My Obstacle Course: Engage, Encourage and Empower

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

Social Skills

Farm Themed Memory Match

This is a really easy way to create a thematic memory match game using stickers and index cards (or cutouts). Here is a link to an earlier memory match post I wrote. I like including this game because it helps to build concentration, encourages basic game skills like turn taking and provides a good opportunity to make connections and build vocabulary based on the stickers.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Thematic Memory Match

This station activity takes me only about 5 minutes to prepare and has been a favorite of Andrew’s for a while now.

Step 1: Get stickers. Some stickers come with a matching pair on one sheet (like this one) and other packs do not. For the packs that don’t have matchers on one sheet, I just use two sticker sheets and get the matching sticker that way.

Farm Themed Stickers

Step 2: Get something sturdy to place the stickers on. I like to use index cards and found these small, blank, colored cards at my teacher store. I choose one color to use per memory match game and try to choose a color that goes with the theme or season we are in. For this one, I chose to use the red ones.

Small, colored index cards (2x3) are perfect for this activity.
I've also used 4x6 index cards and cut them in half with my paper cutter.

Step 3: Place matching stickers on two separate cards to make a matching pair.

A matching pair.

Continue until you have made all of the matching pairs that you can.

Matching pairs

Step 4: Mix them up or shuffle them. Set them out in rows and it is ready!

Memory match game set up and ready to play.

We take turns turning over cards to try to find matches and continue until all matches have been found.

Matching pair found!

When I began doing this with Andrew, we only did three pairs at a time and the cards were face up so I could show him what we were looking for – “Can you find the card that looks the same?” We did it like this until he understood that we were matching and then began turning them over. Remember to think about the skills your child is ready for and modify the activity so they can build those skills without immediately getting overwhelmed by rules and details they are not ready for. That way, it will be more beneficial and fun for both of you!!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Summer Themed Memory Match

If you’ve been following my posts, you know by now that Andrew is crazy about memory match games. Using colored index cards and stickers makes it so easy to create new, thematic memory match games that go with whatever we are doing. (Here is the link for the original Thematic Memory Match post with step by step instructions.) Since it is summer and we are still in our “beach” theme, I made a game with lots of different colored fish.

Through this basic game, we work on social skills and game playing rules by taking turns (which isn’t always easy when one of us knows where the matcher is! 🙂 ). It also allows me to work on visual discrimination skills and descriptive vocabulary while noticing out loud how each pair is unique.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Summer Themed Memory Match

Colored and unruled index cards + thematic stickers = Fun and easy memory match game!
Stickers on in the middle of the card.
Matching pairs ready to mix and play.
Memory match game set up.
Matching pair of fish found!

This activity can be modified to incorporate some movement by creating a “Crawl and Match” or “Run and Match” station where the child picks up a card and has to go down and match it with its partner.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

Beach Ball Questions

June is here and I cannot believe it! Time flies when you’re having fun! I will be posting on some summer themed station activities to help make skill building and reinforcement a bit more fun.

I got this idea from a company called Clever Catch that makes inflatable balls for classroom use to work on math facts. The balls are preprogrammed with things like numbers and equations and when the student catches the ball, they have to say or do what their eye sees first. A great way to keep something like this a bit random and interactive.

I decided to make my own to work on a concept Andrew needed more practice with – questions. Super simple to make and only took about 2 minutes total.

I purchased a beach ball, blew it up and then wrote question words in each section.

Basic Inflatable Beach Ball
Questions written on beach ball
More questions

The idea is that the ball is passed back and forth and the person has to ask a question using the question word that is in front of them. This helps build both questioning and answering skills while also building gross motor skills and visual tracking. We were working on tossing and catching skills, but this could also be done rolling the ball back and forth with your feet touching to create a leg border.

Sample questions we’ve had:

  • What did you eat for lunch?
  • Who did you see at OT?
  • When is your birthday?
  • What is your favorite color?
  • Where is your favorite place to eat out?
  • Why do you like wearing pajamas?

Have fun with this! Take turns if your child is ready to ask questions, guiding them if they get stuck.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

 

Recognizing Feelings Using Photographs

This is an early My Obstacle Course station activity that I did with Andrew (he was four at the time). I wanted to help him recognize and understand facial expressions in other people and thought that it would be a good idea to start with pictures of himself.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Match the photograph with the expression/feeling state.

I looked through pictures and found some that were very obvious in what they were showing – happy (pictures of him while he was laughing or smiling), tired (pictures of him while he was sleeping) and serious (pictures of him studying something or just looking intently at something). Some other categories could be sad, silly, frustrated, embarrassed, angry, etc.

