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Build listening, attention, and classroom readiness with these 15 fun following directions activities for elementary students. Try simple ideas using movement, drawing, coloring, scavenger hunts, building, crafts, and everyday classroom routines that make practicing listening and following directions feel more like play than work.
“What did you do over the weekend?”
It sounds like such an easy question. As adults, we can probably come up with an answer pretty quickly. If you asked me this weekend, I could tell you that I worked on a few updates for CreativeCOTA, visited my father-in-law, and watched some football.
But ask some students that same question and you may get:
“I don’t know.”
Or a blank piece of paper.
Or a student who spends ten minutes trying to decide what to write about and never actually gets started.
Sometimes we look at that blank paper and think the student is struggling with writing. But the actual difficulty may have started long before the pencil ever touched the paper.
Learn how to make an easy colored rice sensory bin with just rice, food coloring, and vinegar! This simple recipe is perfect for fall sensory play, fine motor activities, letter hunts, and occupational therapy. Add pumpkin spice for a fun seasonal scent, then toss in magnetic letters, mini erasers, scoops, or tongs for an easy hands-on learning activity.
Make creative writing more hands-on with simple storytelling games, mini erasers, story cubes, small figures, and visual story scenes. These easy writing center ideas help young students build a story before they begin writing, making it easier to generate ideas, create sentences, and tell imaginative stories. Perfect for kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade, special education, and occupational therapy.
Getting an autistic student ready for college goes beyond the typical dorm packing list. These 25+ college dorm must-haves and practical tips cover sensory-friendly essentials, easy dorm meals, daily living routines, college accommodations, and simple ways to make dorm life more comfortable and manageable.
Sometimes school days just don’t go according to plan. Whether you’re facing an unexpected substitute, students finishing early, a schedule change, or a Wi-Fi or technology outage, having a few no prep emergency sub plan activities ready can make the day much easier. These simple, screen-free activities use basic supplies already found in most elementary classrooms, with no printing or special materials needed. And they aren’t just for substitute teachers. Many of these literacy, math, movement, listening, and following directions activities work well for early finishers, no-technology days, and even school-based occupational therapy sessions.
If you’re looking for practical ideas, this post shares simple ways to set up a writing center along with more than 15 inexpensive tools that can make a big difference. And if you’d like to dive deeper, my on-demand course, Alternative Pencils for Literacy: Helping Every Child Become a Writer, walks you through creating an alternative pencil writing center from start to finish with classroom setups, real student examples, “generate text” IEP goals, printable planning guides, and strategies you can begin using right away.
Fall is one of my favorite times of year to bring learning off the worksheet and into hands-on play. The colors, textures, and natural materials make it easy to create activities that children genuinely enjoy while quietly building the foundational skills they’ll use for writing, reading, math, and everyday independence.
The best part? You don’t need expensive materials. A few leaves, pinecones, acorns, mini pumpkins, and simple art supplies can provide hours of meaningful learning.
