My Obstacle Course: Engage, Encourage and Empower

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

Fine Motor

Tweezers

This is one of my all time favorite discoveries! I was looking for ways to build Andrew’s pincer grasp for handwriting and began using tweezers because they require using the same fingers and muscles for grasping a pencil. I paired the tweezers with colored puffs in different sizes because he would have to squeeze his fingers differently depending on the size of the puff. At first he would put the puff in the tweezers with his other hand and I had to help him using hand over hand. While it seems really easy, it was actually a challenge for him (and still is).

I came up with some basic stories to go along with needing to move the puffs to make it more purposeful than just moving puffs from one place to another. Most of the stories involve reuniting baby animals (small puffs) with their moms (larger puffs). You could also place different colored puffs out or in the container and have them only take out a certain color or size. I like to place the puffs in shredded paper to add a bit of a challenge.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Use the tweezers to help the baby chicks get back to their mother hen.
My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Help the baby spiders get back to their mom's web using tweezers.
My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Use the tweezers to help the baby spiders (aka small blue puffs) get back to their mom (aka large blue puff).
My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Use the tweezers to place the puffs in order from biggest to smallest. (Two sets of puffs, two rows of muffin tin.)

 

Andrew using the tweezers to put puffs in order from biggest to smallest.

Sometimes it just takes thinking outside of the box with items you already have and coming up with a simple story to make an activity that a child will find purpose and meaning in doing.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

Emotion/Feeling Stamps

We received these stamps as a Christmas gift this year and they are awesome! They allow us to build the fine motor skill of stamping while talking about and modeling different situations that might result in different feelings. We are definitely going to be using these in an upcoming My Obstacle Course, primarily because Andrew asked me just the other day, “Can you have hurt feelings?” He had been sick with the flu and then got an ear infection so we have been talking about hurt tummies, ears and aches of all sorts. I thought it was a cute question but also showed me that he is thinking about feelings.

"I Feel" Stamps
"I Feel" Stamps - other side

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Read the situation and stamp how you would feel.

  • Write out a brief situation that your child might encounter during the day. When they get to the station, read the situation with them and talk about how they might feel. Have them find the stamp that matches what they would feel. Stamp the feeling on the situation card. Show with your face how you would look if you felt that way.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Feelings Story

  • Use the stamps to illustrate a story (Character series books like “Franklin” or “Arthur” books are good because they usually have some sort of situation that frustrates them before they figure out how to resolve it.). Provide a clean sheet of paper and as you read through the story, stamp the emotions that the characters might be feeling.
  • Make your own story showing how one can go from an angry situation to resolving it and being happy. This would help to illustrate that one’s emotions aren’t set in stone and that feelings can change as one’s thoughts about what is happening or what has happened changes.

Social stories and activities like these help children to have knowledge about feelings they may experience and also allows you to model appropriate ways of handling emotions and resolving issues. It shows them that it’s okay to feel a certain way but gives them an opportunity to work through those feelings in a safe, pretend way so they are better equipped when it actually happens.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

Dr. Seuss’ Birthday

Dr. Seuss’ Birthday is coming up on March 2nd and every year I am reminded of a story one of my kindergartener’s parents told me. She had been living in California at one point in time and had the opportunity to go to Dr. Seuss’ house and he would sit in a rocking chair with his “Cat in the Hat” hat on and read his books to whomever came to listen. How great would that have been!! I was just trying to see if there was any information online about this and while there wasn’t, I did learn that he did not have any children of his own. When asked about this he would respond, “You have ’em; I’ll entertain ’em.” Love that!

Last year at this time, I decided that incorporating some Dr. Seuss activities in My Obstacle Courses would not only allow me to reinforce something he was doing in school, it also gave me a great opportunity to work on other skills.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Peel and Stick to Make the Same

Make the same.
Make the Same.

I found some Dr. Seuss stickers at the teacher store and used them in a “Make the Same” station activity to work on visual discrimination and also the fine motor skill of peeling and sticking the stickers in the right order.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Read Aloud and Listen For Rhyming Words

Dr. Seuss Book - Green Eggs and Ham
Dr. Seuss Book - The Foot Book

Reading a Dr. Seuss book out loud or having your child read is a great station activity to incorporate reading skills like listening, comprehension (understanding what is read), and fluency (one’s reading rate, use of punctuation for pauses and also using expression). If your child is reading, I suggest taking turns with books like this, which can be long. The goal of this is to practice reading skills in a fun way, not to tire them out.

Children who struggle with reading tend to use up a great deal of “energy” decoding the words they are reading, leaving them less able to answer questions about what is happening in the story (comprehension issue). This is why it is important to stop and point out what is happening in the story. Talking through stories helps to keep them engaged in what is going on and to see the purpose of reading as an enjoyable activity and/or a way to get information, not just to get through a bunch of words so they can move on.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Rhyming Word Read and Sort (using rhyming words from Dr. Seuss book)

Choose a Dr. Seuss book and go through to see what rhyming words are used. Write down the word endings and rhyming words on calendar cutouts or index cards for the child to read and sort. (Click here for my post on word family/rhyming word sorts.)

