30+ Winter-themed Teletherapy activities
Looking to save time planning your teletherapy sessions this winter? Find over 30 ideas and links to screen share during your teletherapy sessions to customize your sessions to improve your student’s fine motor, visual motor, visual perceptual, gross motor, motor planning, and handwriting skills. Ideas perfect for Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, Speech Therapists and teachers working with preschool through middle school students.
It’s a New Year but many of us are still plugging along in the virtual therapy world.
There are so many great done-for-you teletherapy resources available now, including those in the Growing Little Brain shop!
However, I still like to have my compiled lists of resources each month so I can pick and choose and customize my treatments sessions for my students.
Below, you’ll find a compiled list of winter-themed resources to work on a variety of skills including visual perception, fine motor, gross motor, motor planning, visual motor, and handwriting.
Whether you’re an Occupational Therapist, Physical Therapist, Speech Therapist or teacher, I hope you’ll find something useful for your teletherapy sessions.
How to use these Teletherapy activities
Check out this post if you’re wanting to learn more about how to structure your teletherapy sessions and how to prepare your families and students for teletherapy sessions if you’re a newbie.
Save the links below to your bookmarks or put them in a folder that you can easily find during sessions.
I like to open the links I’ll be using in my sessions and have them in a separate tab so I can easily copy and paste into my therapy platform.
Teletherapy activities to work on visual memory
I love using these memory games because they are fun and usually work really well on screen share.
Here are some other ways I use these games:
To practice writing skills by having students write down or type each of the matches they make.
To increase the memory challenge by having students recall as many matches as they can after the game is finished. Usually, I’ll have them do it verbally first and then write the words down on paper.
For younger students, they can practice drawing one of their favorite pictures from the memory game.
Teletherapy activities to work on visual perceptual skills
Word searches are great for building vocabulary and working on those visual scanning skills. Visual scanning is important for developing good reading skills.
To grade this activity up:
Have students practice writing or typing the words they find.
Have students practice writing or typing a sentence using the words they find in the word search.
Challenge students to write or type the definition of the words in the word search.
To grade this activity down:
Number the rows and columns using your pencil tool and then give the appropriate clues to help students find the words.
Winter Olympic sports word search
Hidden picture puzzles work on visual perceptual skills including visual figure ground and visual closure.
Visual figure ground is the ability to focus on one specific piece of information in a busy background (I joke that my husband lacks this skill as he can never find the ketchup bottle in the refrigerator…anyone relate?)
Good visual figure ground skills help students to be able to find objects in a busy background, copy text from a blackboard, and keep their place when reading words on a page.
Visual Closure is the ability to correctly perceive an object or word, even when it is partly hidden.
Good visual closure skills help children to read more fluently.
To grade the activity up:
Have students write down the objects they find.
Have the students write a sentence about the object they find.
To grade the activity down:
Give the students verbal/directional cues on where to find the objects.
Draw 4 quadrants onto the picture using your pencil tool and then tell the students which quadrant to look in for the object.
Teletherapy activities to work on fine motor and visual motor skills
I love using guided drawing activities to work on fine motor, visual motor and visual perceptual skills with my students.
Typically, I will break up this activity into 2 sessions.
First, I will have my students draw the pictures. In the next session, I have them color and practice writing a story about their picture, label, or practice writing their name.
Teletherapy activities to work on gross motor skills and brain breaks
Here are some fun winter-themed movement videos.
You can also find them here on my YouTube channel playlist for easier access during teletherapy sessions.
Low-prep Winter-themed craft activities
Practice name writing with marshmallows or cotton balls
Cut paper snowflakes
Make fake snow. 1lb. of baking soda, 2 cups of shaving cream.
Make a snowman using playdoh, by ripping small pieces of paper or glue cotton balls like the image here. (image courtesy of A Little Pinch of Perfect.com)
What’s new in the Growing Little Brains Shop?
Looking for a fun way to engage your young students during teletherapy or in-person sessions?
This January book activity bundle includes activities for 3 different books focused on a winter theme. The books featured are: Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle, We’re going on a bear hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, and The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.
It includes a one-page pdf for each book describing a fine motor, gross motor, and sensory-motor activity related to the book. Each activity requires no or limited commonly found household items to perform. Each handout also includes a clickable YouTube link of the book so the hard copy of the book is not necessary.
Activities are geared for children ages 2-5.
This bundle also includes a one-page parent education handout on other activity ideas and tips for reading books with young children.
These activities are perfect for therapists, teachers, or parents looking for resources that require no prep and limited materials for their students. A great way to make learning fun while developing a wide variety of developmental skills!
If you’d like to receive a FREE sample from the December book activities, grab it in this post!
Purchase the January Book Activities here!
What’s your favorite Winter-Themed Teletherapy activity?
Post your favorites down below so we can continue to support each other in the New Year!
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