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olivia@nfamilyclub.com

Blindfolded obstacle course

Parents and child playing a blind obstacle game
Parents and child playing a blind obstacle game

What you need

  • Scarf or a sleep eye mask to use as a blindfold
  • A space large enough to move around in (indoor or outdoor)

Benefits

This will encourage your child to use and understand prepositions such as ‘under’, ‘behind’, ‘on top’, as well as developing problem-solving skills.

The experience

Put the blindfold around your child’s eyes and start guiding your child around the space. You may wish to place some safe ‘obstacles’ such as some of the sofa cushions on the floor for your child to negotiate their way around. 

Introduce positional vocabulary such as ‘There’s an obstacle in front of you. We need to go around it’. You can make the course as physically challenging as you would like, including instructions such as, ‘You need to crawl under the table’, as your child becomes more confident!

When you start this exercise, you may need to hold both of your child’s hands. As they become more confident, you may only need to hold one hand, then they can be encouraged to take some blind steps without physical support from you, only following your verbal instructions.

To extend their learning, you can swap roles and see if your child can guide you through the obstacles. This experience is a great opportunity to start teaching your child about how to assess risks and consider how to take them safely.