Guest Blog at Embrace Your Chaos on Obstacle Courses

I’m so excited to be a guest blogger at Embrace Your Chaos today.  The post is about all the great ways to play using Obstacle Courses.  Please hop on over and check it out!

What are your favorite obstacle courses?

Marbles and Water

I was perusing Facebook the other day and I saw my friend post that she put some marbles in her son’s bath and it resulted in hours (ok maybe an exaggeration but probably lots) of fun.  I loved it as soon as I saw it and in fact told her I would probably use it for a blog idea.  She said that she had gotten the idea for the marbles from one of my previous blog posts (I love when life happens like that).

If you are doing this you need to make sure you are supervising the marble and tub time with your kids.  Just think of the sensory input they are getting.  They can feel around for the marbles with their hands or their toes (as mentioned in my post).  They can try to pick up as many as they can or just one at a time.  You could also have funnels or other containers that they can practice putting them into and then pouring them out of.  You can use different colors and have them search for the colors and sort them, or have them count a certain number of marbles and see if the can do it faster with their hands or their feet or their right or their left.

Who else has used marbles in the tub and what did you notice in the process?

Play This, Not That

I am so excited to have Dana from Embrace Your Chaos guest posting here today!  She is a mom and an occupational therapist and has some amazing ideas and great things to share so make sure you check her out at Embrace Your Chaos.  I hope you enjoy her post here as much as I did! (PS – I included the photos)

Just as there are better choices for the foods that we eat, there are also better choices for the types of things our kids play.  Some salad dressings are better for us than others, some brands of chips are better than others, and even some fast food burgers are better than others.  In just the same way, some board games are better for development of your child’s skills, some organized sports are better for our kid’s gross motor coordination, and even some video games benefit our kids more than others do.

As adults with tons of responsibility and long lists of “to dos,” we tend to forget about why play is so important for kids.  Some of us get caught up in running errands and in the things we have to get done while some of us tend to over-schedule our kids, both resulting in less time to engage in play with our children.  Play is a vital part of a child’s life for many reasons.  It develops creativity and social skills.  It provides a natural context for the child to learn and problem-solve.  It motivates kids to challenge their gross and fine motor skills.  The list could go on and on.  While it is our responsibility as adults to go to work, pay the bills, and clean the house, it is a child’s primary responsibility to learn and grow through play (while also helping to clean the house from time to time).

It is even more important in our current society that we, as parents, encourage our kids to play.  With growing expectations at school, entailing more time at the table and more homework, and with the growing fascination of electronics, our kids are engaging in play less and less.

With all types of play, including electronics, there are some choices that are better for encouraging development of our kids’ skills than others.  When thinking about play, consider these factors:

• What are the sensory experiences?  How many sensory systems does the activity incorporate?  Does it get the child moving, exploring, and touching?  Also consider if the activity is too over-stimulating, which many video games tend to be.
• What are the physical components?  Does the activity challenge the child’s coordination, balance, strength, and/or endurance?
• What are the social opportunities?   Does the play activity provide opportunities for turn-taking, sharing, group problem-solving, or conflict resolution?
• What are the cognitive aspects?   What are the opportunities for problem-solving, for following multi-step directions, for learning to sequence, and for learning other concepts and ideas?
• What are the fine motor and visual motor components?  Does the activity work the small muscles of the hands?  Does it develop the manipulation skills needed for a good pencil grasp? Does it encourage the eye-hand coordination skills needed for handwriting development?  Does it improve the fine motor skills needed to manipulate fasteners, tools, and other small objects?

Some of these components may be more important for some kids than others.  Some children may need more opportunities to build their gross motor skills while other kids may be struggling more with their social skills.  It is ALWAYS important to give a child opportunities to create and choose his or her own play activities; but, there are also times when it is appropriate to provide direction to ensure their play tasks target the areas that will benefit them.  Take video games for instance.  The Wii will provide a greater challenge to your child’s coordination and gross motor development than the X-Box.  “Mother May I” may engage more cognitive and sensory-motor skills than “Tag.”  And gymnastics may provide more calming and organizing sensory input for your child than soccer.

Most of all, don’t forget the importance of all types of play.  And remember that play is one of the best ways to foster your child’s development and target the skills your child needs.  When thinking about how to best encourage your child’s skills through play, remember these different components to find those activities that provide your child with the “just right” experiences and challenges!

Be sure to check out Embrace Your Chaos’ “101 Ways to Play” series to find great play activities and learn more about how play can foster your child’s development!

