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Help the Baby Chicks

This station activity is perfect for a farm-themed My Obstacle Course. All you need are some colored puffs (yellow works great for baby chicks) and some tweezers or ice tongs. I had some brown shredded paper that I placed into a baking pan because I thought it would help in pretending that they were still in their nest.Â I also had a picture of a hen from a Mailbox Teacher Magazine but you could draw your own (you would laugh if you saw what mine would look like) or simply print one fromÂ of the internet.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Help The Baby Chicks Get Back With Their Mom

This activity is simple. Have your child use the tweezers to get the baby chicks (one at a time) back to their mom. Since I am always looking for ways to build pretend play, I suggest adding some pretend play dialogue, such as “Oh no! The chicks are still sleeping in their nest and their mom is looking for them. Can you help them get back with their mother?”

Using the tweezers or tongs helps to build hand muscles necessary for handwriting and even eating with utensils. Here is a past post that I did on tweezers.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Farm Themed Sticker Story

When I purchase things to use in My Obstacle Courses with Andrew, I LOVE it when I can use them for multiple activities. Here is just one example of how easy it is to create a completely different activity using something as basic as package of stickers.

I had some farm stickers, which I used for a farm themed memory match game…

P1040979 — Farm Themed Memory Match Pairs

and decided to create a fill in the blank story using them. At the time, Andrew was 4 and since he wasn’t yet speaking, I wanted to know if he knew which animals made which sounds. This gave me the perfect opportunity to find out since I could read the words, say the sounds and he could select the animal that went with it.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Farm Themed Sticker Story

For this station activity, I typed up some basic sentences with a space provided for a sticker to go, printed it out, set out the stickers for Andrew to choose from and that was it.

This is what I wrote (so you can see it’s not rocket science 🙂 ):

Out in the country, there was a little red ___ (barn). There were lots of animals on the farm. There was a ___ (horse) that said “neigh!” There was a ___ (pig) that said “oink!” There was a ___ (cow) that said “moo!” There was even a ___ (scarecrow) that didn’t say anything, but scared away the birds.

Once at the station, I read the sentence and had him pick the sticker that best fit. He peeled it off of the sheet and placed it onto the paper on the line provided. This was not only reinforcing his knowledge of animals and their sounds, it was also fine motor skills of peeling and placing.

This activity can be adapted to any theme that you are doing, doesn’t take long to prepare and is a good way to build vocabulary or provide information about a certain topic/thing while keeping your child engaged in the process.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Autumn Themed “Make This Number”

I first did a post sharing this activity in September (Apple Themed Make This Number) and wanted to share how easy it is to updateÂ this station activity simply by using some colored index cards and thematic or seasonal stickers.

For the autumn-themed number cards, I decided to use colors that represent autumn for me – red, orange and yellow (you could use any cards or colors that you’d like), and I used some apple, pumpkin and leaf stickers. If this is too busy for you or your child, you could use just one color of index card or one kind of sticker for a set of cards (ex. a set of apple number cards, a set of pumpkin number cards and/or a set of leaf number cards).

Here is the set of cards I made:

P1040996 — Autumn-themed number cards 1-10

All you need to do for this activity is decide the total that you’d like your child to make, get pairs of cards that make that number, mix them up and set them out. (For a more detailed description of this station activity, check out my original post Apple Themed Make This Number.)

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Put two cards together to make 9

P1000115 — Andrew counting the stickers on two cards to see if they equal 9.

P1000120 — Andrew putting the final two cards together to get 9.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Put two cards together to make 10

Alternative Activity Idea:

These cards could be put together in pairs to build concepts like “more” and “less” through questions like, “Which has more, apples or pumpkins?” Throw in a “greater than” or “less than” sign and you can build yet another skill! See how something so basic as colored index cards and seasonal stickers can really help to build math skills in a fun, kid-appealing way? Love it!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Autumn Themed Vocabulary and Picture Matching

When I begin working on putting together a My Obstacle Course, I choose my theme and then as part of my preparation, I usually head to Enchanted Learning to see if they have anything I can use to build literacy or math skills. This is an example of how I used one of their thematic vocabulary sheets, altered the look of it a bit and created an engaging station activity to build vocabulary!

