In the morning's, after I drop off the older two girls off at their school, get my coffee and Vada eats her breakfast, the two of us go for a walk. It's been really hot these past couple of days so our walks have been lived and because it is so hot Vada usually gets over heated easily and begs for me to pick her up, which I prolong for as long as I can but I always do pick her up because there will be a day when I can't! The weather this morning was beautiful and Vada and I walked quite a distance together and she walked the whole way. It was nice!
Our neighborhood is "under construction" and has been since the very beginning of Summer. Below is just a snippet of what it looks like now. We actually have half of a new road!
The great thing about the construction is that there are all kinds of uneven surfaces to walk on, which is great for Vada. During her six month check-in with Kim, her PT, we discussed having Vada work more on stairs and curbs and uneven surfaces in general. It was already in her list of goals for this school year. (A list of goals that I made up of numerous things to work on throughout this "school year".) I have the rough draft of the goals and now I just need to file them and then I will share them here at a later date, I am hoping within the next week.
Every morning, or time that we go down to the classroom, I have Vada walk down the stairs. She needs my hand to help assist her because we are still in the process of refinishing the stairs and there is no railing. After class is done, Vada practices walking up the stairs as well. Right now we are attempting to have her get up the stairs while only using one of my hands to assist her. She can easily climb up the stairs without any help of mine but I want her to walk up them "properly". She is also beginning to gain the confidence in herself to come or climb down the stairs. She did five steps yesterday while we were at Kindermusik class. This is a huge accomplishment!
When Vada walked down the classroom stairs today she had a big surprise! The room was dark(ish) but glowing with red, white and blue glow sticks all over. This last Fourth of July we had family in town and we spent the whole week having fun and hanging out with them, so two month later I decided to take a break from our BFIAR and spend the week focusing on Fourth of July themed things.
Since it's Saturday I thought I would just do some really fun things and not push Vada in anyway. So we began with our rainbow rice bin full of glowing Fourth of July things and I also "hid" some glowing things throughout our classroom for her to find and to put into the bin.
We took turns pouring rice onto each other for an hour! It was almost therapeutic. It was relaxing and fun and we both enjoyed it!
The powder all over Vada's hands and body comes from the rice and we were covered with it by the end of this playtime!
After playing in our sensory bin we read some important books about America and its first leaders and what makes America great, for a three and a half year old little girl keeping things simple is kind of important so we're not going to get into huge discussions but we are going to stay on "theme".
Then we painted "fireworks"!
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Every now and again, Vada gets a little concerned when she gets stuff on her hands. The impairment usually doesn't last long and then she is back to what she was doing.
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We're starting to work on Vada recognizing her written name and well as writing it on every worksheet and craft that she does.
After I wrote her name, I gave Vada the marker so that she too could write her name.
I was so proud of her. I am so proud of her and all that she is accomplishing! When we were writing her name she started making sounds that sounded like she was trying to say her name. The more I repeated her name out loud, the more she sounded clearer. You got to see it or rather hear it...
