Beach Find and Color – Hang Ten Dude

Beach Find and Color Hang Ten Dude is the latest freebie from a new Beach Sensory Motor Packet.  Practice visual discrimination and visual motor skills searching for these fun, cute surfer pictures.

DOWNLOAD BEACH FIND AND COLOR.

This freebie is from the Beach Sensory Motor Packet of 20+ games and activities to encourage fine motor, gross motor and visual perceptual skills.  Find out more.

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Wishing You a Happy Mother’s Day Fingerprint Craft

As a mother of 6 children, I happen to LOVE homemade Mother’s Day crafts.  I also love anything that has a child’s fingerprints, hand prints or a drawing on it.  I created the Wishing You a Happy Mother’s Day Fingerprint Craft template so the children can simply press their finger prints on to the paper to give Mom an adorable keepsake (see below for the download).  Not to mention, children will get some nice practice in for fine motor skills, visual motor skills and tactile input.

All you have to do is print the Mother’s Day Fingerprint Craft template and start adding fingerprints.  If the child doesn’t want to use his/her fingerprints, sponge painting works well too.

If you want to add in some oral motor skills, you could drop some paint on the paper and blow it across the page using a straw (see here for an example of this).

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE WISHING YOU A HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TEMPLATE

Looking for more Mother’s Day activities?  Check out Mother’s Day Movement Cards and Games.

Looking for more Fingerprint Fun?  Check this out!

Enjoy and Happy Mother’s Day!

 

The post Wishing You a Happy Mother’s Day Fingerprint Craft appeared first on Your Therapy Source.

Groundhog Day Visual & Gross Motor Challenge

Take the Groundhog Day Motor Minute Challenge.  Can you complete all the visual motor and gross motor tasks on this page in under two minutes?  This is quick, NO PREP, warm up activity, brain break, indoor recess or boredom buster for Groundhog Day.  And it is FREE! Woohoo!  We all love free.

If you like this activity check out the Motor Minute Challenges for any day of the week. Motor Minute Challenges is an electronic book of 20 sheets to complete that encourage fine motor, visual motor and gross motor skills. Complete each challenge sheet by finishing pictures, mazes, physical activities and more. Time the tasks for 1-3 minutes or let the child complete each one at his/her own pace. These pages are great for challenges at home, indoor recess time, rainy day activities and push in or pull out therapy sessions.   Find out more.

DOWNLOAD the Groundhog Day Motor Minute Challenge

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3 FUN Elephant Activities to Practice Fine, Gross and Visual Motor Skills

Here are 3 fun elephant activities to play to practice fine motor, gross motor and visual motor skills.  Big bonus – It is actually Elephant Appreciation Day!  Who knew?  Me! Only because I just heard it on the radio.  Haha!  But it did spark a few ideas for the blog.  So here we go:

Copy the Elephant – download this activity to practice visual motor skills.  There are two versions – easy: copy the entire elephant and hard: complete the elephant picture.  There are more spatial reasoning activities included in the Grid Drawing download (or just grab another freebie).

Elephant Fine Motor Game – download this activity to practice fine motor skills, math skills and finger strengthening if you use play dough.

Elephant Gross Motor Activity – here is a fun brain break from Just Dance Kids.  It starts off with a monkey dance but keep dancing and you will soon be acting like an elephant.  Need more brain breaks?  Check out Your Therapy Source.

The post 3 FUN Elephant Activities to Practice Fine, Gross and Visual Motor Skills appeared first on Your Therapy Source.

Visual Perceptual Find and Color – School

Here is a visual perceptual freebie Find and Color for back to school from the School Doodle Find packet.  Challenge your student’s visual scanning and visual motor skills with this activity.  Can you find and color the 7 different school items?

DOWNLOAD the School Doodle Find freebie.

This freebie is from School Doodle Find, a visual perceptual game that includes 4 different game boards, 6 recording pages and 5 Find and Color pages. This game requires no preparation – just print and play! In addition, there are directions included to create a travel version of the game. This activity challenges visual tracking, visual scanning, visual discrimination and visual motor skills.  Print off multiple copies for your students and your activities are ready to go! Find out more about School Doodle Find.

