Preschool at Home: Goodnight Moon

We spent this week of preschool with the classic book Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown.

After a tough time in preschool land last week, I went into this week with a bit of a more relaxed approach, planning activities that weren't so heavy on letters and numbers.  Instead we spent more time with creative story-telling, music, fine motor skills and crafts.  I wanted to just bond with the kids with some intentional PLAY this week and if, while we were enjoying each other's company, we also got in some good learning, then great!

To keep the flow going, we did continue with a letter for the week: "M" and made our weekly collage with macaroni and "do-a-dots" in the main colors from the illustrations in the book.

One morning I made our version of "mush" for breakfast - pumpkin pie oatmeal!  Yum!

In addition to our readings of the book this week, we also enjoyed the story by watching this sweet Goodnight Moon video.  It was very calming and fun to watch before bedtime in the evenings.

Going along with the "M" theme, we did some simple counting and matching exercises with our "M &M Counting Books".  Suffice it to say that there were very few protests with this activity!

Since the book references the nursery rhyme, "Hey Diddle Diddle" and the fairy tale, "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", we thought we'd have some fun with both of these classics! 

 I found a simple version of, "Hey Diddle Diddle" set to music in iTunes and we used this multiple times for some music fun.   During some listens, we used rhythm instruments to join in with the beats in the music.  We also built on that by adding a "marching" element to our merriment with each of them having several opportunities to be the leader for the duration of the song.  We also had our fair share of dancing to the music with ribbon wands and sashes.  They SOOO got into this and I saw that it inspired them toward more creativity-after one of these music sessions, they created their own game of "jumping over the moon" with a balloon.  Pretty cute. : )

We enjoyed the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" by reenacting it with finger puppets and doll house furniture that we already had.  This encouraged lots of creative collaboration and fun!

I used their hands to trace out "mitten" patterns on foam craft sheets and had them cut them out, decorate them and pin them on to a length of yarn I strung up in our school room.  This was a great fine motor and creative activity.

I find that when we are practicing cutting with scissors, it's better to use something other than plain paper, because often they will just rip right through the paper when their efforts with scissors aren't going their way!  I have found that using craft foam sheets, felt fabric sheets and heavy card stock seem to facilitate better cutting practice for them.

We also enjoyed a picnic and a trip to the zoo with our playgroup friends! Taking inspiration from the red balloon in the story, we thought it would be a fun surprise to bring one for each kid.  That was also a big hit!

This week (like any week) had its highs and lows.  I had my moments as a mommy when my patience ran thin and I caught myself thinking that I just wasn't cut out for this "homeschooling thing".  I ALSO had chances to observe their creativity blossoming, see their satisfaction when they grasped a new idea and watch their affection for each other grow.  And getting to be present in THOSE moments, makes the perseverance through the difficult ones worthwhile.  All in all, our week with Goodnight Moon was a meaningful and memorable one.

xoxo,

Buddy System

In a recent post I shared a bit about my and Darin's experience of discovering Lucy's special needs, and our process of finding the help she/we needed through occupational therapy, speech-language therapy and family counseling/therapy.  I shared in a fairly matter-of-fact manner about those experiences, and this is something of a follow-up post addressing a matter of the heart pertaining to her specific need for help in social settings...

Any mother desires to see her children (with or without special needs) find acceptance and make connections with friends. Most kids from time to time experience the pain of being left out or rejected by peers, so I have a feeling that most people can relate to my heart when it comes to helping Lucy form relationships with other kids.

The best way I can share is with a quick story. A few months back, I brought the kids to a park for some playtime.  Lucy quickly noticed two little girls close to her age who already knew each other and appeared to have been brought by their mothers for a play date. The two girls were happily playing and chatting together and I could tell by the way Lucy was observing them that she wanted to be a part of their friendship.  While Lucy can ask and respond to many questions and can engage in simple conversational language, she is not able to converse on a level that is typical for her peers. This doesn't mean she doesn't desire to make conversation, so her approach in this situation with the two girls was to physically place herself in between them and verbalize a string of unintelligible gibberish in a conversational manner. 

One of the girls paused, gave Lucy a puzzled look and said, "Are you talkin' Japanese?"

I gave the girl a smile and said in a cheerful voice, "No, sometimes she just likes to speak in her own made up language." 

The girl then said, "Okay," and then went back to playing with her original friend.

Of course the other girl's response to Lucy was completely innocent and actually pretty funny (I did get a chuckle out of it), but this story does illustrate what I have come to accept: sometimes it is not realistic to expect that Lucy's peers will be able to understand how to interact with Lucy in a one on one situation without guidance from me.  

