self-regulation, awareness, and social emotional skills.

    Use these January occupational therapy calendars for vestibular and proprioceptive sensory input.

    Try these snowball theme activities to incorporate movement and learning during winter months.

    Here are winter science experiments that incorporate the senses and hands-on learning.

    winter fine motor kit

    Click here to access the Winter Fine Motor Kit and develop fine motor skills and dexterity with winter themes.


    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.

    Winter Bilateral Coordination Activities

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    winter bilateral coordination activities

    Bilateral coordination is a big topic in child development. The fact is that the coordinated use of the hands is a tricky skill for many kids. Using the hands together in tasks is necessary for hand dominance and tasks like handwriting, managing clothing fasteners, catching and throwing a ball, fine motor tasks, and so many other skills. Below you will find winter bilateral coordination activities. These are winter themed activities that improve bilateral integration and can be used in occupational therapy activities in the winter months. Scroll through the activities below and add them to your therapy toolbox this winter!

    Related: If you are looking for a resource for developing bilateral coordination in kids, try the Winter Fine Motor Kit. It’s loaded with fine motor strengthening activities designed to promote and develop bilateral coordination, all in no-prep materials.

    Kids will love these winter bilateral coordination activities to help develop the skills to use both hands together in a coordinated way! Snowman activities, snowflake activities, and other winter themed activities for use in occupational therapy and at home.

    Winter Bilateral Coordination Activities

    This post is part of our Winter Week series here on The OT Toolbox. Each day this week, we are sharing activities, ideas, and tips for getting the kids active and moving…and working on occupational therapy goals in the winter months.

    For example, these snow globe letter puzzles incorporate bilateral integration using both hands along with visual scanning, crossing midline to find and reach for a matching letter card. The winter-themed activity can be modified to meet the needs of the individual: using less or more cards, incorporating fine or gross motor input, and positioning the cards in different planes or surfaces to work on various levels of bilateral coordination. It’s just one more way to make therapy skills like bilateral coordination fun with a winter theme!

    This time of year can be tough on therapists; It’s right after the holidays. If in a cold weather environment, it can be a glum and gloomy time of year with cold temps and shorter days. It can be hard to come up with fresh ideas! That’s why I decided a Winter Week was in order.

    Each day this week, you’ll find winter themed activities designed to meet occupational therapy goal areas in fun ways. Here’s what’s going on this week: 


    Monday- Indoor Recess Ideas

    Tuesday-     Winter Brain Break Ideas

    Wednesday-     Winter Bilateral Coordination Activities

    Thursday-    Winter Mindfulness Activities

    Friday-     Winter Fine Motor Activities


    On to the Winter Bilateral Coordination Activities! Have fun in OT these winter months!

    First, What is Bilateral Coordination?

    In short, bilateral coordination is the use of both hands together in a coordinated manner. Development of bilateral coordination begins early in infancy and continues through childhood.

    There are three components of bilateral coordination, which include Symmetrical movements, Reciprocal movements, and Dominant hand/supporting hand movements. 

    These movements require both sides of the body.  Also called bilateral integration, the movements of both hands together in activities requires processing and integration of both hemispheres of the brain to enable both hands working together at the same time.

    Bilateral coordination is needed for skills like: eating, writing, coloring, drawing, self-dressing, brushing one’s teeth, playing, tying shoes, and so much more!

    The winter themed bilateral coordination activities below are ideas for activities that can help to work on coordinated use of both hands in fun activities!

    Winter Themed Bilateral Coordination Activities

    1. Cutting Paper Snowflakes- Folding and cutting are bilateral coordination activities that require both hands being used together. Make paper snowflakes with different textures or types of papers to put a fun spin on this winter activity. Try making paper snowflakes with cupcake liners, paper bags, tissue paper, or large construction paper sheets!



    2. Paper Snowmen- Remember making strands of paper dolls? Try making a strand of paper snowmen while working on bilateral coordination while folding and cutting the snowmen.


    3. Lacing Mittens- Make a cardboard set of mittens and poke holes around the edges. Then lace with cord, yarn, or string like Fun Family Crafts did with their mitten lacing activity. Lacing is a bilateral coordination activity that boost the skills kids need for tasks like handwriting. Read more about how lacing is such a great activity for kids here. There are several winter-themed lacing cards in the Winter Fine Motor Kit.


