Nightschool

We spent half of our morning in our local public library today looking for letter 'E' books and left with a whole stack of Elmer the Elephant books! 

I was hoping to find at least one Elmer book so that Vada would be able to relate the Elephant to his character. I was surprised to have found this many!

Once we got home from the library it was time for lunch and then Vada was very tired so I laid her down for a nap. It wasn't until this evening when my older two girlies were at church for their weekly youth groups that Vada and I went into the classroom.

We only had a little over an hour, so we couldn't do a full days worth of activities but I wanted to get in somethings today. I always feel so guilty when we miss school time. Vada and I have such a good time, she gains so much from it and well, its my job. 

Yesterday Vada's occupational therapist (Christy) made a comment on one of my recent blog posts. (I love that she follows along and offers me advice, she rocks!) She said that I should look into getting mini dry erase markers for Vada to use for writing practice. So I went out and found some. At first glance I thought the markers just looked shorter. I had the packs of mini's in my hand but actually rehung them on their hooks and almost didn't buy them because I didn't get what the big deal was about them. I was half way out of the store when I decided to compare them to a regular sized dry erase marker (duh!), so I turned back around and did just that and guess what, they were smaller. Christy didn't just recommend the mini's because they are shorter but because they are smaller in every way and would fit into Vada's small hands better. In the words of my teenager "she's so smarticle!"

Staples had two packs with multiple colors and I got both. Were working on colors and I needed some markers from each pack. Yep, that's how I am justifying this purchase. Thank you very much.

 We used Vada's new mini dry erase markers on a letter 'Ee' pre-hand writing worksheet.

We then used it on the Pre-Writing Practice worksheets that also came from our LOTW, letter 'E' binder.

Check out those almost number ones!

Vada finished her color recognition 'Ee' is for Elephant book, from 3Dinosaurs.com.

I will say this about these coloring pages and Vada's work efforts. I think that she was just not into it. Look at these scribbles. They are the same and she doesn't really color like this when she is trying and yet the coloring is almost exactly the same on each page. It was like Vada was saying "fine", scribble, scribble..."here, now I'm all done. Can we please move on!"

Earlier today, after the library and right before Vada took her nap we read a couple of the Elmer books that we borrowed from the library. One of the books was Elmer's Special Day. It was about the day that all of the other elephants paint themselves in beautiful colors and Elmer makes himself look like a regular grey elephant. Anyway, it made me think of decorating our own elephant. I got onto google images and found a perfect Elmer printable page. I made two copies. Today we made our own Elmer, later we will decorate the second elephant in a more creative way.

I gave Vada a glue stick and told her what I wanted her to do with it. Elmer needed to be fully covered in paste.

After Vada worked at pasting awhile, I did help but just a little. Wink. Wink.

I then began to hand Vada 1x1 pre cut squares of different colors of tissue paper and asked Vada to push them onto Elmer.

Eventually, the whole elephant was covered with tissue paper. We then took out the scissors and together Vada and I cut Elmer out.

Some areas, like around the mouth and around the feet were too difficult for Vada and I to cut out together so I did that and after everything was cut I took a black marker and re-drew Elmer's features so that it resembled a elephant. After I added the features Vada and I added a dot of Elmer's glue and she pushed on a googly eye.

Tonight, before bed, I read another Elmer the elephant book to Vada. My daughter Jasmine took this picture and I had to share it because we snuggling with the blanket that my grandmother made for her, Vada is so sleepy and I just think it's precious.

Learning to Use Scissors and Drawing Lines

This week Vada's OT, Christy, came to our house to do Vada's six month assessment report. It's crazy to think that we are all getting ready for Vada's annual IEP but more importantly her three year IEP! This is a monumental moment, in my humble opinion. There is even talk of discharge or cutting way back on therapies  throughout! Anyway, with Christy, we went through all kinds of different skill testing activities to judge where Vada needed the most help and where her skills were the strongest. 

At the beginning of this school year when we were buying my older two girls their school supplies and thinking I was ahead of the game, I picked up these scissors for Vada. However, I forgot all about them since Justin has been working on building the schoolroom. After meeting with Christy this week she brought up the fact that Vada should already be well on her way to knowing how to use scissors.

So im confused.., if Vada should already know how to use scissors and she isn't three, then why does the package say three plus? Is there scissors made for ages three and under and did I somehow miss those ones? Let me just say that these "Preschool" scissors are really hard to use and maybe that is because my hands are five times the size of the handles or im a complete whimp.., but I am seriously thinking of upgrading V to a better pair. Any suggestions?

Yesterday, Vada and I had to go to Peoria for a day filled with doctors appointments. In between appointments V and I spent our time surrounded by books at Barns and Noble. The Barns and Noble in Peoria has a decent Education selection especially compared to ours! I found these Kumon learning books that focuses on specific fine motor skills. The ones that I bought were for cutting and folding which are two of the main areas that Christy and I discussed really working with Vada on. I also found books by Kumon on stickers, tracing, pasting and coloring. Since Cutting and folding is Vada's main area's of needed attention, I decided to not go overboard with all of the other "cool" stuff available!

Vada and I worked on cutting and holding scissors this morning for about twenty minutes. A good start, if I do say so myself.

