#311 - Teaching You How to Set Up Obstacle Courses that Target Multiple Goals
Jun 05, 2024
Rachel Harrington, COTA/L, AC & Jessica Hill, COTA/L
Have you ever wondered why we always recommend obstacle courses for kids during therapy and at home?
It’s because they have so many benefits!
Today’s episode is all about WHY obstacle courses are so beneficial and how to set up obstacle courses for all children!
We talk about our favorite equipment pieces to use, how to identify the number of steps in the obstacle course, how to add a function-based play component, how to add different transitions into it, and MORE!
Have you ever wondered why we always recommend obstacle courses for kids during therapy and at home?
It’s because they have so many benefits!
Today’s episode is all about WHY obstacle courses are so beneficial and how to set up obstacle courses for all children!
We talk about our favorite equipment pieces to use, how to identify the number of steps in the obstacle course, how to add a function-based play component, how to add different transitions into it, and MORE!
As much as you can squeeze into an obstacle course, the better. Because then you are activating different parts of the brain and the body. You are incorporating that sensory integration piece, which is going to help the child regulate their body, understand how to move their body, and then you can always incorporate some emotional intelligence into the obstacle course to talk about, Hey, how did you feel when you spun around five times? How did you feel when you crashed on the crash pad? And incorporate that into it so they understand how their body feels with different sensory activities.
Rachel:
I'm Rachel.
Jessica:
And I'm Jessica. And this is All Things Sensory by Harkla.
Rachel:
We are both certified occupational therapy assistants and together with Harkla, we are on a mission to empower parents, therapists, and educators to help raise confident and strong children of all abilities.
Jessica:
On this podcast, we chat about all things sensory diving into special needs, occupational therapy, parenting, self-care, overall health and wellness, and so much more.
Rachel:
We are here to provide raw, honest, and fun strategies, ideas, and information for parents, therapists, and educators, as well as other professionals to implement into daily life.
Jessica:
Thank you so much for joining us.
Rachel:
Hey there, welcome to All Things Sensory by Harkla. We're so excited to have you here for this episode today. We're talking all about setting up effective obstacle courses.
Jessica:
As OT practitioners, we use obstacle courses every session. We use them with our own children. We recommend them to be completed at home and there's a couple of reasons why. But mostly because they're fun. Like if you can set up a really good obstacle course that challenges your child, but also helps them feel successful. It's that just right challenge. Then it's fun and engaging and your child will just, they'll love it.
Rachel:
And we just have to debunk the fact that we are not setting up American Ninja Warrior obstacle courses with monkey bars and swings and jumping and balancing. And I mean, we do have components like that, but when you think of an obstacle course, like we're doing here in therapy, don't think of like this elaborate Ninja Warrior obstacle course. We are working on simple, a few steps, a function, which we will talk about in a minute. But let's talk a little bit about the benefits to obstacle courses. The first one being improved praxis and praxis consists of coming up with an idea or ideation, motor planning, that action following through, executing it, and then kind of adapting and reviewing that motor plan and how you executed it. And so when we set up these these obstacle courses, it really gives kiddos multiple tries to work on improving a specific area that they're working on with the obstacle course. So praxis is a big one and we see a lot of improved praxis with obstacle courses.
Jessica:
The next one is sensory processing abilities. So we always recommend that obstacle courses incorporate a variety of sensory components, vestibular components, proprioceptive components, tactile, auditory, visual as much as you can squeeze into an obstacle course, the better. Because then you are activating different parts of the brain and the body. You are incorporating that sensory integration piece, which is going to help the child regulate their body, understand how to move their body, how it feels to move their body. And then you can always incorporate some emotional intelligence into the obstacle course to talk about, Hey, how did you feel when you spun around five times? How did you feel when you crashed on the crash pad? And incorporate that into it so they understand. So, it's a great way to help kids understand how their body feels with different sensory activities.
