Skill: Visual Motor

How the eyes and hands work together as a team. This is essential for tasks where movement is guided by vision, like catching a ball, cutting on a line, or staying within the lines when coloring.

Paper Bag Fish

Have the child crumple the newspapers into small paper balls.

Stuff the paper bag with the crumpled newspapers.

Use the yarn or a ribbon to tie a knot close to the edge of the open end to close the paper bag.

Ask the child to paint the filled paper bag using either a brush or cotton balls.

Glue large googly eyes.

For grading, you can ask the child to draw eyes on construction paper and cut/glue it onto the paper bag.

Lay a piece of yarn on the fish (below the eyes) to make a mouth. Use some glue to hold it in place.

To promote tactile perception, you can let the child finger paint the paper bag instead of using other media.

Hats for All

Draw a line from the outside edge of the paper plate into the center.

On the construction paper, draw different shapes (note: some ideas for shapes your child can cut are red, blue, and white stripes, stars, or circles for 4th of July, hearts for Valentine’s day, or flowers for springtime).

Provide the child with a pair of scissors and ask him to first cut along the line you drew on the plate and then cut the different shapes you traced on the paper.

Overlap the edges of the paper plate to create a hat shape and staple them together.

Have the child glue the different cut out shapes on the hat.

Finally, help your child poke two holes on each side of the plate and put the lace through each hole.

Finger Puppet Mouse

Using the construction paper and pencil, draw a circle onto the paper.

The circle needs to be about 8 inches across, so if you are not comfortable with drawing a circle on your own, you can draw round something like a cup or a bowl. Mark the middle of your circle with a small dot.

Take the scissors and carefully cut around the circle that you have drawn. Then make one cut from the edge of the circle to the middle that you have marked, and then another cut a quarter of the way along so you cut a wedge out of the circle.

Bring one cut side over the other side of the paper, creating a cone shape, the more you overlap the two side, the thinner the cone will be. Stick the sides down firmly with the glue.

Cut the string into 4 very short pieces for the whiskers, and a longer bit for the tail, carefully using the scissors.

Stick the tail onto the base of the cone using the glue, and two whiskers either side of the cone near the top.

Take a colored pen and draw a nose on the very end of the cone. You can choose any color you want but black or pink usually work best.

Stick on the two wiggle eyes on the top of the cone, just above the whiskers.

For the mouses’ ears, take the construction paper and cut out two tiny circles and stick these just behind the eyes.

Cut Me a Tree

For this activity, you will need to use brown and green construction paper. 

Have the child trace your hand on the green paper, then trace one or two of their own. On the brown paper, ask the child to draw a large rectangle (depending on the child’s developmental skills, you might have him trace or copy the rectangle). Let the child cut the traced hands and rectangle he drew. 

On a large piece of construction paper, have the child glue the large hand on the rectangle, fingers pointing down, then the other hands, fingers pointing down as well (for a blooming tree, have the child glue the traced hands with the fingers pointing up). Using colored foam sheets, let the child draw and cut other shapes, then glue them on the tree as ornaments or flowers. To promote pincer grasp, have the child use the stickers for additional decorations.

Marshmallow Stamper

Place paint in a shallow bowl or a paper plate. Have the child dip a piece of marshmallow or foam in the paint and stamp it onto the construction paper.

You can let the child create his own picture or if you would like to work on visual-motor skills, you can have the child trace lines, shapes, and letters.

You can use small or big marshmallow for this activity.

For children that tend to place objects in their mouths, you might want to try using Jell-O mixed with a small amount of water and use it as your paint.