By: Sara Sciarrino, MS, OTR/L
Working on increasing your child’s fine motor skills doesn’t have to be scary! Here are some spookily fun things you can do at home to improve bilateral coordination, hand strength, and visual-motor skills.
Straw Skeleton
What you’ll need:
- Construction paper
- Children’s scissors
- Plastic straws
- Liquid glue
How to do it:
- Draw a stick figure skeleton on the paper or print one out.
- Have your child cut the straws into various sized pieces. Encourage them to use one hand to hold the end of the straw while the other cuts.
- Place glue on the skeleton picture and have them stick the straw pieces where indicated.
Candy Corn Collage
What you’ll need:
- Orange, white, and yellow, and black construction paper
- Glue stick
- Scissors
How to do it:
- If your child is able, have them draw a large triangle on the black piece of paper. Then separate the triangle into three sections.
- Have your child cut the orange, yellow, and white paper into approximately 1 inch squares. If your child is only able to snip with scissors, pre-cut the paper into ruler sized strips and encourage them to hold the long side of the strip while they cut the pieces. If your child
is not using scissors yet, you can simply have them rip the strips into small pieces with
both hands. - Glue the pieces into each designated section.
Bobbing for Apples
What you’ll need:
- Large container (any bowl, bucket, or storage bin will work)
- Water
- Apples
- Large kitchen tongs
How to do it:
- Fill the container with water.
- Place as many apples as you would like in the water.
- Have your child squeeze the large kitchen tongs to pick up the apples one at a time.
If you have questions or want to share some activities that your family loves to do on Halloween, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us or leave a comment below.