Visual motor skills, also known as hand-eye coordination, is the use of our eyes (visual) and hands (motor) together to complete a task. Hand-eye coordination involves moving our hands in relation to what we see. Good visual motor skills require that both our visual and motor areas work together smoothly to allow for a precise and accurate action. Activities that include a perceptual component are called visual perceptual motor activities. Kids use their visual motor skills during pencil and self help tasks. Below are different areas we work on to improve visual motor skills.
Motor skills: Refers to gross and fine motor skills that enable the movements and tasks we do on a daily basis
Ocular motor skills: Refers to how the eyes move which involve visual tracking and visual scanning allowing us to take in information from what we see
Fine motor activities
Draw shapes, letters, numbers with a yellow marker or highlighter to trace with your finger or crayon
Make shapes with toothpicks, popsicle sticks or pipe cleaners then trace over with you finger
Trace over shapes and pictures with tracing paper
Use stencils to make a picture
Fold paper to make hats, fans, airplanes or fortune tellers
Dot to Dot activities
Trace line, letter and shape worksheets
Maze activities: if the path is too difficult to find, use your finger first and then trace through with a pencil or crayon
Magnet Mazes: draw a path or line on a paper plate, place 2 attracting magnets, one on top and one underneath, then slide the top magnet along the path or line using the bottom magnet from one side to the other
Coloring books: encourage to color inside the lines
Origami
Flashlight tag: in a darkened room play tag or follow the leader with the beams of light
Geoboards: copy shapes and letters using rubber bands
Copy pegboard and Lite Brite pictures
Etch-A-Sketch
Play games such as checkers, Chinese Checkers, Tic-Tac-Toe or Connect Four
Gross motor activities
Catch or throw a ball
Bowling, use 2 liter bottles as pins
Mini golf
Dribble a basketball
Beanbag toss games
Juggle scarves or rolled up socks
Hit a balloon with a tennis racket, paddle or your hands
Play volleyball
Cup stacking games: you can use large or small cups to stack pyramids or towers, timed or untimed http://www.speedstacks.com
Draw shapes, letters or pictures on the inside of a shirt box, place a coin or bingo chip in the box, hold the box on either side and while tipping the box slightly from side to side, slide the coin/chip to cover an object
Ocular motor activities
Word searches
Secret or decoding message worksheets
Scan a newspaper and circle all of a certain letter