    4. Play Dough Snowmen- Mixing and rolling dough is a fantastic bilateral coordination activity. Here’s why: By mixing dough, both hands are working together against resistance of the dough, providing a sensory component in the form of proprioception. This feedback can provide a powerful muscle memory to the hands as they work. Kids can mix, stir, and knead while strengthening the hands and arms. This Baking soda dough is perfect for creating snowmen, which require rolling and building…and more bilateral coordination! There are 6 different winter themed play dough mats in the Winter Fine Motor Kit that you can print off and use over and over again.


    5. Snowman Sensory Bag- This is such a fun sensory activity that allows kids to work both hands together to move parts of a snowman face while working on finger isolation and dexterity. This snowman sensory bag version from Mama Papa Bubba is very cute!

    6. Winter Crossword Puzzle– A writing activity like a crossword puzzle is a great tool to build bilateral coordination skills. When writing, you need to support the paper with the nondominant hand while writing in the small spaces to fill in the crossword. Take the functional task up a notch by challenging users: Work on a vertical surface. Tape the BOTTOM of the page to a wall. Young learners can hold the paper up while filling in the crossword. If they lift up their non-dominant hand from the edge of the page, the paper will fall down.

    Looking for more bilateral coordination ideas? Try these: 


    Development of Bilateral Coordination and Feeding


    Bilateral Coordination Lacing Plate


    Bilateral Coordination Activity with Pop Tubes


    Bilateral Coordination and Visual Motor Activity with Hearts


    Bilateral Coordination and Visual Motor Activity Clover


    Homemade and Store Bought Lacing Cards for Bilateral Coordination Skills

    These winter bilateral coordination activities are great for helping kids develop the skills to use both hands together in tasks like handwriting, cutting with scissors, and more.

    winter fine motor kit
     

    WINTER Bilateral Coordination WORKSHEETS

    To end out the Winter Week here on The OT Toolbox, I wanted to create a fine motor worksheets that are a true resource during the winter months. These fine motor worksheets that cover a variety of different fine motor abilities:

    These reproducible activity pages include: pencil control strips, scissor skills strips, simple and complex cutting shapes, lacing cards, toothpick precision art, crumble hand strengthening crafts, memory cards, coloring activities, and so much more.

    Play Dough Roll Mats- We’ve shared some free play dough mats before. They are perfect for developing bilateral coordination as well as fine motor skills and hand strength needed for tasks like coloring with endurance, manipulating small items, and holding a pencil. Kids can roll small balls of play dough with just their fingertips to strengthen the intrinsic muscles. The Winter Fine Motor Kit contains 6 winter play dough mats that can be used all winter long!  

    Pinch and Grip Strength Activities- Use these bilateral coordination worksheets to target functional tasks and bilateral coordination. Kids will be challenged to use both hands together in a coordinated matter in addressing glue skills page, tong/tweezer activities, lacing cards, finger puppets, 1-10 counting clip cards, 10 toothpick art pages, find & color page, 5 crumble art pages.

    Pencil Control Worksheets- Kids can develop bilateral coordination with a helper hand and their dominant hand while working on pencil control and accuracy. Some of the lines are small and are a great way to strengthen the hands, too. 

    Cutting Strips and Scissor Skills Sheets- Cutting with scissors is a functional bilateral coordination skill that requires accuracy and precision of a dominant hand and coordination of the helper hand. These winter themed scissor skills worksheets are great ways to strengthen the motor and visual skills needed for cutting with scissors.   Also included are 7 scissor skills strips with graded precision designed for data collection and accuracy development, 2 color & cut memory cards, 4 pages simple cutting shapes in small/med/large sizes, 3 pages complex cutting shapes in small/med/large sizes, 2 small and 2 large cutting skills puzzles.

    Handwriting Sensory Bin Materials- Help kids with bilateral coordination using the winter-themed A-Z uppercase and lowercase tracing cards with directional arrows, 1-10 tracing cards with directional arrows, 1-10 counting cards. Using the sensory bin materials can develop tactile handwriting, letter and number formation, finger isolation, crossing midline, sensory challenges with both hands as they scoop, pour, trace, and explore sensory bins.

