My Obstacle Course: Engage, Encourage and Empower

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

Oral Motor

Apple Fact Reading and Answering Questions

When I did an “apple” search on www.enchantedlearning.com, I came across an  “Apple Book” that had a page of “Apple Facts” as well as some “Apple Questions” based on the facts. Andrew was reading but I wanted him to practice his oral reading because he would drop sounds and read too fast. I also wanted to work on the reading comprehension skill of reading for information. I decided to use these printouts to go together but set up as two separate stations.

For the first station, I cut the “Apple Facts” printout and pasted it onto a sheet of red construction paper (not necessary but I wanted it to be a little more sturdy and colorful). I added a talking phone  (Toobaloo) that we had so he could hear what he sounded like. These “phones” are cool because when you speak into one end, it magnifies your voice allowing you to hear what you sound like through the end by your ear.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Reading Apple Facts

Apple Fact sheet from Enchanted Learning with telephone

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Answering Questions Based On Apple Facts

For the second part of this activity at the other station, once again I cut out the page and glued it onto some red paper. I also wanted a way for him to demonstrate his understanding without needing intelligible speech. This was important for us because his speech was still not very intelligible (except by me) so I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t assuming he was answering correctly so I thought I’d utilize a basic way to provide choices for him. I had some mini apple cutouts and wrote answer choices on either side so that we could read the questions, look at both answer choices and he could choose the side that he thought was correct.

Apple Questions from Enchanted Learning Website with answer choices on mini apple cut-outs
Apple Questions answered

This was a great way for me to see his understanding of the facts that he read without needing to be intelligible. It only took me a few minutes to prepare this station but helped give him information, helped him to hear how he sounded and helped him to realize that it is important to pay attention when reading, in this case for information.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

 

Apple Themed Puff Blowing

In keeping with the apple theme, here is a station activity which uses red cotton puff balls as “apples” to blow to build oral motor skills. Here is a previous post, Puff Blowing, I did which details why I began using this activity with Andrew.

Puff Blowing Kit

I like to keep Andrew on his toes when working with him so I placed the cotton puffs and some cut up straw pieces into an eyeglass container so when he got to the station, he’d have to open the container (fine motor skills) in order to see what he was going to be doing. You would be surprised at how well the simplest ways of disguising activities works to keep children interested! Here is a link to a post I did a while ago on incorporating mystery and intrigue into My Obstacle Course stations.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Blow the apples across the counter/into the bushel/off of the table.

This activity is really as basic as it seems but because it is part of My Obstacle Course, it became much more purposeful than if I had just randomly said to Andrew, “Blow these puffs off of the counter while Mommy folds the laundry.” Wouldn’t have happened because I tried that. Making it into a station activity, he was willing to blow the puffs which helped build his oral motor skills.

My Obstacle Course station idea: Puff Blowing (he had to blow the various sized puffs to the window)

Modifications

  • Utilizing different size puffs can help build expressive and receptive language by asking the child which size they’d like to start with or asking them to blow a specific sized puff and seeing if they choose the one you described.
  • The same activity could be done with the addition of yellow and green puffs to represent different apple colors (like golden delicious and granny smith).
  • Different lengths of straws and different sized puffs could also be used, requiring different breath power.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Patriotic Pinwheel Blowing

Patriotic Pinwheel

You may have picked some of these up for your yard or bicycle this Memorial Day but did you also realize that you can use this patriotic yard decoration to help your child build oral motor skills?

Andrew had a lot of difficulty trying to figure out how to blow air out of his mouth so I was always on the lookout for ways to help him. I found this particular pinwheel at Michael’s and thought that I could have him blow it to make it spin, giving meaning and purpose to something he finds challenging, while incorporating something he loves, spinning!

When I used this as a My Obstacle Course station activity, I had him either blow the pinwheel a certain number of times or use a certain number of blows. I found that providing him with a straw helped significantly because it gave his mouth some structure. (We also used a straw to blow out birthday candles. Much more empowering for him to do it that way as opposed to having us do it for him.) This year, we will try it without the straw to continue building his oral motor skills.

Note: Try blowing the pinwheel before purchasing it because some of them would get stuck or were more difficult to get spinning, which would only cause frustration.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Practicing Speech Words

It really can be as easy as this next My Obstacle Course station activity that I am going to tell you about! When Andrew goes to speech, we usually get a sheet of words, mostly with pictures, to take home to practice.

Speech practice sheet targeting what Andrew calls the d3 sounds (aka /j/ sound).

My apologies to the maker of this sheet but as it is, it is not very exciting and I found it difficult to motivate my child to want to practice this at home as is. I know this can be much more fun without a great deal of effort and so I decided to just cut apart the pictures and turn it more into a game to see if that made a difference.

