Hand Eye Coordination Activities for Toddlers

If you are looking for fun ways to help toddlers develop skills through play, then this hand eye coordination activities for toddlers is for you. During the toddler years, there is much development happening. Whether you need fun ways to help little ones build gross or fine motor skills, this hand eye coordination activity will support the cognitive and physical development the young child can use for learning and play.

hand eye coordination activities for toddlers

Hand Eye Coordination Activities for Toddlers

Hand eye coordination refers to the coordination between visual input through the eyes and physical motor movements through an integration of the visual and motor systems in order to use the hands and arms.

These early years have many fine motor milestones that support functional skills and self-care. Additionally, the visual motor development of this age is huge!

Hand Eye coordination for toddlers is necessary for play, self-feeding, and increasing independence in young children.

This is a developmental skill that begins at a young age and progresses in skill and precision.

Examples of Hand Eye Coordination in Toddlers

Toddlers gain precision and accuracy in motor skills at a rapid rate. You’ll notice this as they become more and more refined in motor skills. Some examples of activities that require hand-eye coordination during the toddler years includes:

  • Throwing a ball
  • Catching a ball
  • Drawing with a crayon (Read about the best crayons for toddlers)
  • Stacking blocks
  • Age-appropriate toys like dolls or figures
  • Taking off socks/putting on socks
  • Taking off clothing (shirts/pants) and putting on clothing
  • Putting toys into containers, bags, purses
  • Participating in pretend play
  • Self-feeding using feeding utensils (Read here for tips on how to hold a spoon to encourage self-feeding skills
  • Drinking from an open cup

All of these functional areas of day to day activities for toddlers build skills through actually participating in the task. However, you can definitley foster the underlying skills needed to support independence through play! For example, we love using play based learning or a craft for 2 year olds and all ranges of toddlerhood!

Why build hand eye coordination in toddlers?

There are many benefits to encouraging hand eye coordination activities in toddlers. Through play, you can create opportunities for young children to gain the type of play that the young child needs. This includes fine motor play, gross motor play, and not screen use!

Some benefits for toddlers to participate in hand eye coordination tasks includes:

Toddler Hand Eye Coordination Activities

Hand eye coordination activities for toddlers can be simple, yet fun. Some ideas include:

Try the hand eye coordination activity we did using an inner tube. This is a great color activity for young children.

This was a fun little play activity for the Toddlers.  Niece and nephew (19 months) was with us one day and LOVED doing this.  

I put the blue inner tube and a little basketful of balls out on the dining room floor.  I put one ball into the center of the inner tube and he was INTO it!  Little nephew went crazy putting the balls in the center, taking them out, putting them back into the basket.  This was FUN!

What are we learning with this activity?

  • Eye-Hand Coordination
  • Toddler Visual-motor skills
  • Cause and effect (if I throw this ball into the center, it might bounce out…)
  • Learning colors
  • Gross Motor Skills (throwing, rolling, bouncing)



 
We’ve been on a BLUE kick around here these days.
 
This was a fun little play activity for the Toddlers.  Nephew (19 months) was with us one day and LOVED doing this.  
 
 
 


 
 
 
 
This little (and EASY…seriously, it does not get much easier than this…) game will be coming out again.  This Aunt can clean up the breakfast mess when something like this is going on!
 
 

 

Tips for Toddler Hand eye coordination skills

When setting up activities for toddlers, some tips include following the child’s lead. Offer support when needed, but allow the young child to participate in the process. Sometimes working and playing along side the toddler offers a model that the young child can copy if they like, but they won’t feel pressured and they still have the autonomy that gives them a sense of success.

Most of all, have fun!

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

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5 thoughts on “Hand Eye Coordination Activities for Toddlers”

  1. oh, that is so funny! Not one of us sisters is like that either. You should of seen our bedroom growing up…LOL! We now laugh about the giant mess that it was!

  2. Thanks! We have the tubes blown up still, and it has been fun to see what the kids come up with by playing with them. They have only gotten stuck in a tree twice 😉

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hand eye coordination activities for toddlers

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