Printables

When practicing shoe tying, it is best to have the shoe sitting in front of the child either on the floor or the table. I don’t always have a shoe with me (I have been known to take my own shoe off to use for practice), so I made a shoe printable and attached it… [Continue Reading]

Here is a cute little activity that combines in hand manipulation with fine motor control to place objects in just the right place. I made some leaves, printed them on cardstock, and laminated them to give them more strength. Then I balanced the leaf on a little cube. It is like the leaf is floating… [Continue Reading]

This is a very simple activity that is easily used with a scooterboard or other motor activity.  You start with clothespins at one end of the room with numbers written on them.  The child attaches the clothespins to the bottom of their shirt.  You could have a ribbon for them to attach them to if… [Continue Reading]

I started this craft thinking it would be so cute to cut out bugs and glue them onto a bug box like you caught the bugs.  This morphed into a jar, because a jar is see through, and a bug box is not.  It then morphed into a full game with clothespins and everything, but… [Continue Reading]

When I do a cutting and gluing activity, I like to squeeze in some writing too, so I made this base paper that I use to glue the project onto. There is space on that right side of the paper to glue the craft, and then lines on the left side to write a little… [Continue Reading]

For a fun valentine craft this year, I had the kids color hearts, cut them out, and make butterflies out of them.  I think that they made adorable little love bugs.  Maybe next I will create different bugs to be cut out, but for now it is butterflies. I had the kids glue their butterflies… [Continue Reading]

Here is an easy bingo game for some Valentine’s Day fine motor fun.  This activity was submitted by Barbara Bailey.  Make the dice by fastening corresponding colors to a wooden or foam cube. To play the game, pour candy hearts into a paper plate.   Each player roles the dice and uses either a pickle picker,… [Continue Reading]

Cootie catchers are great fun for kids to play, and they lend themselves very well to the learning environment. I use them in order to have kids work on writing within small designated spaces, and they can be used to work on counting and review. I have re-vamped my cootie catcher templates to include some… [Continue Reading]

Today we have a guest post submitted by Barbara Bailey.  This is an activity that she has made, and uses in the winter.  Now here it is in her own words (and pictures). This game works on visual memory and can be adapted to include a variety of gross motor challenges such as prone on… [Continue Reading]

I saw these little Monster Marbles at Walmart, and had to know what they were. They are little monster characters with a marble on the bottom so that the figures roll across the table. They just come with the little monsters only, and I decided they were perfect to use in a game, so I… [Continue Reading]

Karen over at Miss Awesomeness uses Lava Paper that she thought up and that I made for her. I have tried the Lava Paper with some of my kids as well, but many of my students had trouble with the “complex” concept of Lava. I know lava is not truly that complex, but many of… [Continue Reading]

I have posted about Q-tip painting before, but another therapist has a different twist on it.  She has made some templates to do the q-tip painting, which requires more precision in the painting. This is a guest post by a therapist,  Tova Stulberger, who made some templates to use when Q-tip painting. Instructions: Kids dip… [Continue Reading]

I finally completed another set of pencil adventures.  These have been partially done for ages, and I made a big push to finish them completely.  There are 7 of them, and include: The Cafeteria, Hawaiian Vacation, Ski Vacation, Halloween Haunted House, and 3 pages of race tracks that include race track letters to follow. Since… [Continue Reading]

I love to play hang man in therapy because it motivates kids, and they can practice writing their letters and focus on getting the letters on the line, and forming them properly. I usually just play on a blank piece of paper, but I thought that I would make a template that has the spaces… [Continue Reading]

I have seen fabric marble mazes in catalogs, and decided to make my own as I have a lot of fabric sitting around from other projects, and I am not too bad on a sewing machine.  I was even helping with a children’s sewing class, so thought that they would be able to try making… [Continue Reading]

I wanted to work on in-hand manipulation skills with some kids, and decided to use little pieces of broken off crayon.  I had them hold two crayons at the same time, one in their palm, and one in their fingers.  Then I had them draw a shape (I had circles and rainbows) with one color,… [Continue Reading]

I saw these Big Mouth Critters on a blog called Whimsical Publishing, and thought that they were so cute, and that it would be a great activity for some of my students to do. Some kids need the challenge of following the folding directions and trying to make the creature themselves, but others have trouble… [Continue Reading]

Karen over at (B)e(LO)n(G) OT has been drawing Lava paper and using it to practice writing, so I made some for her in photoshop, and have been using it as well.  Karen has a couple of posts about using her paper, and I use it in the same way. When writing, all the letters have… [Continue Reading]

I saw a picture of wooden frog pieces glued onto a clothespin on pinterest, and I thought that it was a great idea, and that I needed to make one for kids to play with when working with Clothespins and finger strengthening. I made the frog picture in photoshop, and then cut him in half. … [Continue Reading]

UPDATE:  I have an easier way to make the boards.  New post about it on 1/30/2012   To make the clothespin game board, you will need a stiff material. I used coroplast ( White Corrugated Plastic ), which is an awesome material to work with. It can be made out of foam core as well,… [Continue Reading]

