So you’re looking for some fun activities to try at home that can benefit your occupational therapy (OT) practice? Look no further! In this article, we have compiled a list of 10 engaging and enjoyable OT activities that you can easily incorporate into your daily routine. Whether you’re looking to improve fine motor skills, enhance sensory integration, or promote overall wellbeing, these activities are sure to provide both therapeutic benefits and hours of entertainment for you and your loved ones. So grab your creativity and let’s get started on this exciting OT adventure!
Sensory Play
DIY sensory bins
Sensory bins are a fantastic way to engage children in hands-on play that stimulates their senses. Creating your own sensory bin is not only easy and affordable, but it also allows you to tailor the experience to your child’s interests and developmental needs. You can use a plastic container or a shallow storage bin and fill it with a variety of materials such as rice, beans, sand, or water beads. Add in scoops, cups, and other tools for scooping and pouring, and watch your child explore different textures, sounds, and sensations.
Mess-free sensory bags
If you prefer a mess-free sensory experience, sensory bags are the perfect option. You can make these bags with simple household items like resealable plastic bags, hair gel, and food coloring. Simply pour the gel into the bag, add a few drops of food coloring, and seal it tightly. Your child can then squish and manipulate the bag to create different shapes and patterns. You can also add small objects like buttons or beads for extra sensory exploration. Mess-free and portable, sensory bags are a great tool for sensory play on the go.
Exploring textures with playdough
Playdough is a classic sensory activity that is loved by children of all ages. Not only does it provide a satisfying tactile experience, but it also enhances fine motor skills and creativity. You can make your own playdough at home using ingredients like flour, salt, water, and vegetable oil. Once you have your playdough ready, encourage your child to explore different textures by adding natural materials like rocks, leaves, or sticks. They can mold, shape, and squeeze the playdough, promoting sensory integration and imaginative play.
Fine Motor Skills
Scissor practice
Scissor practice is an essential skill for young children to develop their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Start with child-safe scissors and provide them with various cutting materials such as paper, straws, or playdough. Encourage your child to practice cutting along straight lines, curved lines, or even intricate shapes. Supervise them closely and teach them proper scissor grip techniques. As their skills improve, they can move on to more challenging cutting tasks, like cutting out pictures from magazines or making paper chains.
Threading beads
Threading beads is a fantastic activity for improving hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. Provide your child with a variety of large, colorful beads and a shoelace or a piece of string. Demonstrate how to thread the beads onto the lace, and let them explore different patterns and designs. Threading beads not only promotes dexterity and coordination but also encourages creativity and problem-solving as they experiment with different arrangements and color combinations.
Pom-pom sorting
Pom-pom sorting is a fun and engaging activity that helps develop fine motor skills and color recognition. Gather a set of colorful pom-poms and several plastic cups or bowls. Each cup or bowl should be a different color. Encourage your child to sort the pom-poms by color, placing them in the corresponding cup. This activity promotes hand-eye coordination, finger strength, and visual discrimination. To make it more challenging, you can use tweezers or tongs instead of hands for picking up the pom-poms.
Gross Motor Skills
Obstacle course
Create an indoor obstacle course using items you have at home, such as pillows, cushions, chairs, and hula hoops. Design a course that includes crawling under a table, jumping over pillows, balancing on a line of tape, and crawling through a tunnel made from cushions. This activity not only gets your child moving but also helps improve their balance, coordination, and overall gross motor skills. For added fun, time their progress and challenge them to beat their record!
Indoor balloon volleyball
Indoor balloon volleyball is a fantastic way to get your child moving while also improving their gross motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Blow up a balloon and use a piece of string or a makeshift net to create a divider between two sides of the room. Encourage your child to hit the balloon back and forth, trying to keep it off the ground. This activity promotes upper body strength, endurance, and spatial awareness in a fun and interactive way.
Yoga for kids
Introducing kids to yoga is a wonderful way to nurture their gross motor skills, flexibility, and body awareness. There are plenty of resources available online that offer kid-friendly yoga routines and poses. Encourage your child to stretch, balance, and flow through different poses while following along with a tutorial or video. Yoga not only promotes physical health but also helps children develop focus, mindfulness, and relaxation techniques.
