OT Fun at Home: Bath Time Activities

Bath time and water play provide lots of great opportunities for building a variety of skills for your child, including bilateral hand use and strengthening, coordination and manipulation of small objects, and learning to adjust to and respond to different types of sensory input. Here are some activities that can help with this!

• Squeezing sponges: Either loofah-type sponges for washing themselves, or cleaning sponges to wash the walls of the shower.

• Spray bottles: Twisting off the top to fill the bottle with water, then placing the top back on, and then squeezing the handle of the spray bottle to get things wet.

• Washcloths: Wring them out over a bucket, then put them back in the water–have a race to fill the bucket by squeezing out the washcloth!

• Squeeze toys: Rubber ducks, rubber frogs, small balls–any small manipulatives that can be squeezed and used during bath time!

• Scoop toys: Use a sandbox shovel, or a recycled plastic milk container cut in half, as a scoop to scoop up floating toys in the water and put them into a bucket.

• Pouring toys: Pouring from one container into another, back and forth.

• Folding towels and washcloths: This is a pre or post-bath time activity, but can also help work on bilateral hand use and coordination!

What are some other activities you’ve found are helpful during this regular routine to support your child’s overall skill development?