Here are some suggestions for fun activities to try with your child over the spring and summer to help continue growth and development in their fine motor, visual motor, sensory, and body awareness skills. Please keep in mind that these activities are for kids ranging in age from kindergarten to fifth grade, so some activities may be too hard/easy for your child. Try and find the just right challenge for your child so that he/she is not bored or overwhelmed. Whichever activity or activities you choose, remember to HAVE FUN!
Rainy Day Activities
Strengthening Activities
Body Awareness Activities
Beach activities
Sensory Play
Games (some board games come in a miniature version with small pieces, this helps with fine motor development)
Rainy Day Activities
- Color by number
- Puzzles
- Connect the dots
- Crossword puzzles
- Hidden pictures
- Word Searches
- Mazes
- Painting/Finger painting
- Cut and paste activities (collages)
- Threading beads or macaroni onto string
- Manipulating clothes pegs to pick up small objects
- Sewing (Stringing lacing cards, making paper plate dream catchers, and sewing with a large needle on felt)
- Mosaics (Making mosaics from dried beans, small balls of tissue paper, pasta, buttons, or small paper shapes)
- Cooking and eating (Measuring ingredients, mixing cookie dough, kneading pizza dough, eating with children’s chopsticks)
- Paper mache Friendship bracelets
- Tie Dye
- Fuse beads
Strengthening Activities
- Therapy Putty/Play Doh (rolling, pinching, cutting)
- Wheelbarrow walking/racing
- Wall Pushups
- Scooter boards (have child face down on board)
- Jungle gym
Body Awareness Activities
- Twister
- Hopscotch
- Jump Rope
- Trampolines
- Bicycles
- Frisbee
- Charades
- Any outdoor sport/playground activities
Beach activities
- Carrying buckets of sand/water (strengthening)
- Building sand castles (fine motor/sensory)
- Wading in waves (balance)
- Writing ABCs or play Tic-Tac-Toe in sand
- Playing catch (bilateral coordination)
Sensory Play
- Sit-n-spin
- Ball pits
- Gak or Floam
- Make homemade playdoh
- Musical chairs
- Build forts out of pillow and blankets
- Swings
- Flashlight tag
- Write letters in shaving cream
- Secret Bag (put small objects in a non-see through bag and ask your child to guess what the object is based on the sense of touch alone)
- Gardening (Digging in the soil, pulling weeds, and picking up small seeds)
- Sidewalk chalk
Games (some board games come in a miniature version with small pieces, this helps with fine motor development)
- Connect Four
- Uno
- Memory
- Go Fish
- Scrabble
- Junior Pictionary
- Operation
- Bed Bugs
- Jenga
- Othello
- Mancala
- Tiddlywinks
- Checkers/Chess
- Perfection
- Pickup sticks
- Legos
- Trouble
- Jacks
- Darts