Gross Motor

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.

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!

This is a super basic activity to set up yet was one of the more challenging for Andrew. I set out a red plastic bouncy ball (the “apple”) for us to pass back and forth 10 times. A red balloon would also work well for this activity and you could make it as big or as little as your child is ready for. Of course, I told him that we wouldn’t want to drop it or throw it too hard or it could fall and get bruised (a little pretend play here!).

Activity Suggestions:

• Passing
• Bouncing
• Rolling
• Tossing Up

The addition of two dice can help determine how many times this needs to be done, plus helps to build fine motor skills of shaking and rolling the dice while incorporating counting and adding the two numbers together.

Passing:

If this is challenging for your child, begin close together so that they get the practice of hands out and squeezing to catch the ball. I especially liked to use red when Andrew was working on this because it is an easy color to see and track. Once your child gets the hang of it, try it against a wall. It will probably come back faster and require a little quicker reflexes but if they are ready, go for it!

Bouncing:

Bouncing was a huge challenge with Andrew’s motor planning issues so we started with him bending over or squatting while holding the ball so that the ball was only a few inches off of the ground. He would just have to let go and then work on catching the ball which was easier because his hands were right there in a good position to catch. We also did some hand over hand at first to show him how his hands would have to move to let go of and grasp the ball. From there, he slowly worked on standing up a bit more until he got how to push down on the ball to bounce it and then get his hands ready for the catch. We are still not perfect with this but practicing and building from really basic steps helped him understand what his body needed to do as well as figuring out the timing of it all.

Rolling:

A good way to practice rolling is to sit with legs out in a V shape with your child facing you doing the same thing and touching your feet together so the ball cannot roll away.

Note: I am not an Occupational Therapist. These are just ideas and suggestions that worked for us at home while building these skills. If your child sees an OT, ask them for recommendations on how to build ball skills they are working on in therapy at home.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Oops!

When I opened the email version of my post from yesterday, I realized that I was not really clear about  the link I had provided for the sports activities page. It was the very first link (in green on my website, purple if you subscribe). You can also click here for it: Enchanted Learning’s Sports Activities. Sorry for any confusion!!

Sports Cutouts from Creative Teaching Press

I also wanted to share some small (1 inch) sports cutouts that I got from Creative Teaching Press. I would use these in ways similar to how I use the felt stickers I shared earlier this week. They come in a package of 150 (25 of each sport) and are perfect for stations working on patterning, graphing, sorting or counting. (Note: I do not have any affiliation with Creative Teaching Press. I just love their materials and find them so helpful in making thematic station activities.)

Use What You Already Have!

The final post for a sports themed My Obstacle Course is just a reminder to look around your child’s toy box, your house or your garage for different kinds of balls you already have that can be incorporated into stations.

Important Note: If you have a child with a good throwing arm or a powerful kick, you may want to incorporate ball activities as “outside” stations. That is not something we have a problem with 🙂 so I make sure to include balls in our My Obstacle Courses to build bouncing, tossing, catching, rolling, and kicking skills.

I like to combine ball skills with academic skills to provide more of a purpose for Andrew since kicking the ball back and forth with me is not a preferred activity. When he was younger, we would pass the ball while taking turns counting or saying the alphabet. We progressed onto counting by 10’s, 5’s and 2’s or spell out words as we’d pass the ball.

I hope that those of you with children who are crazy about sports found some ways to combine their love of sports with building some different, academic skills. Next week I will focus on some back to school tips and strategies.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

This is an activity idea I got from the Recycling Occupational Therapist: (http://recyclingot.blogspot.com/2009/06/plunger-ring-stack-activity.html)

She had posted about using a plunger for ring stacking and when I was at Target, I found these dive rings in the dollar section (I also grabbed an inexpensive new plunger. 🙂 ). While the dive rings are meant to go into a pool, combined with a plunger, they make a fun, super inexpensive, summer themed ring tossing game! This is a great way to work on tossing, motor planning, and can be set up almost anywhere you have a flat surface to suction the plunger to!

We will start as close as we need to get the idea of how to toss, how hard, etc. and move back slowly to build this skill. Finger placement, hand/wrist movement and timing the release of the ring are all necessary for this activity. Having just tried a game of horseshoes with him, which is similar, we will probably be standing pretty close for a while and that is okay! I want him to get a chance to experiment, see what happens when he tries different approaches and work on the motor planning of this as much as he needs. We did this in front of a couch and it worked well for stopping some of the more “enthusiastic” tosses :).

Engage, Encourage and Empower!