Elf on the Shelf with an OT Twist!
Elf on the shelf ideas
Looking for some motivation to engage your child into doing more challenging things? Why not tell them your house Elf invited them to try? (Wink, wink). Most of this stuff you should already have in your home, except maybe painter’s tape. Don’t worry, that you can get off Amazon!
Preschool
1. Use painter’s tape and have the children play hopscotch to get to the kitchen table-great for working on balance and gross motor coordination
2. Print off a few holiday pictures, in pairs, and play memory-great on working on short term recall
3. Coloring page! Coloring inside the lines is a great way to work on fine motor control, important for when we write!
4. Invite them to write their name as they sit down for breakfast
5. Invite your children to bowl, if you have a set, this is a great way to work on hand-eye coordination.
6. If you have stickers, you can always draw a tree on a piece of paper and have the child use stickers to decorate. This is a great way to work on fine motor manipulation.
7. Invite your child to play with play dough! They can make letters or shapes that the Elf provided. A great way to work on early letter formation and prewriting strokes.
8. Invite your child to write some letters in salt using their fingers. All you need is a cookie tray and salt. You could even use shaving cream or holiday sprinkles if you’d like!
9. Grab some paper and scissors and make a snowflake. This can work on imitation through paper folding (especially if you want to fold in into a square first) and scissor skills!
10. You can use painter’s tape to make a line on the floor and have the child practice their balance (much like the holiday tree balancing activity I posted on my Activities blog!)
11. Paint a snowy scene using white paint and cotton balls. Using cotton balls to paint helps promote the pincer grasp, a necessary grip for holding the pencil appropriately.
12. Beading! A great activity for fine motor manipulation and visual motor skills (both necessary for writing).
13. Use cardboard cut outs, a hole puncher, some yarn, and markers (or glitter, or stickers, or crayons, you get the idea) and make an ornament for the tree. A fun fine motor activity!
14. Dress a favorite stuffed animal with articles of clothing with zippers and buttons, a great way to work on dressing skills.
15. Likewise, put the Elf partially in a backpack so your child can practice unzipping the bag!
16. Invite your child to play a game, preferably one with tongs or some sort of fine motor component, like Avalanche, Pie Making Game, Feeding Frogs, Stack Up, or even harder games like Operation. A fun way to work on fine motor strength and endurance, necessary for age appropriate writing!
Kindergarten and Beyond!
1. Make a tic tac toe board and practice writing different upper-case letters (or holiday words) while you play!
2. Invite your children to bowl, only print off some holiday words and tape them on the bowling pins. If they knock a pin down, they get to write the word, or write the word in a sentence!
3. Invite your children to do holiday mazes, dot to dots, or picture finds as they have breakfast. This is a great way to work on fine motor control and visual scanning. Important skills for reading and writing. Pinterest or Google are great options for where to look for these!
4. Cut out a candy cane shape from paper and have the child decorate it with paper clips. This is a great way to work on fine motor manipulation!
5. Do you have rubber bands and cookie cutters? Bonus if the cookie cutters are holiday themed. Have the child wrap the cookie cutters with rubber bands. This is a great way to work on fine motor manipulation and hand strength, skills necessary for writing.
6. Invite your children to do word searches or picture finds as they have breakfast. This is a great way to work on visual scanning, an important skill for reading and writing. Pinterest or Google are great options for where to look for these!
7. Invite your child to write one or two sentences about what they are grateful for.
8. Use painter’s tape to tape some targets on the ground and have your child practice throwing weighted items (like a bean bag or a sealed bag full of beans or rice) on the target. This is great for hand-eye coordination. If you add point values to the targets then they can practice writing numbers, or even adding! If you want to work on subtracting, you can make some targets a negative amount.
9. Leave directions for pancakes or an omelet or cookies! Following a recipe and making food is a great way to work on fine motor skills and sequencing!
10. Place the Elf in a shoe and have your child practice tying the shoe. The two-bunny method or the tree/bunny method are highly recommended! This is a skill that most Kindergartners should be ready to do.
11. Do some morning yoga for focus, flexibility, and overall gross motor coordination. Print off some pictures of poses from the internet or make some up on your own!
12. Invite your child to play writing games or fine motor games like Scattergories, Operation, Traffic Jam, Sink or Swim, or Pictionary. A fun way to work on fine motor and problem-solving skills.
13. Offer up gum drops and toothpicks and build a Christmas tree, a great fine motor and STEM activity.