My dilemma is that I don't always want to be a "helicopter" parent hovering about Lucy and jumping into her and Collin's playtime with other kids.  Thankfully, Darin and I HAVE found a strategy that plays a key role in making social situations successful for Lucy and it is nothing more than the good old-fashioned "Buddy System".  

The trick here is to do what we can to find other kids who are a bit OLDER than Lucy (for her that means kids ranging from ages 7 to the "tweens") who might take interest in being her "buddy".  For example, we have a family who is dear to us who has a daughter who is now 11.  For more than two years now, this sweet girl has come over to our house once a week after school to give me a hand with the kids.  Both kids love her and I often bring her with us when we venture to a park or the zoo.  Her presence is really helpful when Lucy is in social settings that would otherwise be difficult for her.  She is still a kid but she also has the ability to see when Lucy needs extra help or guidance and she does a beautiful job providing just that.

Another way that the "buddy" system helped Lucy tremendously is when she attended Vacation Bible School at my parents-in-law's church two summers ago.  While I wasn't ready to put her into the VBS at our own church, my mother-in-law invited us to have Lucy attend their church's program because they had volunteer buddies available specifically for kids with special needs.  Lucy's buddy (a teenage girl)  just hung out with Lucy during the week and helped her participate in most of the activities.  She could tell when Lucy just wasn't "jiving" with the program and in those instances, she would take Lucy for a little walk until she seemed ready to enter back into the group setting. 

And most recently the "buddy system" has come into play for Lucy in an amazing local program offered by Ballet Des Moines called Dance Without Limits (DWOL). This is a ten-week dance class for children with special needs who may not be able to successfully participate in a typical dance class.  The heart of how DWOL works lies in the WONDERFUL helpers who are tween and teenage dancers who volunteer their time. Lucy absolutely loves her sweet helpers and I think she would do just about anything they asked of her.

For those who read this and have children who also seem to need some extra help in social settings, I hope that what I have shared gives you some encouragement and some ideas.  For those of you who have older children who would enjoy being a "buddy", know that there are children with "hidden disabilities" all around you, and I would encourage you to simply pay attention.  If or when you become cognizant of such a child in your circle consider trying to make such a connection with your son or daughter.  Perhaps you are member of a church and are aware that there are children in your fellowship who could benefit greatly from having a "buddy" with them during Sunday School or other children's programs. If this idea were to get the wheels turning in your head, perhaps you could help to put a volunteer system in place like the one at my parents-in-law's church.  I guarantee it would make a difference in the lives of these children and their families.

Thanks for reading and allowing me to share my heart and suggestions with you on this matter. : ) I can't adequately express how "magical" this approach has been for Lucy and what it could be for other's like her.

xoxo,

Preschool at Home: Blueberries for Sal

So I went into this week of preschool with lots of personal excitement, mainly because of our book for the week:

Blueberries for Sal

This particular book wasn't one that I had read before, but the book One Morning in Maine (also by Robert McCloskey and with the same main character) was a special part of my childhood. So being the sentimental soul that I am, I was eager to connect my children to "Sal", her mother and their delightful day of picking blueberries on a hillside. Also, between the suggested ideas from the BFIAR manual, the online resources available and a few original ideas of my own, I *may* have gone a little overboard in my preparations and visions for all we would do this week.

However, the week we've had could hardly be characterized as having the same "storybook charm" that we see when we open the pages of this book.  Due to some changes in our normal routine including several more outings and appointments than we have in a typical week, we as a family were just a little bit "off".  The kids' bedtimes did not go as smoothly as they normally do, resulting in sleep deprivation for most of us.  To top it off, Miss Lucy seemed to be experiencing more sensory challenges than normal.  This all resulted in irritable children and a grumpy mommy who all had to apologize to each other on several occasions.  

Despite it all, I think we still managed to have some meaningful learning experiences with Blueberries for Sal and I'll share the highlights here:

Naturally our letter for this week was "B". We made our own blueberry and leaf stamps  and used them to fill our letter "B" pictures with blueberry prints.

Last week, Lucy's Speech-Language pathologist and I talked about how we could work on her vocabulary expansion goal at home.  She made the suggestion that we work on a small set of vocabulary words each week that corresponds with the books we are using. This is a really easy approach, especially since the BFIAR printables available from Homeschool Creations include readymade cards with words and images from each unit.  I wanted to find a fun way to work on this, so I decided to use this magnetic fishing game that I originally found through Pinterest.

