banner image courtesy of 944010 from Pixabay
Chicago’s premier escape room reveals how you can build an obstacle course at home for your kids.
Staying indoors has never looked less appealing.
But the hardest blow has been on the children.
At a time they should be outside, playing with their peers, and having the best time of their lives, they face months of being stuck inside.
Staying active indoors
Well, staying indoors doesn’t have to mean becoming a sloth.
One of the ways you could keep your children engaged, active, and enjoying physical activity is by building an obstacle course for them, indoors.
And that’s what this blog is all about - building an obstacle course at home for your kids.
Selecting the space
However large a project an obstacle course sounds, it really doesn’t have to take up a lot of space.
If you’ve got a backyard, or some garden out front, that’s grand.
If you’ve got a basement where you can clear out space, brilliant.
If you’ve got neither, just clear away stuff from the middle of the living room.
Heavier stuff can be pushed against the wall.
Lighter stuff can be dumped in another room.
Small articles can be placed on a table/tables till the obstacle course is over.
If you’ve got a staircase, you can double the stakes by charting your obstacle course on two floors, and the stairs.
Charting the obstacle course
Plan the obstacle course.
Sketch out the space you’ve chosen for the course.
Set different tasks/games along it.
In between 2 tasks/games, specify some kind of condition your kids would have to follow (more on this in coming up).
Finally, for each task/game, list out the supplies you need to make it happen.
This plan will prove critical in getting the supplies you need to build the course, and in helping you build the course, of course.
Mark the starting point
This adds to the atmosphere.
It could be as simple as a tape across the floor, or you could make it more elaborate, such as by hanging some kind of decor from the ceiling, shining a light at the spot, and so on.
Matching the obstacle course to longer term goals
You can choose any activities you want to include in the obstacle course.
However, if you want to link it to some longer term goals, like boosting your children’s memory, or numerical skills, you can do that, by tweaking the obstacle course.
For example, if you want to boost your children’s memory, at a certain point in the course, you can ask them to name the obstacles they encountered, in order.
Making the course a bit more challenging
Whatever obstacles/games you design, the course can always be made a bit more challenging by asking them to
Balance a book on their head/a marble in a spoon that they hold by their mouth while they move between obstacles.
Walk backwards for a certain amount of time in the course.
Do some tasks blindfolded.
Time
To further spice things up, time them.
Once they finish the course, challenge them to do it faster.
I hope you have as much fun organizing the obstacle course at home for your children as we do hosting escape games in Chicago.
If you want some great ideas for the individual obstacles/games that can be included in the course, we’ll be bringing out a list pretty soon.
Keep watching this space for updates!
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