Summer is in full swing and is a great time for fun family bonding activities, enjoying the fresh air, screen-free play outdoors, and incorporating fun therapeutic activities that will continue to build important fine motor and sensorimotor skills. Below are some fun activity ideas to help ensure your child maintains the gains they made this school year and will also help promote new skill development in lots of fun ways!
To ensure your child maintains gains made during the school year and continues to progress (and doesn't lose any skills) during summer break, it's important to provide activities that will help them maintain gains made during the school year and promote the development of new skills!
Below are just a few ideas to get you started.
Handwriting / Letter Formation
- Make letters with Wikki Stix
- Use a flashlight to write letters on the wall
- Draw letters and shapes using sidewalk chalk. Rainbow writing is especially fun with chalk (tracing the sample letter or shape over using a different color each time)!
- Use a finger or 2 finers to make letters on Gel Pads
- Practice letters with Do-a-Dot Markers
- Use Putty to roll long "snakes" and them form them putty snakes into letters, numbers, animals, and shapes. You make one first and have the child copy!
- Make letters with marshmallows on toothpicks, pennies, or Cheerios; provide letter or shape cards drawn on construction paper. Or make a template with sidewalk chalk and have the child place pennies or Cheerios on the sample letter.
- Have your children lay on the floor and make letter shapes with their bodies
- Play foam is fun for shaping letters.
- Finger painting letter shapes
- Draw letters and numbers in the sand at the beach or in a gift box filled with about 1/4" of sand
Hand Strengthening
- Hide small treasures in therapy putty for your child to find; use marbles to make "marble chip" putty cookies
- Pack a picnic lunch and put your child in charge of opening and closing Tupperware and sealing Ziploc snack baggies
- Use a squirt bottle to mist the plants and to "erase' sidewalk chalk art
- Incorporate different types of animal walks into your daily schedule (crab walk to breakfast, bear walk to the bathroom, wheelbarrow walk to the backdoor, etc). If you have multiple children, play follow-the-leader or set up an animal walk obstacle course outdoors!
- Plan cooking activities that involve stirring, kneading dough, opening containers; let the kids knead cookie and pizza dough with their hands; teach them to use a cookie press which typically requires a lot of finger strength.
- Play with ball launcher/ animal poppers / fingertip disc launchers. See if the kids can hit a paper or balloon target, or "shoot" the balls into a bucket!
- Fill a squirt gun with colored water and let your kid's imaginations loose in the backyard
Fine Motor Coordination / Precision
- Put money in a piggy bank to save for a special treat. The smaller the change, the greater the fine motor skills practice/challenge
- Encourage lots of fun activities that incorporate tongs (see this article for fun activity ideas)
- String beads to make a bracelet or necklace
- Use eye droppers during water play
- Have your kids design a cardboard racetrack and race wind up toys
- Play dress up. Use clothing with as many different types of fasteners as possible
- Build card houses or set up a domino track
- Check our Pinterest page for more cool fine motor motor crafts for kids: https://www.pinterest.com/therapyshoppe/fine-motor-crafts/
Cutting Skills
- Tear up pieces of magazines or junk mail and glue them on construction paper to make a collage
- Have your child help cut out coupons
- Set up 2 buckets (one full of water, one empty) and have your child use a sponge and squeeze it out to transfer water between buckets. This is a great activity for group play - make it a relay race!
- Use a hole punch to decorate around the edges of homemade cards
- Activities with tongs (see this article for specific ideas)
- Tear paper into strips using the thumb and index finger
- Practice cutting using a variety of textures and consistencies (regular paper, construction paper, cardstock, envelopes full of junk mail, playdough, cardboard, sand paper, etc.)
- Try a variety of different types of scissors to see what works best for your child
Bilateral Coordination
- Swimming lessons
- Hopscotch
- Play with a Zipper Zoom Ball
- Riding a bicycle
- Jump rope
- Washing the car with a cloth/sponge in each hand
- Legos and other constructional toys such as nut and bolt fidgets, pop beads, stacking pegs, and Plus Plus Playsets
- Play catch with a velcro catch set
More articles you might enjoy:
Summer Fun Fine Motor Activities
Fun Ways to Boost Your Child's Fine Motor Skills This Summer