OT Activity of the Day:
Beaded Pumpkin
Target Age Range: 4 and up
This is a great activity for your older Preschoolers. This works on bilateral coordination, visual motor skills, and fine motor manipulation.
All you need are some pipe cleaners and beads and, you too, can make a beaded pumpkin. I had each child pick out 15 beads (only because I was conserving beads, if you’re not worried about saving beads for 20+ kids then you can use however many will fit) and had them string their beads on the pipe cleaner. Once all 15 beads were on the pipe cleaner, we brought the ends together and twisted them up. This is excellent practice for fine motor manipulation and bilateral coordination. After the ends were all twisted up we took half a green pipe cleaner and wrapped it around the twisted part, another great challenge for promoting fine motor manipulation and bilateral coordination. As soon as the green piece is twisted on you have yourselves a beaded pumpkin with a green stem!
Enjoy!