games Archives - Page 2 of 7 - Therapy Fun Zone

Activities, activity printable, bimanual, child, Clothespin Activities, elementary school age, fine-motor, Free Printable, games, Handwriting, Motor Planning, OT, Printable, spring

Clothespin Flower Game

It is time for spring and flowers, so how about a new clothespin game where you have to build the flower petal by petal and use the clothespin to hold the petals onto the flower. There are several different ways to play the game. The…

Activities, bimanual, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, games, hand strengthening, Handwriting, Munchy Ball, OT, sensory motor, upper extremity strengthening, visual perceptual

Multi Position Writing Activity

This week I wanted to incorporate some targeted fine motor and hand strengthening in our sessions, and then follow up with some writing tasks. I used the foam letter squares that I made for the pool writing activity. I spread all of the foam…

Great clothespin game to work on fine motor skills. put the legs (clothespins) on the bugs.

Activities, activity printable, bimanual, child, Clothespin Activities, elementary school age, fine-motor, Free Printable, games, hand strengthening, Handwriting, Motor Planning, OT, Printable, Product Review, valentines

Sugar Bugs Clothespin Game

I have been meaning to make a clothespin game with bugs and their legs (the clothespins) for a while, and have just finished it. It combines two of the kids’ favorite things, sugar and bugs. This game is great for any time of the year since…

Activities, activity printable, bimanual, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, Free Printable, games, Handwriting, Motor Planning, OT, Pom Poms or cotton balls, Printable

Catapult Birds

Last week we made catapults out of clothespins, so this week we used those catapults to play a game and work on writing. I made a target to shoot pom poms at, and use the pom poms as birds that we shoot with the catapult (kind of like angry…

Activities, bimanual, child, Clothespin Activities, games, hand strengthening, Motor Planning, OT, tween - middle school

Build a Catapult

We did a craft this week that was a build your own catapult. We made it from a catapult kit, and it involved placing pegs in holes and putting the pieces together. It would be a great activity for older kids to follow directions and work…

Activities, activity printable, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, games, Halloween, Handwriting, OT, pencil template, Printable, visual perceptual

Creature / Monster Drawing and Writing

Lately I have been wanting to do my sentence memory copying activity with the kids that I am working with, and decided to modify it a bit to add monsters / creatures. I have used the monster drawing type of activity that I did in the Roll a…

Activities, child, Chopstick activities, Clothespin Activities, elementary school age, favorite toys, fine-motor, in-hand manipulation, OT

20 + Small Manipulatives for Fine Motor

When looking in my therapy bag, there are a few things that I always have with me. For higher level fine motor work, I always like to have small little manipulatives and some Training Chopsticks. I have posted about these items before, but they…

Activities, Duck Tape, fine-motor, Fun Foam, hand strengthening, Munchy Ball, scissor cutting

Munchy Ball Dress Up and New Colored Balls

It is fun to have a toy that is personalized and not the same as all of the others. We spent some time last weekend dressing up the Munchy Balls and making them unique. On some of them we used colored sharpies to draw on some permanent changes…

Activities, bouncy balls, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, games, hand strengthening, in-hand manipulation, Motor Planning, Munchy Ball, OT, sensory motor, visual perceptual

Fine Motor Coordination Speed

We talk a lot about doing fine motor activities and there are a lot of them available. Another aspect of motor ability though is the speed of the motor response. I can see a student’s motor response speed when we play the game with the balls…

Activities, activity printable, bimanual, elementary school age, fine-motor, Free Printable, games, hand strengthening, Handwriting, Motor Planning, Munchy Ball, OT, Paper, pipe cleaner, Printable, sensory motor, visual perceptual

Fishing for letters

To work on a combination of skills, I made some fish with letters on them, added some pipe cleaner to make it metallic, and made some fishing poles out of pipe cleaner and magnets. Fishing is a great way to work on bimanual hand skills, fine…

Activities, bimanual, elementary school age, fine-motor, hand strengthening, Munchy Ball, OT, preschool, tween - middle school