    Fine Motor Handwriting Sheets AND “I Spy” Modified Paper– Try the 4 Find/Color/Copy pages in different styles of modified paper, rainbow writing pages in 3 styles of modified paper. These handwriting worksheets use the winter theme to help with using a helper hand in handwriting activities and coloring tasks.

    Write the Room Activities- Using a winter theme, these Write the Room cards includes: 5 lowercase copy cards, 5 uppercase copy cards, 5 lowercase tracing cards, 5 uppercase copy cards, 6 cursive writing copy cards, 2 styles of writing pages. TARGET SKILLS: Letter formation, pencil control, visual motor skills, visual attention, visual memory, line placement, functional handwriting at all levels and stages.

    Get the Winter Fine Motor Kit Here.

    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.

     

    Super Simple Snowflake Frisbee Indoor Play

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     Is it cold where you are?  We had our first snow of the year and it is cooooold out there.  When the temps drop, there is more time or indoor play.  This Vestibular activity is super simple and a great way to incorporate movement and sensory input into play.  We’ve been sharing a bunch of creative ways to explore movement with our vestibular and proprioception sensory activities on our January Occupational Therapy calendar.  This vestibular Frisbee activity is a quick way to have fun with movement with a snowflake theme!


    Super easy and SO fun Vestibular Frisbee activity for indoor play this winter. Get the kids moving!
    Add these resources to the ones you can find here under sensory diet vestibular activities to meet the sensory needs of all kids. 


    Vestibular Activity using a Frisbee

    Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
    Kids who appear to never get dizzy or those who are overly sensitive to movement may have difficulty regulating movement in their vestibular system.  Activities like rolling, swinging, sliding, and rotating are ways to involve the vestibular system.  This super easy snowflake Frisbee is one quick way to add a little vestibular play into your day.
     
    Turing and tossing a Frisbee provides vestibular input as slight head movements are involved in throwing a Frisbee.  Some kids may overly turn in circles as they toss the Frisbee. 
     
       Super easy and SO fun Vestibular Frisbee activity for indoor play this winter. Get the kids moving!


    Super Simple snowflake paper plate frisbee

    We cut a snowflake from white paper and taped it to a blue paper plate. Double sided tape
    works well for this craft, too. The weight of this DIY Frisbee was light and a fun challenge to toss the Frisbee into a laundry basket.  
     
    Additional ways to play: 
    Try tossing the Frisbee in different positions: sitting, laying down, and between the legs.
    Tape two paper plates together for a sturdier Frisbee.
    Use a styrofoam plate (or two) to grade down this activity (make it easier to toss at a target).

    Use a smaller dessert plate
    to require more accuracy with tossing the Frisbee.


    Super easy and SO fun Vestibular Frisbee activity for indoor play this winter. Get the kids moving!
     
    Looking for more sensory activities? Try these:
    Oobleck in the Marble Run  Alphabet Discovery Bottle
    Dinosaur-Sized Sensory Feelings and Proprioception Activities
    Alphabet Discovery Bottle
    Oobleck in the Marble Run
    Fidgeting During Homework

    Proprioception Winter Activity Cutting Paper Snowflakes with Kids

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    This time of year, kids can feel cooped up indoors when the winter weather is too cold to play outside. A proprioception activity that engages children can provide calming or regulating input that is desperately needed.


    Cutting paper snowflakes with heavy weight paper like cardstock, cardboard, or several sheets of paper provides proprioceptive input to the hands.  

    Practice scissor skills and provide proprioception with this miniature cupcake liner snowflakes craft for kids.

    Paper Snowflakes Prorprioception Activity for Kids

    This post contains affiliate links.


    While it is difficult to cut heavy paper after it’s been folded many times into a paper snowflake, you can use two sheets of paper.  Just the added layer provides a bit more work for the hands.  


    Try adding a few layers of tissue paper to your snowflakes.  This is a great warm up activity for kids to complete before handwriting.  


    Read more about proprioception and the hands here.


