Opening containers and packets

Occupational therapy

﻿Hi, I'm really looking forward to our lesson today. I hope you are too. Before we get started, this is just a little reminder. We're here to support any approaches you might already be using, and any work, you might have already been set. We know that this lesson is going to be going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure about anything or have any questions, then please do contact your usual therapy team. Today I'm going to give you some tips and strategies for opening any snack containers or packets that you may have, and that you may use so that you can be much more independent. Being able to open your own snacks is really important 'cause it means that you can do it by yourself and you don't have to ask someone else. There are a range of containers and packets, so you can have sandwich bags and snack bags. And these are the ones where you need to pinch to pull, and sometimes you need to pinch to close them. Okay, there are snack pots, and these needs super strong thumbs, so you can flick the snaps up down. You get things such as cereal bars or fruit bars. And quite often, these need a little downward tearing action. And you may have yoghourt pots and these need good pincer grip to pull the lid off the yoghourt. There are a lot of skills we need to open containers and packets. You need really good fine motor skills, so your hands need to be super strong, your fingers need to be strong as well. You need a really good sense of touch, okay? So can you feel how thick or thin the paper is for example? You need to have good visual perception so you can see which part is lined up and which isn't. And you need to have some good focus and attention, cause if you're not paying attention while you're opening the yoghourt, it might go everywhere. Okay. Pause the video to get the items that we will need for today's lesson. You'll need some paper, some sandwich bags, some snack bags, and some pots. And ask your parents or carer for help, and whether you can eat the snack once you've opened it. Some sticky tape or masking tape, and then restart once you've got everything ready. We are looking at sandwich bags and snack bags, and I'm using a pincer grip. My thumbs are staying on top, and that gives me more control when I pull it apart. And then there, you can see pinching or pushing the seals together to close the bag. There's another type of snack bag you might get. So I think that one had banana chips in it. And again, these ones are a bit harder, so you really need to pull. There, can you see that? With your thumbs on top, and then carefully pinching down. I want you to practise opening sandwich bags. So ask an adult for an empty resealable snack bag or a sandwich bag, sit at a table, practise opening and closing the bag and use the table to support your hands, okay? Once you're confident with this, push your chair away from the table so that you can practise opening and closing the bags while you're holding it on your lap. And then I want you to practise enclosing the bag without using your lap or the table. So you can stand up or you can lift the bag off of your lap and practise opening and closing it, okay? Because quite often, if we're on the playground or if you're out on a trip, you won't have a table or something to support you, so you might have to just stand up and open your snack or pinch it closed. And it might even, you might even have to look at something else while you're doing it. Pause the video now to complete your task. Resume once you're finished. So here we have an example of tearing and I know I said you can use cereal bars or fruit bars, but you can use a lot of packaging needs tearing down. And there, you can see that it had a lot indicator of where to tear, and you simply just tear it down, okay? Sometimes you can also tear the sides apart like you do for sandwich bags. But for this activity, I want you to try and tear different thicknesses of paper. You're going to start with just tearing the paper, down, okay? Just tearing it into strips. And that's what you're going to do. And once you feeling confident with that, you're then going to tear some card or thicker paper. Now, if you don't have card or thicker paper, you can simply put the layers together and then practise tearing those. Okay, now I'm going to, that's what my thumbs look like at the back, and that's what it looks like. And I'm just going to tear. Okay. And what can do is, once you're good at that, you can try and add even more layers of paper and see if you can make it really, really small. Now, I am starting to struggle over here guys. Okay, I don't think I'm going to be able to tear all of those bits. I'll give it a go though. No, I can't do it, okay. And once you feel really confident with tearing paper or thick card, then work on tearing open a snack bag. Pause the video to complete your task, resume once you're finished. There are so many different types of snack pots available, and I want you to simply use the ones you have at home, the ones you'd normally use. So with snack pots, you always have to use both your hands. And what you can do is, as you can see there I was using my pointer finger, my index finger, to stabilise the lid. And then I use my thumbs to flick the lid open and also to push the lid closed, okay? Some other types of pots like this one, have blue clips or any other clips really, any coloured clips on the sides. And you then, now look at that, use your thumbs again, so you can see how much work your thumbs and your fingers have to do. So it's really important to get those fingers and hands super strong. Yeah, and then you've got to flip it closed. You can see I'm struggling a little bit there, and that means that I haven't adjusted it well enough. The lid on top of the pot. Sometimes you have pots that have more than two clips, so this one's got four, and you have to unclip all of them. So you can see there how hard my thumb is pushing up. Okay. Oh my gosh, I need to two thumbs for that one. And there again. And then to close it, you must make sure that it's aligned quite well, okay? And you can see here that I didn't align it very well, so I was struggling a bit and then I just tried my best and I redid it, okay? So always stay calm when you're trying something. And, yay, I eventually did it. Okay. You can go back to unit two where we were looking at fine motor skills and how to strengthen your hands. And that might remind you of some activities we did then. So here's a different type of pot, I don't know if you've seen these. They're even harder because they've got like little latches on the middle. And this just means that whatever's inside is not going to escape, hopefully. Okay, and there I'm using my index fingers, my pointer fingers, to close the pots. Okay, so for the next activity, I want you to use the pots that you would normally use for snacks and just practise opening and closing them. Make sure that your thumbs are always close to your body. Okay, and if you struggle using your thumbs, then you can hold the snack pot with your non-dominant hand, so in my case, my left hand and use your fingers, all your fingers to open the clips. And this is something you can repeat and practise several times until you can do it without looking so that you can open your pot while you are looking at something your friend's showing you. Pause the video to complete your task, resume once you're finished. Always use two hands, use the pincer grip again, and carefully lift up the corner of the foil lid and slowly pull it away from you. Now I really think it's best to keep your yoghourt pot on a stable surface, such as a table, okay? And you can see I'm going very slowly there and trying to pull that off. And then you can also just move your hand around, if you don't want to pull it off in one big go. Okay. Right, so, your activity to practise opening lids with a foil cover is going to be taking some tape, as you can see I've done that, and sticking it onto a pot or something. And what I'm doing there is I'm simply practising , peeling the tape off and putting it back on, and just working on that motion of slowly peeling it, putting it back on. And then you can just continue this a few times. pause the video there to complete your task, resume once you're finished. Remember try your best, work carefully and slowly, and practise when you're not in a rush, okay? But do practise, practise, practise, and you can be really proud of how independent you are becoming. If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share pictures of your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnWithOak. Bye.

Opening containers and packets

Opening containers and packets

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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