Developing skills should be fun for both the student and the therapist. We have to be creative and we are always thinking up new ideas to make it interesting and make our students want to keep working. We also love to share our creativity and collaborate with each other. Here at Therapy Fun Zone, we would like to share activity ideas, and encourage you to share yours in order to keep the creativity stimulated. Sign up for our email which will include therapy activities, and other things that we think may be of interest. We are adding new activities and references frequently.
See you in the zone.
Check out the Shop page where you can buy some therapy activities that were created by me, including Pencil Adventures and Road Writing.
Recent Blog Posts
Fun Ice Cream Clothespin Game
I am always working on interesting and fun ways to work on fine motor skills, and love using clothespins to work on the skills. The kids enjoy pretend playing with ice cream, but for some kids, the ice cream buttons are too hard for them to do. I want them to work on fine motor skills and strengthen their fingers as well as squeeze in some writing practice, so what are we going to play? We are going to play {Read More}
Fine Motor Skills – Why Ask Why?
Today we hear from a seasoned Occupational Therapist named Stacie Erfle, MS, OTR/L. She is the creator of the Fine Motor ABCs book. A quick Google search will lead to endless possible activities to build fine motor skills. Pinterest is full of imaginative activities to get kids creating with their hands. In this digital world, there is definitely no lack of ideas of WHAT to do. However, in the focus on the WHAT, it can be easy to lose the {Read More}
Search and Find Fine Motor
Everyone has those days where you just need to pull an activity out of your bag that is simple and requires no extra preparation. I have quite a few of those types of activities lurking at the bottom of my bag, and a favorite is the alphabet search. It combines visual scanning, fine motor skill, and hand strength all in one simple task. I use alphabet beads and pom poms scattered together on the table to create a visually distracting {Read More}
Current Monthly Specials
Spring is here and bugs and spring go together so well. This month we have the munchy ball bug quest game on sale as well as some bug clothespin games. Go check out what is on sale now. The community is where I will share my digital downloads and members get discounts on my created products. Therapy Fun Store is a full functioning store with lots of therapy products available.If you have any difficulty, let me know at [email protected] so {Read More}
New Scissor Skills Book
Are you looking for some ideas and information to help children learn to cut? Do you struggle with helping your child use scissors? This is a wonderful new book written by a group of therapists that goes over all of the skills areas that are used when cutting with scissors. Written by a team of 10 pediatric physical and occupational therapists with years of experience in the field, The Scissor Skills Book is the ultimate resource for tips, strategies, suggestions, {Read More}
Scissor Cutting Shapes: Pizza
When working on cutting skills, it is fun to create something out of what you cut. This week I had some of my students make some pizza. I made a template for the shapes needed to make the pizza, and they traced the shapes, cut them out and glued them on to their paper. I printed one sheet in color that I made as an example for them to follow. Once they had all of the toppings to their pizza {Read More}
Fine Motor Pet Feeding
Animals are great fun for kids and can make it motivating to work on skills. I don’t have any real animals to work with, so I made some pet store animals for the kids to feed, use clothespins, and practice some writing. The activity is simple and cute. First you roll the dice to determine which animal you will be feeding (each animal is assigned a number on the board). Then it is time to feed your animal. You can {Read More}
Make Button Flowers
Flowers make a great spring time activity, and there are so many ways to incorporate flowers into therapy to work on fine motor, visual motor, and coordination. I have many flower activities, such as ones that use clothes pins, but today we are using buttons in our flower activity. It is so simple to make your own button flower, and all you need is some felt, pipe cleaner, and buttons. I will show you how to make the simple version, {Read More}
UnBuckle Me
At Therapy Fun Zone, we focus a lot on activities for children that develop their skills. However, I was recently contacted by an Occupational Therapist, who has invented a new product to help adults who struggle to unbuckle their child’s car seats. I expect many of you will know someone in your family who can relate. No surprise, since I learned that it requires at least 9 lbs. of force to unbuckle, using only the thumb. This new product is {Read More}
Slowing Down With Scissor Cutting
I recently was doing an evaluation, and the student was just snipping at the paper as fast and furiously as she could. When I tried to help her position the paper or the scissors better, she just pushed me away and kept snipping. She gave no attempt to follow the lines that she was supposed to be cutting. I decided to try to slow her down by making it harder for her to snip. I took what was left of {Read More}
More recent posts
- Balloon Volleyball
- Rainbow Fine Motor Activities with Q-tip Painting
- Using the Button Sandwich for Sequencing and Writing
- 10 Fun Ways to Incorporate Writing into Therapy
- Feed the Animal Fine Motor Activity
- Functional Skills For Kids – Handwriting
- Seasons Button Tree
- New Pencil Adventures to Work on Pencil Control
- Using Gel Clings in Therapy
- Fine Motor Skills and Typing