The post Visual Perceptual Find and Color – School appeared first on Your Therapy Source.

Cut, Sequence and Draw Trucks

Practice scissor skills, sequencing, glueing, following directions and drawing all with this one activity – Cut, Sequence, Paste and Draw Transportation. Download this truck freebie to get started with this no-prep activity.

Find out more information on the complete Cut, Sequence, Paste and Draw Transportation Packet.

Looking for different themes?

Check out Cut, Sequence, Paste and Draw Alphabet where each pictures starts off with writing a letter of the alphabet.

Check out Cut, Sequence, Paste and Draw Monsters.

COMING SOON – Cut, Sequence, Paste and Draw DINOSAURS!!!!!

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Tracing or Picture Poke FREEBIE

Check out these adorable tracing or picture poke cards to practice visual motor skills and finger strengthening.  You can download over at YourTherapySource or here http://yourtherapysource.com/freetracepoke.html

Fading Lines and Shapes Freebie

Since the Fading Alphabet packet has sold so well, I decided to make a Fading Lines and Shapes packet for pre-writing and shape formation.  Each worksheet gradually increases in visual motor difficulty with decreasing visual input for line and shape formation.

You can download some free sample pages athttp://yourtherapysource.com/fadinglinesshapesfreebie or check out the complete download at http://yourtherapysource.com/fadinglinesshapes.html

Quiet Eye Training to Help with Visual Motor Skills

Are you familiar with "Quiet Eye Training"?  This is a technique that attempts to get the eye to focus more instead of flicking about during coordination tasks.  It teaches the eye to look at the ball long enough to process the information.  The individual is reminded to briefly look at the exact spot where you want to send the ball (throwing or kicking) and then settle your eyes onto the ball and leave your focus on the ball.

A recent study in Research in Developmental Disabilities looked at using the Quiet Eye Training (QET) with 30 children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD).  Previous research indicated that QET was more effective than traditional training (TT) when teaching 8-10 year old children to throw and catch.  Traditional training teaches children how to control their arm movements during throwing and catching.

During the training the children were evaluated on performance and gaze.  In addition, motion analysis data was collected at pre/post-training and 6-week retention.

The results indicated that the QET group significantly increased QE durations from pre-training to the 6 week retention whereas the TT group experienced a reduction in QE.  QET participants showed significant improvement in the quality of their catch attempts and increased elbow flexion at catch compared to the TT group.

The researchers concluded that: QET changed DCD children's ability to focus on a target on the wall prior to the throw, followed by better anticipation and pursuit tracking on the ball, which in turn led to improved catching technique. QET may be an effective adjunct to traditional instructions, for therapists teaching visuomotor skills to children with DCD".

Do you use QET in your therapy sessions?  Would love to hear about the outcomes?

Reference:  C.A.L. Miles, G. Wood, S.J. Vine, J.N. Vickers, M.R. Wilson.
Quiet eye training facilitates visuomotor coordination in children with developmental coordination disorder.  Research in Developmental Disabilities. Volume 40, May 2015, Pages 31–41. doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2015.01.005

Visual Motor Exercises includes 25 long mazes and patterns to print, assemble and complete to practice pencil control.  Find out more at http://yourtherapysource.com/vme.html

Visual Tracking and Visual Motor Freebie

Here is a FREE sample activity from Find the Animals.  Challenge visual tracking, visual spatial and visual motor skills with this activity.  You can download the free puzzles here http://yourtherapysource.com/findanimalsfreebie.html

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Get the complete download here http://yourtherapysource.com/findanimals.html

Color By Copy - Visual Motor and Visual Spatial Activity

Download these free visual motor and visual spatial activities.  Simply color the picture on the right exactly like the picture on the left.  You can download color by copy freebie here http://yourtherapysource.com/freecolorbycopy

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Title: Color Coding
By: Your Therapy Source

Summary: 40+ pages to encourage visual discrimination and visual motor skills with color coding activities.  Find out more at http://yourtherapysource.com/colorcoding.html

 

Lines, Lines and More Lines Free Sample Pages

Here are two free sample pages from the latest download - Lines, Lines and More Lines.  Practice pre-writing strokes and pencil control with this fun packet.  You can get the freebies here http://yourtherapysource.com/linesfreebie.html

