The Lovely O.T.: Gobble,Gobble! Turkey Lacing

Gobble, Gobble! My students have been having a terrific time with turkeys all month long! They had a blast lacing up some wild and crazy turkeys last week:) Lacing is a challenging and creative activity that promotes the development of the fine motor and visual motor skills needed to perform functional tasks. Lacing promotes bilateral coordination, hand-eye coordination, grip strength, finger dexterity, spatial awareness, sequencing steps, and accuracy.

Gobble, Gobble!

Supplies:

Turkey template
construction paper (red, orange, yellow, white, black, brown)
yarn
hole punch
newspaper or tissue paper
tape
glue stick

Turkey Lacing Template

Turkey Lacing:)

Preparation: For my lacing projects, each student's gets two templates identically hole punched and tied together through one of the holes with a piece of yarn long enough to lace in a front-to-back pattern along the template. For example, if you are preparing this activity for 20 students, you will need 40 paper turkeys and 20 pieces of yarn cut to fit.

After the turkey bodies are cut, hole punched and with a generous piece of yarn. Don't forget to add a small piece of tape to the end of each yarn piece so it will be easier to manage and to thread through the holes. As you can see, I try to incorporate cutting practice into most treatment activities so for this project I decided to cut the eyes, beak, gobbler, wings and feet and trace 6 feathers per turkey on red, orange, and yellow construction paper for the students to cut out themselves.

Intervention: The students begin by lacing their turkeys. It is important that the student's focus on lacing each hole, sequencing one-at-a-time in a clockwise (or counter clockwise) pattern and remembering to pull the string fully through each hole so there is enough yarn to lace through the whole pattern. I usually cue my students to continue lacing along the pattern until there are only about 3 open holes toward the top.

Next, give each student a piece of newspaper to tear into small pieces, crumble and stuff into the turkey...kind of like stuffing the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. I love this part of the activity because it really targets bilateral coordination and motor planning and the kids really love tearing the paper and stuffing the turkey to be fat and tasty!

After stuffing the turkey, lace the remaining holes, secure with a knot or bow and trim away excess yarn. Have the students use scissors to cut out the traced feathers. Once the feathers are cut out, have the students use a glue stick to paste turkey's body parts; working on spatial awareness and sequencing. Throughout this part of the activity I am usually giving cues as to where the body parts go, such as singing ('Mat Man' cues) "The turkey has two eyes, two eyes, two eyes, the turkey has two eyes so that he can see" OR "The eyes go at the top, the eyes go at the top, high-ho did you know, the eyes go at the top. So that he can see, so that he can see, high-ho did you know, the eye go at the top.