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5 Ways to Incorporate Fine Motor Skills into Task Card Activities

As a school-based OT, I am always looking for ways to embed motor and sensory opportunities into academic activities. Task

5 Ways to Incorporate Fine Motor Skills into Task Card Activities

As a school-based OT, I am always looking for ways to embed motor and sensory opportunities into academic activities. Task

As a school-based OT, I am always looking for ways to embed motor and sensory opportunities into academic activities.  Task card activities can be a quick and easy way to work on a variety of skills.  The Autism Helper has a wide variety of options, including the Life Skills cards and ABLLS-R aligned task cards that are featured in this post.   As an OT, I love these activities because many require the student to indicate a response on the card.  This provides a great opportunity to get creative. Today, I will share 5 fun ways you can embed fine motor skills practice when using task cards with your students!

1. Use Squigz

Have you heard of Squigz?  They are little suction cup toys that can be secured to each other or different flat surfaces by pushing on them, which makes them great for creative play and fine motor skills.  They can be found on Amazon, but I recently found a generic version in the dollar section at Target!  You can use some of the simple Squigz to have a student indicate their response on a task card by pushing it onto the correct answer.

5 Ways to Incorporate Fine Motor Skills into Task Card Activities

5 Ways to Incorporate Fine Motor Skills into Task Card Activities

2. Use Small Dry Erase Markers or Crayons

One of my favorite tips to give teachers is to try using smaller writing tools when working with young children on grasp patterns.  This is why I love using smaller crayons, golf pencils and pipsqueak markers.  Did you know that dry erase markers also come in a smaller size?  This would be great to utilize on a laminated task card that can easily be cleaned.  You can also try using dry erase crayons.  The crayon gives good feedback to the hand, and erasing it is a great heavy work activity.

5 Ways to Incorporate Fine Motor Skills into Task Card Activities

5 Ways to Incorporate Fine Motor Skills into Task Card Activities

3. Use Clothespins

Clothespins are a great way  to work on hand strength and coordination!  Have your students secure a clothespin on the task card answer they find to be the correct one.

4. Use Tweezers and Pom Poms

Picking up small objects with tweezers or tongs is a great way to work on hand strength and coordination.  You can have your students use tweezers or tongs to pick up pom poms or small erasers and place them on the correct task card answer.

5 Ways to Incorporate Fine Motor Skills into Task Card Activities

5 Ways to Incorporate Fine Motor Skills into Task Card Activities

5. Use Paperclips

Paperclips are especially great for working on the skill of using both hands together, as the child has to hold the task card with one hand while securing the paperclip with another.

5 Ways to Incorporate Fine Motor Skills into Task Card Activities

5 Ways to Incorporate Fine Motor Skills into Task Card Activities

Katie McKenna, MS, OTR/L
Latest posts by Katie McKenna, MS, OTR/L (see all)

3 Responses

  1. Hey Katie. Thank you so much for the reminder to use OT in my classroom. It does get forgotten easily. Thank you for the resources and great ideas.

  3. Great recommendations. I’m an autistic adult with DCD and I love to use my nice sturdy wood clothespins for all sorts of things. Needle-nose tweezers have been part of my hand-weeding and botanizing routines for years.

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