I began by printing off the sheet which is meant to be a “draw a line from picture to word” activity. While I love the pictures and the concept, as I mentioned above, I wanted something a bit more fun and interactive.

P1040986 — Autumn matching sheet (vocabulary and pictures) from EnchantedLearning.com.

I got out a leaf-shaped pad of note paper that I had gotten at Teacher Heaven…

P1040988 — A pad of autumn-themed note paper.

Cut out the pictures and glued them onto the sheets of notepaper. I chose to write out the words instead of cutting and gluing the ones from the original sheet but you could do that if you’d like. I laminated these with clear contact paper so they would be more sturdy and last longer, but you could also use index cards instead.

P1040990 — Close up of what a matching pair looks like.

When I set up the station activity for our Obstacle Course, I set out the pictures and put the words in a pile below (shown below). I did it this way because I wanted him to see the word, hear the word and be able to place the word on the picture. If you have a child who is already reading or is ready to build word reading skills, you could do it the opposite way and see if they can locate the word based on beginning sound or knowledge of how the word is spelled.

P1040991 — My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Match the word with the picture.

P1040992 — The word "pumpkin" matched with the picture of a pumpkin.

This could also be used as a Crawl and Match activity (as we did in the station shown below).

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Crawl and Match the words with the pictures.

It might just be me, but doesn’t this version look a bit more kid-friendly and fun than just sitting down with a sheet of paper? Still building same skills (minus the “drawing the line” skill) but much more engaging.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Autumn Manipulatives

You have heard me mention the word “manipulatives” many times and in case you don’t know what they are, they are basically items that children can manipulate while working math problems.

Here are some manipulatives that are perfect for an autumn themed My Obstacle Course:

Seasonal items from Michael's Craft store — Some colorful, plastic pieces from Michael's in the shapes of acorns and leaves.

These are great to pair with math equations to help the child have a good understanding of what the exactly they are doing – what the numbers represent and what it looks like. I think this is so important in building a strong math foundation.

Example: 4+2= ? Have your child get 4 things and then 2 more before counting them altogether.

Really simple but so often neglected as people try to get children ahead by starting them on flash cards and working to know the facts by memory before there is a good understanding. This becomes quite apparent when the child cannot explain what it is they are doing or how they came up with their answer.

Uses:

one to one correspondence
addition
subtraction
multiplication
division
patterning (if you have items that would work as patterns)

These are just some fun, seasonal items to use as manipulatives and I encourage you to be on the lookout for other items that can be used. I’ve got a bunch that I will share soon that are great for a Halloween themed My Obstacle Course – stay tuned!!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Farm Themed Memory Match

This is a really easy way to create a thematic memory match game using stickers and index cards (or cutouts). Here is a link to an earlier memory match post I wrote. I like including this game because it helps to build concentration, encourages basic game skills like turn taking and provides a good opportunity to make connections and build vocabulary based on the stickers.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Thematic Memory Match

This station activity takes me only about 5 minutes to prepare and has been a favorite of Andrew’s for a while now.

Step 1: Get stickers. Some stickers come with a matching pair on one sheet (like this one) and other packs do not. For the packs that don’t have matchers on one sheet, I just use two sticker sheets and get the matching sticker that way.

Step 2: Get something sturdy to place the stickers on. I like to use index cards and found these small, blank, colored cards at my teacher store. I choose one color to use per memory match game and try to choose a color that goes with the theme or season we are in. For this one, I chose to use the red ones.

P1040974 — Small, colored index cards (2x3) are perfect for this activity.

P1040976 — I've also used 4x6 index cards and cut them in half with my paper cutter.

Step 3: Place matching stickers on two separate cards to make a matching pair.

Continue until you have made all of the matching pairs that you can.

Step 4: Mix them up or shuffle them. Set them out in rows and it is ready!

P1040981 — Memory match game set up and ready to play.

We take turns turning over cards to try to find matches and continue until all matches have been found.

When I began doing this with Andrew, we only did three pairs at a time and the cards were face up so I could show him what we were looking for – “Can you find the card that looks the same?” We did it like this until he understood that we were matching and then began turning them over. Remember to think about the skills your child is ready for and modify the activity so they can build those skills without immediately getting overwhelmed by rules and details they are not ready for. That way, it will be more beneficial and fun for both of you!!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

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