I love to use calendar numbers in My Obstacle Course stations. They add instant theme and require no preparation to make (although you could make your own if you are so inclined :).). I just like to get things that I can put into a My Obstacle Course kit (see below) so I can set it up quickly while still having it be fun, child-friendly and building skills he is ready for.
Summer Themed Calendar Numbers
These particular calendar numbers are summer themed and are the same numbers shown in my Story Starters post. I love when I find materials that can be used over and over again in different ways! Keeps things interesting for him and is easy on my wallet!
I was recently asked about ways to work on number sequencing and my mind immediately went to doing this using calendar numbers.
My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Put the numbers in order from 1-5
My Obstacle Course station activity set up and ready to go.Â
When setting up this station, I put out the first and last number of the group I want him to sequence and place the numbers needed to fill in the spaces above.
Putting numbers in order.Numbers in order!
This is a basic station activity that can be made as simple or as challenging as your child needs. While it is basic, it still shows you so much information about the child’s knowledge. (Note that they do not need to speak intelligibly in order to do this activity!)
Do they have number recognition?
Can they place the numbers in the correct sequence?
If they can count to five, can they match their counting with the number? I know that for a while, Andrew would count out loud but the numbers he was pointing to didn’t always match up. I would have him slow down but also ask him to point to certain numbers so I could tell if he really knew what they were.
If they are struggling with number identification, make sure they understand what the numbers actually represent through the use of manipulatives. Here is a picture of one way I have done this during a February themed My Obstacle Course using candy hearts but you could certainly use something like Goldfish crackers or shells to go with the summer theme:
One to one correspondence using candy hearts.
My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Put the numbers in order from 18-28
My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Put the numbers in order from 18-28.Putting the numbers in order.Numbers in order from 18-28.
This is a skill that shows up in math curriculums and is part of recognizing patterns in math. I will do a post soon about other ways to use these numbers to work on more complicated math skills knowing that all children are different and while they may struggle in one area, another area may be a strength, needing to be challenged a bit more.
My Obstacle Course kit -Â I’ll be posting next week on how I put together a super easy My Obstacle Course kit in order to build developmental and academic skills.
As always, please email me at obstaclecoursemom@yahoo.com with any questions or skills that you’d like me to post on. Thank you for allowing me to share!
Andrew’s OT is working with him on strengthening his hand muscles, which in turn will help him with things like handwriting. She showed me where the muscles were located and what she was doing to help build these. That got me thinking about fun ways to work on this at home, so as I did my weekly shopping, I was on the lookout!
I found some squeeze toys at Walgreens and thought these would be fun additions to My Obstacle Courses (as well as bath and pool time).
Squeeze toy trucks and fish
In order to fill these toys with water, he will need to squeeze the toy (using the hand muscles we wanted to target) and slowly release pressure while holding the toy under the water. He will then also have to squeeze it again to squirt the water out! (Click here for previous post showing how using a bulb syringe builds those same muscles.)
My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Squeeze and Fill
This is a great station to do at a sink. I use sand buckets or bowls that are deep enough as well as provide some sort of container to squirt the water into.
Materials at stationSink with a bucket filled about halfway with water.Squeezing the toy.Â
The muscles I am using to squeeze this are the same muscles necessary for handwriting – try it! Pinch your thumb and first two fingers together to feel this. It always amazes me to break something down that comes easily to people and really think about all that is involved in some of the most basic tasks. We will be doing lots of squeezing stations this summer because while Andrew’s hand muscles are getting stronger they still need “workouts” like this.
Squeeze the toy under the water, slowly releasing pressure to allow water to enter.Squeezing the toy to spray the water out.
To give this station activity more purpose, you could draw a line or tell them that they have to fill the container to a certain point, counting along the way to see how many times it takes to fill and squeeze before they reach that point. If you think this is something that is too “baby-ish” for your child, I can think back to watching a Survivor-like show (or maybe it was The Biggest Loser), with them doing something similar. The contestants had to run, get something that would absorb but also drip water, run back and squeeze as much water as they could into a bucket, doing this until they filled their bucket to the line. You could do something like this using the squeeze toys as part of an outdoors My Obstacle Course and they’ll never know they are building these hand muscles!!
I love utilizing sorting stations in My Obstacle Courses. It allows children to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding without needing to have words. There are so many different sorting options depending on the things and concepts that you want to build or reinforce with your child. I have found that by changing up what the child is sorting into, it helps to keep it fun and fresh.
I found these colorful pails at Michael’s and while they are meant for playing in the water and sand, they are also perfect for a sorting station. So colorful and they stack nicely for storage purposes.
