Archives for February 2011

Dr. Seuss’ Birthday

Dr. Seussâ€™ Birthday is coming up on March 2nd and every year I am reminded of a story one of my kindergartener’s parents told me. She had been living in California at one point in time and had the opportunity to go to Dr. Seuss’ house and he would sit in a rocking chair with his “Cat in the Hat” hat on and read his books to whomever came to listen. How great would that have been!! I was just trying to see if there was any information online about this and while there wasn’t, I did learn that he did not have any children of his own. When asked about this he would respond, “You have ’em; I’ll entertain ’em.” Love that!

Last year at this time, I decided that incorporating some Dr. Seuss activities in My Obstacle Courses would not only allow me to reinforce something he was doing in school, it also gave me a great opportunity to work on other skills.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Peel and Stick to Make the Same

I found some Dr. Seuss stickers at the teacher store and used them in a “Make the Same” station activity to work on visual discrimination and also the fine motor skill of peeling and sticking the stickers in the right order.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Read Aloud and Listen For Rhyming Words

P1000798 — Dr. Seuss Book - Green Eggs and Ham

P1000884 — Dr. Seuss Book - The Foot Book

Reading a Dr. Seuss book outÂ loud or having your child read is a great station activity to incorporate reading skills like listening, comprehension (understanding what is read), and fluency (oneâ€™s reading rate, use of punctuation for pauses and also using expression). If your child is reading, I suggest taking turns with books like this, which can be long. The goal of this is to practice reading skills in a fun way, not to tire them out.

Children who struggle with reading tend to use up a great deal of “energy” decoding the words they are reading, leaving them less able to answer questions about what is happening in the story (comprehension issue). This is why it is important to stop and point out what is happening in the story. Talking through stories helps to keep them engaged in what is going on and to see the purpose of reading as an enjoyable activity and/or a way to get information, not just to get through a bunch of words so they can move on.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Rhyming Word Read and Sort (using rhyming words from Dr. Seuss book)

Choose a Dr. Seuss book and go through to see what rhyming words are used. Write down the word endings and rhyming words on calendar cutouts or index cards for the child to read and sort. (Click here for my post on word family/rhyming word sorts.)

Dr. Seuss’ “Seussville” Website Link:

Here is a link to the Dr. SeussÂ Suessville website (I turned down my volume because the music while loading is a bit much 🙂 ) where there are games and activities that you may want to use with your child.

These are really easy and basic ways to reinforce something your child may be learning about in school into My Obstacle Courses. I love doing this because Andrew always gives me a look like, “I’m doing that in school and YOU know about it too?” This doesn’t just apply to Dr. Seuss but can be done with any theme, skill or concept you may find on the teacher to parent home letter.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

See and Spell Puzzles

Thanks To My Obstacle Course, Another Toy Saved From The Island (Or Closet) Of Unused Toys!

I got this great set of Melissa and Doug See and Spell puzzles to help with letter recognition and introduce word building with Andrew when he was around four. He wasn’t really interested in it until I began using it as a My Obstacle Course station activity with him and then he was hooked! We would talk what the picture showed, the letters that made up the word and the sounds the letters make. It was also great for me to see him needing a certain letter, like a “b” and watch as he would pull out a “d” and try to get it to fit. I could then point out that even though they kind of look the same, they were different letters. I would help him find the “b” so we could compare and contrast them and see which one fit. It may seem really basic becauseÂ the puzzles have the letters cut out and labeled, but he still needed to find the correct ones to make the word.

P1030515 — Melissa and Doug Wooden Word Puzzle

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Find The Letters To Make The Word

This is super easy to set up and allows your child to be part of creating a word without the worry of having to spelling it on their own. I would choose one or two puzzles for a station activity and depending on your child’s letter recognition skills, set out only the letters needed for the word or set out a bunch of letters for them to locate the correct ones.

P1030524 — The station set up with letters provided in the correct order.

P1030523 — The station set up with letters provided but not in order.

P1030525 — Match up the letters so they fit in the space provided.

P1030527 — Letters in and the word spelled!

Even though this may seem like such a simple thing, it is a quick and easy station activity to see where your child is with letter recognition and also how they apply those skills. Even though Andrew is a good speller and hasn’t used this toy in a long time, I held onto it so I could share it here and with parents who are working on these skills. I had forgotten about it until Andrew found it in my office the other day (he loves getting in there with all of the My Obstacle Course supplies and goodies 🙂 ) and put them all together. He was so proud of himself and was clearly having a great time! It reminded me that sometimes he does enjoy doing things that don’t have power buttons and it was so nice to see!!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

My Obstacle Course Video

I thought I would share a video I made for a tele-class I am taking (I posted it on Facebook as well so my apologies if you have already seen this!). My original intention for the class was to create “How To” videos for my website, which I’m still working on, but decided to begin with a video showing why I came up with My Obstacle Course, how much more Andrew is engaged when we are doing the station activities and the progress we have made in determining what he knows and what he can do. When I first heard the song “War Of My Life” I thought, that is what we as parents, teachers and therapists feel when trying so hard to do anything we can to help our children. I hope you enjoy it and thank you again for allowing me to share with you!!

Video Clip Interpretation:

There are several video clips of Andrew doing station activities and it may be difficult to understand what he is doing or saying. I have always been really good at knowing what he is saying (even before he was “speaking”) so I will interpret for you :).

Video clip 1 – He is sorting shaped buttons and is doing so in a specific order. He says “Circle first, then comes square, then comes triangle, then comes oval.”

Video clip 2 – He is “reading” a clue that says “Pick the animal the says “ribbit” and then he picks up a frog and says “frog.”

Video clip 3 – We were playing a Valentine’s themed memory match game.