Snow Ball Fight

This is such an easy and fun game.  My nephew brought over an actual Snow Ball Fight set but you can just as easily do it with newspaper crumpled up.  We had fun chasing each other through the house trying to hit each other with the snow balls.  In doing so we were getting the following benefits:  cardiovascular (there’s lots of running – especially up and down the stairs – when you play with an almost 9 year old), throwing, environmental awareness to avoid obstacle and avoid getting hit, catching (if I was lucky enough), and pretty much any gross motor movement you can think of to hide or get out of the way (jumping, crawling, squatting, etc).  My favorite was when I had possession of all the snowballs!

What versions of snow ball fights have you had?

Magnetic Toy Imaginary Play

I have always wanted to play with Magna-Tiles especially when I have read about them in blog posts or heard parents talking about them.  I decided to buy a set and had my nephew help me check them out.  He of course was excited (and he’s almost 9) because he had played with them before.  He even tried to convince me to give them to him!  At first we just tried out building structures and seeing what we could come up with.

Then he went into the closet where his toys are and came out with this other cool toy that I had never seen before.  It was SmartMax Set.  It had two sized pillars and a bunch of balls.  All of which were magnetic.  We combined it with our Magna-Tiles to create a really cool structure.  I will admit it collapsed on us quite a few times until we figure out exactly where the magnetic attraction would be greatest to combine the two toys.

And then, of course we had to add figurines because this became a fortress with a force field and in the Magna-Tile box were prisoners who we were trying to free.  What you can’t see off to the right became pyramids which is where the controls were kept so that could deactivate the force field and rescue the prisoners.  As you can see we had a guard inside the force field as well.

I love engaging in play with my nephew because I am amazed by his imagination every time.  I also loved playing with these toys because we got to practice problem solving (when they kept crashing on us), fine motor skills for building, bilateral coordination using helper hands (because otherwise its awful hard to maintain this structure while connecting the pieces).

What magnetic toys do you like?

Rubber Bouncy Balls

This idea is so simple I wouldn’t have thought of it except my nephew initiated it and we had a blast.  Basically my parents keep a glass jar of rubber bouncy balls for him to play with (note if you have little kids make sure they don’t put them in their mouth).  He brought the jar down and we went into the three season room (not sure why its called this since they use it all four seasons) which has a tile floor (any hard floor will do) and we turned the jar upside down and watched the balls bounce all over the floor.  We then had to go around and pick them all up.  In the process of picking them up we worked on squatting, quadruped, crawling, weight shifting, reaching, in hand object manipulation, various grasps, body awareness as we maneuvered around the furniture, visual scanning so that we didn’t step on the balls as we picked them up (and scanning to locate the ones to pick up).  Then we put them back in the jar which works on voluntary releasing, visual motor accuracy and tripod or pincer grasp.  If you wanted to really spice it up you could sit the jar on a chair or some other elevated surface and try to toss the balls into the jar.  Then you get to go chasing after them when you miss!  Or, you could practice bouncing the balls and trying to catch them which works on visual motor and hand eye coordination.

How do you use bouncy balls?

Birthday Party Fun – Game Ideas

One of my good friends was prepping for her daughter’s 8th birthday party so I went over to help so that we could spend some quality time together.  I loved the game ideas she had come up with for the kids and I think that in addition to birthday parties they are great ideas for working on other skills.

1. Balloon Pop Spelling – We wrote individual letters on pieces of paper and folded them up and put one each inside of a blown up balloon (yes, I got to blow up almost 100 balloons – the things we do for spending quality time with friends)!  We did enough for four teams.  The object is for the kids to pop the balloons and look at the letters until they came up with the letters to spell her daughter’s name.  Now for kids who are sound sensitive you could use plastic easter eggs.  For kids who aren’t yet spelling you could put sight words in there and have them match them up or you could use colors or numbers or any variety depending on what you are working on.  You could also have each team try to spell a word using the most letters (kind of like a version of Boggle) and see who gets the longest word.
2. Ball Toss – We got together buckets and some soft squishy balls and then the kids were going to be divided into groups of 3.  One child would put the bucket on their head (using hands to stabilize – I tried without hands and it didn’t work very well), one child would stand at the line and throw the balls trying to get them in the bucket and the 3rd would chase after the balls.  Each child gets 1 minute to get as many balls in as they can (you can change the time depending on the age group).  This is a great way to work on throwing skills and team work, plus it keeps the kids active with having to chase after the balls.
3. Tissue Box and Ping Pong Balls – I have no idea what this one is called but basically you empty out tissue boxes and then you thread a belt through it so you can secure it around the child’s waist (with the tissue box in the back).  You then put several ping pong balls in the tissue box and they have to move around until they get all of the ping pong balls out of the the box.  They aren’t allowed to use their hands to help with shaking the balls out.  This is great because they have to get creative with moving in all different ways in order to facilitate getting the balls out of the box.
4. M&M Transfer – Open up a bag of M&M’s and put some in one ball.  Give the child a straw and have them try to transfer all of the M&M’s into another bowl by sucking through the straw and securing the M&M to the end of the straw.  You could just have it as an activity or you could make it a race between several kids.  This is a great way to work on oral motor skills.

