Obstacle Course

This activity can be used in two ways:

1. A spur of the moment activity to get your kids moving.

2. A more involved learning activity that takes a bit more planning.

Let's talk about #1 first. My kids like to watch movies and tv shows, and will often choose to do that if I give them the option. So, sometimes I'll ask them if they want me to make an obstacle course for them. They will say yes every time. All I do is give them a starting point, then give them three or four other places to go in the house and do some sort of exercise. This could also be done outside.

Here's a quick example:
1. Start in the playroom.
2. Chasse' or gallop down the hall. (My oldest is in dance, so we sometimes practice her dance moves)
3. Do 10 jumping jacks in the piano room.
4. Skip to the kitchen and around the table 2 times.
5. Go up and down the stairs 5 times.
6. Run back to the playroom.

On to #2. This one takes a bit more planning, but part of the fun for my kids is getting everything set up, so be sure to involve them in that process if you can. What I try to do is send them from room to room and have different learning activities or just some movement exercises in those different rooms. The fun thing about this is that after you've gone through it once with them, they will often want to do it again and again. So tell them to see if they can do it all by themselves, thus giving you a little break while they do some structured activities.

Here's an example of one I did a while back. I'll try to explain a few of the steps:
1. START in the PLAYROOM
2. CRAWL through the TUNNEL -- We have one of those expandable tunnels they use for little kids' gymnastics, but you could just have them crawl to their next spot if you don't have something like that.
3. RUN down the HALL to the LIVING ROOM
4. CLIMB over the CUSIONS -- I just put a bunch of old couch cusions in the entrance of the room that they had to climb over.
5. SORT all the SHAPES by COLOR -- In this room, I just had a bunch of shapes cut out from construction paper spread around the room. They just had to sort them by color, but they could also be sorted by shape.
6. CLIMB back over the CUSIONS
7. RUN to KITCHEN TABLE
8. RUN around the TABLE AND COUNT to TEN -- I had them run around until they got to ten. Since I did this a year ago, I only had them count to ten. Now that they are older, I would probably have them count to twenty or thirty.
9. RUN to GIRLS’ BEDROOM
10. STEP over STOOLS -- I just put a couple of step stools in the doorway of their room they had to step over. It wasn't much of an obstacle, but added a little more variety.
11. PUT TOGETHER one PUZZLE -- I actually moved their little table from the playroom in their, which they thought was fun, but this could have just as easily been done of the floor.
12. STEP back over the STOOLS
13. RUN to the STAIRS
14. PICK UP one TOY at the bottom of the STAIRS -- I just put a few toys at the bottom of the stairs to give them more incentive to go all the way down to the bottom.
15. RUN down the HALL
16. CRAWL through the TUNNEL -- This was fun to watch them try to crawl with a toy in their hands.
17. FINISH in the PLAYROOM

For my next post, I will include another variation of this same idea. Enjoy!