Dr. Seuss’ “Seussville” Website Link:

Here is a link to the Dr. Seuss Suessville website (I turned down my volume because the music while loading is a bit much 🙂 ) where there are games and activities that you may want to use with your child.

These are really easy and basic ways to reinforce something your child may be learning about in school into My Obstacle Courses. I love doing this because Andrew always gives me a look like, “I’m doing that in school and YOU know about it too?” This doesn’t just apply to Dr. Seuss but can be done with any theme, skill or concept you may find on the teacher to parent home letter.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

See and Spell Puzzles

Thanks To My Obstacle Course, Another Toy Saved From The Island (Or Closet) Of Unused Toys!

I got this great set of Melissa and Doug See and Spell puzzles to help with letter recognition and introduce word building with Andrew when he was around four. He wasn’t really interested in it until I began using it as a My Obstacle Course station activity with him and then he was hooked! We would talk what the picture showed, the letters that made up the word and the sounds the letters make. It was also great for me to see him needing a certain letter, like a “b” and watch as he would pull out a “d” and try to get it to fit. I could then point out that even though they kind of look the same, they were different letters. I would help him find the “b” so we could compare and contrast them and see which one fit. It may seem really basic because the puzzles have the letters cut out and labeled, but he still needed to find the correct ones to make the word.

Melissa and Doug Wooden Word Puzzle

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Find The Letters To Make The Word

This is super easy to set up and allows your child to be part of creating a word without the worry of having to spelling it on their own. I would choose one or two puzzles for a station activity and depending on your child’s letter recognition skills, set out only the letters needed for the word or set out a bunch of letters for them to locate the correct ones.

The station set up with letters provided in the correct order.
The station set up with letters provided but not in order.
Match up the letters so they fit in the space provided.
Letters in and the word spelled!

Even though this may seem like such a simple thing, it is a quick and easy station activity to see where your child is with letter recognition and also how they apply those skills. Even though Andrew is a good speller and hasn’t used this toy in a long time, I held onto it so I could share it here and with parents who are working on these skills. I had forgotten about it until Andrew found it in my office the other day (he loves getting in there with all of the My Obstacle Course supplies and goodies 🙂 ) and put them all together. He was so proud of himself and was clearly having a great time! It reminded me that sometimes he does enjoy doing things that don’t have power buttons and it was so nice to see!!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

The Bulb Syringe- Not Just For Baby’s Nose!

I know I say this all of the time but I really do love that there are so many wonderful and unexpected items sitting right in my cupboards that allow me to help Andrew build skills! I found this bulb syringe, aka the booger bulb, while cleaning out our medicine cabinet and figured since it hadn’t been used in years, it was time to get rid of it.

Bulb Syringe

That is, until I squeezed it…

Squeezing the bulb syringe.

and realized that it would be perfect for him to build his pincer grasp and hand muscles while being able to feel and see that the liquid was disappearing into the bulb…

Releasing bulb to let liquid or air in.

and then squeezing it again to squirt it back out.  How fun! This also involved a bit of experimentation because if he squeezed a little, only a little water went in, but if he squeezed a lot, then a lot of water goes in. It took a few tries and some hand over hand at first but eventually he got the hang of it!

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Using bulb syringe to transfer water from one row of hearts to another.

As an auditory component, I found it helpful to tell him the syringe was sucking the water in, holding it’s breath and then spitting the water back out. You could even draw a face on it and pretend like it was an elephant sucking and spitting out water with its trunk!

Andrew squeezing the bulb to suck the water in.

He had a ball with it and even asked to take it in the tub to play with it.  Hmmm… more motor skill building? I guess so! 🙂 Love, love, love sneaking in skills while he just thinks it’s fun and games!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Cutting Out Grocery Store Ads

I love to find things that can be combined with another thing or tool to make an interesting station activity for My Obstacle Courses. When they are delivered to my mailbox and are free, I am beyond excited! Grocery advertisements are a perfect example of this. I used them all of the time when teaching Kindergarten to help with reading, math and fine motor skills and have used them with Andrew at home while doing My Obstacle Course. They are always changing so it keeps things interesting!

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Cut Out 5 Things You Love

For a February themed My Obstacle Course that we did last week, I combined the grocery advertisements with our loop scissors for Andrew to cut out 5 things he loved.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Cut out 5 things you love

The advertisements are perfect because there are lots of colorful pictures of a wide variety of things. Adding the scissors allows me to help him build his cutting skills and since it is a station within the Obstacle Course, there are specific directions and he knows just what to do. I am also there to help out if needed. (Example: I did have to help him figure out how to get his scissors to a picture in the middle of the page.)

Check out how engaged he is!
Cutting out a heart. Two previous choices are in the left hand corner.
Turning his hand to cut and using the other hand to hold the paper. Progress!
He's totally cracking himself up with his choice!
See, practicing cutting skills with grocery advertisements can be fun!!

This is such an easy way to help your child build cutting skills, and it’s free! While the things that he cut were not cut out perfectly, you can see from the expression on his face that it didn’t matter. He was having fun and was practicing how to maneuver his hands to get the scissors to the picture he wanted to cut without the stress of doing it perfectly. (Note: The advertisements can be torn or cut into smaller sections if the whole thing is too much for your child to handle.)

Engage, Encourage and Empower!