I believe there were going to be more games (as you can see from the pictures) as well as free time using tumbling mats but those were the only games I was lucky enough to help organize!

Car Games

With the holiday season in full swing, your family may find itself spending some time in the car while traveling between various family members or other destinations. Here are some games that are fun and can work on skills such as visual discrimination, figure ground discrimination and visual form constancy.

When I used to travel with my family (and even when I moved cross country as an adult) one of my favorite games to play was the license plate game.  We loved to try to and find a license plate from all 50 states.  This tends to be more of an ongoing game though.  So if you have kids that can write or read, you can give them a list of the states and have them cross them off as they see them (or try to write the license plate number next to the state).  In our car Hawaii and Alaska were always especially exciting to find.  You could keep the list in the car so they can work on it each time they get in.

The alphabet game was another favorite.  When we got in the car we would start at the letter A and try to find each letter of the alphabet on the signs we drove by or the license plates we saw.  To make it more challenging we would disqualify license plates or we would say that the word needed to start with the letter.  You could make it a group activity or a competition between each person in the car.

Another game that doesn’t have to be just for the car but can be played there is ‘I Spy’.  Now this one may be trickier to play if you are driving on a freeway and you are picking objects outside.  You may want to leave the outside objects for low speed driving or when you are stuck in traffic and use inside items for freeway driving.  You can vary the game by picking specific objects that you spy or picking colors or objects that start with a certain letter.  You could also turn it into a game of categories.  I remember one time driving in the car with my mom and I had to do a school project on weather vanes and I had the best time locating weather vanes as we drove along and writing the different styles down for my project.  Think of all the categories you could come up with to have your kids look for!

Community Involvement with Physical Activity

I’m home visiting my family for the holidays and discovered that our township had expanded their bike path.  I love it!  It creates a safe environment for families to ride their bikes, walk their dogs, rollerblade, or run.  In a day and age when sidewalks in neighborhoods are disappearing and its harder for kids to get outside and be active, its great to see that some communities are taking strides to create opportunities for families to be able to spend time outside.

It reminds me of the San Francisco peninsula which has a great bike path along the bay that I have spent many hours biking or running along while I have trained for a race!

I’d love to hear stories of other communities creating space for people to engage in exercise – please share!

Recipe for Playing Outside

I had the fun the other day of spending the day with a friend from high school and her children.  We spent the day outside and the kids played the entire time without prompting from us and didn’t want to leave when it was time to go.  Looking back, here are some things that I think worked.

1.  Novel environment – We went to a place that they had never been before.  Therefore they were excited to explore and play on the ‘new’ things (even though I’m sure they have seen many playsets before).  I know finding a brand new environment isn’t always possible but look for ways to switch up where you go with the kids outside.  Maybe its even as simple as taking turns with friends and neighbors to have the kids play in their back yards.  Other people toys are always so much more exciting than their own.  If you have parks nearby try out a new one that you don’t usually go to.

2.  Appropriate toys – Since we had a large area that they could play in the kids brought their bikes.  They were so excited to ride out ahead of us and then circle back to see what was taking us so long (we also brought dogs along so they had fun making the dogs chase after them).  If you are going to an area that has paths, bring kids bikes or scooter.  If you are going to the beach, bring sand toys.  If you are going to be at a grassy area, bring some ball games and maybe even a kite.  Plan ahead for what may engage your child where you are going to be.

3.  Have a playmate – If your child has a friend or a sibling that is fairly close in age it makes it easier to engage in play.  We were lucky that my friends kids had fun hanging out with each other this day.  I think part of it is that we had the above two factors going for us as well!  We found that when one started to lag behind or complain of being tired, they often only needed a minute before they realized the other one was still having fun playing and they were being left out.

4.  Don’t try to have their answers for them – We didn’t try to dictate how they played.  We let them come up with ideas and just made sure they were safe.  We would take many breaks from the bike riding to explore the leaves, or throw rocks into the lake or even play on the play structures.  The ideas they came up with for fun things to do were great when they were given the opportunity to use their imagination.

I am sure there are many great factors that can encourage playing outside but these were ones that I came up with when I looked back over what made this outing so much fun for the kids and so successful in terms of encouraging outdoor play!

I would love to hear any ideas you have that work.