Needlepoint Monster Bookmark for visual-perceptual and visual-motor skills

When I started working as a school based OT in August, I had many students between 9 to13 years old. I didn't know what to do with them in therapy since they were pretty functional. So I found this cute project in knitsforlife.com and decided to give it a try:

This is my version of the bookmark:

 

After working with this with my bigger kids for about a month, these were some of the results:

It is incredible how difficult it is for most kids to thread a needle or follow a simple stich pattern. These little monsters requiere visual-perceptual skills such as visual discrimination, spatial relations and visual memory. It also requieres visual-motor coordination and fine motor skills. As you may see, I adapted the activity for some of the kids by having them do longer stiches. With this task you can also work on frustration tolerance,  problem solving (example: when they put the needle in the wrong place, how do they fix it?) and so on. 

If you decide to try it, let me know how it goes!

If you need a more specific tutorial than the one offered in Knits for Life, please let me know in the comment section.