Rachel:
The next one we see improved sequencing. So identifying what's first, what's next, what's last for kiddos who struggle in this area. It's really great to let them figure it out on their own and you demonstrate this for them and then they improve their sequencing as they go through the obstacle course three, four or five times. And they learn what's first, what's next, and what's last, and that sequencing is so important. And just giving that power of pause. We always talk about the power of pause to let them problem solve and figure it out and if they can't get through a certain obstacle give them that time to, to work on it and to, to persevere and get through it.
Jessica:
And actually going right along with that is executive function skills. So a good obstacle is going to target multiple executive function skills, including sequencing. But also organization, and planning, and initiation, and impulse control. And those are big pieces when it comes to our children learning how to get through their day.
Rachel:
Okay.
The next one:
improved balance, coordination, bilateral coordination, all of those underlying skills, crossing midline. All of the things that we work on in OT, you can really see big progress in all of these areas when you're incorporating a variety of functional activities into your obstacle course. So really, whatever your goal is, whatever your child's goals are, you can build those into an obstacle course and work on five goals with one activity. So you really get the most bang for your buck therapeutically when you do obstacle courses.
Jessica:
Yes. There's probably some more benefits that we haven't listed, but let's move on. We broke this down into five steps for building an effective obstacle course. Step number one is to choose your equipment. So when we're looking at equipment, this can be anything in the therapy clinic. This can be anything that you have at home. This could be if you're outdoors. This could be tree trunks and trees and hills and sidewalks or the entire playground. Some of my favorite pieces of equipment to use in the clinic are crash pads, the jumparoo that has the tire on it that you jump around, tunnels. I'm always incorporating tunnels to get some crawling in. Scooter boards. I recently set up an obstacle course with the agility ladder, which is a great piece of equipment to have. Balance beams, balance buckets, stepping stones, swings. If you can incorporate swings into the obstacle course, that's always a great option. Other pieces of equipment would be like a target or a cup tower or bowling pins or blocks, things like that.
Rachel:
I was actually going back through highlights on my Instagram getting some ideas of when we didn't have a clinic. Remember when we were in the church and we didn't have really suspended equipment or big pieces of equipment.
Jessica:
Yeah. Good times.
Rachel:
Good times. Right? It made us so creative. But I was looking back at some of those fun activities. Hula hoops, honestly make a great obstacle course activity as well, and we have an episode all about activities with hula hoops, which we will link. We have some other episodes too on obstacle courses, which we'll link to, but this one, we just wanted to break it down a little bit. So once you have some of your equipment picked out and you're going to pick out the number of steps that are going to be in the obstacle course. Now you want to do this based on the child's age and their ability. So like for toddlers, generally we start with one to three steps. For older kiddos, three to five steps. For a really old kid.
Jessica:
A really, really old kid.
Rachel:
Like a teenager. Someone, who is really working on a challenge. You can have them set up the obstacle course and you're going to go through it trial and error, and then maybe have you go through it as well. So that's definitely important to keep in mind. Really starting simple for our younger kiddos and then grading it up as kiddos get older and if they're, if they're capable of more steps.
Jessica:
So then step number two, after you have your equipment and you've set it up in the sequence that you want it to be in, then you're going to pick your functional play based task that has like a goal to it. So this can be a game like a logic and reasoning game. It can be a more, a toddler game. If you have toddler, like pop up pirate or what's that little caterpillar with all the arms or a fishing game. You can do container play and block stacking. And what we'll typically do with these types of games and puzzles is placing the pieces along the obstacle course somewhere so that the child has to gather a piece as they go through the obstacle course. They get to the end of the obstacle course, they put it on the puzzle board or they stack the block or they put it on the game board and then they go back around. So that's kind of how you can set it up and then you'll modify it. But picking that like functional play based activity as part of the obstacle course is important so that we're adding in that cognitive component, that step sequential component, that play component.
