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

Practicing Speech Sounds

Most speech pathologists will send home practice pages with words that have the target sound for the child to work on.  If they do not, contact them and let them know that you would like to reinforce what they are doing and would like to stay current on the sounds your child needs to practice. This is particularly helpful if they receive services while they are at school and you are not able to speak with the pathologist each time. Andrew receives his speech therapy after school so I am there and ask his speech pathologist what we should be working on or  I look at the homework paper he gets for practice. While I do not use the homework sheet as she does while working with him, I do take the words and/or sounds and turn them into more of a game.

I Need To Help My Child Practice Skills But They Don’t Want To Work With Me!

One of the reasons I came up with My Obstacle Course is that he didn’t want to work with me and I know I am not alone in this because I hear it ALL of the time. We would come home from our speech session armed with a sheet of pictures that had the sound he was working on and we were expected to practice this.  I don’t know about you, but in my house it looked and felt as though I was trying to wrangle an octopus into a sleeping bag. He wriggled, he yelled, he ran around the room, he would spin things all while I looked for ways to bribe him. Ah, bribery. Then one day I had enough and thought, “This is miserable! There has to be another way!!” And there was…by turning it into a game or station activity played within My Obstacle Course. This helped tremendously because it was part of a larger structure, it had a beginning and an end and he knew what was expected.  It also helped because while I made the activities, it wasn’t coming from me, it was just part of the Obstacle Course.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Speech Sound/Word Practice Game

 

Match the word with its clue and then say the word 5 times.

Station set up:

 

Make up word clues to go with the speech words or sounds that your child is working on and write them on calendar cutouts or index cards. Place them on the easel under a magnet. (This can also be done on the floor by setting out the clues and having the words in a container.) Write the speech words on cutouts or index cards.  That’s all! Piece of cake. You could also provide a mirror for them if it is helpful for them to see what their mouth is supposed to be doing. (click here for a previous post on using mirrors)

At the station:

Read the clue and find the word that goes with it.  Say the word 5 or 10 times.

What it looks like in our house:

Clues for words with the /air/ and /ear/ sounds, like "chair, care, share" and "hear, deer, tear, clear."
Word matched up with its clue.
Clues for words beginning with /ch/.
Here are the /ch/ words that he was working on.

I really like doing this on the magnetic easel because it is also working on fine motor skills and planning because he has to hold the clue, lift the magnet and slide the word underneath so they are all held on to the surface with the magnet.

It does not take long to make this activity but it makes it so much more fun for both of us to reinforce his speech pathologist.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

 

 

 

Colored Marshmallow Graphing

I love it when I find something that is fun and inexpensive that can be used in many different ways and the colored marshmallows I wrote about last week are another one of those things!

Here is a My Obstacle Course station activity to build the math skills of graphing and interpreting data with colored marshmallows. This is something that is great because each time you set it up, the results are different. I find that introducing a skill but using different materials that are random really helps to keep Andrew engaged and he learns about the concept and how to apply it with different things.

When I was teaching, I always felt like graphing was a bit too abstract, throwing children into interpreting data from a graph without really knowing where the data is coming from. Depending on the school or teacher, there may be more emphasis on providing opportunities for children to graph things that the they can relate to but an activity like this really allows them to be part of the process from start to finish, being able to move and place each item where it belongs and then answering questions.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Marshmallow Graphing

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Colored Marshmallow Graphing

For this station activity, I used a sheet of white printer paper to make my graph, placed some colored mini-marshmallows in a muffin cup and provided some follow-up questions to help build math vocabulary and work on analyzing the data, aka marshmallows.

Colored Marshmallow Graph

When at the station, place the marshmallows in the correct row according to their color. Some children will dump the marshmallows out and then place them randomly. Andrew favors doing it one color at a time. When all of the marshmallows have been placed in the correct row, the graph is complete. I like to talk a little bit about what we notice – Which color have the most? Which color has the least? I also use the question strips that I made for marshmallow sorting. (marshmallow questions) I cut them apart and place them in a bucket so he can pick one question at a time instead of being overwhelmed with a whole sheet of questions. Small thing to do but it makes a huge difference in attention and motivation.

Another simple and easy way to build math skills using something fun, easy to find and inexpensive :).

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Stir Up Some Fun With Spring Colored Whisks!

