Celebrating Three

We celebrated Vada's third birthday on the second of this Month and then again with our friends and family this last Saturday by having a big party! 

Since GiGi's Playhouse is one of Vada's hangout's and since so many of our friends and family members have not been able to see what GiGi's is all about, we decided to throw the party there. 

The theme of the party was from Eric Carle's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

My husband and Father in-law made this cake for Vada.

My Mother in-law made these frosted sugar cookies. These were my favorite!

All of our food (with the excepting of crackers and extra kinds of cheeses) came from the story book.

We invited all of our friends from church, outside of church and from GiGi's as well as our immediate family. We wanted everyone who was special to Vada to be there!

Everything was decorated and themed to the book! Even the gift bags! I even found suckers that looked like fruit!

 I even hand made and delivered the invitations.

Everything went really well. The children seemed to have a lot of fun. The adults all seemed to enjoy themselves and were grateful for the healthy food verses the junk that is typically served at children's parties (like Vada's birthday party last year) and I personally, was just happy to have everyone together in a place that means so much to our family, celebrating yet another wonderful year of our sweet girls life.

Cyber Learning

Justin hit the jack pot yesterday at the Target in Coralville! He was in the electronic section and found that they had a whole learning section and in that learning section he found this Dano Toys AppCrayon, its a stylus for children but it comes with a free download app for practicing handwriting. If you are at all familiar with Handwriting Without Tears, the app kind of reminds me of their program, only an electronic version. Handwriting Without Tears does have an app for the ipad but the reviews were all pretty bad, so I didn't spend the $4.99 to get it and after getting this stylus, I am so happy that I didn't!

The stylus is triangle shaped to fit little hands easier and more correctly but I still had to help Vada hold it in her hand correctly. Vada is pretty determined to do things on her own but she does let me help her when she is interested in learning new things and she was more than interested in using this "crayon".

Another great thing about the stylus is that it works with all of the apps that we have so far so Vada can use it with a number of her learning games in numerous ways.

The app below Monte-Lingual 1 to 10 is a Montessori game and is very good for children who are beginning to count.

Another Awesome find that Justin found was the i3D Interactive Card Sets by Cypher Kids Club. We found three sets, there may be more but what we now have is Letters, Wild Animal Adventures and Numbers.

The cards were a little weird to get used to for about a minute but once we figured them out and once Vada set her sweet hazel eyes onto them we knew that they were a hit and a new, fun way to teach her about animals, numbers and her alphabet.

Be the Voice

Today is National Spread the Word to End the R-Word Day. It is a day that has become an important day to me and my family ever since we first received our youngest daughters diagnosis of Down syndrome.

Today is not about being politically correct its about showing respect for every individual regardless of their characteristics, skin color or diagnosis. We are all people and we all deserve to be treated like human beings. 

The words that we choose to use do have repercussions, whether we mean for them to or not. We must stop and consider our actions, choices and words wisely. 

We must teach or children better than we were taught and we should continue to grow and evolve as people and from who our ancestors once were.

You have a chance to be a voice. 

Every time you hear the R-word being used, and it doesn't matter if the person meant it that way or not. It doesn't matter if they were meaning it towards anyone in particular or if they were just joking. The "R" word should not be used, ever. Be the voice! Help end the word! Say something! Remind people that the usage of the R-word is disrespectful and hurtful, that it is demeaning and that it segregates and makes the person using the word look distasteful and insensitive.

I could show many photo's of the R-word being used in the most disgusting of ways and even though the shock value of those photo's may help to get my point across, I just cant bring myself to do it. 

Instead, I'll share a photo of our sweet Vada girl and ask you, for her, will you be a voice. Will you be brave enough to speak up for those who cant? To those who wont?  Will you take the Pledge to Spread the Word to End the Word?

Introducing New Things

Vada and I have been working on counting the numbers one through ten and more specifically in the pictures below, one through five, since we've started homeschooling. After a couple of days of doing the same things, I change our counting routine but only slightly. I want Vada to learn that numbers come in many forms so I am teaching her that way.

Today, I added 3-D Numerals by Touch Math with the corresponding Texture cards. When introducing the 3-D Numerals it's important to teach one numeral at a time. You teach the numerals by teaching to count the 3-D dots in a specific counting order. Vada was attentive for numerals one and two but showed no interest after that so we continued with our normal one through five counting routine and left the remaining 3-D numerals and cards out of the equation.

We've begun to focus on body parts. I have realized that many of Vada's peers who are younger than her know their body parts, whereas Vada knows only a couple of her body parts. That's where Sesame Streets Shake a Leg and Elmo Says board books come into play. These books are awesome! Shake a Leg is a book of the monsters moving in different fun says and Elmo says is a book version of the childhood game Simon Says. Lots of Feelings is another book that Vada and I have been reading and talking about. This book is full of real life photos of children expressing themselves in one way or another. Since Vada is a girl of little words I do most of the talking! I talk about how the child in a certain photo looks, hat the book says he or she is feeling and what could make me feel that way. I ill then imitate that same expression and sign. Vada is very good at imitating the expressions and signs as well!

To go along with the "theme" of learning body parts I brought out the game "Where is Howie's Owies?" It is really cute but Vada wasn't interested in it today so we put it up for another time.

I brought out one of her dolls instead. That worked! 

We looked at his eyes and ears. His mouth and nose. His hair and hands and with each body part of his we also looked at her matching body part as well as mine.

We took some time to play with Hexie-Snaps, to talk about colors and to work on some fine motor skills.

And then I brought out the Numicon. 

Right now, I am only introducing the Numicon pieces in various ways to Vada. Once she becomes familiar with the pieces and I become familiar with the Numicon program I will then begin to teach her to count using the Numicon pieces. 

I have recently found out that GiGi's Playhouse's use Numicon and the 3-D Numerals (as well as a number of other things) a a part of their math program, which makes me feel even more confident in the choices that I have made for ours here at home.

Another fun toy that I have been trying to get Vada to play with me with is the VTech Alphabet Food Fridge.

I have a like/dislike feeling towards this toy. It had a door on it, like a fridge. That's what I don't like. Vada likes to close it. All. of. the. time. and that is not beneficial to the learning or playing side of things because once you close the door, your done. And let me tell you, it doesn't feel very good on the fingers either!

Everything else, I like. You get different foods that begin with a letter of the alphabet and you can play on different levels. 1. By letter. 2. By color or 3.I can't remember and I don't have it with me but there is a third option, which you got to love!

This is an old toy. It's not being made anymore. It's a hit or miss item on Ebay or Amazon and a treasure to be found at a yard sale!

We aren't huge fans of watching the television here. We don't have cable anymore or even the regular public channels. We do however, have Netflix and Dvd's and specifically for Vada, we like to have her watching Signing Time, Leap Frog and Sesame Street. Another set of Dvd's that we have gotten into is the "Meet the" Series. We have started with the Shapes and Colors but also have the Numbers, Letters, as well as the Sight Words Dvd set. I'm interested to see if anything comes from them and curious if anyone out there has had their children watch them and noticed any extra retention possibly because of the videos?

Vada Singing Happy Birthday

Vada turned three years old yesterday. Justin and I woke her up by singing "Happy Birthday" to her. I swore all day that she was trying to sing it with me, so today I had to record her as evidence that I wasn't making it up!

 It's funny to me that yesterday was her birthday and it was also the day she not only tried to sing the birthday song but the "Elmo's Song" as well and both for the first time. Above and beyond the new sounds she signed that she had to go to the bathroom and then walked straight there, on her own, not once but twice! My little babe is growing up!

On a side note, please don't judge, I cant keep a turn, not even to something as simple as the birthday song.