    Additional ways to provide proprioceptive input to the hands through making paper snowflakes:


    Cut aluminum foil.
    Use two (or more) Rainbow colored cupcake liners.
    Cut thin white felt.
    Make snowflakes with several paper napkins stacked up.
    Cut snowflakes from wax paper.
    Several coffee filters stacked up.

    Practice scissor skills and provide proprioception with this miniature cupcake liner snowflakes craft for kids.

    For our proprioception activity, we cut several cupcake liners stacked up.  If you use the miniature sized cupcake liners, like we did, you can really work on scissor skills on a small scale.  Fold only two cupcake liners together in half and in half again.  You will end up with a triangle with a curved outer edge.  Now start snipping triangles out of the cupcake liners.  This activity provides proprioceptive input to the hands and is an exercise in precision in scissor skills. 


    These brightly colored snowflakes will add a pop of color to a dreary winter window.  Simply tape them up with double sided tape.  You can also tape them along a string to make a fun and cheery wintery garland.  Have fun making miniature snowflakes and working on proprioception and scissor skills!

    Practice scissor skills and provide proprioception with this miniature cupcake liner snowflakes craft for kids.


    This post is part of our January Calendar activities where we’re sharing proprioceptive and vestibular activities for each day.  See all of the posts here. 
    Are you looking for more information on Vestibular or Proprioception (and ALL of the sensory systems) and how they affect functional skills, behavior, and the body’s sensory systems?  This book, Sensory Lifestyle Handbook, will explain it all.  Activities and Resources are included.  Get it today and never struggle to understand or explain Sensory Integration again.

     
    Looking for MORE scissor skills or proprioception activities?  These are some of our favorite ways to play: 

    Teaching Kids to Stop Spreading Germs

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    Oh boy, is life ever messy with little ones during the winter months.  Add to the mix: a teething baby who puts EVERYTHING into her mouth, and your house is a germ festival.  And it’s a festival you definitely DON’T want to visit.  When kids are constantly passing germs, hygiene is so important!  I’m not sure how many times a day I repeat, “Cover your mouth!”, “Wash your hands!”, and “Get a tissue!”, but those phrases should be plastered on my forehead and maybe the kids would notice a little more!  I thought it was time for a little wipe and blow your nose song and dance to teach the kids something about keeping those germs to themselves!

    I participated in the Pass The Puffs blog program as a member of One2One Network. I received compensation but all opinions are my own.
    Teach kids hygiene and to use a tissue and wash their hands after they blow their nose, cough, or sneeze with this poem!

    Washing Hands and Blowing Nose poem for Kids

    We were given the opportunity to try Puffs Plus Lotion during the booger-est time of the year.  And we are sure a booger-y family!  In fact, my Little Guy was wiping his nose so often that he had a red upper lip from the tissues!  We loved that the Puffs Plus Lotion seemed to soften that irritated nose and helped his skin even with all of his nose blowing.  You could tell that he looked and felt better!

    Our little Good Hygiene for Kids poem is a catchy one and we’ve been saying it over and over again.  It’s a good poem for young kids to remember and use!  With preschool germs, library germs, grocery cart germs, and even sibling germs, my kids seem like they constantly have a cold this time of year.   Especially this year when we’re experiencing one of the toughest flu seasons (according to the CDC).  In fact, our hometown of Pittsburgh is on high alert for outbreak of the flu.  With the bitter cold temperatures that we’ve been having (it was below zero until noon one day last week!), the softness of Puffs Plus Lotion is perfect for sensitive little noses and cheeks.  With just the right amount of softness, Puffs Plus Lotion will help us put your best faces forward this cold and flu season.  

    This little one had fun with the tissues!

    Tips to help teach kids about stopping the spread of germs

    Tips for Helping Kids to Use Good Hygiene 

    • Encourage kids to wash their hands with warm, soapy water.  Sing a short song like the ABCs while they soap up and rinse so you know they are really scrubbing.
    • Teach kids to cough or sneeze into their elbow or to use a tissue.
    • Show kids how to use a tissue to hold the door when exiting a public restroom.
    • Wipe down public grocery cart handles with a sanitizing wipe.
    • Remind kids when they should wash their hands: after using the bathroom, after coughing or sneezing/blowing nose, before meals, after being outside.


    Visit Facebook.com/Puffs and Puffs.com for more information.

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