 I decided to print out the pictures from the cards provided by Homeschool Creations and attach them to our metal circles (frozen juice concentrate lids!) with a repositionable adhesive so I can easily swap in and out each week's vocabulary set.  This proved to be a truly fun activity that the kids enjoyed doing every day despite the general grumpiness and inflexibility that reigned for most of the week! By the end of the week they could accurately "label" most of the pictures by recalling the words from memory, which is the goal.

Both kids really enjoyed counting out pom pom "blueberries" and "feeding" them to the bear.  I used a template found here (another Pinterest find) to make the bear face for this activity.

After some good counting practice with the "Feed the Bear" game, we attempted to introduce the concept of addition with this printable, also from Homeschool Creations. This activity was one that didn't go over so well given the week we had, but they tolerated at least one round before that morning's meltdown occurred!  We'll keep it around and try again in the future!

On one morning we took a break from the more "academic" activities and after reading the book and practicing our verse for the week (Ruth 1:16),we  enjoyed a game of memory with our Ravensburger  "Teddy Mix & Match" game.

Here Lucy is holding up a match she made: the two grumpy bears. How fitting!! : )

One idea I came across for this unit was to can our own blueberries, just like "Sal" and her mother did in the story... yeah that wasn't happening. Instead we went to one of our favorite local coffee shops and shared a blueberry scone. That went alright until they started rolling their napkins up into balls and throwing them all over the place. They also ran a few laps around our table for good measure.  Wasn't long before I got the "can't you control your children in public?" stares.  Ehh... the scones tasted great anyways.

Despite the less-than-perfect, real-life nature of our week, I still felt like there was value to our learning times together, and I do think they formed an attachment with the book.  Plus, the extra practice in loving each other despite grumpiness and showing forgiveness when it was needed was perhaps a more valuable learning experience than what I planned and prepared for. Here's to the theme of this blog: a NEW day! Looking forward to a new day... or rather a new week with our next book, Good Night Moon.  : )

xoxo,

Loving Lucy

In my first post I made brief mention of the fact we have discovered that our Lucy has some special needs.  I've been going round and round in my head over whether I should share more about that here, primarily because I want to honor my daughter's dignity as much as possible, and there's just something about throwing information into cyberspace that makes me want to proceed with caution.  But part of my stated purpose for this blog is to share what I have been learning as a mother and to entirely avoid sharing how I am growing in my understanding of Lucy and her unique needs would leave out a significant portion of my learning process.

To give an overview of what we have discovered and how we have gone about getting help, I will tell you the the three areas of difficulty we have identified.

It was close to Lucy's 2nd birthday that with the help of our family physician we recognized that she wasn't meeting her milestones in language development.  After ruling out hearing loss, we were able to utilize services though our public school system to have testing done and receive weekly speech and language therapy in home. She was diagnosed with Mixed Expressive Receptive Language Disorder (MERLD) and we began to see great progress with the help of therapy. So I  would say that for the entire year that she was two, Darin and I were primarily focused on learning and addressing her language learning needs.

While we worked to get handle on Lucy's language needs, we came to notice some other areas of concern as she was approaching her 3rd birthday.  She seemed to have a constant need to be in motion... more than an average toddler, for example if we were in a public place with an escalator, she would want to ride it up and down for more than 45 minutes at a time and when we attempted to transition her away she became devastated.  She also trying to eat substances with intense flavors and smells such as coffee grounds, soap, black pepper, and strong mints. Rather than being repelled by these tastes she seemed to crave them and go to great lengths to try to get a hold of them.  We also noticed that she became overwhelmed and withdrawn when we were in settings with large crowds and lots of noise.  

A dear friend who had lots of exposure to kids with special needs, suggested that she could possibly have something called Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), which is a neurological issue that causes people to receive sensory input with greater difficulty than most.  About four months after her 3rd birthday, we were able to have her evaluated at the University of Iowa Center for Disabilities and Development, where she was officially diagnosed with SPD.  The professionals that evaluated her recommended that she receive occupational therapy (OT) to help her learn how to cope.  A couple months later, Lucy began receiving OT and as well as continued speech-language therapy from  a wonderful local organization called Childserve.  I would say that for the entire year that Lucy was three, Darin and I focused most of our parenting energy on trying to understand Lucy's sensory needs and receiving education from her occupational therapist.

With about 9 months of weekly occupational therapy behind her, Lucy has made great strides, and her cravings for sensory input are no longer constant.  Darin and I have learned how to recognize when she is struggling with her SPD and now know strategies to help her cope when the sensory cravings are escalated.  

