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 October 2011

Enchanted Learning Halloween Themed Pages

If you have been following my posts for a while, you know how much I love to use materials from www.EnchantedLearning.com. Here are some examples of what they have to help build math skills using the Halloween theme.

Count the bats and write the number.
Station set up for Andrew with numbers printed so he could refer back to them.
A great way to build counting skills with individual items as well as counting "how many in all?"
Station set up.

Note: This is just me, but I wanted to make the papers look a little more appealing so I trimmed them and glued them onto black construction paper before “laminating” them with clear contact paper. I did this so I could reuse them in future My Obstacle Courses as well as share them with Andrew’s teacher to use in his classroom. The construction paper and contact paper make them a bit more sturdy.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

Halloween Sticker Patterns

This is a super simple way to build patterning skills along with fine motor skills – Halloween themed patterning!

I had some packages of Halloween themed stickers (could be any theme at any time of the year though) and got out some orange index cards. I began a pattern using the stickers (shown in the photo) and when Andrew got to the station, he looked at the pattern, found the sticker that went next, peeled it and worked to stick it on the card.

Halloween sticker patterns

Seems easy enough, right? This was actually a really challenging activity for him, not necessarily figuring out the patterns, but all of the motor planning involved in removing the sticker, having the sticker on his fingers and then working to place the sticker carefully onto the card in the spot next to the previous sticker.

This is an example of using a strength along with a weakness to provide motivation. While he would make comments about the stickers being sticky and tricky, as he was doing this he was really focused on the pattern. If you have a child who struggles with patterns but loves stickers, this is a great way to help build patterning while using a material that they enjoy.

As you can see from the photo, this is very basic activity yet it provided a fun, thematic way to build all of these skills!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Halloween Ring Sort and Count

This is one of my favorite station activities because it was one of those moments where I realized that I could take an item, alter it a bit from it’s original intended use and create activities with it to build skills and find out what Andrew knew.

I purchased a package of Halloween rings (either from Target or Michael’s, cannot remember) and used my scissors to cut off the ring part. (I don’t know about you but those rings were never very comfortable and I knew that Andrew would never wear them.) This left me with black and purple bats, black and orange spiders, and skulls (or skeletons).

I decided that I would have him sort these pieces and then count them. I got out the colorful Easter egg dying cups for him to sort into and wrote a label for each one so that he would see the words that went along with the item (color and object). I strategically chose a certain amount of each one and placed those in a container ready for him to sort.

Station set up and ready to go.

Once at the station, he sorted the items.

Andrew sorting.
Andrew talking about what it is and where it should go.

When he was done sorting, I had him count how many of each. We used some dice to represent the number of items in the cup. We then decided which group had the most, the least and checked to see if any were the same or equal.

Close up of labels, rings sorted and dice representing number of rings in the cup.

This was a favorite station for him and it has been modified throughout the years to work on addition, subtraction, patterning. This year it will be used to build multiplication and division skills (which is simply making “equal groups of”).

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Geoboard Spider

Using a geoboard to create a spider is a great way to sneak in some fine motor and motor planning skills during an October/Halloween themed My Obstacle Course.

My geoboard spider (I always try out activities beforehand in case they don't work.).

This is a super easy station to set up, all you need is a geoboard and some rubber bands (which the geo board comes with). Click here for the Geoboard Google Search results as well as a picture of a geoboard with rubber bands creating what looks to me like a spider web – another way to use it with this theme!!

I began the rubber band spider with a rectangle body and Andrew’s job was to create the 8 legs, 4 on each side. This requires using both hands together with one hand either holding the peg with one end of the rubber band around it or holding the board so it doesn’t move and some hand strength with the other hand to be able to pull the rubber band to stretch it all the way over the peg.

Andrew working to make his geoboard spider. See how he has to use two hands together to stretch the rubber bands?

Children generally enjoy working with geoboards because they rarely get to “play” with rubber bands. Ever watch an adult with a rubber band? There’s just something about them that keeps fingers and hands busy while stretching and twisting them – so fun!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Jack-O-Lantern Ball

A jack-o-lantern ball like this one is a super fun addition to an October/Halloween themed My Obstacle Course! I saw one of these the other day at the grocery store and I think I got mine at Target.

Jack O Lantern Ball

Use for:

  • bouncing
  • tossing
  • catching
  • passing
  • kicking
  • rolling
  • making a basket (whether with little basketball hoop or even a laundry basket!).

Note: I use balls in the house because Andrew is not very strong with his ball skills. I say this because if he were a child who could really kick or throw, I would probably not use kicking or throwing as a station. (I saw a child at Andrew’s sports league the other day who I fully expect to see punting field goals for the pros someday with his kicking ability at age 5!) If this is the case in your house, you don’t have to scrap incorporating balls altogether. It could be used along with math facts or spelling words as a passing or rolling back and forth activity. (ex. “treat” “t” – pass/roll, “r” pass/roll, “e” pass/roll, “a” pass/roll, “t” pass/roll or you: 5+2= (pass/roll), child: 7 (pass/roll) )

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Preparing For An October/Halloween My Obstacle Course

Today I am sharing an example of what it looked like when I was preparing for an October/Halloween themed My Obstacle Course done with Andrew.

Prepping for an October/Halloween Themed My Obstacle Course

Below is a photograph of my desk while I got organized. This is how I play!! While it may seem to be just a mish-mash of things, they all went together beautifully to create a fun learning experience.

Prepping by gathering materials to see what I have.

I gathered cutouts, stickers, thematic materials and other tools that I had which would help me build skills. I’ll do my best to go from left to right describing the item and how I used it. (I will be posting the ones I haven’t published yet in the next two weeks.)

  • Yellow Geoboard with rubber bands to build fine motor skills while creating a spider.
  • Colored cups (leftover from Easter egg dying) with Halloween rings used for sorting and counting.
  • Alphabet stamps and stamp pad to build fine motor skills while spelling words to go with our theme.
  • Write on – wipe off alphabet writing book with dry-erase markers to help with letter formation.
  • Leaf cutouts to make opposite matching game.
  • Halloween stickers for patterning activity, “What Comes Next?”
  • Autumn themed number cards to play, “Make This Number.”
  • Some counting activities from www.EnchantedLearning.com (the white papers with black background).
  • Farm themed memory match game.
Note: These nine activities actually got broken up into about 13 stations since I consider things like sorting and then counting to be separate stations and I also usually separate patterning into two stations using different stickers or different patterns. I’ve had people say that they could never set up that many stations but once you look at it like this, it is not that difficult.

After this, I gather up the larger items like tunnels, carpet runner, balls, clothesline and clothespins. It only takes a little while to set up because I use the same station locations each time so I just have to scatter the activities so I have a good mix of skills and also plan to put preferred activities after activities that are more challenging. This helps to motivate him to finish so he can move on.

With some really simple materials, you can create an engaging experience with your child that will provide you with so much information about how they learn and what they know and can do while your child gets to build the skills that they are ready for at the level they need.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!