Making a Torn Paper Owl – ‘Whooo’ Can Benefit

The newest pinterest project used in OT around here was making an owl out of torn paper.  It was posted from this blog that has a ton of crafts on it.  After completing the project, the feedback our OT gave on its benefits is below:

• the cutting provides scissor skills practice as well as practice with visual motor skills and bilateral hand use (to hold the paper while cutting)
• tracing the shapes works on pencil skills as well as grasp and more visual motor
• having the kiddos put the eyes and beak on can work on body awareness and eye-hand coordination
• tearing paper works on bilateral coordination of hands, motor planning and mature grasp

With the paper tearing what she really noticed is that some kids can have a really challenging time doing opposing motions with their hands.  Some of the kids just tried to pull their hands straight away from each other and had a hard time figuring out how to move one hand forward and the other hand backwards to create a tear.  Also by pulling their hands straight apart they were using an immature grasp whereas the opposing hand motions encourages a more mature pincer grasp.  Think of the fun your kids can have tearing paper!