When Lucy approached the age of four, one more concern began to form for Darin and I.  We began to notice some subtle but real struggles that Lucy seemed to have when it came to social interactions with her peers.  It's kind of hard to articulate it, but it seems that she has a definite desire to form friendships when she is with kids her age, but often times those connections don't always seem to be within her reach.  A lot of times when she is playing with other children, she can't answer their questions or converse with them at their level.  Often the tone in her voice is off-putting and she has hard time keeping her hands to herself which can cause peers to inch away from her on the playground. We also became stumped at home when it came to giving her instructions, managing her behavior and helping her to regulate her emotions.

 Because of these struggles we felt that we needed some suggestions that the average parenting books couldn't provide, so a few months ago we found a children's therapist to advise us. We are very much  "in the throws" of dealing with these challenges at present, but one of the key concepts we're starting to grasp is that Darin and I need to directly coach Lucy and model for her how to interact with others.  Sometimes it involves stepping in when we hear her speaking to others in an off-putting tone and asking her to listen to us say the same thing in a more appropriate voice. It means a lot of repetitive, direct teaching when we're in the midst of social settings. It requires a lot of patience and a lot of perseverance.  

When it comes to the expectations we have for her behavior in our household, we are learning what expectations are realistic to have in the first place and we must frequently remind ourselves that the  goal when it comes to parenting is not to "show her who's the boss" or lord our authority over her but to lovingly provide the structure that she needs to thrive as a functioning member of our family. It can be an interesting balance with having Collin who is so close in age to Lucy, because some expectations that are reasonable for him may not be so reasonable for her. But with God's grace we are learning and making strides.  

This has been a long post, and if you have hung in there this long, let me say thank you!  I hope that sharing our story of learning how to understand and care for Lucy according to her needs might help you to have understanding and compassion for other families who have kids with special needs.  

For anyone who has a child with special needs or knows others who do, I'd like to wrap up by pointing you to a couple of encouraging resources I have found.  First, let me share a website called Chosen Families.  Here you will find links to online resources for several "hidden disabilities", as well as insightful articles and a blog with many contributors representing families with lots of different disabilities. You may notice their badge on the left column of this blog with their link. 

 Also, I wanted to share this Bible Study that has been written specifically for mothers of children with special needs:

I had the pleasure of meeting the author, Bev Roozeboom at a local homeschooling conference this past spring, and after chatting for a couple minutes, I purchased a copy of Unlocking the Treasure on the spot.  I have been working my way through this study by myself, but I can only imagine how encouraging it could be to do this with other moms with special needs kids.  

Well, this post has outlasted Collin's afternoon nap and both of my busy kids are needing some attention so I'd better be on my way! 

Thanks. : )

xoxo,

Preschool at Home: Ask Mr. Bear

The kids and I spent about a week and a half with the second book in our preschool endeavor: Ask Mr. Bear by Marjorie Flack:

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 This sweet book was first published in the 1930s and is about a little boy named Danny who is searching for a gift for his mother's birthday. He asks various farm animals if they have something to offer as a gift for his mother's birthday and they each offer something (an egg from the chicken, milk for making cheese from the goat, wool for a blanket from the sheep). Danny thanks each animal for their offering but declines because his mother already has each of those items. The final inquiry ends up with a recommendation to go into the woods and ask Mr. Bear. Danny ventures alone into the woods, finds Mr. Bear and asks him if he could give something for his mother's birthday. Mr. Bear is the first animal that says he doesn't have anything to give but gives a suggestion for Danny to give his mother something he could have given all along: a BIG birthday Bear hug! :)

With the various printable online activities available as well as all the suggestions found in the BFIAR book, we just couldn't get through everything in one week, so we kept going into this next week. Here are some highlights:

Our letter for this unit is "G", highlighting the "goose", "goat", and "gift" from the story. In this picture, Collin is making another letter collage with bits of green paper and glitter.

We visited a brand new local bakery on our second morning where we shared a cinnamon roll and brought "school" with us! They really enjoyed  using this little counting wheel found on Homeshool Creations. Using the little clothes pins also addressed fine motor skills.

We used some farm animal lace up cards to further work on fine motor skills.

This little printable from Homeschool Share was by far their favorite activity!  They chose an animal and then lifted the flap to reveal what type of animal walk they should do: hop, skip, gallop or trot.  They did each animal "walk" up and down our backyard once and as we went through the animals, I would test their memory by asking if they could tell me the items that each animal offered to Danny in the story.

