How to Make a Task Box
Let’s talk task boxes. I recently undertook a huge project of creating more than 50 task boxes for my elementary and high school students. I had so much fun researching ideas and putting them together that I thought I would make a video about. You can watch it below.
A task box is exactly what the name suggests. It is simply a box, that holds a self-contained activity for a child to work on. The activity in each box is aimed at helping the student or child learn a specific skill and that can be a fine motor skill, and self-care skill, or a work skill depending on the setting and the goal of the person creating the box. So, how is this different from any activity that we would do in a classroom or a therapy session? Well, task boxes are designed to teach a child independence. We want the task to be challenging enough that it requires concentration and focus, but easy enough that it can be completed independently. So, the real goal for task boxes is that a child can grab one, sit down at their desk or a table, look at the instructions, and complete it on their own.
From a therapists perspective, the task box is a great way to get the repetitive practice needed for true skill acquisition. By doing the fine motor task over and over the individual is improving their strength, coordination, graded control, etc. But they are also gaining other skills: Focus and attention are the two big ones. In order to complete the activity without help a child must stay focused on the task all the way through completion. They are learning problem solving skills. If they encounter some difficulty in completing the task they have to figure out how to overcome it and complete the box. In the beginning, a child will over course need more guidance and possibly some assistance. But, over time the goal is for them to become independent and be able to complete the task with speed and efficiency.
I created a wide range of activities on a wide range of difficulty levels. Below I have listed the box ideas and categorized them by the skill they focus on. If you want to see what each activity looks like, be sure to watch the video.
Sensory Exploration: For kids just learning about task boxes, sensory exploration is a great place to start. These boxes allow kids to practice putting their hands in the box and manipulating items in them.
Water Play: Fill the box with water and add small bath toys.
Spike Balls: Different sized balls that have textures on them.
Textured Blocks: Building blocks with various textures.
Musical Instruments: Maracas, tambourines, etc.
Rice and/or Bean: Add these to a box and then place small toys in them. Kids have to search through the beans to find the toys.
Sorting: Sorting boxes can vary widely on difficulty in terms of sorting criteria and fine motor skills required to perform the actual sort. I graded the difficulty level to my students’ specific needs.
Sorting by color:
Place small colored circles in the sections of a muffin tin. Provide the student with sorting bears, beads, etc to sort into the tin. I use bears of different sizes to accommodate varying grip and fine motor control levels.
Cover a small piece of cardboard with construction paper creating 3 color zones. Use markers to color clothespins to match one of the three color zones. Ask students to clip the clothes pin in the corresponding color zone.
Cover a small piece of cardboard with duct tape and draw a face on the cardboard. Use a hole punch to create holes in the top. Thread different colored pipe cleaners through the holes. Have students thread beads onto the pipe cleaners to the corresponding colors.
Draw small colored dots (2-3) on the cover of each section of a small pill container. Have students place corresponding beads into each section of the pill container.
By size:
Using a cardboard shoe box, cut out three rectangular opening in the top of the box. Label them as short, medium, and long. Cut a bunch of straws to match the length of each opening. Have students place the straws into the appropriate sized opening.
1:1 Correspondence:
Draw numbers on the cover of each section of a small pill container. Have students place corresponding number of beads into each section of the pill container.
Cut out a cardboard circle. Divide it into sections like a pie. In each section draw a set of dots. Draw the same number of dots onto clothes pins. Have students clip the clothes pin with the matching number of dots onto the corresponding section of the cardboard circle.
Fine Motor Control/ Hand Strengthening:
Grasping large Pom Poms and placing them in a container with a specific opening
Using bingo dotters to complete dot pictures
Placing the bead in the mouth of the tennis ball monster
Using tweezers to place pom poms into a container
Peeling off circle labels and filling in dot pictures
Placing coins in a container with a slotted opening: basically a simple bank. These boxes are by far my students’ favorite.
Activities of Daily Living:
Matching and folding socks
Sorting silverware
Sorting money into a platter container
Visual Motor:
Flash Card sets and games are great for these boxes. I used cards with the front and back of animal to match, letters of the alphabet matching to an object that starts with that letter, etc. Amazon has a ton.
Copying a image using shaped pieces. I used this Melissa and Doug Set.
Puzzles that require students to match specific shapes to openings.
The internet, especially pinterest, is full of tons of great task box ideas. Let me know in the comments what your favorite task box ideas are!
Thanks so much for stopping by today. I hope you have an amazing week!
-Heather
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