My Obstacle Course: Engage, Encourage and Empower

A fun, structured, systematic way to work on your child's strengths and weaknesses at home!

Archives for February 2011

No “Ick” Finger Painting

Finger Painting! A wonderful, soothing activity to express creativity with cold, wet paint on a blank canvas of white paper – for some that is. For others, it is definitely a non-preferred, “avoid if possible” activity. Why is this? Some people, especially those with sensory sensitivities, do not like getting things on their skin. There is something about the feeling of something that doesn’t belong there that they cannot stand. When I imagine a child like that finger painting, I see them literally paying no to attention to what they are doing and spending the entire time trying to find a way to keep from touching the paint and if they do, how to get it off of their fingers and hands. How can I imagine this? Because Andrew is one of those children. He does not like having things on his skin and if something gets on it, he needs to have it wiped off right away. If he had to do an activity like this, he would be done in 2 seconds after making a few swipes with his fingers and then yelling about needing help getting the paint off.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: No “Ick” Finger Painting

I was cleaning out my art supply box one day and found some containers of finger paint. Poor finger paint, never getting a chance to be used! I almost threw them out and then I thought about what it was that made it so unappealing to him. What would happen if I took away the “ick” factor? Would that encourage him to experiment with it? Since I am always trying new things to see if they work for him, I have found that it never hurts to try! So, I did a little experiment of my own and squeezed some finger paint into a sealable plastic bag. I closed it tight and began playing around. Turns out that it works great! Plus there is no mess to clean up or worries about getting it onto one’s skin.

I tried it as a My Obstacle Course station activity and he loved it! He got to experience something other children do in a way that made it not only tolerable but also enjoyable for him. It also gave us another fun, easy way to practice his fine motor skills.

Finger Painted Square

It is great because once he is done with one shape, letter or whatever he draws, he can “erase” it by smoothing the paint to create something else.

Finger Painted Letter A

It also lasts for a long time when left sealed.

Finger Paint Writing

Now, I do realize that he will need to build up a bit of a tolerance for things getting onto his skin but if the purpose of playing with finger paint is to have another way to practice drawing or writing skills than this works great. Plus, this is still a sensory activity for him because he gets to feel the squishiness of the paint (which feels “gel”-like) without the anxiety of it getting on him.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

How Do They Feel?

My Obstacle Course Activity Idea: How Do They Feel? Sorting Station

This is a station activity I used with Andrew to work on recognizing how other people might be feeling during certain situations. This is a very easy station to make and only takes a short amount of time to write the situations, especially if you think about things and people who are relevant to your child. I used calendar cutouts to write the scenarios on and the mailboxes for sorting but you can use whatever you have available to you (Post-It Notes, index cards, cut up strips of paper, etc.).

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: How Do They Feel? Sorting

I chose 2 feelings (some examples could be happy, excited, sad, disappointed, etc.) and then wrote short situations that go with those feelings on the cutouts (Jack was going to see his Grandma.  Sally’s DVD player broke.). When he got to this station, we read the feeling cards in front of each mailbox and showed what our faces would look like when feeling that way. You could also add basic smiley face type expressions on the cutouts to help. We received some “Feelings” stamps for Christmas this year that would be perfect for something like this. I’ll share a post on those soon!

The "feelings" for this station were "Excited" and "Grumpy." The first card we flipped showed "John's mom bought his favorite food. I asked, "How do you think he feels?"

He then chose a cutout, we read the scenario, he decided how that person might feel and placed it into the corresponding mailbox.

The first card was placed into the "Excited" mailbox because he decided that John would be excited to have his favorite food. We continued with the next card which showed "Matt broke one of his favorite Leapster games." How do you think he feels about this?

Continue going through the situation cards and talk through how that person might feel and how we would feel if it were us.

The second card was placed in the Grumpy mailbox.

Helping To Make A Connection Between Him and Other People

By doing this, I am trying to have him think about things that are important to him and situations that may have led to him feeling a certain way and showing him that other people feel the same way. For the “Grumpy” cards we discussed what each person could do improve the situation in order to feel better and when talking about the “Excited” cards, I asked him things like, “What would  your favorite food be?” and “What trips do you get excited to go on?”

Another situation card: Pat is going on a trip. Is he excited or grumpy? That depends!!