I printed out the pictures and cut them into cards. I took a sheet of white printer paper, drew some basic faces to go along with the feeling word (I am most definitely not an artist!) and the station was set.

Station activity is set and ready to go.

When he got to this station, he had the best look on his face because he was surprised and excited to see pictures of himself with these different expressions. He didn’t need to be able to speak or read because he could use the pictures and the faces I drew to match up with the expression.

Station activity completed.

Such a fun station activity to help build this important skill. He loved looking at all of the pictures of himself and I was able to point out specific aspects of each picture that supported the feeling state it was showing. This activity is a perfect example of not needing anything fancy to create a station that is meaningful while also providing information about where a child is with a certain skill or ability.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

P.S. My apologies for the poor photo quality! These were taken years ago, long before I had any idea that I would be posting them on a website/blog.

Cootie Catcher

I received some wonderful materials from Creative Teaching Press and these “Cootie Catchers” were included.

Package of "All About Me" Cootie Catchers

Seeing this activity sent me back to elementary school days remembering when we would make these out of loose-leaf paper in order to determine who best friends were, who we were going to marry, and all sorts of  other goofy things. Creative Teaching Press has taken this idea and turned it into a fabulous way for children to get to know other people. (I also got a book with 20 different Math Cootie Catchers that I cannot wait to try out!)

Individual Cootie Catcher

I was not sure if Andrew would be into this sort of thing but decided to give it a try, after all it would require some fine motor skills, motor planning and also allow us to work on social skills of asking and answering questions.

I know that Andrew’s ability to fold is not great, I wanted to introduce this to him without making folding the goal so I did it ahead of time. (It was really easy to do because the folding lines are already pre-creased so I just had to follow the directions.)

Cootie Catcher made and ready to go!
The other side, where the fingers go to open and close the Cootie Catcher.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Cootie Catcher “Get To Know Me”

We did not write the answers to the questions down on the paper but asked them out loud instead. We opened and closed the “Cootie Catcher” a certain number of times to see the different questions (5 seemed to work well) and chose the questions randomly until they were all answered.

I began the questioning and modeled how to open and close it for him. He did a great job and I was surprised by some of his answers. Just when you think you know someone, they have a new favorite food!

When it was his turn, we worked to get his fingers in the right places and I helped show him how to open and close it.

Not perfect with the finger placement but good enough to get the job done!!

I was so excited that he was really into asking me the questions. Not only that, he actually waited and listened to my answers!! I think the fact that he was concentrating on the opening and closing of the “Cootie Catcher” helped to focus his mind.

His turn to ask questions.

This comes as package of 30 (a class set) so it makes it a great material to share with friends, cousins or teachers once you’ve decided how many you need.

Personal Note: I have to say that seeing spelling errors in blog posts is a major pet peeve of mine and was pretty disappointed to find out by my husband this morning that I had spelled “Translator” wrong in yesterday’s post title. It is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me and I try really hard to make sure that I check, double-check and spell check things I publish. I wanted you to know that I was aware of this and have corrected it but you have my most sincere apologies for this mistake!

Engage, Encourage and Empower!

Emotion/Feeling Stamps

We received these stamps as a Christmas gift this year and they are awesome! They allow us to build the fine motor skill of stamping while talking about and modeling different situations that might result in different feelings. We are definitely going to be using these in an upcoming My Obstacle Course, primarily because Andrew asked me just the other day, “Can you have hurt feelings?” He had been sick with the flu and then got an ear infection so we have been talking about hurt tummies, ears and aches of all sorts. I thought it was a cute question but also showed me that he is thinking about feelings.

"I Feel" Stamps
"I Feel" Stamps - other side

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Read the situation and stamp how you would feel.

  • Write out a brief situation that your child might encounter during the day. When they get to the station, read the situation with them and talk about how they might feel. Have them find the stamp that matches what they would feel. Stamp the feeling on the situation card. Show with your face how you would look if you felt that way.

My Obstacle Course Station Activity: Feelings Story

  • Use the stamps to illustrate a story (Character series books like “Franklin” or “Arthur” books are good because they usually have some sort of situation that frustrates them before they figure out how to resolve it.). Provide a clean sheet of paper and as you read through the story, stamp the emotions that the characters might be feeling.
  • Make your own story showing how one can go from an angry situation to resolving it and being happy. This would help to illustrate that one’s emotions aren’t set in stone and that feelings can change as one’s thoughts about what is happening or what has happened changes.

Social stories and activities like these help children to have knowledge about feelings they may experience and also allows you to model appropriate ways of handling emotions and resolving issues. It shows them that it’s okay to feel a certain way but gives them an opportunity to work through those feelings in a safe, pretend way so they are better equipped when it actually happens.

Engage, Encourage and Empower!