Fizzing Fine Motor Rocks

I have seen people playing with foaming dough, and decided it would be fun to see what would happen if Munchy Ball was foaming from the mouth. The foaming rock food is made simply by mixing baking soda and water into a paste and making little…

Activities, ADL, child, elementary school age, feeding, Munchy Ball, OT, preschool, Sensory

Taste Testing New Foods

When working with kids who are reluctant eaters, they often are afraid to even taste new foods. They may have had a negative experience at one point with a certain type or flavor of food, and so they avoid trying it again. I will often start…

Activities, adult, child, Clothespin Activities, elementary school age, fine-motor, hand strengthening, Handwriting, OT, teenage, Trunk strengthening, tween - middle school, upper extremity strengthening, visual perceptual

Can we practice handwriting without a pencil, please?

Let me start by saying that I'm probably one of the few pediatric occupational therapists who needs help with arts and crafts! No, seriously! I am so thankful for the many wonderful websites and blogs whose authors share some of the most…

Activities, bimanual, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, hand strengthening, Handwriting, Motor Planning, Munchy Ball, OT, season, summer, Trunk strengthening

Swimming for Letters

I played with foam letters with the kids in school where we rolled the dice and then fed the letters to the Munchy Ball, and now that it is summer, we took the game to the pool so that we could swim for the letters. The fun foam letters float,…

Activities, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, games, Munchy Ball, OT, preschool, Recycled, visual perceptual

Munchy Ball's Adventures in Flight

Our Munchy Ball has been going on many adventures, and he is such a great toy to do so much different pretend play with. Recently, Munchy Ball wanted to go flying, which sounded like a great adventure and we just had to figure out how to make…

Activities, adult, child, Crossing Midline, elementary school age, games, gross motor, Motor Planning, motor planning, OT, PT, Range Of Motion, sensory motor, summer, teenage, tween - middle school, visual perceptual

Keeping Active in the Summer: Tennis

It is Summer and the kids are out of school. During school, the kids have recess and P.E. most days so they stay relatively active and work on many skills during school. In the Summer, if left to their own devices, many kids will choose…

Activities, bimanual, child, fine-motor, games, hand strengthening, Motor Planning, Munchy Ball, OT, preschool, Sensory, tween - middle school

More Kinetic Sand Fun

I posted about Kinetic Sand last year after I saw it at the AOTA conference and fell in love with how fun it was (you can read that post here). I did not have any of my own at that time, and it was not available in many stores yet. Since…

Activities, bimanual, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, games, hand strengthening, in-hand manipulation, Munchy Ball, OT, preschool, Sensory, sensory motor, tween - middle school

Messy Play and Fine Motor with Munchy Ball

Now that I have the new vinyl Munchy Balls, I was eager to use them in messy play. I started simple with water beads, which are the perfect size to feed to the Munchy Ball. It was fun to fill the ball up all the way and then have the ball…

Activities, adult, bimanual, child, elementary school age, fine-motor, games, hand strengthening, Munchy Ball, OT, preschool, Product Review, teenage, toddler, tween - middle school

New Vinyl Munchy Ball for Fine Motor

I am excited that the vinyl Munchy Balls are in the shop and they have great resistance to work on fine motor skills and hand strengthening. The great thing about them being vinyl balls is that they are washable, which is important when working…

Activities, adult, child, Clothespin Activities, elementary school age, featured guest, fine-motor, games, hand strengthening, Handwriting, OT, preschool, teenage, tween - middle school

Guess Who Clothespin Game

This is a guest post by Donna Abramson, OTR Opening and closing clothespins is a wonderful way for children to develop strength in the muscles of their hand, particularly the webspace - which helps them to hold the pencil with a correct tripod…

Activities, adult, child, elementary school age, favorite toys, fine-motor, hand strengthening, OT, preschool, season, Sponges, summer, teenage, toddler, tween - middle school, visual perceptual

Favorite Summer Toy: Six Water Play Tools for Fine Motor Skills

A group of therapist bloggers have gotten together to share what our favorite summer toys or activities are. This post is about my favorite summer toy, which is playing with water via squirt guns and other water tools. In order to see all…