I’m thrilled to have Stacy Menz, a physical therapist and the founder of Starfish Therapies in CA, as our guest blogger today. She highlights the benefits of using obstacle courses to build various developmental skills. Stacy has tons of great ideas so be sure to check out her blog!
Looking for a fun and creative way to mix up your kids playing? Obstacle courses are a great way to do this. The best part about obstacle courses are that you can put any number of ‘obstacles’ together and in any order that you want. The reality is, the only limiting factor is your imagination!
Here are some things you can do and work on with obstacle courses:
- Sequencing – if kids have challenges with sequencing you can start with a small number of simple tasks that they need to complete in order and then become more complex as they start to grasp it. You can add in a chart that they can use to help navigate the obstacle course if necessary. Using icons that they remove as they complete each task could be a great way to work on this. In addition you could have them help you to sequence the obstacle course by using a visual chart and putting the icons in the order they would like.
- Gross Motor – Whether indoors or outdoors, obstacle courses are a great way to work on gross motor skills. Depending on a child’s skill level you can have them crawl, walk a line, walk backwards, hop, do forward rolls, log roll, duck walk, frog jump, step up on steps, cross stepping stones, jumping rope, etc. Look at what skills your child is working on and mix them together into an obstacle course and it will all seem new to them.
- Fine Motor – You can mix in a little fine motor with gross motor if you want. Kids can travel via any of the methods mentioned in the gross motor section to stations that require fine motor control such as using tongs to move cotton balls, playing with an eye dropper in water, carrying a plastic egg on a spoon, bouncing a ball, etc.
- Academics – Now this is just a matter of mixing in learning tasks while doing fine and gross motor. Maybe have number cards on one side and pictures with the corresponding amount on the other side. They have to carry the card with them through the obstacle course and match it up with its correct pair at the other end. You could have stations that work on this as well. The benefit of having items that you have to take from one side to the next is that it encourages repetition of the course because they want to get all the pieces across the course. You could also have spots on the ground with letters or numbers or colors that they have to say as they step on them. A lot of it depends on the skills your child is working on.
- Repetition – I touched on this above but by using something like flash cards or puzzle pieces you encourage increased repetition. It’s also fun to use figurines and create a story where they need to reach their friends on the other side of the course and you have to help them get there. Using pretend groceries you can carry each of the plastic food items to the ‘checkout’ cart so you can do your grocery shopping.
These are just a few ideas to get you started with obstacle course fun. Make it even more challenging by having a timer that is set and they have to reach the other side before the timer goes off. Or, once they master one direction have them try to do it backwards. Take turns setting up the course and see who can come up with the most creative ideas. Take pictures so you remember what you did and can pull them out on another day and try to recreate the same course (or ‘improve’ upon it if need be)!
What’s your favorite obstacle course idea?
Thanks again Stacy!