Rachel:
So a few other ideas that we always go to and we love using targets and throwing balls at targets, knocking over cup towers, using a salt tray at the end, just pouring some salts onto a cookie tray and shaking it out, drawing in it, doing math facts, doing pictures. Simon says, using social emotional learning prompt cards. One of our favorites are I think it's called should I or shouldn't I, which is like a really fun problem solving game that you can find online. The super duper card decks are great. They've got an auditory working memory card deck that I really like and as they're going through the obstacle course, you can be asking or reading them a passage and then asking them questions about it. So really challenging them to be able to process that auditory input while they're going through the obstacle course. Infinity loop tracing, infinity loop activities, crafts.
Jessica:
I also like to incorporate handwriting into obstacle courses. That's oftentimes elementary school aged children come into OT and we have handwriting goals. And so you can incorporate handwriting, letter identification, letter sequencing, letter placement, work on spatial relations as part of the obstacle course.
Rachel:
Puzzles, container play, block stacking. All of those activities are helpful to have like a piece of the activity at the beginning of the obstacle course. If you grab a piece of the puzzle to beginning, go through the balance beam, crawl through the tunnel, go over the stepping stones, and then put the puzzle into the puzzle board. And then that sequence there is what we're looking for is completing the entire task through the obstacle course. So that leads us to our next step, which is picking the transition.
Jessica:
Picking a transition means that you're going to add in some other type of gross motor component. Some sort of sensory component into like getting back to the beginning. This could be with another piece of equipment, or you can do it without equipment, like an animal walk, crawling, wheelbarrow walk, heel toe walking along a taped line, cross crawl walking, log rolling, or somersaulting. If you want to use equipment, you could do like ball walkouts, lycra tube pull, scooter board transition. So what you kind of want to do is you want to have your equipment, set up your equipment for your couple of steps, add your functional play task in, and then have that transition to go back to the beginning.
Rachel:
So the last step is just going to be repeat this three to five times in order to help build that praxis. So the more repetition you're going through the obstacle course, the better and the easier it will be. Obviously don't be afraid to pivot. If your child is really struggling to get through this, don't be afraid to modify it, to downgrade it so that way they can be successful. Remember our goal is to find that just right challenge to push them, but not to the point where they are unsuccessful. So we want to build their confidence here. So don't be afraid to modify. And then one other trick that we love to do with our obstacle courses is just to have, and we mentioned this a little bit earlier, but to have the child teach you how to do the obstacle course or to set up their own obstacle course for that added challenge. Especially for older kiddos who need more of a challenge or just to cement that teaching ability and build their confidence. Sometimes kids like to be the therapist for the day, and this is a great way to kind of change that up and challenge them in a new way, and they love control. So giving them the control to set up an obstacle course. To make mistakes. I just remember with, so many kids, they'd set up their own obstacle course and they'd have to try it, and they'd realize they couldn't make that transition. They couldn't do this or it wasn't working, and they'd have to modify it and oh my gosh, there are so many skills that you're working on when. A kiddo is setting up their own obstacle course, whether it's a suspended obstacle course in the clinic with a bunch of swings and things like that, or if it's all on the floor with equipment. It's beautiful.
Jessica:
A couple of other things to keep in mind that depending on your child, where they're at, what they're working on, you can use strictly verbal instructions. You can give them all of the instructions ahead of time and see if they can use their working memory skills to remember the steps as they go through. You can provide visual instructions, whether that is you demonstrating the obstacle course first or using pictures to help them motor plan through the obstacle course. So depending on where the child is, what level they're at, what goals they're working on, you're going to give them instructions to meet them where they're at. And then I think Rachel already mentioned this, but modifying the obstacle course as the child goes through it to either make it easier or more difficult. This is kind of where your experience comes in, right? Like as a therapist, having done this for over 10 years, it just kind of comes second nature to me to modify in the moment. But, as a newer therapist, it does take some practice to watch your client go through the obstacle course, identify. Okay, that was way too easy. They did that so well. I'm going to make it harder by doing this or watching them go through and say, wow, that was way too difficult. I need to modify it down in this way. Parents, that's kind of the tricky part where you come in of, how can you modify it to make it easier or more difficult while still making sure that your child is having fun and engaging with it. Oftentimes I'll recommend to parents that, you know, they go through the obstacle course with their child. So they're not just sitting and watching and directing. But they're actually engaging in the obstacle course with their child and that really increases the child's buy in to do the obstacle course.
