The Amazing Race ECC Community Based Instruction

We had so much fun using The Amazing Race as our Expanded Core lesson! It was a great way to do community based instruction (CBI). You can get all kinds of ideas for The Amazing Race activities online. I love Pinterest so I started there but there are a lot of great online resources to help plan. This particular Amazing Race was for our students and siblings of kids with vision impairments. 

To make this work as an effective ECC CBI, think about your skills and your location. It should be a good challenge but doable (this allows you to focus on meaningful instruction). I selected a mall that was not very large and didn't have an overwhelming amount of pedestrian traffic (this allowed me to really work on OM skills). We also went to a main street that had a good amount of stores and Walmart. 

Of course one of our first challenges was for everyone to learn about the ECC! I bought a ton of those onesie PJ costumes and my staff dressed up  so we would be obvious for our students to find for challenges. That just made things fun and silly for all. 

In addition to the clues pictured in the post, students had to work on their ECC skills such as time management, compensatory skills, a lot of different OM skills (using landmarks, monoculars, directionality) and self-determination. The teams needed to work on communication and team building skills. Each staff member had a lesson plan so that we could provide direct instruction on all these ECC topics. Clues were printed in large print and a Braille copy. 

As always, be mindful of areas that should have some pre-or post teaching. If students have to figure out a ton of items, the main objectives of the lesson get lost. Each group had a (staff) coach who provided some 5 minute instruction as the students played the game. We also wanted to work in transportation skills but it  was a challenge to work in public transportation. We used our school bus and named it the "rendezvous point". The bus was parked somewhere along the route and students had to use their mapping skills to locate it. 

No Amazing Race challenge would be complete without a food challenge. Enter the simulator kits and Oreos! This was for everyone. I bought every kind of Oreo cookie and students had to identify the flavor. It was actually a fun way of doing sensory efficiency because we had to work the other senses for sure!

This could easily be a repeated activity and not just a stand alone one day program. You can even give skill level of beginner, intermediate and advanced. There is so much potential and I can't wait to do it again! It also doesn't even need to be just a blind school camp activity, families can do this as well! Just remember some of the points that I shared so that it is accessible and fun.