Video clip 4 – He was searching for things in the snowy sensory bin and found a snowman.

Video clip 5 – He is reading from a book called “Snow” and says, “Gray clouds crawl across the sky.”

Video clip 6 – He is stacking 6 blocks without them falling over.

Helping Andrew achieve all that he can is the “war of my life” and sharing this with others has become another passion. Feel free to pass this on to friends or parents that you think it could help. It has already found many people that needed it and my heart is filled with gratitude that I have found something that is making a difference!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Dice

If you are looking for a fun way to sneak in basic number identification, counting skills and/or math facts, try using something you probably have sitting in a cupboard inside of a board game box – dice. I like to use dice because it keeps things random, requires no set up, helps build motor skills and planning and can easily be paired up with manipulativesÂ (any item that helps represent what is being counted) to provide reinforcement. If you want to mix things up a bit beyond the basic white cube with black dots, they make lots of different kinds of dice. (Note: The dice shown in this post are from myÂ local teacher store, Teacher Heaven andÂ a favorite toy store of ours, Brilliant Sky Toys.)

There are dice made from foam that work great for gross motor station activities

Example station activities:

Roll the die. Jump up and down on the mini-trampoline x times.
Roll the die. Pass the ball back and forth x number of times.
Roll the die. Do x jumping jacks/forward rolls/donkey kicks.

There are basic dotted dice that go up to 6 that can also be found in fun colors. I like to pair these with colored puffs to reinforce what addition facts actually represent. These work great for basic math fact practice – addition, subtraction and multiplication.

Example station activities:

Roll two dice and add them together.
Roll two dice and subtract the smaller number from the larger one.
Roll two dice and multiply the numbers.

Dice that have numbers on them can be used for number identification and/0r can be paired with the gross motor activities mentioned above. They can also be used for math facts (addition, subtraction and multiplication).

More complex dice can also be found with 8 sides…

all the way up to 20 sides. These are perfect for when your child is ready for more of a challenge with number identification or if you are working on double-digit addition, subtraction and multiplication. The addition and subtraction equations can be done with manipulatives or if you are working with them so they know how to do it on paper, these help to keep things a bit more interesting.

One thing that I found very interesting when I first incorporated dice into My Obstacle Course stations was that the actual rolling was a skill that we had to work on. Andrew tended to pick up the dice and just drop them until I showed him how to make a cup with his hands, shake it back and forth so the dice would wiggle and turn and then releasing the dice without throwing them across the room. We did use a plastic cup with his hand over the top and also found a cardboard box lid which was helpful to catch the dice.

Here are some previous posts on My Obstacle Course station activities that use dice:

Easy Math Organizers

Race To 100

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

The Bulb Syringe- Not Just For Baby’s Nose!

I know I say this all of the time but I really do love that there are so many wonderful and unexpected items sitting right in my cupboards that allow me to help Andrew build skills!Â I found this bulb syringe, aka the booger bulb, while cleaning out our medicine cabinet and figured since it hadn’t been used in years, it was time to get rid of it.

That is, until I squeezed it…

and realized that it would be perfect for him to build his pincer grasp and hand muscles while being able to feel and see that the liquid was disappearing into the bulb…

P1030137 — Releasing bulb to let liquid or air in.

and then squeezing it again to squirt it back out.Â How fun! This also involved a bit of experimentation because if he squeezed a little, only a little water went in, but if he squeezed a lot, then a lot of water goes in. It took a few tries and some hand over hand at first but eventually he got the hang of it!

P1030435 — My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Using bulb syringe to transfer water from one row of hearts to another.

As an auditory component, I found it helpful to tell him the syringe was sucking the water in, holding it’s breath and then spitting the water back out. You could even draw aÂ face on it and pretend like it was an elephant sucking and spitting out water with its trunk!

P1030433 — Andrew squeezing the bulb to suck the water in.

He had a ball with it and even asked to take it in the tub to play with it. Â Hmmm… more motor skill building? I guess so! 🙂 Love, love, love sneaking in skills while he just thinks it’s fun and games!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Cutting Out Grocery Store Ads

I love to find things that can be combined with another thing or tool to make an interesting station activity for My Obstacle Courses. When they are delivered to my mailbox and are free, I am beyond excited! Grocery advertisements are a perfect example of this. I used them all of the time when teaching Kindergarten to help with reading, math and fine motor skills and have used them with Andrew at home while doing My Obstacle Course. They are always changing so it keeps things interesting!

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Cut Out 5 Things You Love

For a February themed My Obstacle Course that we did last week, I combined the grocery advertisements with our loop scissors for Andrew to cut out 5 things he loved.

P1030404 — My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Cut out 5 things you love

The advertisements are perfect because there are lots of colorful pictures of a wide variety of things. Adding the scissors allows me to help him build his cutting skills and since it is a station within the Obstacle Course, there are specific directions and he knows just what to do. I am also there to help out if needed. (Example: I did have to help him figure out how to get his scissors to a picture in the middle of the page.)

P1030429 — Cutting out a heart. Two previous choices are in the left hand corner.

P1030423 — Turning his hand to cut and using the other hand to hold the paper. Progress!

P1030422 — He's totally cracking himself up with his choice!

P1030426 — See, practicing cutting skills with grocery advertisements can be fun!!

This is such an easy way to help your child build cutting skills, and it’s free! While the things that he cut were not cut out perfectly, you can see from the expression on his face that it didn’t matter. He was having fun and was practicing how to maneuver his hands to get the scissors to the picture he wanted to cut without the stress of doing it perfectly. (Note: The advertisements can be torn or cut into smaller sections if the whole thing is too much for your child to handle.)

Engage, Encourage and Empower!