Obstacle Course and MORE

A simple obstacle course is a commonly used gross motor activity, which reinforces gross motor skills such as jumping and hopping and challenges kids to sustain focus on the main task.  These are my kindergarten students who try to spell sight words.

First, students pick one word that they will spell out.

Then one student will find the first letter of the chosen word and jump over the hurdles to the other side. He puts the letter down.

Another student will pick up the next letter of the same word and jump over the hurdles to the other side.  He puts the second letter down.

They take turns until they complete the word.

In order to complete spelling the word, each student has to remember the letter that his partner brings to the other side.

At the end, they complete a word together.

They practice spelling more than one word and have fun.

This entire activity may look so simple but it requires so many skills. I will list a few of the skills.
 
(1) Letter Recognition - kids need to know how each letter looks like.
(2) Visual discrimination and Visual spacial skills - I put so many letters on the table and challenge them to look for the letter that they need. Although they know their alphabet letters, if all the letters are upside down, downside up, and facing up all different directions, obviously they need more time to look for the letter.  If child struggles finding letters, you may want to limit the numbers of the letters on the table.
(3) Visual sequential skills - Each student has to look at the word and figure out what comes next. Since we play in a small group, they need to give their full attention to follow through and not to misspell the word.
(4) Short term memory - As mentioned above, the main activity is spelling words.  However, they are side-tracked by performing the exercise, which they enjoy doing it during the session.  Despite of this distraction, they need to complete the words.  How fun it is~!
 
What is your (parent's) job? Let's wait and see. Be patient! Let's encourage our children to problem solve independently. If your child asks for your help too soon, what are you going to do? Are you going to help your child immediately?  If your child does not ask for help and gets frustrated, what are you going to do? It's all matter of when and how to help your child when he/she faces problem.  

Origami: Folding paper

Have you ever tried to follow origami diagrams and instructions? Folding paper inside or outside, or bringing a flap up or down... It doesn't sound so easy, right? Origami requires kids to use their visual skills as well as fine motor skills.
I like origami because kids love the activity. Also, kids can take the origami project home at the end of the session. Kids tend to show better and longer attention span while they participate in the activity.

Here I would like to share ideas of making the activity little easier for kids.

1. You can choose an easy or relatively difficult origami project depending on your child's level of skills and his/her age.
Some projects involve many steps of folding paper and theses are relatively harder than the others.

2. You can give your child extra visual cues by demonstrating first. You show your child how to fold it first.
See if your child follow through.
If he/she follows your instructions and demonstration, that's great!! If not, here are more tips!

3. Give more visual cues on the paper. Draw a line for folding. "This yellow line is where you will fold the paper." "Make the corners pointy."

You can use shapes. "Have the shapes kiss! kiss!" "Have the shapes meet together."
(I stamped dots here. You can simply draw different shapes such as a square, circle, star, diamond, etc. It is a good chance to teach younger kids different shapes.)

4. These are my second graders. They are trying to draw lines on the paper to understand where they should fold on the paper.
I didn't give them a ruler to draw a straight line.  I wanted them to understand the concept of folding paper from the 'point A' to 'point B'.  You can surely give your child a ruler and see how he/she uses the ruler.  Just remember, using a ruler requires fine motor skills on both hands.  One hand is pressing down on the ruler.  The other hand is drawing a line.  Doing different task on each hand may be not too easy for some kids.

5. Last but not least, I would like to suggest adults giving least amount of assistance to kids in the beginning. Just wait and see how kids are handling difficulty. "Do they try to solve the problem by themselves?" "Do they give up easily?" "Do they ask for help after a few times of trying it?"
You want to learn how your child tries to solve problems and how much assistance she/he needs to do things.

Enjoy learning and teaching~!!

More resources on http://www.origami-instructions.com