Rachel:
You know what I was just thinking? We didn't talk about the ball pit or the rock wall at all and those are great tools again to incorporate into your obstacle course. Climbing up the rock wall, retrieving something from the top, taking it down and back and going through the obstacle course and going back. If you're in the ball pit searching for something and trying to guess what it is and find it where it is, work on that somatosensory processing. So yeah, those are two other pieces of equipment that I really like to use.
Jessica:
The other thing we didn't mention was adding primitive reflexes into the obstacle course, which is one of my favorite things to do. So.
Rachel:
No, it's one of my favorite things. You just jumped on it.
Jessica:
I know, I know. Some of the simple ways to add primitive reflexes into obstacle course is to get kids crawling. So that's where the tunnels come in handy. Have them do Superman bananas, have them do bird dog exercises, have them get their head into different positions, and activate that vestibular system and their core muscles. One thing that I use quite frequently are our primitive reflex, like picture cards that we have in our digital course. I have them printed out and laminated and I use those in obstacle courses. I also use the primitive reflex game that we got recently.
Rachel:
From reflex integration through play.
Jessica:
Yes, I use that in obstacle courses because it's like a little matching game, which is really fun. So, figuring out how to add primitive reflexes in is a great way to therapeutically address primitive reflexes. But to also work on coordination and balance and control and sensory integration, like you're targeting a lot of things all at once.
Rachel:
So, Moral of the story, we love obstacle courses. We want you to be incorporating obstacle courses into your treatment sessions and at home and when you do send us a video or tag us on Instagram at all things sensory podcast. We'd love to see. We'd love to share. We'd love to spread the love. That's what I've been saying all day today. Have you noticed?
Jessica:
Spread the love.
Rachel:
Spread the love. Yeah.
Jessica:
You're feeling very lovey today.
Rachel:
Apparently. Yeah. So anyways, we love that. We love love and we want to just get everyone doing these activities cause they're so good.
Jessica:
So good. Obstacle courses are so great. So let us know if this was helpful. Let us know if you loved it or hated it. I guess you could let us know if you don't like it.
Rachel:
Leave us a review on iTunes. Leave us a review on Spotify and yeah, let us know. But we don't have anything else for you today. So thanks for being here. Thanks for chit chatting with us or letting us chit chat your ear off and we always, we always love a good, a good episode. So anyways.
Jessica:
I always love a good episode.
Rachel:
I think we should probably call it quits.
Jessica:
Okay. We'll talk to you later. Bye.
Rachel:
Thank you so much for listening to all things sensory by Harkla.
Jessica:
If you want more information on anything mentioned in the show, head over to Harkla.co/podcast to get the show notes.
Rachel:
If you have any follow up questions, the best place to ask those is in the comments on the show notes or message us on our Instagram account, which is at Harkla_family or at all things sensory podcast. If you just search Harkla, you'll find us there.
Jessica:
Like we mentioned before, our podcast listeners get 10 percent off their first order at Harkla. Whether it's for one of our digital courses or one of our sensory swings, the discount code Sensory will get you 10 percent off. That's S E N S O R Y.
Rachel:
Head to Harkla.co/sensory to use that discount code right now.
Jessica:
We are so excited to work together to help create confident kids all over the world. While we make every effort to share correct information, we're still learning.
Rachel:
We will double check all of our facts, but realize that medicine is a constantly changing science and art.
Jessica:
One doctor or therapist may have a different way of doing things from another.
Rachel:
We are simply presenting our views and opinions on how to address common sensory challenges, health related difficulties, and what we have found to be beneficial that will be as evidence based as possible.
Jessica:
By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or your child.
Rachel:
Consult your child's pediatrician or therapist for any medical issues that he or she may be having.
Jessica:
This entire disclaimer also applies to any guests or contributors to the podcast.