I found these colored whisks at Target and besides being perfect for using in a spring themed My Obstacle Course, I realized they would be perfect for building a skill I was working on with Andrew.

Spring colored whisks

If At First It Doesn’t Work, Try Something Different

I had introduced a stirring activity with him (stirring frosting with a spoon) and realized that it was too challenging for him because he didn’t have the hand muscle strength to dig in and move it around. I thought that these whisks would be perfect for him to build his hand muscles while grasping the handles and moving it through something that would provide just a little resistance…water!

This is such a simple activity, and probably one that many of you have done with your children, however as Andrew grew up we never really had those pretending to “make soup” on the kitchen floor with pots and wooden spoons or “splash in the kitchen sink” water experiences. While he loves swimming, bathing and showering, he doesn’t like the possibility of getting wet and having wet clothes on.

(Recent story about to illustrate this…Last week when we went to Morgan’s Wonderland and there was a really cool water experimentation-station. There were lots of spinning parts, which he LOVES, but I could tell he was anxious about getting wet. He even came up to me and said, “Next time I wear my swim suit and swim shirt so I can’t get wet.” In his mind, the rule must be – “It’s okay to be wet in a swim suit.” I showed him the complete change of clothes that I had in my bag and assured him that he could change his clothes when he wanted. This helped tremendously and he was then willing to step in closer and really experiment with some cool things! I will post pictures of him at this station to my Facebook page.)

I have learned to reintroduce things that didn’t work before by making small tweaks, which also gives me a lot of insight as to what is standing in his way or what he is ready to handle at that time.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Stirring Water With A Whisk

I used a large plastic bowl…

Large plastic bowl

added the whisks…

Whisks and bowl waiting for water

some water and a few drops of food coloring when we got to the station! I also placed a rimmed cookie sheet under the bowl to catch any spills. The food coloring is not essential but I do find that it helps give this activity purpose, especially for someone who needs to see the purpose in doing something before fully engaging.

At first he hesitated, worrying that he wouldn’t be able to do it like he wanted but I could see he was curious about what would happen with the food coloring if he gave it a stir! I began by placing my hand over his so he could feel the pressure necessary to hold the whisk and also to show him how to move it around the bowl.

Stirring the water to make it green.
Really stirring now!

Sometimes you have to look no farther than your kitchen cupboards to help your child build skills. The colorful whisks just add a bit of fun and also keep his tools separate from mine 🙂 .

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

 

 

 

 

Colored Marshmallow Sorting Station

It was springtime last year and I was on the hunt for things that reminded me of spring to use with Andrew’s My Obstacle Courses. I was in our grocery store, (which is a great place to find fun, thematic materials- especially in the “holiday” aisle and the shelves at the end of the aisle), and my eye caught a package of colored mini-marshmallows. They appealed to me because of their pastel colors, they could be used with tweezers for fine motor skill building and also because there were so many of them, which means that they make great math manipulatives (patterning, counting, sorting, graphing, use with dice for addition and subtraction, grouping for multiplication and division, etc.). For this post, I thought I would share a sorting station we did and the question cards we used after.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Colored Marshmallow Sorting

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Colored Marshmallow Sorting

Station Preparation:

There were four different colors of marshmallows so I divided a sheet of regular white printer paper into four sections, writing the color word in each. I also labeled it “Marshmallow Sorting” because I like things like this to have a title :). You could place this inside of a sheet protector so it stays in better shape than mine!

Sorting Sheet

I typed and printed out some questions for after they were sorted, cut them into question cards and put them into one of my small, spring colored pails. It seems like these cards would be unnecessary since I could just ask him the questions, but for us it makes all the difference in the world when he sees it written out on paper. It’s official My Obstacle Course business for him and not just another pestering question coming from mom.

I poured some marshmallows into one of my colored muffin cups and the station was ready!

At The Station:

When he got to the station, he read the directions, “Sort the marshmallows by color.” He squished them a little bit, smelled them a little bit (which made me realize that he probably hadn’t had much marshmallow exposure before, particularly since my husband and I don’t ever have them around!) and then sorted them. He likes to sort one color at a time but I know other children who sort as they remove items. Interesting to watch!

