My Obstacle Course: Engage, Encourage and Empower

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

My Obstacle Course Station Ideas

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!

 

 

Do A Dot Apple Trees

Here is another simple idea combining an apple tree with building fine motor skills, particularly with a child who is not crazy about doing art projects.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Do A Dot Apple Trees

I took a few sheets of white paper, drew an outline of a tree  (I’m really good at these outlines aren’t I?! 🙂 )…

My tree outline.

and set out red, green and yellow “dotters.”

Do A Dot "Dotters"

Andrew could choose what color apples he was going to have on the tree and then use the dotters to push down, creating a circle, or “apple.”

Do A Dot Apple Tree

Super simple, super cute (I finally have some of his “artwork” to hang up!!) and helps build hand muscles when grasping the dotter and while pushing it down to create the circle.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

How Many Apples On The Apple Tree?

This My Obstacle Course station activity is so simple yet it helps to build math skills and fine motor skills – bonus!! While I know that apples are usually picked off of an apple tree, for the purpose of this station activity, we are going to be putting apples back on the tree. I guess you could put a whole bunch of “apples” on the tree and have your child “pick” a given number off of the tree using the tweezers. Either way, a great opportunity to build these skills!

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: How Many Apples On The Apple Tree?

Tree with apples.

I used a brown sheet of paper and drew the outline of a tree. I gathered up some red puffs to represent apples and set out a pair of tweezers. The object of this activity is to give your child a number and have them use the tweezers to grasp the “apples” and put them on the tree. I like to use tweezers because it helps to build the same muscles needed for handwriting and drawing.

Tree Outline
My tree with red cotton puff apples.
A stack of calendar numbers can be used to provide the number.
Three apples on the tree.
14 apples on the tree.

There are several different ways to get the number:

  • just pick a number (this wouldn’t work as well for us since Andrew prefers to see things if he is going to “buy” into it, but that’s just us)
  • roll a die or two dice and have your child count the dots and put that many apples on the tree
  • use dominos and have your child flip over a domino, count the dots and put that many apples on the tree
  • use calendar numbers by choosing a few that are appropriate for your child, turn them over and have your child flip them one at a time, say the number and put that many apples on the tree

This activity helps build number recognition and allows the child to demonstrate their understanding without needing to have intelligible speech.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Pass the “Apple”

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!).

Red Plastic Bouncy Ball

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!

Apple Books

Including short books or pages of books is a great station activity in any My Obstacle Course. When setting this up as My Obstacle Course station, I set out two books and have Andrew choose the book he’d like to read. Giving him the power to choose the book has worked so much more than just telling him what we are going to read.

Where To Get Thematic Books

I have accumulated a lot of my thematic books through the Scholastic Book Clubs and the public library or local bookstores are also a great place to get books to go along with whatever you are doing. The Scholastic Book Club is run through a school or classroom teacher. The school or classroom gets points to earn books for their library and the books tend to be at a discount from bookstores. If you want to be able to see the books you are purchasing by shopping at a bookstore, I know that at our local Barnes and Noble they usually have a whole table set up in the Children’s section entry with books to go with the season in a variety of reading levels and types (fiction/non-fiction).

Using books or stories as a station activity helps to build reading skills such as:

  • Comprehension – this is a great opportunity to point out characters (if fiction), setting (when and where a story is taking place), important information, any problems (a great time to point out facial expressions or body postures illustrated with what is happening), predicting what will or what could happen next and pointing out the conflict resolution (if there was one) or tie back to the information learned from the book.
  • Fluency – finding a good reading rate where the reader can be understood, no words are dropped or added and punctuation is followed. Andrew tends to run right through periods and will read so fast that he mumbles over words and phrases. Adding a strategy like pointing to words as they are read helps him read the words that are there and saying “stop” when he gets to a comma or period helps him remember what the punctuation means.
  • Decoding – practicing sight words, spelling words or vocabulary words in isolation with a good deal of repetition is very helpful for struggling readers and having them read passages that are at their reading level is a great opportunity for them to practice their decoding in a purposeful way while also allowing you to see what words give them problems.

I have used these stations as:

  • a “listening” station to help him build his “good listening” skills
  • turn taking while reading – he reads one page or side and I read the other which helps to keep him engaged while giving him a break
  • him reading pages or passages to build his fluency and intelligibility
Apple Themed Books

Helpful Hints For Beginning Reading Skills:

  • Point to the words as they are being read.
  • Use a bookmark, ruler, piece of construction paper, reading guide (cool tool!) to help stay focused on the line of text being read.
  • Have a pad of post-it notes handy to write down things learned, new words, words that were challenging and words to define.

Happy reading!

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!