The Top 5 Occupational Therapy
Halloween Activities
🎃 Enjoy these festive “OT Tested and Kid Approved” Halloween activities while supporting your child’s development. Discover the therapeutic benefits of these Halloween inspired therapy activities to do at home or in the clinic. Here are 5 of my all time favorite Halloween treatment activities that are guaranteed to make your Halloween a smashing success!
There’s something so satisfying about pounding pegs into a pumpkin, plus it’s a fun way to channel kid’s extra energy.
Benefits Of This Activity:
Using a wooden mallet to pound push-pins or golf tees into a pumpkin provides practice for fine motor skills and eye hand coordination.
Picking up the push-pins or golf tees promotes a pincer grasp and overall hand and finger dexterity.
These cute Jack O’ Lantern Cookies are SO easy to make it’s scary! Use ready-made ingredients to assemble this Halloween cookie craft.
Benefits Of This Activity
There are several fine motor skills that kids will practice when making these adorable cookies.
- Using a spoon to mix, a knife to spread and scissors to snip encourages bilateral coordination or two hand use.
- Mixing requires strength and the use of two hands (one to hold the container and the other to stir with a spoon).
- Learning to hold a knife properly to spread the frosting and snipping candy straws with scissors is a fun way to improve utensil use.
Plus, you can also use this recipe for handwriting practice and to support executive functioning skills. Here’s how…
- Kids can write out the ingredients list while practicing print or cursive.
- Practice organizational skills by gathering the necessary ingredient and supplies.
- Write out the recipe steps before making the cookie… this strategy has always been an effective incentive to write a neat and sequential recipe that comes with a sweet reward at the end
These cheesy quesadillas are to die for! Use your favorite cheese and experiment with different types of tortillas or colored wraps.
Use scissors to cut out ghost and monster shapes. Cutting through tortillas strengthens little hands because there’s more resistance than when cutting through paper.
Pro tip: Remember thumbs on top when cutting.
- Add colorful toppings to make the faces.
- Talk about the colors and the different types of faces (scary, happy, sad) that you can make with various veggie ingredients!
- Is your child constantly touching things?
- Does your student have trouble sitting still while listening or while waiting?
- Do you ever find yourself saying, “Keep your hands to yourself!”
If the answer is yes, then this Pumpkin Balloon Fidget is a super sensory solution for fidgety kids.
Pro Tip: Keep in mind, from a sensory perspective, kids with sensory processing challenges appear as if they can’t seem to stop the need to keep touching things or constantly fidget when required to sit still.
When it comes to sensory processing, your child’s nervous system responds to stress, overwhelm, excitement, or in some cases boredom, in different ways.
In occupational therapy, we use fidgets to…
1.) Help kids maintain their focus
2.) Help satisfy the need to constantly touch things
3.) Strengthen hands and fingers by providing a repetitive resistance exercise (squeezing and pinching).
Whether your child is feeling anxious, fidgety or seeking touch input, this little Pumpkin Fidget helps keep busy hands busy.
Ghost Fidget: Use a white balloon to make a cute, squishable ghost!
Let’s get messy! In occupational therapy we have a few good and gooey reasons to make slime!
Benefits of This Activity
- Did you know that introducing different textures in a fun way can help some kids improve their tolerance to wet and sticky textures.
- When your child can tolerate other wet and squishy textures such as finger paint and playdough, making slime may be the next type of texture to try.
- Playing with slime can help satisfy a kid’s sensory need to constantly touch things for kids who are sensory seekers for touch input and can have a calming, regulating effect.
- Pushing, pulling, stretching, rolling and pinching slime strengthen hands and fingers by providing a repetitive resistance exercise.
- Picking and pulling out hidden items out improves finger dexterity and precision.
Check out the Related Posts Below for more sensory, feeding therapy and snack ideas!
Pumpkin Bash
Jack O' Lantern Cookies
Ghost Quesadilla
Pumpkin Balloon Fidget
Spooky Slime Recipe
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