I did most of the cutting and Vada did most of the watching but she did let me put her hands into the "proper" scissor/hand holding position and several different times too, either i'm not complaining about the work we did or didn't get done. Baby steps are a very important part in the learning process!

After Vada experienced scissors for the first time I decided to work on drawing vertical and horizontal lines with her. 

We also worked on other fine motor skills like coloring in the circles that I drew. In the picture below, I colored in the circles to demonstrate what I wanted Vada to do. 

The following pictures show the circles that Vada colored in on her own!

I used the orange crayon. Vada used the green crayon.

I colored with the orange crayon. Vada used the green crayon.

I made the orange circle, Vada colored with the red crayon.

 

Considering this was the first time that I have asked her to color "in" something for me, I think she did an amazing job!

Tuesday Tidbits

Vada's attention span has always been rather impressive, that is it was up until this last week. Now she is quite the busy body! Don't get me wrong, im not complaining. You can just tell that her mind is preoccupied on how to get to point 'B' from point 'A' and then all of the way over to 'X' and back.

I know that I have been saying this for a very long time, but I mean it now.., I think walking is right around the corner for this girl! She is standing more and for longer periods of time and while she hasn't done more than two steps at a time and only a couple of times in total, something has changed. While I am on the subject of her standing, she is also dancing while she is up! It's super cute! plus, yesterday she took one unsupported side step. A SIDE STEP! If she can do that, then I think she is ready to walk, she's just being stubborn! Anyway, she seems really determined but only to do it on her own terms and in her own time. Meaning she still turns into a noodle if we try to get her to walk. Again, I. am. not. complaining. It'll all happen eventually.

Because Vada's attention span has shrunk to little to no interest when it comes to (but not limited to) seated activities she has been kind of difficult to work on learning activities with, not just with me but with her therapists as well (watch out Sara, your next!). Its been too hot to take her outside (she over heats easily and so do I!) so I am trying to be creative. I have a couple in door activities lined up for the next couple of days and with Kiliegh here, I think that were going to have a blast doing them! Stay tuned.

 We did get some playtime in today after our L.M.N.O.P. group at GiGi's and before her therapy session with Christy.

 Kiliegh, Vada and I started off playing with some of our older Learning Resource toys. For those of you who aren't familiar with LR, you should take a look at their site. Their stuff is amazing and durable! We have had the Cupcakes, Cookies and the Ice Cream Cone set for several years and they are all like they were when they were new!

I have used these cupcakes with Vada several times but she inst overly interested in them, yet. I think that they are pretty cool though. Maybe I should play with them more? They are pretty versatile with the things that they can be used for-- pretending for one, shapes and sorting, counting and fitting like you would do with a puzzle. There are shapes at the bottom of the "pan" and at the bottom of the cupcakes, so they each fit perfectly into their own spots. You can even step it up a notch and take the cupcake tops out from the "wrapper" and put them back together, again, like a puzzle. For now, were working on putting them into the pan and into the correct spots.

Playing with the cupcakes lasted maybe five minutes today, which is nothing! So we moved onto something that we knew she enjoyed playing with, the color sorting ice cream cones. 

Like the "kick stand" crawl? Also known in our house as "the one legger". Yep, she breaks all molds and isn't it fabulous!?!

Kiliegh is really good with Vada. She is patient and kind. She does the craziest of things to get her to laugh. She wants to learn new things so that she can teach them to Vada. She is everything I would want in a sister. (I have a sister (actually two) but we didn't grow up with each other, so the bonds that I get to see in my children I was unfortunately unable to experience with my own sister.)

Have you heard of Oriental Trading Company? It's another resource that I uses when I search for affordable learning and craft items. Its also where I purchased most of Vada's 2nd Birthday party items! I have another personal project that I am working on that I am using buttons on. I went to OTC to find the buttons and I found these big buttons! 

The buttons will serve multiple purposes as well. For the time being we are using them (typically with Vada's Muscle tape on her hands) to help Vada with her pincer grasp. and with the concept of in and out and underneath and on top of. Whatever it is that we are doing we say the color and most of the time we will also say the shape as well. "Oh Vada, you have the blue diamond." You have the ink star." Later on we will get more in dpeth with colors and with shapes. We will sort and categorize and we will also use the buttons to lace with! 

After we played for awhile Christy, Vada's therapist came (she also had a sweet girl with her who was doing her internship--Vada made her work!) They did something new together today. Mr. Clean "shaving cream" foam and little a little object scavenger hunt! While we were in Texas, we went to a zoo that happen to have these tiny rubber animals. I purchased on of each for this purpose! So naturally we got the teeny tiny animals out to add to the hunt. Christy brought these neon colored clear plastic animals. They were super cute too! Man, I love that toys have so many more purposes than I ever realized! Things last much longer now because we are constantly using them!

This foam was the only thing that kept Vada's attention this whole one hour session. I think Miss. K helped as well. V loves playing with her sisters and it is very rare that they participate in therapies.

After a long day of learning and playing I thought that I would give Vada and Kiliegh a dinner that they would love. Spaghetti noodles with butter. It was one of my fav's as a child and now it's one of theirs as well. 

I know, I know, not the healthiest of dinner choices but it is what it is-- a yummy dinner fit for two great kiddo's! And to be fair I do use whole wheat pasta. :)