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Spring Time Tulips - Finish the Picture

Here is a Spring time freebie to practice visual motor skills and attention to detail with this tulip picture.  Download it at http://yourtherapysource.com/holidayspringfreebie.html

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Download the complete packet of Finish the Picture - Spring Edition here http://yourtherapysource.com/holidayspring.html

Springtime Visual Perceptual Freebie

Download this visual discrimination freebie from Spring Visual Perceptual Puzzles at http://yourtherapysource.com/vpspringfree

You can view the entire Spring Visual Perceptual Puzzle packet at http://yourtherapysource.com/vpspring.html



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Easy Visual Motor Activity

Here is a simple activity to set up that incorporates fine motor and visual motor skills.

1.  Download the template for the activity at http://yourtherapysource.com/freeeasyvisual.html

2.  Ask the child to put stickers in each box.  If you do not have stickers, the child can cut out different shapes.  Glue the shapes in each box.

3.  Ask the child to trace over and around each shape.

That's it!  Super simple with materials that you have around the house or school.

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Visual Motor Bingo:  This download is a collection of 5 different bingo games to print and play. There are game boards for pre-writing skills, shape formation, letter formation (capital and lowercase) and number formation. You can print and create your own dice or use calling cards for the games. For letter and number formation there are two versions - you can trace dotted letters or trace over letters directly. To practice letter/number recognition you can just practice finding the letters/numbers instead of tracing.  FIND OUT MORE AT http://www.yourtherapysource.com/vingo.html

6 Free Printables for Valentine's Day

Need some quick activities for Valentines Day?  Check out these 6 freebies.



1.  Follow that Monster:  Visual discrimination and visual motor activity from http://yourtherapysource.com/vpvalentinefree.html

2.  Multisensory Handwriting Activity for Valentine's Day from http://yourtherapysource.com/msvalentinefreebie.html



 

3.  Sample Pages from Valentine's Day Handwriting Activities at  http://yourtherapysource.com/valentinefree.html



 

4.  Conversation Heart Clothes Pins at  http://yourtherapysource.com/freeconversation.html

5.  Love Bug Pencil Critters from http://yourtherapysource.com/fmvalentinefree.html

6.  Valentine's Day Exercises from http://yourtherapysource.com/freevalentinebrainbreak.html

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After all those Valentine's Day treats get the kids moving with Brain Breaks for Valentine's Day.  Find out more at http://yourtherapysource.com/brainbreaksvalentine.html

 

 

 

Step By Step Directions for a Mini Snowman Scene

After seeing this artist trading card idea at Art Projects for Kids (excellent website by the way), I thought this would make a wonderful craft projects for children who can benefit from practicing fine motor skills, scissor skills, sequencing, visual motor skills and creativity.

You can download the one page step by step directions fro the Mini Snowman Scene at http://yourtherapysource.com/freesnowmanscene.html.

The added bonus is if you make it artist trading card size you can have the children start a collection of their cards.  You can read more about artist trading cards and download a lesson plan at http://yourtherapysource.com/OTarttradingcards.html.

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Need more step by step projects to practice sequencing, scissor and visual motor skills?  Check out Cut, Sequence, Paste and Draw at http://yourtherapysource.com/cutsequencedrawaz.html and download a free sample page too!

Follow that Monster Visual Perceptual Activity

Challenge visual discrimination, visual spatial relationships and visual motor skills with this free printable.  Download just in time for Valentine's Day at http://yourtherapysource.com/vpvalentinefree.html

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Penguin Pencil Challenges Freebie

Get more information on the latest download - Penguin Pencil Challenges at http://www.yourtherapysource.com/pencilchallengespenguin.html



Here are some free sample pages from Penguin Pencil Challenges to practice visual motor skills. You can download them at http://www.yourtherapysource.com/pencilchallengespenguinfree.html

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"Here Comes Santa Claus" Visual Motor Freebie

Practice visual motor skills and handwriting with this new freebie with a Santa Claus theme.  You can download it at http://yourtherapysource.com/freesantarace.html