Colorful Sand Pails from Michael's
Besides an obvious sorting station of sorting by items by color, here are some other sorting ideas:
My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Sort the boys and girls (These were from Fisher Price toys in our closet.)My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Sort by function - Things that fly vs. Things that driveMy Obstacle Course Station Activity: Sort the sea animals (These were pattern cards I had gotten at our teacher store. I have used these for counting, patterning, graphing and sorting.)My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Sort by word family
I encourage you to think about what skills or concepts your child is ready to work on and make it a bit more fun by turning it into a sorting station. This is something I include in all of our own My Obstacle Courses because it really is a quick and easy way to see where your child is in the area you are working on. None of these examples took more than 10 minutes to put together, just a matter of deciding what to work on and getting a little creative by looking around at what you already have.
She had posted about using a plunger for ring stacking and when I was at Target, I found these dive rings in the dollar section (I also grabbed an inexpensive new plunger. 🙂 ). While the dive rings are meant to go into a pool, combined with a plunger, they make a fun, super inexpensive, summer themed ring tossing game! This is a great way to work on tossing, motor planning, and can be set up almost anywhere you have a flat surface to suction the plunger to!
PlungerDive rings from dollar section of TargetMy Obstacle Course Station Activity: Dive Ring TossRings tossed!
We will start as close as we need to get the idea of how to toss, how hard, etc. and move back slowly to build this skill. Finger placement, hand/wrist movement and timing the release of the ring are all necessary for this activity. Having just tried a game of horseshoes with him, which is similar, we will probably be standing pretty close for a while and that is okay! I want him to get a chance to experiment, see what happens when he tries different approaches and work on the motor planning of this as much as he needs. We did this in front of a couch and it worked well for stopping some of the more “enthusiastic” tosses :).
Andrew is a great swimmer! He always has enjoyed being in the water and loves diving down for things like dive sticks and rings. People are always amazed at how comfortable he is in the water and I was encouraged to sign him up for swimming lessons so that he could learn the strokes and be on the swim team. I was a little reluctant to do this but thought I’d give it a try. Well, it didn’t necessarily go the way I had hoped (not the first time and I’m positive it won’t be the last!). The whole experience was overwhelming due to the fact that swim team practice was held during his lesson time. He thought that the swim team swimmers were hysterical to watch, all of those arms and legs flapping wildly, the goggled faces bobbing up and down (I’m smirking just imagining what it must have looked like to him!) and he would swim over and get in front of them. This was not exactly the ideal situation and I decided not to waste any more money. We’ll try again of course, just in a more private setting next time.
While lessons didn’t go well, I did notice that his left arm did not come out of the water in the same way that his right arm did. When he swims, he tends to use his arms together in a “breaststroke” technique to get to the bottom of the pool as well as anywhere else he wants to go. I wanted to be able to work on this with him and give his arms some practice with different swim strokes. We are lucky to live somewhere warm and have access to pools, but it’s not always ideal and thought about using my exercise ball to work on this as part of My Obstacle Course. We did and it worked great!!
My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Exercise Ball Swimming
For this station activity, all you need is an exercise ball, squishy couch cushions or stacked pillows and you are set.
He got on, placed his stomach/chest on the ball and we worked on bringing his arms up and around his ear while reaching forward. We counted and chanted, “Reach forward!”
Getting ready to work on some swim strokes.
Notice how he’s even able to put his head up and down like he will need to do in the pool.
Working to get that arm up and around his ear.Bringing it around again.
I also used the ball to help him get comfortable with floating on his back, something he was not crazy about. I held him (just like I would in the water) with one hand under his neck and another under his thighs. The ball wiggles a little bit which is good because it mimics floating in water. I encouraged him to pretend he was looking up at the bright blue, sunny sky and would even ask him how many birds he saw.
I share this because I know many parents who want their children to swim and felt like this was a good, easy way to practice the “floaty” sensation feelings that go along with swimming as well as work on some strokes without getting wet!
June is here and I cannot believe it! Time flies when you’re having fun! I will be posting on some summer themed station activities to help make skill building and reinforcement a bit more fun.
I got this idea from a company called Clever Catch that makes inflatable balls for classroom use to work on math facts. The balls are preprogrammed with things like numbers and equations and when the student catches the ball, they have to say or do what their eye sees first. A great way to keep something like this a bit random and interactive.
I decided to make my own to work on a concept Andrew needed more practice with – questions. Super simple to make and only took about 2 minutes total.
I purchased a beach ball, blew it up and then wrote question words in each section.
Basic Inflatable Beach BallQuestions written on beach ballMore questions
The idea is that the ball is passed back and forth and the person has to ask a question using the question word that is in front of them. This helps build both questioning and answering skills while also building gross motor skills and visual tracking. We were working on tossing and catching skills, but this could also be done rolling the ball back and forth with your feet touching to create a leg border.
Sample questions we’ve had:
What did you eat for lunch?
Who did you see at OT?
When is your birthday?
What is your favorite color?
Where is your favorite place to eat out?
Why do you like wearing pajamas?
Have fun with this! Take turns if your child is ready to ask questions, guiding them if they get stuck.
