Paper Star Fish

Download and print the Star Fish template.

Ask the child to cut out the star fish image. For children that have difficulties with cutting skills, it is recommended to cut on heavier paper (i.e card-stock or construction paper), and provide with thicker lines/boundaries.

Using the tissue paper, instruct the child to tear pieces of the paper and crumble them into small balls. Encourage the child to move his thumb, pointer, and middle fingers in a circular motion.

Have the child glue the tissue paper balls on the star fish.

If you are using construction paper only, you can cut strips of paper, and let the child tear small pieces to glue on the star fish. If using beans, buttons, or sequins, you can promote pincer grasp by using tongs/tweezers to pick up the items to glue. Stickers can also be used.

Paper Roll Sheep

Cut out an oval for the head of the sheep from the construction paper using the scissors.

The oval should be about half the length of the toilet roll tube.

Stick masking tape on the underside of the head and stick onto the inside of the tube. Then put some on the top of the head and onto the top of the tube.

Paint the head using black paint and stick on the wiggle eyes.

Take the masking tape and stick two of the sticks on each side of the tube to create legs.

Cover the tube in glue and stick on the cotton balls.

Egg Carton Fish

Using the scissors, carefully cut around each egg cup, so that you are left with half a ball shape.

You will need three eggs cups for each fish, so cut as many as you would like, depending on how many fish you are planning to make.

Take the paint and the paintbrush and paint the fish.

When the paint is dry, use the glue to stick two of the egg cups together edge to edge, to create a whole ball shape.

Take the third egg cup and turn it around, stick it end to end with the ball. It should now start to look like a fish. Then wait for the glue to dry.

Once the glue is dry, stick on the wiggle eyes onto the front of the fish.

Take the paper and cut two small triangles out for each fish. The paper can be any color that you would like, or it could match the color of the fish. These will be the fins.

Stick one fin each side of the fish.

Matching Color Cups

– Select four colors of paint to use.
– Put one color on the outside of four different cups so it can be seen & used for matching.
– Take the rest of your cups and put various colored dots on the inside bottom of the cup.

To play the game:
– All the cups are turned upside down so the colors inside cannot be seen.
– The child has to pick up the cup, turn it over (supination) to see what color is on the bottom of the cup, then find the matching cup with the paint on the outside and stack it on top using pronation to turn the cup over again.

This works well seated on a scooter board as well:
– Place one cup of each color at one end of the room and the rest of the cups at the other end and have the child bring one cup at a time over to stack it on the matching pile.

Replace paint with markers, crayons, or stamps.

Touch and Match

For the purpose of describing the activity, we chose beans and foam sheets. You can use any media you would like to fill up your container (i.e. corn kernels, cotton balls, macaroni, bird’s seeds, send, etc.)and any objects to hide (i.e.buttons, pom-poms, pegs, coins, etc.).

Use the foam sheets and cut pairs of different shapes (you can also use different color sheets and cut a pair of the same shape in each color). Fill up the container with the beans. Hide one shape from each pair inside the container and place the other shape in front of the child.

Have the child dig his hands through the beans and find the matching shapes, taking them out one shape at a time.