Once he was done sorting, we looked at the question cards and answered them. You can choose how many questions your child answers or have them “close their eyes and pick” to add some mystery. Here are some questions I wrote out to go with this station: marshmallow sorting questions. I like to incorporate math language in the questions as well ask some questions about personal preferences.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

Spring Themed Word Sort

When Andrew was younger, it became obvious that sitting at the kitchen counter to practice school work or therapy words was not going to be easy or fun, for either of us! That is one of the main reasons for coming up with My Obstacle Course. We needed something different and one of the things that I realized right away was how easy it was to turn basic skills he was working on into easy games or sorts. These sorts also allowed him to show what he knew without needing to be intelligible. I was able to reinforce his teachers and also challenge him where he was academically. Turning something like working on long vowel patterns into a game or a sort like this makes it so much more fun.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Sort the words according to their vowel pattern.

The picture shows this station activity during a March/Spring themed Obstacle Course. Doesn’t it look so much more appealing than the usual ways to practice spelling patterns? I think so, and more importantly, so does Andrew! The task is clear and he knows that once he is done, we get to move on. He’s not going to be stuck there for an unknown amount of time practicing something he may or may not care about. There is a purpose to this, sort the words into the correct pail, which makes motivating him so much easier.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Long Vowel Sorting (-ay, -ai-, -a-e)

Putting The Station Activity Together:

  • I wrote out words that had the long /a/ patterns he was working on (words like pail, rain, lane, gave, day, ray, etc.) on calendar cutouts and also provided cutouts with the vowel patterns on them as labels to show where they go. This could be done with uppercase or lowercase letters for letter recognition, or any vowel/spelling pattern that your child is working on (here is a link to a page of vowel patterns).
  • If you don’t have cutouts or don’t want to use them, any paper, index cards or post-it notes work well.
  • I used some spring colored pails from Target so he would have a place to sort the words into. This also helps me because after he sorts them and before we move on, we go through each pail’s words, read them out loud together and I can double-check to make sure they were all correctly sorted.

What To Do At The Station:

When they get to the station, point out the vowel pattern labels and say the sound the pattern makes. Flip over the first card in the pile, say the word and find the pattern the word uses. Place the card into the pail that is labeled with the pattern. Continue until all of the words have been sorted. If you’d like to add a challenge, hold the cards, say the word and have them spell it out loud or place it in the correct pail without looking at the word. If they don’t get it correct, put it back in the pile or show it to them, point out the vowel pattern and place it in the correct pail.

 

The word "pail" sorted into the "-ai-" bucket.

This activity doesn’t take much time to make or set up at all, just a little planning and prep work. It really is such a simple thing however it is helping your child build academic skills while also allowing you to engage and encourage them in a fun way.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Spring Colored Containers

I love containers! I don’t know what it is about them, it just always makes me feel good to know that something has a place. When I began doing My Obstacle Courses with Andrew, I began collecting inexpensive containers (paper or plastic cups included!) that went along with themes that would not only help me create a fun, colorful adventure but also really helps me with organization and Obstacle Course set up.

I found these spring colored pails at Target and thought they were so cute but in all honesty, at first I said to myself,”Well, he doesn’t like to dig in the sand or dirt. That’s really too bad!” But then as I took another look at them, I realized that I could use them in so many other ways with him; ways that had nothing to do with things that are messy! So now, I notice things at stores that I would never have noticed before, and think about all of the possible new uses for basic things.

These pails are not only bright and spring-y, they are perfect for sorting into or holding larger items like blocks or Duplos at a station.

Spring colored buckets

These smaller containers (you could take the ribbons off if you like) would be great for holding materials like question strips or story sequencing cards, as well as being used for sorting colored puffs or math facts written on calendar cutouts.

Small spring colored pails
Buckets Large and Small

I also found these muffin cups (and if you’ve been following my blog, you know that I don’t bake 🙂 ) and immediately thought would be great for holding small items like colored marshmallows before sorting or graphing or could contain coins that are waiting to be counted. They are great because they are durable, reusable, and can be squeezed to help pour things into one’s hand or onto a work surface. These could also be combined with frosting and a cake decorating kit to build hand strength by having your child fill them with frosting to make pretend cupcakes (Just thought of that as I’m writing and am definitely using that with Andrew this year!).

Spring colored muffin cups

While this particular post does not give specific activities to use with these adorable containers, keep checking back because the posts I have planned for the next few weeks will show how I have used them in the past, as well as how I’m planning to use them this spring, to build literacy, math and motor skills!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!