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Visual Perception Activities:
Help Your Child Thrive!
These fun visual perception activities could be the secret to unlocking your child's ability to tell a 'b' from a 'd', to complete a puzzle, or to find their favorite sock in a messy drawer. Visual perception is not about having good eyesight, it's about how the brain makes sense of what the eyes see.
Visual perceptual skills are critical for reading, writing and math, as well as a host of other areas of learning. As an occupational therapist and homeschooling mom, I have seen firsthand how using simple, playful, inexpensive exercises and activities can build these essential skills.
This page is your complete resource hub, bringing together all my best visual perceptual tips, hands-on visual perception activities and helpful resources to enable you to support your child's development, right from your own home!
Key Takeaways For Busy Parents:
- Visual perceptual skills help a child master reading, writing and other school skills.
- There are different aspects to visual perception, such as visual closure, visual discrimination, form constancy and others.
- This page links to hands-on activities to develop different visual perception skills.
- Child struggling to do puzzles? Get help for kids of all ages.
- Use printable worksheets to supplement hands-on activities.
- What is visual perception and why is it important?
- Hands-on activities to improve visual perceptual skills
- Does your child need help with puzzles?
- Printable visual perceptual activities
- Helpful toys and games for visual perception
- Free printable Visual Perception Info download!
These visual perception activities are intended to encourage your child's normal visual perceptual development. If you suspect your child has visual perceptual delays, please seek a professional opinion.
Helpful Information About Visual Perception
These articles aim to answer your questions about visual perception and how it affects different aspects of your child's learning.
- What is visual perception? A basic introduction
- How do the different visual perceptual skills help your child learn to read and write?
- What does poor visual processing look like and how does it affect a child's learning?
All My Visual Perception Activities & Tips
Every child should be exposed to a range of hands-on visual perception activities during the early years. This will help to lay a good foundation for the skills they need for learning at school.
The images below are links to my pages that are packed with free information, tips and activities for each area of visual perception. Be inspired by activities that use household objects, and regular childhood toys!
There is some overlap between the different areas of visual perception, and some of the activities I suggest can be used to develop more than one skill.
If your child struggles with a new concept, try something different and come back to the challenging activity another day. Most of all, have fun!
Help Your Kids Do Puzzles
Doing jigsaw puzzles is a popular childhood activity. However, many children do struggle to grasp the concept of building puzzles, and avoid them as a result.
On these pages, I give step-by-step photographed instructions and tips to help parents show their kids how to do puzzles, from toddlers through kindergarten!
The puzzle page for toddlers can also be used for preschool kids who struggle with puzzles - it often helps to go back to the beginning and get the basics right.
The pages below give some tips to help both younger children and teens to master and enjoy puzzles
Printable Visual Perception Worksheets
I believe the best way for kids to develop their visual perceptual skills is through play and exploring their environment. But you can still use some paper resources!
You can download some lovely printable activities that you can cut out to make visual perception matching games, graphing games and more.
Once your child has been working on visual skills with hands-on activities, then you can introduce some occasional, good quality worksheets like the ones below.
These are my favorite printable resources, with exclusive bundle deals for my OT Mom readers.
Check out my page about the best visual motor activities worksheets (and how I chose them)
Visual Perception Toys and Games
There are a variety of toys and games that can be helpful in improving your child's visual perceptual skills.
Many occupational therapists make use of these in their therapy sessions, but they are also great for kids to have at home, and they encourage interactive play with their friends and siblings. Consider getting a few as gifts!
Spot It! is a great visual perception game!For your convenience, I have linked to products on Amazon (marked #Ad) that are similar to the ones I use myself - I may receive a small commission if you purchase something through these links, which helps support this site. However, you are under no obligation to purchase anything!
- Pattern Blocks #Ad - a favorite with preschool teachers and kids!
- Spot it (USA) or Dobble (Europe) #Ad- great for visual discrimination and figure ground perception
- Button boards or Pegboards with designs to copy #Ad
- "Seek & Find" type books #Ad
- Tangrams #Ad
If you are looking for games and resources that can help build the skills of older kids and teens, then take a look at this page of my site...visual perception activities and tips for older kids.
If you are looking for gifts that can help build kids skills, I have compiled a page of suggestions that include a lot of visual perception and spatial perception toys and games.
Thank you for visiting my site!
I hope you were helped and that you are inspired by how simple it can be to help your child develop the visual perceptual skills they need for learning and for life!
Remember, you don't need expensive tools or complicated lessons - it's about using everyday toys and household items in a playful, intentional way!
Before you leave, take the next step: sign up for my free, occasional newsletter to get your FREE Visual Perception Info Sheet - a handy cheat sheet that breaks down these important skills! Stay connected to help build your child's skills!
PS: This visual perception download is also available in Spanish from this page.
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