When working on visual perceptual skills, placing body parts on Mr. Potato head can be a great tool. The real Mr. Potato Head is great for working on fine motor and visual perception, but sometimes you want a smaller and simpler activity. Meet flat potato head. I made some potato head parts on the computer… [Continue Reading]

I saw this cute little snow man mentioned on a teacher’s site, and I thought it would be perfect to use in therapy.  I do not know the original source of the picture, so if you do, let me know so I can link to it. There is a plain white picture to color and… [Continue Reading]

The blog at Pediastaff was looking for some therapy games that have a connection to Hanukkah, and I have been making a bunch of games lately. My son was thrilled to help me create a board game using a dreidel to determine the spaces you move. I made a game board that would fit with… [Continue Reading]

I like to work on many skills within the same activity, and these folded flowers definitely do that.  I discovered these via pinterest, and they are originally on Whimsical World of Laura Bird.  I often have kids that need to work on writing small enough to fit into a specified space, such as writing answers… [Continue Reading]

Halloween is right around the corner, so here is a pumpkin template to cut out and glue on a piece of paper.  Cut out the eyes, nose, and mouth, and glue them on.  Here is a white pumpkin in case you want your students to color it too. I then had my students write what… [Continue Reading]

I found a blog post about printing out a skeleton onto magnet paper and then putting it together onto a magnetic door.  Here is a cute Skelly the Skeleton from the toymaker.com, to print out and use in Halloween activities.  I think that I may print it out and have the kids cut it out… [Continue Reading]

A simple activity that I did a few weeks ago is making a paper rainbow mosaic. I drew the rainbow template and cut it out. I then had my student trace around the curved rainbow lines and cut them out of colored construction paper. We then glued the rainbow onto a sheet of white paper,… [Continue Reading]

I have been working with several kids who have visual perceptual problems, and they have a hard time with some of the simple tasks. I am working on getting back to basics with them so that we can build on it. I wanted to have them put together shapes to make objects, and I made… [Continue Reading]

Here is a post submitted by a reader: This is a good activity for drawing circles, handwriting, and cutting, as well as pattern recognition.  I created a “caterpillar head” print out and have the kids each color and cut out the head. Then, they choose three colors of construction paper to use to make the… [Continue Reading]

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.  Here… [Continue Reading]

Valentines is almost here, and I made an activity to make a paper flower bouquet. I created some flower templates, but my daughter said that they were too hard, so I simplified them, and these ones are much easier. You could print the template one time onto card stock and then have the student trace… [Continue Reading]

I have been brainstorming to come up with fun activities that work on strengthening the fingers for fine pinch and tripod grasp. Using pinch clips with craft foam pieces was a natural direction to go as they worked well with the sentence copying activity. I started to cut ½ inch cubes of the thicker craft… [Continue Reading]

I did this activity on Monday.  I used the christmas tree cutting template that I made.  We cut out the shapes and glued them in place on one side of a piece of paper.  On the other side of the paper, I made lines to write on.  My client colored her tree first, but I… [Continue Reading]

Here is a snow man template to color and cut.  The client has to draw the face and add any extra accessories. Here is a picture of the template. Here is a PDF file for the snow man template.

Here is a Christmas tree template for coloring, cutting and putting together.  First the finished product. Next, the template.  I have the template both plain white, and in colors. Here is the PDF file for the colored template.  And here is the PDF file for the white template.

I have been working on some new printables to cut out with scissors and paste together.  It is time to get into the winter and holiday spirit, so here is my gingerbread man.  First is the finished product. Here is the template to color and cut. Here is the PDF file to print out.

Very frequently, I draw a path for kids to follow with their pencil.  I often draw animals beside the path to make it fun and tell them they have to stay on the path so that the lion won’t get them.  I have wanted to have some fun ready made ones, but they are hard… [Continue Reading]

I have created more scissor cutting designs.  Have the client color it in, cut out the shapes and glue it all together.  Here is a car design. Here is the link to the PDF finished sample. here is the PDF for the cut out template.

Cutting with scissors is a skill that works on bimanual skills, motor planning, fine motor, etc. I have created some templates to practice cutting, coloring, and then paste them together to create the picture. Since Thanksgiving is right around the corner, here is a Turkey template to work on with your kids in therapy. You… [Continue Reading]

Coloring pictures is good for hand strengthening, and visual motor skills. I have some coloring pages that will challenge anyone’s fine motor skills and visual motor/visual-perceptual skills. These are called altair designs, and I have a book that my mother gave me from when she was an art teacher. As you look at the designs,… [Continue Reading]

For this activity, we are incorporating very simple coloring and cutting of easy shapes. Then you can put those shapes together to make a pretty picture to take home. Two simple designs to choose from are a flower or a butterfly. With the flower, you have a circle for the center and ovals for the… [Continue Reading]

Any square piece of paper can be made into a Cootie Catcher. Fold two corners together and crease firmly. unfold.  Then fold the other two corners together and crease again. Fold each corner point into the center. flip it over and fold all four of these corners into the center. Under the inside flaps, you… [Continue Reading]