Toddler Obstacle Course Activity
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If you follow my stories over on Instagram you might know our recent FAVORITE activity is obstacle courses. If you have a toddler who loves to move (and what toddler doesn’t!) I think obstacle courses are a must do. We do all sorts of them, usually as a way to combine movement with shelf work. Our recent ones are letter sorting bringing small letters from the beginning and sorting them with the sandpaper letters at the end. The whole time I cheer “let’s go A /a/ /a/” or whatever the letter name is. This could be done with anything you are working on: color sorting, puzzles, numbers, whatever. Or just set up the obstacle course to burn off some purposeful energy! Obstacle courses offer a lot of sensory input so always monitor to make sure your child isn’t dysregulated and discuss with an OT if you think your child might be needing more or less of a sensory input.
This post has all the different pieces we use as part of our obstacle course! Typing this out I realized we have a lot of gross motor equipment. It is something I have prioritized and love to have, but you absolutely don’t need this much! You can make stepping stones out of paper plates and balance beams out of wood. This post shares all of our favorite gross motor equipment we use for obstacle courses if you are interested in investing in any!
Pikler Triangle
We always like to start or finish our obstacle courses with the Pikler triangle. It is a great indoor gross motor toy. It even worked in our 750-square-foot apartment because it folds up! Ours is the RAD Children’s Furniture Jumbo (discount code OnTheWay). Many brands make these though. A couple of others I trust are Sprout Kids (discount code OnTheWay10) and Piccalio. We have a slide off of our climbing triangle and I often set it up to lead to our climbing arch.
Balance Beam
Another major part of our obstacle courses is our balance beam. We have the Sprout one (code OnTheWay10) and I love it because you can change the challenge level and add pieces as you go. My toddler also loves to build the balance beam in different ways himself. We also have the Lily and River balance beam and it is good quality but takes up more space and isn’t as versatile.
Stepping Stones
We have two types of stepping stones. We always had the Lily and River ones and they are quality wood ones. We got M the Stapelstein ones for her first birthday and we are loving them! They add more of a challenge for an older child and allow for things like stacking them at different heights. There are knockoff Stapelstein stones but I am not sure of the quality. I went back and forth for a long time on purchasing Stapelstein because the cost is quite high. I trusted Stapelstein in the end though and I also like they are made in Germany.
Tunnel
We don’t always add a tunnel but we often do! We have had ours since Y started crawling and I love that it encourages older kiddos to crawl too (it’s SO good for their development). Tunnels are fun at so many ages. They are also a great gross motor toy because they fold up easily. We love ours but this is the one I would have bought if we didn’t have one. Tunnels don’t have to be expensive though. Here is a very affordable one on Amazon.
Sensory Mats
These had never really been on my radar but they were gifted to us from Orthopuzzle and I am really glad we got them. I love standing on them and walking on them. They offer different surfaces to walk over for sensory feedback.
Balance Board
Often I have him balance at the end as he completes the obstacle course. We have two different balancers: one came with our Stapelstein step stones and the other is a wooden balance board. The wooden balance board can also be used for an obstacle course turned the other way to allow them to climb over it.
There are so many more items you could add to an obstacle course as well! If you have soft play equipment or a Nugget-type couch those are also a great addition. You can also keep the obstacle course very simple. The idea is to get them moving in exciting ways! My son loves this activity and it keeps him engaged on days he really needs to move!