This was a great way for me to see if he was understanding how feelings are connected to situations. It allowed me to work with him on expanding his ability to “read” situations that don’t directly involve him but also recognize that other people have feelings just like him.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Lite Brite Heart

We have a lot of toys that Andrew does not play with (click here for a previous post about new toys) and so I began including these toys as station activities in My Obstacle Course. I do this so I can teach him how to play with them (in case that is why he doesn’t play with them) in small steps, with a good deal of structure and guidance.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Make A Heart On A Lite Brite

Lite Brite Heart

I think that a lot of times it is intimidating for children with planning issues or delays in pretend or imaginative play to sit down with a blank canvas, like a Lite Brite screen or a toy that comes as a bunch of small pieces needing to be put together to make something, like Legos or Lincoln Logs. Instead of considering those toys to be too difficult or too advanced for him, I removed the “I don’t even know where to start!” factor. I decided to see if starting things out for him would help. It was near Valentine’s day and he had received a new Lite Brite toy for Christmas that hadn’t been played with yet, so I started a heart so that we could build on from there together.

Heart shape started

This was so much less intimidating for him because he knew we were making a heart, he could see the general outline, and he could help me fill in the lines.

Pegs added to fill in heart outline

He didn’t have to worry about coming up with the idea or plan and making sure it would be right. I was helping him see that in order to play with this toy, all he had to do was put the little pegs go into the holes to make a picture, shape or just something random.

All of the pegs in to make a completed heart shape!

When we finished the heart, he pushed the button, saw all of the colors light up and had the greatest smile on his face!

Something so basic as introducing a toy (or reintroducing if they had no interest the first time) by removing steps that could be too frustrating is a great way to encourage your child to play. After doing this activity (we did this last year), I “caught” him playing with his Lite Brite many times, using the pegs (or markers as he calls them) to make patterns and also placing them randomly. It doesn’t matter to me if he makes random things, shapes or pictures. What matters is that he learned the basics and realized that he could do it!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Candy Heart Math

Candy hearts are another way to sneak in some math while using something that is really easy to find this time of year.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Match Up Numbers With The Same Number Of Items (Clothesline Clipping An Optional Add-On)

Candy Heart Number Match-Up

This activity helps to build one to one correspondence, which involves being able to match an object or group of objects with the number that represents it.

Setting Up This Station:

  1. I placed a certain number of candy hearts inside of a small plastic bag. (In this case, I used #1-5, but you could do whatever numbers your child is ready for, and they don’t have to be in order especially if you are working on larger numbers.) You could also place them in containers, muffin papers/tins or paper/plastic cups.
  2. I printed the numbers that went with the bags on a calendar cutout.
  3. I attached the bags to my clothesline (to sneak in some fine motor skill building 🙂 ) and set out the numbers.

How To Play:

  1. Choose a number.
  2. Find the bag that has the same number of candy hearts inside.
  3. Clip the number with the bag.

Candy Hearts To Practice Math Facts –

Click here for a previous post on using math organizers and dice to practice math facts. The materials shown went with a December theme but can be switched out for candy hearts to go with a February theme. See how easy it is to use basic materials to build math skills while keeping it fun and thematic!!

My Obstacle Course Station Activity:  Making Equal Groups

This is an activity inspired by my years teaching 3rd grade. When working on multiplication concepts with my students, it was really important to make sure that they understood that multiplication actually stands for “equal groups of.” Example: 4×3 actually means 4 groups of 3. This also works for division – starting with this number, when divided into groups of ___, we have ___ sets.  Example: If we started with 12 hearts and divided them into groups of 3, we would have 4 equal groups so 12 / 3=4.

For this activity, I chose a certain number of candy hearts and used a cute ice-cube tray as a counting tray.

Candy hearts and ice cube tray

Once at the station, we would first count and see how many hearts we had. Next, we would see if we could make equal groups of 2.

24 hearts divided into equal groups of 2

If so, we knew it was an even number and if not it was odd. If it was even, than we counted how many equal groups we had in order to make our equation: ___ groups of 2= ___. Depending on the number of hearts I had provided, we would usually go up to about 5 so we could count by fives.

Equal groups of 3 (8x3=24)
Equal groups of 4 works as well!
24 does not divide equally into groups of 5 - there are 4 equal groups with 4 left over (remainder)

Building math concepts and skills can be fun and doesn’t always have to involve paper/pencil activities or flash cards. If your child struggles with numbers or math facts, I encourage you to look no further than your pantry to find “manipulatives” (candy, Cheerios, goldfish crackers, dried beans, etc.). It is so important for them to get a good understanding of what the numbers and symbols represent and what they are really doing before being expected to do it all in their head or on paper.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Word Family Sorting

Word Family Sorting-

I have been asked a number of times by parents about what they should work on with their children after they have mastered ABC recognition and letter sounds. The next step is putting together the sounds to form small words and this is easily done by building word family recognition.  Here is a link to a word family list at a favorite website of mine, www.enchantedlearning.com. Word families are basically common word endings that become new words by switching out the beginning letter/s.