Hand-Eye Coordination
Bean bag toss
Bean bag toss is a simple yet effective activity for improving hand-eye coordination and aiming skills. Set up a target using a cardboard box or draw a target on the ground with chalk. Have your child stand a few feet away and toss bean bags or soft balls towards the target. Encourage them to aim for different sections of the target to challenge their accuracy. This activity is not only entertaining but also helps develop motor control, depth perception, and concentration.
Ping pong ball painting
Ping pong ball painting is a creative twist on traditional painting that also enhances hand-eye coordination. Place a sheet of paper in a shallow box or tray and dip ping pong balls in various colors of paint. Let your child drop the balls onto the paper and tilt the box to roll the balls around. As the balls move, they create interesting patterns and designs on the paper. This activity encourages hand-eye coordination, as children have to control their movements to direct the balls and create their desired artwork.
Target practice with sticky notes
Target practice with sticky notes is a fun and interactive activity that helps improve hand-eye coordination and focus. Take a collection of sticky notes and place them on a wall or a door, creating targets at different heights. Provide your child with soft objects like soft balls or crumpled pieces of paper and challenge them to throw and hit the targets. Adjust the difficulty by varying the distance or the size of the targets. This activity promotes precision, spatial awareness, and concentration.
Visual Perception
Visual puzzles and mazes
Visual puzzles and mazes are excellent activities for enhancing visual perception and problem-solving skills. You can find printable puzzles or maze worksheets online or create your own. Encourage your child to navigate through the paths, find hidden objects, or solve puzzles by using their visual skills. These activities promote attention to detail, spatial awareness, and critical thinking.
Spot the difference games
Spot the difference games are a fun and engaging way to improve visual perception and attention to detail. Find printable spot the difference worksheets or use magazines or books with two similar pictures. Challenge your child to identify the differences between the two images. This activity sharpens their observational skills, visual discrimination, and concentration.
I Spy challenges
Playing I Spy is a classic game that helps develop visual perception and vocabulary skills. Take turns with your child to spy an object in the room and describe it using visual clues, such as its color, shape, or location. Encourage them to pay close attention to their surroundings and use their visual perception to spot the objects. This activity not only enhances observation skills but also promotes language development and creative thinking.
Cognitive Skills
Memory games
Memory games are excellent for improving cognitive skills such as concentration, attention, and memory recall. You can use a traditional deck of cards or create your own matching game using pictures or objects. Place the cards face down and take turns flipping them over, trying to find the matching pairs. Encourage your child to remember the position of the cards to increase the difficulty. Memory games enhance cognitive flexibility, visual memory, and problem-solving abilities.
Word search puzzles
Word search puzzles are not only a fun way to pass the time but also a great way to enhance cognitive skills such as visual scanning, attention to detail, and word recognition. Find printable word search puzzles or create your own by hiding words in a grid of letters. Challenge your child to find the words and circle them. Word search puzzles promote word association, vocabulary expansion, and pattern recognition.
Building with blocks
Building with blocks is a classic cognitive activity that promotes problem-solving, spatial awareness, and creativity. Provide your child with a variety of building blocks or Legos and let their imagination run wild as they construct structures, towers, or even their own inventions. Encourage them to work through challenges, think critically, and experiment with different designs. Building with blocks enhances cognitive skills, visual-spatial reasoning, and fine motor skills.
Balance and Coordination
Balance beam exercises
Balance beam exercises are a fantastic way to improve balance, coordination, and core strength. You can create a makeshift balance beam using a long piece of tape on the floor or use a wooden board placed on the ground. Encourage your child to practice walking, hopping, or even performing simple gymnastic moves on the beam. This activity challenges their balance, coordination, and stability while also promoting confidence and body awareness.
Sock skating on smooth floors
Sock skating on smooth floors is a fun and playful activity that improves balance and coordination. Have your child put on their socks and let them slide and glide across the room. This activity requires them to maintain their balance and adjust their movements accordingly, promoting coordination, agility, and proprioception. Just make sure the floors are clear of any hazards and always supervise your child during the activity.
