My Obstacle Course: Engage, Encourage and Empower

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

Obstacle Course Mom

Learning Styles

With each of the My Obstacle Course station activities I share, I try to make sure that each one incorporates all of the learning styles:

visual

auditory

kinesthetic

This was drilled into me while studying education during college and it has stuck with me – thank goodness! I feel that it is so important to present concepts and skills this way because I know that no matter what a child’s learning style is, they are getting it presented in the way they learn best. This does not mean that you have to create complicated, intricate, detailed station activities. It really is as simple as using written out directions or picture cues, talking through something with your child while doing it or providing them with items they can manipulate while sorting or matching. See pictures to see how simple this really is but know that it makes a huge difference!

Super simple station activity that uses visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning modalities.

By incorporating all of the learning styles, I learned that Andrew is a visual learner and since he was not able to verbalize all that he knew, he was able to demonstrate his knowledge kinesthetically through sorting and matching. Auditory processing is not a strength for him. I can say things over and over again until I’m blue in the face and while I know he hears me and remembers the craziest of things (at least in my mind!), I know that if I want him to process and understand something, he needs to read it or see it. This is especially helpful when it comes to directions, social rules or behavior reminders.

Personal Note:  It is not uncommon to find me out with him at restaurants or social gatherings holding a sheet of paper with behavioral expectations (specifically what it looks like/doesn’t look like depending on what we have had difficulties with) and the consequences of following those rules printed out. It is all right there for him to see and he has the choice to follow or not follow knowing that his choices determine what he gets to do or not do. He looks it over when we leave the house, when we get to where we are going as well as any times he may need gentle reminders.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

 

Cool Tool – Reading Guide

On one of my recent visits to the teacher store, I was in the literacy aisle and noticed that they had these colored reading guides.

Reading Guides by Ashley Inc.

These are a great tool to help children focus on what they are reading, really making the words stand out and reducing the amount of background distraction.

This small reading guide highlights single lines of text.
The reading guide blocks lines of text above and below.
This big reading guide highlights paragraphs.

They come in lots of different colors which may make it a bit more fun and motivating for a struggling readers.

I do realize this is not a totally new concept, someone just took an old idea and made it better! This tool just goes one step further than rulers, bookmarks or construction paper strips, by blocking out the lines above and below the line they are reading. I would always use bookmarks under lines of text that I was reading, especially when the material that was new or challenging. As a teacher, I would have my students use rulers, bookmarks or strip of colored construction paper, underneath the lines that they were reading to keep their place and help them focus. Wish I had these back then!!

If your child struggles with reading, this tool could help! If you don’t have a teacher supply store nearby and are interested in this, here is a link to the reading guides on Amazon.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Summer Themed My Obstacle Course Finds

I’ve had a lot of people inquire about where I get my materials and seasonal items. I visit stores like Target, Michael’s and Walgreens because they have a lot of kid-friendly items that aren’t super expensive. I plan ahead so when they begin putting out items for the next season or holiday, I check out to see if there is anything to help me build the following skills:

  • Fine Motor
  • Gross Motor
  • Oral Motor
  • Literacy
  • Math
  • Social Skills

I also think about themes I want to do before I even enter the store. This helps me to notice items that would work and also helps to keep me focused!

In addition to doing My Obstacle Courses with Andrew, I love to share what I’ve learned as an educator and what I’ve learned from Andrew with other parents. This website/blog is one way I can do this but I also love to share in person. I am excited because I am having my summer themed My Obstacle Course session next week at Andrew’s school. This allows me to model for other parents some of the station activities I have that could help them build and reinforce skills specific to their own child’s needs. As part of my preparation for this, I visited Target and Walgreens to see what they had. I will share in this post what I picked up but you’ll have to check back to see how I plan to use them! 🙂

Finds from the Dollar Section at Target

Target’s Dollar Section Finds:

Water/sand wheel, sand play kit with sifter, velvet coloring pages, pop up ball catcher, dive rings, squishy ball and caterpillar that lights up and a beach ball.

Walgreens Purchases

Walgreens Finds:

Large squishy ball, dino-squeezers, frisbee, water blaster, water squeezers – truck shapes and fish shapes.

Looking forward to sharing my ideas with you!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Cootie Catcher

I received some wonderful materials from Creative Teaching Press and these “Cootie Catchers” were included.

Package of "All About Me" Cootie Catchers

Seeing this activity sent me back to elementary school days remembering when we would make these out of loose-leaf paper in order to determine who best friends were, who we were going to marry, and all sorts of  other goofy things. Creative Teaching Press has taken this idea and turned it into a fabulous way for children to get to know other people. (I also got a book with 20 different Math Cootie Catchers that I cannot wait to try out!)

