Gross Motor

Andrew is a great swimmer! He always has enjoyed being in the water and loves diving down for things like dive sticks and rings. People are always amazed at how comfortable he is in the water and I was encouraged to sign him up for swimming lessons so that he could learn the strokes and be on the swim team. I was a little reluctant to do this but thought I’d give it a try. Well, it didn’t necessarily go the way I had hoped (not the first time and I’m positive it won’t be the last!). The whole experience was overwhelming due to the fact that swim team practice was held during his lesson time. He thought that the swim team swimmers were hysterical to watch, all of those arms and legs flapping wildly, the goggled faces bobbing up and down (I’m smirking just imagining what it must have looked like to him!) and he would swim over and get in front of them. This was not exactly the ideal situation and I decided not to waste any more money. We’ll try again of course, just in a more private setting next time.

While lessons didn’t go well, I did notice that his left arm did not come out of the water in the same way that his right arm did. When he swims, he tends to use his arms together in a “breaststroke” technique to get to the bottom of the pool as well as anywhere else he wants to go. I wanted to be able to work on this with him and give his arms some practice with different swim strokes. We are lucky to live somewhere warm and have access to pools, but it’s not always ideal and thought about using my exercise ball to work on this as part of My Obstacle Course. We did and it worked great!!

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Exercise Ball Swimming

For this station activity, all you need is an exercise ball, squishy couch cushions or stacked pillows and you are set.

He got on, placed his stomach/chest on the ball and we worked on bringing his arms up and around his ear while reaching forward. We counted and chanted, “Reach forward!”

Notice how he’s even able to put his head up and down like he will need to do in the pool.

I also used the ball to help him get comfortable with floating on his back, something he was not crazy about. I held him (just like I would in the water) with one hand under his neck and another under his thighs. The ball wiggles a little bit which is good because it mimics floating in water. I encouraged him to pretend he was looking up at the bright blue, sunny sky and would even ask him how many birds he saw.

I share this because I know many parents who want their children to swim and felt like this was a good, easy way to practice the “floaty” sensation feelings that go along with swimming as well as work on some strokes without getting wet!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Ahhhh…the nap mat! How I would love to have a mandatory nap time. Perhaps I’ll carry this around with me and when I get tired whip it out and take a nap. Wouldn’t that be awesome!!

This is something I picked up two years ago at the beginning of the school year for Andrew to use during nap time. This year, they had quiet time but not nap time so the nap mat stayed home. As I was setting up a My Obstacle Course and was looking through my closet to see what sort of fun physical, OT- like stuff I could incorporate, I decided that the nap mat would work perfectly!

At the time he was somersaulting everywhere, in fact his preferred mode of transportation in his classroom was by flipping and somersaulting. Having taught for 9 years, I must say I was stumped by that conversation I had to have with his teacher!! Anyways, I decided that his body must be needing this sort of input and incorporated this by using the nap mat as a station, allowing him to somersault his way from one station to the next. He was thrilled and even snuck in a few additional rolls.

As with most things, he eventually moved beyond the somersaulting and on to loving just being upside down. We’d find him hanging like a bat on shelves, something I don’t recall reading about when I read, “What To Expect When You’re Expecting” but then again, most things I’ve encountered with him weren’t in there 🙂 . I incorporated this as well by using the mat to help him do head stands,

hand stands and wall climbs (He places his hands down on the mat and walks his legs up the wall/door until he is doing a handstand. I’d suggest a door to a closet or something that can be cleaned easily with a Clorox wipe or something similar unless you’d like feet marks up and down your walls :). Speaking from experience here!).

It folds up nicely for storage in our closet and requires only about 1 second of set up time. Gotta love that!!

Engage, Encourage, Empower!

This is one of my favorite My Obstacle Course station activities because it is so simple and has so many possibilities!

Crawl and Match is as simple as it sounds. On one end of a carpet runner, or carpeted area, I place some objects, cards or cutouts which focus on some academic skill. He chooses one, crawls down the carpet and matches it with something on the other end. He crawls back gets the next one and continues doing this until all objects or cards have been matched. Because he is matching, he doesn’t need to have intelligible language to demonstrate what he knows.

Crawl and Matches we’ve done (or some ideas for you to try):

• matching items of same color, shape or purpose
• matching words and pictures
• matching up numbers for number recognition
• tally marks matched with numbers
• math facts matched with sums or differences
• letters matched for letter recognition
• uppercase letter matched with lowercase letter
• matching two words to form compound words
• matching words with definitions
• matching holidays with descriptions
• matching historical figures with descriptions

*This list is by no means all of the possible ways one can Crawl and Match. Think about what your child is working on in school or a skill you want to help them build and see if you can turn it into a Crawl and Match station activity!

Alternatives:

I have altered this activity at times depending on how he is doing. I think about what he needs that particular day and since there is such little set up required, it is easy to make these adjustments. Here are some alternatives I have tried:

• I will provide items or cards for him to sort instead of matching things up.
• He can somersault, hot-dog roll, bear walk, crab walk, slither, run or skip down the runner.
• If he needs more sensory input, I’ll use a fabric tunnel for him to crawl though.
• On days where his engine is running high, I’ll incorporate the stairs for Climb and Match instead. This is more work for him and also helps with coordination when done walking up one foot on each step.

Why Crawl At All?

Years ago, during a course for teachers in my county, I first learned about how cross patterning and crossing the mid-line of one’s body can help students make connections to help them remember things. I heard this again at a brain conference years later, where they emphasized the importance of creeping, crawling, running, swimming, monkey bars – basically any type of activity that utilized both sides of the brain at the same time. I also found it fascinating that the distance from our eyes to the ground when crawling is about the same distance from our eyes to materials we read. I figured that increasing physical activity is never a bad thing and I was hopeful about this considering Andrew’s limitless energy. However, when I returned home and was trying to encourage him to crawl around the house with me, he was not having any of it. I realized that if I wanted him to do this, I needed to do something to make crawling purposeful and came up with this activity.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!