Musical chairs
Musical chairs is a classic game that enhances balance, coordination, and listening skills. Set up chairs in a circle, one less than the number of participants. Play music and have your child and their friends walk around the chairs. When the music stops, everyone must find a chair to sit on. Remove one chair each round until only one chair is left, resulting in a friendly competition to secure a seat. Musical chairs encourages quick thinking, coordination, and balance control.
Social Skills
Role-playing games
Role-playing games are an excellent way for children to develop social skills, empathy, and problem-solving abilities. Encourage your child to engage in imaginative play, taking on different roles or scenarios. They can act out everyday situations like grocery shopping or pretend to be characters from their favorite books or movies. Role-playing games fosters creativity, communication, and social interaction as they navigate different social scenarios and emotions.
Charades
Charades is a classic game that promotes social interaction, communication, and teamwork. Create a list of actions or simple phrases and have each player take turns acting out the word or phrase without speaking. The other players must guess what they are acting out. Charades encourages nonverbal communication, imagination, and collaboration as players work together to interpret the clues and guess correctly.
Board game nights
Board game nights provide an opportunity for quality family time while also improving social skills such as turn-taking, sportsmanship, and strategic thinking. Gather a collection of age-appropriate board games and spend an evening playing together as a family. Engage in friendly competition, practice good sportsmanship, and encourage communication and cooperation. Board game nights not only strengthen family bonds but also develop important social skills.
Creativity and Imagination
Scrapbooking
Scrapbooking is a wonderful creative activity that allows children to showcase their memories and express their creativity. Provide your child with craft paper, photographs, markers, stickers, and other decorative materials. Encourage them to design their own scrapbook pages, arranging pictures, adding captions, and creating decorative elements. Scrapbooking enhances creativity, fine motor skills, and visual storytelling.
DIY crafts
DIY crafts are a great way to foster creativity, problem-solving, and fine motor skills. There are countless craft ideas available online that use materials you likely have at home, such as paper, cardboard, buttons, and yarn. Encourage your child to explore different craft projects like making paper masks, creating paper plate animals, or constructing a cardboard castle. DIY crafts offer opportunities for self-expression, imaginative play, and artistic exploration.
Make-believe storytelling
Encouraging your child to engage in make-believe storytelling not only stimulates their imagination but also promotes language development, creativity, and cognitive skills. Provide them with props, costumes, and a stage-like setting, and let them create their own stories or act out their favorite books or movies. Make-believe storytelling allows children to create characters, develop narratives, and practice problem-solving as they navigate different scenarios.
Relaxation and Sensory Breaks
Deep breathing exercises
Deep breathing exercises are a wonderful way to promote relaxation, self-regulation, and emotional well-being. Teach your child simple deep breathing techniques like belly breathing, where they take slow, deep breaths and focus on their breath filling their belly. Encourage them to practice these exercises when they feel stressed or overwhelmed. Deep breathing helps calm the nervous system, reduces anxiety, and fosters mindfulness.
Guided meditation for kids
Guided meditation for kids is a soothing and calming practice that helps them relax and develop mindfulness. There are numerous resources available online that offer guided meditations specifically designed for children. Find a quiet and comfortable space, play a guided meditation, and encourage your child to follow along. Guided meditation promotes emotional regulation, self-awareness, and stress reduction.
Soothing sensory bottles
Soothing sensory bottles are a simple and effective tool for providing sensory breaks and promoting relaxation. Fill a clear plastic bottle with water and add glitter, sequins, or sensory items like small beads or buttons. Tighten the lid securely. When your child feels overwhelmed, encourage them to shake the bottle and watch the glitter or sensory items float and settle. These sensory bottles provide a calming visual and auditory experience, helping children relax and self-soothe.
With these fun and engaging OT activities that can be done at home, you can support your child’s development across a range of skills. Whether it’s engaging in sensory play, enhancing motor skills, promoting cognitive abilities, or fostering social interaction, these activities provide a well-rounded and enjoyable way to support your child’s growth and development. So, get ready to have fun and bond with your child while they learn and thrive!