Words and pictures cut apart to create cards.

These cards can be saved, mixed and matched for reinforcement purposes.

One station activity was simply turning them over and having him choose one to flip and say 5 times.

Cards flipped over for him to choose.
Flip and say 5 times.
Continue until all cards have been practiced.

This could be combined with the carpet runner to create a “Say and Crawl” station. He could flip a card say it 5 times, crawl down the runner and place it into a cup/bowl/bucket/whatever!

Another station activity we’ve done with putting the pictures into a cup, having him reach in, choose one and say it 5 times. He even turned this activity into more of a game by finding a place to hide the picture after he was done saying it. I did not mind this one bit because he came running back to pick a new word to say so he could hide another one.

Any time I can get him excited about practicing something that he struggles with is something that I get excited about, especially when it is as simple and basic as this!!

Note: If your child’s attention span or frustration level can only handle less, choose an amount that works for them and spread it out.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

Practicing Speech Sounds

Most speech pathologists will send home practice pages with words that have the target sound for the child to work on.  If they do not, contact them and let them know that you would like to reinforce what they are doing and would like to stay current on the sounds your child needs to practice. This is particularly helpful if they receive services while they are at school and you are not able to speak with the pathologist each time. Andrew receives his speech therapy after school so I am there and ask his speech pathologist what we should be working on or  I look at the homework paper he gets for practice. While I do not use the homework sheet as she does while working with him, I do take the words and/or sounds and turn them into more of a game.

I Need To Help My Child Practice Skills But They Don’t Want To Work With Me!

One of the reasons I came up with My Obstacle Course is that he didn’t want to work with me and I know I am not alone in this because I hear it ALL of the time. We would come home from our speech session armed with a sheet of pictures that had the sound he was working on and we were expected to practice this.  I don’t know about you, but in my house it looked and felt as though I was trying to wrangle an octopus into a sleeping bag. He wriggled, he yelled, he ran around the room, he would spin things all while I looked for ways to bribe him. Ah, bribery. Then one day I had enough and thought, “This is miserable! There has to be another way!!” And there was…by turning it into a game or station activity played within My Obstacle Course. This helped tremendously because it was part of a larger structure, it had a beginning and an end and he knew what was expected.  It also helped because while I made the activities, it wasn’t coming from me, it was just part of the Obstacle Course.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Speech Sound/Word Practice Game

 

Match the word with its clue and then say the word 5 times.

Station set up:

 

Make up word clues to go with the speech words or sounds that your child is working on and write them on calendar cutouts or index cards. Place them on the easel under a magnet. (This can also be done on the floor by setting out the clues and having the words in a container.) Write the speech words on cutouts or index cards.  That’s all! Piece of cake. You could also provide a mirror for them if it is helpful for them to see what their mouth is supposed to be doing. (click here for a previous post on using mirrors)

At the station:

Read the clue and find the word that goes with it.  Say the word 5 or 10 times.

What it looks like in our house:

Clues for words with the /air/ and /ear/ sounds, like "chair, care, share" and "hear, deer, tear, clear."
Word matched up with its clue.
Clues for words beginning with /ch/.
Here are the /ch/ words that he was working on.

I really like doing this on the magnetic easel because it is also working on fine motor skills and planning because he has to hold the clue, lift the magnet and slide the word underneath so they are all held on to the surface with the magnet.

It does not take long to make this activity but it makes it so much more fun for both of us to reinforce his speech pathologist.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

 

 

 

Using A Mirror To Practice Speech Sounds

A basic mirror helps him see his mouth, particularly his lips and tongue, while practicing speech sounds.

This is a very basic idea that we have used quite a bit with Andrew.  He has apraxia of speech which makes it very difficult for him to make certain sounds. What comes naturally and easily over time with most children is something he has to practice A LOT! Part of that practice involves him being aware of what his tongue and lips are doing when trying to make a certain sound. This is where our hand-held mirror comes into play.  While we are doing My Obstacle Course station activities, such as playing games or doing repetition activities to practice his sounds, I have him look in the mirror to make sure that his mouth is doing what it is supposed to be doing. It is such an easy add-on but it makes a huge difference for him to see what it looks like when he is doing it.

My Obstacle Course station activity: Â Listen and repeat while using a mirror to help see where the tongue and lips are for /n/ and /b/. The focus was not on being able to accurately say the whole word but rather the beginning sound.
A mirror to help him see where his tongue is with /th/ sounds. This My Obstacle Course station activity combined handwriting, literacy and oral motor skills. Â He looked at the sticker, wrote a sentence about it using some /th/ words, and then had to read it, making sure his /th/ was not an /f/ sound.

If your child struggle with speech sounds, I encourage you to try adding a mirror to your practice games or activities so they can see what it looks like when done correctly.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!