But first, What is Visual Scanning?
When a student searches a word search for a specific letter, they need to visually scan in a systematic pattern. That is, they need to look up, down, left, and right as they search for letter combinations. For a child who is doing an Easter egg hunt and searching a backyard for brightly colored eggs, they must look on different planes (high, low, near, and far) to find the eggs while avoiding obstacles.
I’ve shared a few visual tracking activities lately in this Occupational Therapy series that I’ve been doing this month. You can check those out here and here for more visual processing information, but it’s important to realize that visual scanning is different than visual tracking. To visually scan, a child needs to view an object (red shoe, letters, or Easter egg) or area (page, corner of a book for book numbers, or lunch room) in order to locate an item or information. In visual tracking, one maintains visual contact on an object as it moves.
Visual Scanning Activity for Kids
This visual scanning activity is one way to work on scanning for items in functional tasks. This was a simple set up and used a few materials we had on hand:
Amazon affiliate links:
A Shower Curtain ring
Small Rubber Bands
in many colors
To do this easy Visual Scanning activity, simply scatter the rubber bands out on a surface. Ask your child to scan the rubber bands to find specific colored bands. You can call out colors individually or in patterns as they search for and find the correct colored rubber band.
Make this activity easier (graded down) by removing the number of rubber bands or the amount of colors on the table. Make it more difficult (graded up) by adding more rubber bands and more colors. You can also add a larger surface area to make this activity more of a challenge. Simply spread rubber bands over a larger area with fewer of the specific colors you will be naming. Children then have to visual scan a larger area. You can further grade up this activity by adding obstacles to the surface.
Fine Motor Activity for Kids
As the child scans for and finds the correct rubber band, have them thread it onto the shower curtain ring. What a great fine motor activity for kids! They are working on their bilateral hand coordination as they pull the shower curtain ring apart and place the rubber band onto the ring.
My daughter did this activity one afternoon when my niece and nephew were over for the day. It was a quiet time activity that kept two four year-olds busy for a long time. They both wanted to keep adding more rubber bands until their ring was filled.
When the ring is filled with bands, you’ve got a fidget toy that can be used during homework or school work tasks. See more about fidget toys here.
Have fun working on visual scanning skills and creating this fun toy!
Looking for more ways to work on Visual Scanning? These are some fun ideas and toys that you can do to work on visual saccades in a creative and playful way.
Amazon affiliate links are listed below.
- Word Searches. Have children scan for letters and highlight all of the letter “A’s” in one color. They can then go through and search for more letters using different colors.
- Play Bingo
to work on scanning for numbers going up and down a card.
- Use Letters and Numbers
to search and find letters in an activity like the one we did here. - I Spy Books
- Find It Discovery Bottles
OR, make your own, like our Alphabet discovery bottle.
- Games like Battleship
and Connect Four
work on visual scanning skills.
- Spot It!
is another fun game for kids.
- Maze activities. Our math maze activity is a fun fine motor and hands-on learning tool that builds visual scanning skills.
These are some of my favorite ways to work on visual scanning:
