My Obstacle Course: Engage, Encourage and Empower

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

Math

Sports Themed My Obstacle Course Idea #2

I found these really cute sports stickers at Michael’s and while they are probably meant for some art project (like a picture frame) or a scrapbook page, I got them to help build math skills like patterning, sequencing, counting and building math vocabulary.

They are great because they can be used to create your own book by removing the paper and sticking them onto paper and writing in math questions but I have decided to leave the paper on them. I have used them as is or stuck on small pieces of magnetic tape to use on a magnetic surface.

Felt football stickers
Up close photo trying to give you a sense of the texture.
Back of sticker with piece of magnetic tape on it.
Felt soccer ball stickers
Felt baseball stickers
Felt basketball stickers

These can be used for patterning (What Comes Next? activity), sequencing (Make the Same activity), math manipulatives or creating books or book page activities as shown below.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Interactive Math Activity

A magnetic Melissa and Doug board meant to be used with their pattern pieces but I use it as a work surface.
A sample station activity with a random number of basketball and baseball stickers.
Question cards to go with activity written on small index cards.
Station set up and ready to go!
First card flipped - How many basketballs?
One way to help your child organize the work - separate the items to be counted.
Moving them back together to answer, "How many in all?"

Activity modification:

If these activities are too basic, you can use these stickers to make more challenging activities like assigning values to each ball. An example using the ball stickers in the photos above would be for the basketballs to have a value of 10 and the baseballs a value of 1. What is the value of the basketballs? 40. What is the value of the baseballs? 2. What is the total value? 42. Add another ball with a value of 100 or 1,000 and you can work on place value up to the thousandths place!

These activities are so basic yet hit on some general math concepts that are important for children to understand. I also love incorporating math language any chance I can!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Sports Themed My Obstacle Course Idea #1

While sports are not a big thing with Andrew, I know that for a lot of children if they could play sports all day they would. For those of you with children like this, it may seem like more of a challenge to find ways to motivate them to build academic skills however there are many ways to incorporate sports and this week I will focus on some station activities that I would use for a sports themed My Obstacle Course.

Sports Themed Pattern Cards

Soccer Balls

The different colored soccer ball pattern cards that came in the package.

Pattern cards such as these can be used for (but are certainly not limited to):

  • patterning
  • sequencing
  • color identification
  • how many of specific colors and how many in all (ex. placing out a certain number of balls, asking questions like, “How many red soccer balls?” “How many green soccer balls?” “How many soccer balls in all?”
  • can be combined with a clothesline and clothespins to build fine motor skills
  • can be combined with a crawl and sort type activity requiring the child to crawl down to put the cards into a pattern or place the card that comes next.

“What Comes Next?” is a station activity to work on patterning skills. This can be as basic or complex as your child is ready for.

Soccer cards for What Comes Next? ABAB pattern.
ABAB pattern finished.
What Comes Next? with AABB pattern.
AABB pattern finished.

“Make the Same” is a station activity that I use to build sequencing/ordering skills and language such as first, second, third, last.

Make the Same using the soccer ball pattern cards.
Make the Same activity completed.

Variety Sports Pack (football, basketball, volleyball, baseball and tennis)

What Comes Next? where the child has to choose the correct card to complete the pattern.
What Comes Next? activity completed - the basketball does not fit the pattern.
What Comes Next? AAB pattern
What Comes Next? AAB pattern completed.

These are just some examples of how easy it can be to incorporate something that may be more visually appealing to a sports loving child while also building math skills.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

 

Gone Fishin!

Andrew was always taken with the fishing game sold in stores, the one where the fish go around in a circle while opening and closing their mouths while you try to get the end of the fishing line in their mouths. He got one and was extremely frustrated. I tried it and got extremely frustrated. The mouths close so quickly and with the fish moving around, I’m not sure how he could be successful with this. I decided to make my own fishing game, adding a bit of a My Obstacle Course twist on it (of course!).

Make Your Own Fishing Rod

I know they sell fishing rods with magnets on the end of the line, but I wanted to see if I could make my own. I went to Michael’s and bought some small dowel rods, red string (red is the easiest color to see), corks, sturdy needles (to go through the cork), circle magnets that would fit on the corks and glue. I glued the magnet to the narrow end of the cork and let it sit overnight to dry. Then I used the needle to attach the cork to the string and wound the other end of the string around the dowel (towards the end of it, without being too close to where it could fall off).

Note: This is one of those things that would be awesome to purchase and make with a group of other people since the materials were all sold in packs.

Homemade "fishing" rod.

What’s Biting?

The rod was complete and now I needed something to fish. I had some fish calendar cutouts and attached some paper clips to them. All I had to do was think about what I wanted to work on with Andrew and write that on the cutout. Below you will see just some of the possibilities for things to put on the fish.

Number Recognition

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Fishing for numbers (to build number recognition skills)
"Catching" the number 15.

Shape Recognition

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Fishing for shapes

Word Recognition or Vowel Sound Identification

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Fishing for words (This particular station is working on the difference between long and short vowels words.)

Addition – Finding the Sum

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Fishing for sums.

During the station, he would use the fishing rod to “catch” the correct fish. He had a ball with it and was able to work on steadying his hand, lowering the cork down to the correct fish and “catching” it on the paper clip. So fun, much more motivating and no batteries required!!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

My Obstacle Course Kit Item #1: Dice

I frequently get asked about what I would put into a My Obstacle Course kit to have some basic things to help build basic skills and I definitely have some favorite things and activities that require little if any set up at all. The next few posts will feature some of these. I have lots of basic items or activities that can be turned into thematic activities but they don’t have to be thematic to be fun (if I show them using themed paper, that paper could be substituted for colored index cards). These items/materials are also easy to transport, which makes them perfect to take along on trips for those down times when the kids are hot/cold, electricity is out, it rains or they are just bored and following you around the house saying that they don’t have anything to do.

While I love having thematic My Obstacle Courses, there are times when I want to set one up quickly and having these things on hand is super helpful. Having a kit prepared allows you to quickly set them out as stations, mix in some gross motor stuff or easy games like Simon Says or Red Light, Green Light and you are engaging with your children, helping them build skills while also having a bit of fun.

I will share links to previous posts where I have used these items or activities to give more ideas but remind you to think about what skills your child is ready for or needs reinforcement on and go from there. The things I will share this week can be modified to make them more basic or more challenging and I will note some basic ways to do this.

Kit Item #1: Dice

Use for:

  • number recognition
  • one to one correspondence
  • addition
  • subtraction
  • multiplication
  • greater than/less than
  • number sequencing – (roll dice, what comes before or after the number)

Sample Station Idea

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Addition using dice and pennies

I love to use dice to practice basic math facts. This activity requires only some dice, some pennies to use as counters (if needed) and can be made to work on addition and subtraction by using a die that has the addition and subtraction symbols on it.

Dice
Dice with pennies.
Addition equation 6+5.
Add them together to get 11.
Subtraction
Subtracting 3 pennies from 6.
3 pennies left.

Something like this is easily stored in a small bag or container, taking up very little space. I show 12 pennies here for addition, since both of my dice only go up to 6. If you have dice with larger numbers, make sure to provide enough pennies by adding together the largest numbers. The same goes for multiplication. If I were doing that with him, I would provide 36 pennies with these dice.

Two colored dice, a die with addition/subtraction symbols and 12 pennies.

Click here for a previous post on dice.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Easy Object Graphing

As I reviewed Andrew’s end of year progress report, I noticed that he still needed some reinforcement with graphing. I looked through my stuff to see what I could have him graph. There were all sorts of things – stickers, buttons, a variety of Goldfish crackers, fruity Cheerios, pattern cards, etc. (Here is a past post I did on graphing using a small bag of M&M’s.) I decided to choose these colorful foam pieces that I found in the dollar section of Target. They came in cylinders, cubes and triangular prisms.

Funny Story – I was teaching a parent session a few months after I had picked these up. I pulled them out of my basket of stuff and one of the moms yelled out, “I have those! I knew you would get them and show us some ways to put them to use so I got them as well.” Ah, I’m beginning to rub off on people and I love it!!

Cylinder foam pieces
Foam cubes
Triangular prism foam pieces

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Easy Graph

While I usually use a sheet of white printer paper to make graphs with him, this time I decided to use my Melissa and Doug pattern piece background and a pipe cleaner bent around the sides as my border.

I am demonstrating here two different graphs using these foam pieces. One is graphing cylinders by color and the other is sorting by shape.

I also like to include question cards to help build math vocabulary while analyzing the data. You could also begin this activity with making a prediction or hypothesis about which color or shape your child thinks will have the greatest/least/same amounts. Anytime I can sneak in vocabulary in the context of play I do! Click here for a great resource listing math vocabulary in alphabetical order with illustrations to help build understanding – A Maths Dictionary for Kids 2011.

Some question cards to go along with the graph.

Graphing by color station all set up and ready to go!

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Basic Object Sorting
In the process of making the graph.
Graph completed. Now for some question cards!

Graphing by shape station set up and ready to go!

Graphing shapes.
Shapes graph finished.

I encourage you to get creative by looking around in toy bins and pantry cupboards to see what easy items you have to help your child build graphing skills. These are just examples of basic graphs that can be easily put together as a station activity.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

Party Tray Sorting: Buttons and Coins

I shared a few weeks ago about these fun, colorful plastic party trays that I found that can be also used for sorting items. (Here is the link to Party Tray Sorters.) Here are two more ways to use them with things that you probably have lying around the house. Using a party tray like this makes it super simple to set up, easy to have the items contained while also providing a good space to sort into.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Sorting Buttons By Color

I have a huge bag of buttons that I have accumulated over the years but also found these great little containers of different colored buttons at Michael’s. (Here is a previous post on Button Sorting using a winter theme.)

Party tray + buttons = Easy sorting station
My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Sort the buttons by color
Sorting buttons by color.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Sorting Coins

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Coin Sorting
Coins sorted.
Andrew sorting coins.

We did this particular station activity during our last My Obstacle Course. It was great to see him able to identify the coins but also learn the difference between nickels and quarters by placing close attention to the details on the coin. I got to point out the different presidents and also remind him that Monticello is on the nickel and is a place that he has visited when we lived in Virginia.

He sorted them systematically, sifting through them to find the specific coin he was working on. He was also talking to himself, reading the words on the coins as he was sorting, saying things like, “Liberty” and “In God We Trust.” It was very sweet to listen to! 🙂

Engage, Encourage and Empower!