OT Activity of the Day:
Feed the Turkey
Target Age Range: 2 and up
This is a super fun way to work on hand strength in your young children. Early hand strength is important because it sets the stage for how your child will hold on to their pencil/marker and be able to participate in fine motor activities in general.
For set up, all you need to do is turn an empty tissue box into a turkey. This took all of 5 minutes and all I did was take two pieces of brown construction paper and wrap up an empty tissue box and then cut out the mouth. From there I made the feathers, I used craft scissors for some flare, and glued them on along with the googly eyes. Next I took an eye dropper, pom poms, and dice and turned it into a fun game.
The object is to use the eye dropper to get the pom poms into the mouth of the turkey. If squeezing the eye dropper becomes too challenging, you can always work on the pincer grasp or manipulation of multiple items in one hand. When your child is shaking the dice, don’t forget to have them use two hands for bilateral coordination practice!
Variations:
If your child is older and would find this activity appealing, you can always have them cut out the feathers! Craft scissors are motivating, so pull those out if you have them!
You don’t have to use number dice, you can use colored dice to work on color identification instead.
Enjoy!