Parent Resources

Listed are some activities to help develop fine motor and visual motor skills. These activities are meant to enhance occupational therapy services. If you feel your child is not meeting milestones or they are not able to successfully access the home, community and school activities, please consult with your child's pediatrician or an occupational therapist. Listed below are some additional resources to learn more about motor skill development and sensory processing:

OT Activities to promote Fine/Visual Motor Coordination​

• ​Animal walking (bear walk, frog jump, crab walk)
• Playdough/ putty- hide/retrieve small items, pinch, poke holes with fingers/ pegs
• Large/ small pop-beads- make necklaces, “snakes”, trains
• Finger puppets • Legos/ Larger Mega Blocks- separate, connect to create tower, car, house
• Tearing/ crumpling tissue paper- create a craft project (flower, sun, etc.)
• Small tongs (i.e. strawberry pickers)- pick up cotton balls, small kooshballs
• Hole punchers (fun hand-held and finger held ones can be found at Michael’s)
• Clothespins- pinch on/ off a string, hang game cards on a string
• Instruments (drums, horns, maracas, tambourine, triangle, toy accordion)
• Lincoln Logs
• Transformer dolls
• Mr. Potato Head
• Waffle/ Bristol Blocks/ magnetic blocks
• Squeeze balls, water toys/ squirters
• Putting together/ taking apart larger Nuts and bolts
• Hammer games/ activities (“bang-a-ball,” hammering golf tees into styrofoam)
• Sidewalk chalk- imitating/ copying lines, shapes, letters, drawing person/ adding body parts, etc.
• Finger paint/ shaving cream (same activities as above)
• Paintbrush
• Lite Brite
• Stacking games/ pegs
• Working on an easel/ chalkboard
• Coloring/ drawing while laying on floor (promote finer/dissociated wrist movements while weight-bearing on forearms)
• Puzzles- formboards, large floor puzzles
• Cutting with scissors- snip string, playdough, etc. then cut lines, then curves/ circles, shapes, magazine pictures, coupons, etc.
• Buttons/ snaps- large then small
• Coloring, dot-to-dots, mazes, stencils
• Magna Doodle
• Design copy activities- blocks, chalkboard, dry-erase board
• Lacing/ sewing boards
• Stringing macaroni, cheerios, beads, etc.- on string or pipe cleaner

Parent Websites and Books

• Developmental Milestones
• Support for Learning and Attention Difficulties
• ​Sensory Processing Disorder
• ​Sensory Processing Foundation
• Learning Without Tears (formerly known as ​Handwriting Without Tears)
• The Out of Sync Child by Carol Kranowitz
• Raising a Sensory Smart Child: The Definitive Handbook for Helping Your Child with Sensory Processing Issues by Lindsey Biel and Nancy Peske

Videos

• What does Sensory Processing look like?

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