Occupational Therapy
Anderson District 5
Practice Makes Perfect
Finding fun ways to practice fine motor and other "school ready skills" is the best way to help your child meet his or her goals. Below are some simple, inexpensive ideas and activities that will help make practicing at home fun.


OT's Love Play-Doh
​​Cutting Play-Doh with Scissors
Helps build hand strength needed for scissor skills and other fine motor tasks

Feed The Fish
Have your child pinch off small pieces of play-doh to make "fish food". Pretend that there is a fishy in the play doh container and have child drop the small pieces back in to the container to feed the "fish". Great activity for developing child's pincer grasp!

Make a Bird Nest
Start by making the nest. Roll a handful of play-doh into a medium sized ball. Have child insert thumb into the middle of the ball, and then pinch around the sides in a circular pattern using their pointer, middle finger and thumb. Last, roll remaining play-doh into small balls, between palms of hands to make the eggs.
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Re-Route your Routines
Household routines and chores can be a bore, but they can also serve as great learning opportunities. Here are some tips and tricks for turning daily household activities into learning opportunities.

Loads of Fun
Turn laundry time into learning time by letting your children help sort the clothes. They can practice sorting by color, by clothing item, or by texture. You can also play "I Spy" and have your child locate a specific item Ex. "I spy the blue sock". This activity is great for developing your child's visual perceptual abilities- which are needed in school to help them copy letters and numbers, and organize written assignments.
Kids In The Kitchen
Children learn best through the use of their senses. What better place to involve all the senses than in the Kitchen- giving your child and opportunity to touch, taste, see, feel, and listen as they learn.
Build Hand Strength by kneading bread or cookie dough Or Arm Strength & Bilateral Hand Coordination by stirring ingredients in a bowl with one hand, while stabilizing bowl with opposite hand:
Encourage bilateral hand use by rolling dough with a rolling pin or by pouring, scooping ingredients with measuring cups.
Increase letter recognition by making eatable letters with letter shaped cookie cutters.
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Multi-Sensory Learning is the Best
Multi-Sensory Learning means helping a child learn by incorporating more than one of the senses such as:
1. Visual- What you can seen
2. Auditory- What you can hear
3.Tactile/Kinesthetic- What can touch/feel through movement.


Build a Letter
What you will Need:
1. Pipe Cleaners
2. Craft Beads
Have your child string beads on to a pipe cleaner. Then have them bend the pipe cleaner to make letters of the alphabet. Younger children made need to see a picture of a letter as a model. Instead of beads, you can also do this activity with cheerios or fruit loops. Kids love eating their letter as a snack once they are finished building it! This activity promotes learning through visual and kinesthetic senses.
Shaving Cream Letters and Numbers
What you will need:
1, Shaving Cream (unscented is usually best)
2.Flat table top surface/Baking Pan
This will be messy but for the sake of learning! Allow your child to spread shaving cream on to a flat surface. Then with one finger, have your child practice letters and numbers in the shaving cream. Spreading shaving cream on the top of a baking pan also works well and is a little less messy!
Tissue Paper Tear
What you will need:
1. Tissue Paper
2. Construction Paper with Outlined letter or number
First, outline the letter or number on a piece of construction paper. Next have child tear tissue paper into small pieces. Then help your child squeeze small dots of glue inside the letter or number outline. Last, have your child fill in the outline by adhering the tissue paper to the glue. This activity is great for letter/number recognition, and developing grasp strength (tearing paper and squeezing glue bottle) needed for fine motor endurance.
Come On Get "App-y"
Technology can be an excellent tool for increasing your child's fine motor and visual skills. Here are some excellent Apps that we reccommend. However, don't forget to use other forms of practice! We see the best results when technology is used in addition to practice with good ole' fashion pencil, paper and crayons, and puzzles!
Letter School
Helps children learn the proper formation of letters and numbers by encouraging "perfect practice" in a fun and engaging way. Your child can use his or her finger to trace/write the letter, or even better, we recommend allowing them to use a stylus to improve pencil grasp and control of their writing utensil.
Touch and Write
Provides practice writing letters, numbers, names, and words and provides the option of "messy writing" with choices like pudding and shaving cream.
Dexteria Jr.
A great app with 3 different activities for promoting fine motor skills, including finger individualization, pincer grasp, and pre-writing strokes.
Bugs and Buttons
This app is 18 games in 1, which is a great bang for your buck! This app helps children practice fine motor and visual skills that are important for school related tasks.
Shape Builder
A virtual puzzle game that provides great practice for visual-spatial and problem solving skills.

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