Skill: Grasp

How the hand holds an object. A mature grasp allows a child to hold a pencil efficiently for writing, while a strong grasp helps them hold onto monkey bars.

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.

Rainbow Fish

On the paper plate, draw a V shape, starting at the edge of the plate and pointing to the center of the plate (once the child cuts this part, it will be used as the fish’s tail). Ask the child to cut the lines (provide assistance as needed) and glue the “triangle” to the paper plate, forming the fish.

Have the child use the water colors to paint the fish, using as many colors as he wishes. Let the child glue a googly eye or draw an eye for the fish using a marker/crayon.

The painting can be done using water colors, tempera paint, markers, and even dot paint. To promote pincer grasp, let the child peel small stickers and decorate the fish with them.

Therapy Snowman

Make two circles (one big and one small) from construction paper, to be used as stencils for the snowman’s body and face. You may also make a stencil for a hat.

Let the child trace the circles on a white construction paper and trace the hat on a piece of fabric.

If needed, trace the child’s circle to make a wider line to assist with cutting accuracy.

Ask the child to cut the traced shapes.

On a separate piece of construction paper, have the child glue the circles and the hat: the big circle on the bottom for the body and the small circle on the top for the snowman’s face.

Ask the child to draw the snowman’s face using markers or crayons.

Cut out a stripe from the tissue paper for the scarf and let the child glue it on the snowman.

For buttons, let the child glue pom-poms, buttons, or stickers on the big circle.

Use the wooden sticks or branches for hands.

If you wish to work on handwriting skills, let the child write a story about the snowman.