An example word family for the word ending “-at”: bat, cat, fat, hat, Kat, mat, pat, rat, sat

Concepts and skills like this are easily turned into My Obstacle Course station activities. I introduced this with Andrew by using Scrabble or Bananagram letters, letter blocks and letter magnets to build this knowledge, allowing him to see how the word changes easily by replacing the first letter. As he got older, I used some calendar cutouts and created a word family sort.

Word Family Sorting - 2 endings

I chose the word families he was working on in school at wrote the endings on a cutout.  (The photo above shows -it and -id word families and the photo below shows short “i” words so I chose -it, -id, -in and an oddball of -an endings.) I wrote the words that go with the endings each on their own cutout.  I mixed up the words, put them in a pile and set out the endings. (This also works great as a “Crawl and Sort” station activity.)

When he got to the station, he sorted the words, put them with their correct endings. He read the words out loud while sorting. If your child is ready for this skill but is not speaking yet, you can read the words out loud for them while they sort them. This helps give an auditory component to this activity so all learning modalities are used (visual, auditory and kinesthetic).

Another Self-Checking Activity:  I wrote the endings on the back of the cutout in order to make it a self-checking activity. Once the sort is complete, turn the cutouts over to make sure they match the ending on top.

More word families sorted - 4 endings

Since spelling or word patterns are usually how students are taught in school, this is a great way to reinforce something they are already working on.  You can adjust this activity to fit with whatever skill level your child is ready for. Turning it into more of a game doesn’t take long and doesn’t have to be fancy but it sure helps to make practicing this skill more fun and engaging.

Heart Shaped Calendar Cutouts

Calendar cutouts are always on my list of things to get for My Obstacle Courses.  They are so helpful when working on different academic and developmental skills at home. Instant theme and so versatile! My favorite cutouts are from Creative Teaching Press. They are about the thickness of an index card and have a different color on each side. Click here for the direct link to the calendar cutouts on their site. I also get them at my local teacher supply store.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

February Puff Sorting

Puff Sorting

This is a basic activity to work on visual discrimination of color and size using colored puffs. I purchased a large bag of colored puffs, in different sizes, from Michael’s a few years ago and am still finding ways to use them in My Obstacle Courses to build different skills. Since it is February (almost Valentine’s Day!), I chose the white and red ones to use in these station activities to go with our theme.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Sorting By Color

I placed a handful of puffs, between 10-15, in a container to keep them organized (they could also be placed in a zippered bag to work on opening and removing items while holding the bag – for some children that is a challenge). I used heart-shaped calendar cutouts labeled according to how the puffs were to be sorted – in this particular activity they are labeled “white” and “red.” I also provided a place for him to put the puffs (see below for more on thematic sorting containers). It’s all set and ready for sorting!

My Obstacle Course station activity: Sort puffs by color

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Sorting By Size

I strategically picked puffs in each size and placed them into the container. I labeled the mailbox sorters so he would know which size puffs to place inside. You could also provide a sample puff for each size so that your child can compare and check their choice. It’s all set and ready for sorting!

My Obstacle Course station activity: Sort the puffs by size
Valentine Mailboxes with red puffs sorted by sizeÂ

Helping to build basic skills like this does not have to be complicated! Activities like this are quick and easy to set up but allow you to see firsthand how your child does with these concepts. Too easy? Now you know they can do it and the next time you can use an activity that will challenge them. Too hard? Scale it back and include more activities like it to build their skills.

I have attached a developmental skills timeline/survey I received a few years ago (it is also on my website). I really like this timeline and use it to determine what we need to work on with Andrew and what we need to do next once he has mastered a skill. This timeline is unique because it lists out skills in order according to developmental areas, and does not list them by what a child “should” be able to do according to chronological age.

Thematic Sorting Containers

I’m always on the lookout for fun, thematic items to include in My Obstacle Courses and found these cute red and white mailboxes at Target last year. The dollar section in the front of the store usually has fun containers or buckets that go with the season we are in or about to be in. I get them to use for thematic looking sorting stations. This year I went and while my particular store did not have the mailboxes, they did have boxes that resembled Chinese food take out boxes. You could make your own “mailboxes” from shoe boxes or use plastic containers. In working with Andrew, I find that it helps to have a specific place to put things that we are sorting.

If you’d like ideas specific to what your child needs to work on, please email me at obstaclecoursemom@yahoo.com or leave me a post on My Obstacle Course’s Facebook page. I love hearing from you!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!