Individual Cootie Catcher

I was not sure if Andrew would be into this sort of thing but decided to give it a try, after all it would require some fine motor skills, motor planning and also allow us to work on social skills of asking and answering questions.

I know that Andrew’s ability to fold is not great, I wanted to introduce this to him without making folding the goal so I did it ahead of time. (It was really easy to do because the folding lines are already pre-creased so I just had to follow the directions.)

Cootie Catcher made and ready to go!
The other side, where the fingers go to open and close the Cootie Catcher.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Cootie Catcher “Get To Know Me”

We did not write the answers to the questions down on the paper but asked them out loud instead. We opened and closed the “Cootie Catcher” a certain number of times to see the different questions (5 seemed to work well) and chose the questions randomly until they were all answered.

I began the questioning and modeled how to open and close it for him. He did a great job and I was surprised by some of his answers. Just when you think you know someone, they have a new favorite food!

When it was his turn, we worked to get his fingers in the right places and I helped show him how to open and close it.

Not perfect with the finger placement but good enough to get the job done!!

I was so excited that he was really into asking me the questions. Not only that, he actually waited and listened to my answers!! I think the fact that he was concentrating on the opening and closing of the “Cootie Catcher” helped to focus his mind.

His turn to ask questions.

This comes as package of 30 (a class set) so it makes it a great material to share with friends, cousins or teachers once you’ve decided how many you need.

Personal Note: I have to say that seeing spelling errors in blog posts is a major pet peeve of mine and was pretty disappointed to find out by my husband this morning that I had spelled “Translator” wrong in yesterday’s post title. It is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me and I try really hard to make sure that I check, double-check and spell check things I publish. I wanted you to know that I was aware of this and have corrected it but you have my most sincere apologies for this mistake!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Computer As Translator

My last year of teaching, I had the blessing of having a child who was on the autism spectrum in my home room. At the time, I knew very little about autism but he taught me so much and I learned quite a bit that year that would later help me with Andrew.

This child was high-functioning, verbal and although he required very little one on one assistance, he would sometimes encounter challenging situations in unstructured settings like recess or PE. When this would happen, the teacher involved would usually come to me frustrated over the behaviors exhibited but I would get very few details leading up to the incidents. They had a whole class of students and couldn’t spend all of their time focused on this one child (I totally get that) but since the student was mine and was unable to tell me everything that had happened, I had to find out what was going on.

My instincts and experience with children told me that it probably wasn’t all this child’s fault and that there had to be more to the stories. I began sitting with that student at the computer (something they liked to do) and was amazed at what I would discover. It was so informative and helpful. Using the computer as an interpreter made all the difference in the world. Part of the reason it worked was because the computer screen doesn’t have facial expressions or social rules to figure out. I would type statements or questions and he would respond either by typing or speaking for me to type. Details would come out and quite often he was provoked by another student who was able to escape getting in trouble because they were more socially savvy. When we finished doing this, we could print it out and present it to the other teacher to empower the child with his version of the events. It gave him a voice and a means to stand up for himself. This did not excuse him of any behaviors that hurt or bothered other students but it gave me the chance to work on social stories for how to deal with this in the future. This also allowed me to work with the other students who were involved, let them know I knew what had happened and that they would also be held accountable for their actions or words.

This is just something that I was thinking about today and thought that it might be helpful to share.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Do-A-Dot Art Station

Do-A-Dot paint markers provide a great way to quickly and easily get an art project together without worrying about getting a lot of paint on fingers, hands, etc. It also is a good way to build hand muscles by pushing and using pressure to make the dots on the paper.

"Do-A-Dot" Marker
Building hand muscles by holding and applying pressure to the marker.
Push the marker and get a circle of paint.

 

Do-A-Dot Smiley Face 🙂

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Use the Do-A-Dot marker to make a spring picture with green grass, a yellow sun and orange flowers.

This took about 20 seconds to put together – a sheet of white paper and 3 Do-A-Dot markers. Instead of leaving this as a free form art project which tend to overwhelm Andrew, I gave it a purpose. I had him use the green marker to make grass, the yellow marker to make the sun and the orange marker to make flowers.

Making the grass...
and then the sun.
Some fun conversation while making the sun!
Seriously considering where to place the orange flowers.

This was the perfect little art project for someone who doesn’t really get into art projects. Quick and fun for him while producing a beautiful piece for me to hang!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!