Crafting in a Winter Wonderland
All of our kids enjoy spending time over the holidays with their families and taking a little break from school. This is a great time for caregivers to connect with their kids while helping them progress in their fine motor skills!
Hand Strengthening Exercises –
- Spray bottle – Just fill up a spray bottle with food coloring and water, then let your kids’ imagination go! Practice writing letters, drawing pictures, or shooting targets to work on those fine motor and visual motor skills! It’s a great way to work on building hand strength for any age.
- Snowball fight – Crumple pieces of paper to make giant snowballs. Afterward, get creative having a family-friendly snowball fight!
- Grabbing cotton balls with tongs – Put your kitchen tongs to good use picking up cotton balls to make a snowman!
Pincher Grasp Exercises –
- Dot stickers – For younger kids, this is a great way to work on both pincher grasp and visual motor skills!
- Beaded snowflake – Works on bilateral coordination, crossing midline, and perfecting that pincher grasp!
- Perler beads – For older kids, these tiny beads really push kids to use that fine pincher grasp. Afterward, you can show off their hard work on the refrigerator, the fireplace mantel, or even the tree!
Pre-Writing Activities – For children up to 5 years of age! Start working on simpler pre-writing exercises such as horizontal and vertical lines, then slowly work up to hard and more complex shapes! The bigger the utensil (big chalk, markers) the easier for kids to hold and manipulate.
- Window paint – Practice drawing lines and shapes on windows to create a winter wonderland!
- Homemade snow – Simple and fun thing to do at home. Just mix equal parts of conditioner and baking soda. Model how to draw lines and shapes in the snow!
- Play dough – Make snowballs, snowmen, candy canes, or letters!
Cutting Exercises –
- Cutting worksheets – There are so many free and fun cutting worksheets to target cutting lines, zig-zags, curves, and shapes!
- Snowman – Cut three big circles, paste them together, and let your child decorate them with whatever they want!
- New Years Countdown Chain – First have your kids cut 1 inch strips of paper. Have them write down one thing they want to do each hour leading up to midnight. Staple them together in a chain. Each hour leading up to the New Years, rip one off and celebrate by completing their idea!
Eyas Landing is a therapy clinic with a mission to provide evidence-based and family-centered therapy services for children, adolescents, and their families. The primary goal is to deliver relationship-based interventions within the most natural environments and to empower families to reach their full potential. To achieve this goal, our highly educated, compassionate staff dedicates time and expertise to create experiences that maximize therapeutic outcomes. The strength, determination, and perseverance of our clients are evident as they succeed in therapy, and ultimately in their daily lives.
Eyas Landing offers a wide range of comprehensive services including Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, ABA Therapy, Social Work, Family Therapy, and Neuropsych testing. Services are provided throughout the Chicagoland area via Telehealth, In-Home, and in our state of the art clinic.
Want to learn more or you have a specific question? Feel free to connect with us here!