My Obstacle Course: Engage, Encourage and Empower

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

Literacy

Calendar Cutout Matching

My Obstacle Course station activity: Calendar Cutout Matching - Holiday Words and Pictures

Matching has been an important activity for us in My Obstacle Courses, especially when Andrew’s speech was not intelligible.  He didn’t need to speak intelligibly to show what he knew because he could demonstrate his knowledge by matching pictures, letters, words and numbers.  This simple activity gave me a great deal of information, specifics about his understanding for a variety of skills, topics and themes that no one else was able to get.

Calendar cutouts have become an essential item for me when setting up these matching stations.  They make it so easy to add a bit of fun and tie the stations together by carrying the theme throughout the course.

Where I get themed calendar cutouts: Teacher supply stores usually carry cutouts like this but it you don’t have access to one in your area, here is a link for the snowflake cutouts shown in the pictures:  http://www.creativeteaching.com/p-1812-snowflake-two-color-calendar-cut-outs.aspx

See it in action!

These are some sample calendar cutout matching activities I have done with Andrew.  They are specific to skills he was working on so please adapt the activity to help your child with skills they are working on.

Fun Way to Practice Speech Sounds

Words and clues to match (these words were chosen to help him practice the /ar/ sound his speech therapist was working on with him)
We would read the clue and he would match it with the correct word. Â He would also say the word 5 times to practice the sound.Â
More words matched with their clues
All words matched up with their clues

Matching Words and Pictures

Winter pictures and words to be matched
Word and picture matched
Words and pictures matched

The pictures for the activity above were cut out from a worksheet I got from one of my favorite websites, www.EnchantedLearning.com.  They have lots of thematic activity ideas and printable materials that can be easily adapted into fun My Obstacle Course stations.  While there is a subscription fee to access all of their materials, they do have some free stuff.

Other Calendar Cutout Matching Activities (I will do more posts showing these in action):

  • uppercase/lowercase letters
  • rhyming words
  • opposites
  • pictures with words
  • speech sounds paired with word clues
  • addition equation with sum

Writing Out Directions

A lot of parents that I have talked with have expressed concern that their children don’t necessarily want to do what they ask them to do.  I COMPLETELY understand!!  I would ask my son to come and play blocks with me…nothing.  I would get on the floor and play cars, driving them around his feet, up and down his arms…nothing.  I would play, he would spin.

The boy is a spinning genius!! Â This is great until I want him to do something with me.

This was something that I really struggled with until I began writing out the directions for things I wanted him to do during the Obstacle Course.  For some reason, he did not associate what was written out with me.  I was merely the person reading the directions.  He would study the sheet of paper and I would point to each word as I read and then he would begin to do the activity.

What Is He Able To Do? vs.

Does He Understand What He is Supposed To Be Doing?

Having had the pleasure of sitting in on his neuropsychological evaluation, I realized that the language used in standardized testing was a bit different from language and vocabulary we used at home.  I decided that this would be a good opportunity to sneak in vocabulary to help him understand expectations.  I could also provide activities that would help show him how to apply that vocabulary as well as demonstrate what he knew.  For him, some things just need to be real explicit and then he usually gets it.  Writing out the directions seemed to help out tremendously!

My Obstacle Course station direction: Bounce and catch the ball 10 times.

More Purpose, Less Auditory Clutter

Because the directions were written out, I found myself using more purposeful language and not over-talking which could create even more confusion and frustration at times.  Since I had planned the activity to help with certain skills, I also got to choose the vocabulary to use in the directions and would repeat them unless it became apparent that he had no clue where to start.  If that happened, I would help him through the activity with more demonstration and modeling than words.  I would also make sure to use those directions again in different scenarios so he wouldn’t generalize them to one situation but rather get a broad exposure to how to apply them in a variety of ways.  I encourage you to try this very basic strategy with your child and see if it makes the same kind of difference it made for us!

My Obstacle Course station directions: Find all of the acorns!

Nothing Fancy Required

The directions I provide for station activities are not fancy documents.  Sometimes it’s easier for me to type up a bunch on the computer, print them out and then cut them into strips to place at the stations.  Sometimes I write them out on index cards or calendar cut-outs.  Whatever is easiest for me at the time, that’s what I do.

My Obstacle Course station directions: What comes next?

An Empowered Parent

This empowered me big time because I was learning about my child, how he learned, what he understood and what sorts of things stumped him.  With this knowledge, I could then attend meetings or talk with his teachers and not only have a good idea about what he could or could not do, I had specific examples to back it up!  I was no longer at the mercy of the professionals, waiting for them to tell me about my child, I was a key team member!

Sensory Bean Bin Add-In: Scrabble Letters

I love using the bean bin in My Obstacle Courses because I can work on my son’s sensory issues while combining it with things that he finds interesting.  He loves letters and words so for us it makes complete sense to combine the two!

Most everyone has a Scrabble game in their house, a game that is new to me, Bananagram (which has Scrabble-like letters), or those colorful magnet letters for the refrigerator.  I realized that using items like these would be a fun, literacy based add-in to the sensory bin and could be used in many different ways.  Here are a few:

Letter Identification

1.  If your child is working on letter identification, place some letters in there and when they are found, identify them together.  One extension of this could be sorting the letters by vowel and consonant.

Adding Scrabble letters to the bin. They can be chosen randomly or if you know of certain letters that are stumping your child, use those!
Put the letters into the bin.
Push the letters down into the beans so they are well hidden.
Letters are hidden. Time for your child to dig in!!

Making Words- Child’s Name or Picture Card Word

2.  Put only the letters in the bin that are needed to make a certain word (ex. their name or a word on a picture flash card).  Have your child find the letters and “make the same” word as on the card.

Use letters from their name!
Put the letters in and mix them to hide.
Your child digs in to find letters of their name.
Andrew found all of the letters to make his name!

Or…

Choose a card and put the letters to make that word into the bin.
Hide the letters in the beans.
Have your child dig in the beans to find the letters.
All of the letters found and put in order to make the word!

Mystery Word

3.  Put only the letters in the bin that are needed to make a certain word based on your theme or something they are studying in school.  Write out a clue for your child to see if they can identify the word and spell it using the letters found.  You could provide a Hangman-type sheet of paper with the exact number of letters so they have a place to work with and play around with the letters until the word is figured out.  Additional clues can be given if it turns out to be too challenging- remember, this is supposed to be fun time with you!!

Write out a clue for the word you want to them to spell and then gather all of the letters needed to spell it. Â Now hide the letters before your child sees the answer!!
Letters to make up the mystery word are in the bin ready to be mixed into the beans and hidden.
Letters are hidden, ready to be discovered. Read the clue and your child can dig in!
Use an answer card if your child needs assistance spelling the mystery word.