At OMO, we believe that every stain represents an important experience - mud stains are the stamp of adventure, grass stains are the sign of exploration and fruit stains are the aftermath of discovery. Encourage your kids to get messy with our fun activities for happy, healthy, confident kids. We'll be there to sort out the dirty clothes afterwards.
Sense Balance
This sensory activity develops thinking skills and strong bodies with a fun-filled, barefoot obstacle course.
What you’ll need:
What to do:
Create your obstacle course. Some ideas: lay planks on logs or bricks (make sure it’s sturdy) for your child to walk along or jump over; make mud puddles for your child to slosh through; use rope to create a spiral or squiggly line that they must follow; use various chairs, logs or buckets to create jumps; a ladder laid on the ground makes a good hopping or even stepping obstacle. You can involve your child in creating the obstacle course and discuss with them different ways that they could move around it.
When you’re ready to start the activity, talk to your child about the five senses. Explain each sense and ask your child which senses they think they’ll use while doing the obstacle course.
Let your child start the course. Every now and then, call out ‘Stop’. Your child may have to balance or hang from a pole; as long as they are safe this adds to the fun. Call out a situation and ask your child to name the sense being used (for example: eating cake, watching TV, admiring roses). When they’ve named the sense/s, they move on. Many situations will use a few different senses. For example, eating a chocolate cake is about taste, but it’s also sight, smell and touch. Picking flowers is about smell, but also touch and sight. Some things, like listening to music, only use one sense.
Alternative Materials:
Change it up:
Make it easy: Keep the obstacle course simple. Call out situations that only use one sense at a time or accept just one sense even if more could be used.
Make it a challenge: Make more obstacles and/or make the obstacles more difficult. Hide pictures that relate to different senses, around the obstacle course for the child to find and have them call out the sense when they find it.
Play with friends: Two or more children can do the course in rotation and you can time them to see who does it the fastest. Put children in pairs or teams, blindfold one child and have their team-mate/s lead them safely around the obstacle course.
Indoor play: You can set up an indoor obstacle course using kitchen chairs, soft furnishings, cardboard boxes and so on.
Developmental areas:
Body awareness
Knowing where you are
Specific movement
Balance
Thinking skills
Values:
Teamwork; helping others; patience.