“Go around the tree, through the tunnel, over the rocks, under the parachute and onto the swing. Then throw a beanbag through the hula hoop and run and touch the fence. The first person to do that WINS!”

I listen as five-year-old Juan walks his eager friend through the steps of the obstacle course he has just created.

When people think about early math skills, they often think about numbers—including number recognition and counting. But spatial reasoning is another important aspect of early math learning.

Juan has kicked off our morning of math learning with a burst of spatial vocabulary!

Words like around, through, over, under, above, below, between and beside describe where things or people are in space.

Obstacle courses are a great way for children to learn, hear and use spatial language while developing their spatial skills. Obstacle courses also teach sequencing, memory and following directions. Best of all, kids LOVE them!

When designing your own obstacle course, consider the elements that will make it both fun and challenging. Try out these options:

• Something to jump over or into such as rope, pool noodles, chalk lines or hoops. I often use chalk to draw shapes such as circles, squares, rectangles or triangles just to sneak some more math into our day. As children start to identify shapes, they are building the foundation for geometry.
• Something to climb over. When we’re indoors, we use pillows. When we’re outside, we climb over the picnic table or up the slide. The slide is a feature in many of our obstacle courses.
• Something to weave around and between. We often use cones or buckets, recycled two-liter plastic bottles filled with water or natural landmarks such as trees, bushes and gardens.
• Something to crawl through or under such as tunnels, parachutes or boxes.
• Something that requires a bit of balance or care when navigating such as a curved rope, river rocks or tree stumps.
• Something to run to, such as a fence, a tree or a door.

When older children are here after school, we often use a stopwatch to time how long it takes to complete the course. This exposes our children to data analysis and record keeping.

Some students may want to use their drawing skills to create a map of the obstacle course. Keep clipboards and pencils nearby because this activity catches on quickly!

You can add more math learning opportunities by counting the hoops or cones as children go through or around each one.

You can measure the distance between cones or stones—or simply use spatial language to describe the distance, using words such as closer together or farther apart.

Obstacle courses are also great for developing gross-motor skills. Include activities such as crawling, jumping, skipping and hopping. If your outdoor area has natural slopes and uneven terrain, these areas are perfect for fostering the development of early gross-motor skills.  

We all see the need for self-regulation in young children. Occupational therapists often use movement to support physical and mental regulation and increase a child’s attention span, focus and alertness. That’s reason enough to create a math curriculum that involves an obstacle course!

An obstacle course may look like play, but it’s chock full of learning opportunities. When we take the time to explain how activities like these can support early childhood learning and development, parents and administrators begin to develop a deeper understanding of our early childhood curriculum. 

Ready to take a deeper dive into spatial learning? Check out the Early Math Counts lesson plan Over, Under, Through. After you engage in the activity, click on the Connect With Families button on the left side of the page and customize the letter to send home to the families of the children in your classroom.

Be sure to let us know how your obstacle course turned out and share helpful tips in our Comments section. Have fun!

When I was little, my big sister set up the basement so we had to follow an obstacle course that kept us moving over and around the furniture.  The big motivator to keep us on course was that she told us there were “crocodiles” in the carpet and if we touched it we would get eaten.  Big sister fear is a REAL thing.

I like the idea of setting up each part of the course with open-ended options for the children.  Since development is bumpy, some children may want to jump on two feet, while others are working on hopping on one.  You can place paper plates on the rug with numbers on them and have the children move from 1 to 2 to 3, etc.  After that, they must move to a table and crawl under it (use an arrow to indicate where to go) and then over to a block balance beam.  Once they’ve completed the balance beam obstacle, they can go over to a table where they have to put 4 Legos together before they move on.

These are simple ideas that may encourage children to try new things, follow simple directions and then make personal choices about how to complete the tasks.  Try and develop a few obstacles that encourage mathematical thinking and spatial awareness.

This is another way to keep everyone moving during these very cold winter days.