I have grown to love fall! I love the cooler weather, the leaves, and most importantly the fall menu at Starbucks. But I think my favorite thing is creating activities to go along with fall and Halloween! I find it is easier to plan and create when themes are involved and increase engagement and participation with my students! I love seeing my students happy and excited to learn and explore! In this blog, I am going to share a few of the fine motor activities I have created for Halloween! I hope you find something you want to re-create!! Comment below with some activities you have created!!
Eyeballs and Skeleton Hands
I use this activity to not only target visual-motor skills but bilateral coordination and overall precision and control. You can also target some executive functioning skills like problem-solving and overall sequencing!
Materials:
- Pool noodle
- Cut the pool noodle into flat sections
- 2 packs of ping pong eyeballs (Dollar Tree)
- Skelton salad tongs (Dollar Tree)
- Plastic bin
- Container for the eyes (they tend to roll off the table)
Set up:
- layout the pool noodles
- put the eyeballs in a container
- have the child hold a skeleton arm in each hand
- use two hands together to pick an eyeball up and place it on the pool noodle
Halloween Counting Legs Spiders
The itsy bitsy spider activity!! Get out your laminator and a silver sharpie. I like to use this activity to work on hand strength, coordination, and precision.
Materials:
- Black paper
- Laminator
- Silver sharpie
- Clothespins
First, trace a large circle and a smaller circle on black paper. Second, cut them out, and glued the smaller circle to the big one. I drew eyes and then on the larger circle I put a number from 1-10 and then drew the correlating numbers for my students who have difficulty recognizing numbers. I put my spiders through the laminator for extra protection. This activity can also be used as a quick task box activity!
Teeth and Bugs
Chomp Chomp! My students love vampire’s teeth and the fun thing is after we are done playing they can take the teeth with them (let’s be honest, they were going to end up in their mouth). I like to use this activity for precision and control and also to work on grasp patterns (you need an adapted tripod grasp to hold the teeth).
Materials:
- Vampire Teeth
- Plastic Rings (easier to pick up)
- Plastic assortment of Halloween items
Set-Up:
- First I will demonstrate to my students how to grip the vampire’s teeth!
- I put my fingers inside the teeth but you can also grasp the teeth on the top!
- I will dump the pieces on the table and have my students see how many they can grab in an allotted amount of time!
Halloween Bug Hunt
I have had this game for a while! It has made it across the country and back! It is always a favorite amongst my students! In the past, I have had a layer of batting on the bottom and then the spiders throughout. I found it was too hard for my students to pull the spiders out, so I adapted!
Materials:
- Bin with holes (this one is from the Dollar Tree)
- Plastic bracelet string
- Plastic ring spiders
- Clothes Pins
Halloween Eraser Maze
I like using this activity with a variety of students! I like to use it to target grasp patterns, pre-writing skills, and visual-motor skills! It is a harder activity for younger students since the idea is more abstract.
Materials:
- Target dollar section erasers
- crayons/markers/pens
- paper: try black paper and white crayon for something different
Check out this Simply Special Ed Blog for ideas on how to support students during Halloween! Alyssa also has some great, free, file folder activities for Halloween!
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