This was such a good way to give them an enjoyable outlet for physical activity... so helpful to have them do something physical before expecting them to give their attention to "sit down" lessons.

One day, we visited a wildlife refuge that is located in one of our local MALLS of all places! I chose to take the kids there to be able to see a live bear and other "forest animals".  This helped facilitate to a meaningful discussion about what types of animals live on farms vs. in the woods.

In this picture, Collin pretends that "Mr. Bear" is whispering a secret to him just like he did for Danny in the book!

We took advantage of some coloring pages provided by the wildlife program.  Lucy colored a picture of a fox and Collin chose a cougar.

Lucy poses along with Mr. Bear and shows her fox picture.

Another morning, we colored these "Animal" and "Product" cards and made a little game out of matching the animals to the things they can provide. This was another free printable from Homeschool Share.

We finally ended our time with Ask Mr. Bear by taking a field trip to a wonderful apple orchard that also has lots of other attractions, including farm animals to interact with. It was fun to see more live animals that were in the book, like this sweet little goat! It provided more reinforcement in differentiating the farm animals from the forest animals. 

We were able to share this field trip with some dear friends who also home-school. It was such fun to share this experience with friends. We have plans to get this group of kiddos together twice a month for meaningful play times.  This field trip was something of a "kick-off" for our playgroup.

What a special time we enjoyed with this book!  The story has become so dear to Lucy that during bedtime tonight, she created her own version of the story, inserting the names of her grandparents' dogs and cats as new characters in the story!  I love to see that type of creativity blossoming alongside the formal lessons we've been engaging in... I think that learning and bonding with quality literature has a way of producing so much more in the way of learning than I would otherwise expect to see in my kids!  

xoxo,

Preschool at Home: The Little Rabbit

Last week I began homeschooling Lucy and Collin (ages 4 and 3) for preschool.  At their ages, they naturally have such a joyful approach to learning which makes this endeavor fun for all of us!  My main hopes for this year are that the kids and I will form some good habits of tending to the needs of our household together, bond over a shared joy of learning and that in the process I would gain their trust as their "teacher" for the years to come.

I chose a book called Before Five in a Row (BFIAR) to use as a framework to guide our learning times.  The concept is that each week we'll take a single children's book (most of which have been well-loved by children for many years) and read it aloud every morning.  To accompany our readings each day we will do some learning activities that relate back to the story.  I also discovered a blog called Delightful Learning  from a mom who has shared her and her children's experiences with BFIAR and pointed me to some great (free) supplemental resources online.

I thought it would be fun to share our week by week journey through "preschool at home" here on the blog, so here are some highlights from our first week with the book, The Little Rabbit by Phoebe Dunn.

 This is not a part of the the BFIAR book, but I took some inspiration from Homeschool Share and decided to focus on one letter from the alphabet along with our books each week.  This week we did "R".

The kids seemed to really enjoy snuggling up with me and our little rabbit softies for our readings each morning.

Here Lucy is making a collage with things that start with "R"- ribbon, rabbit stickers, and colored rice.

Collin proudly shows us his completed collage. : ) His favorite element was the rice.

They practiced their counting and number recognition skills by "feeding" carrots to the rabbit. This activity also came from Homeschool Share.

I don't think play-dough ever stops being fun... they enjoyed rolling it out and making rabbits and "R"s.

We finished out the week with a wonderful treat! My dear friend, Shannon arranged for us to pay a visit to a friend of hers who owns rabbits.  She and her sweet little boy shared lunch with us and then took us on our "field trip".

We had such a fun first week learning together!  We are now in the midst of enjoying our second book, Ask Mr. Bear by Marjorie Flack and look forward to sharing those highlights here next week!

xoxo,

Creating Structure

Being the right-brained creative gal that I am, I have always tended to bristle at the idea of a schedule-driven life and home. I did eventually accept the fact that some degree of order is simply necessary to function well in life, but had to deal with the fact that creating order and structure wasn't a skill I came by naturally.

One of my goals for coming out of the "survival mode" our family has lived in for three years, was that I would be able to find a way to create routine in our home that would complement my personality rather than fight it. Taking inspiration from books, and talking with friends/family who are more skilled in this area than I am, I have incorporated some strategies that are making a difference for good in our family, and I thought I'd share one of those strategies today.

A visual scheduling system is tool often used for kids with special communication needs due to language disorders and delays. After receiving encouragement from Lucy's occupational therapist and speech-language pathologist, as well as from my sister who is a speech therapist in an elementary school, I decided to create a visual scheduling system for our family as a means to involve the kids in planning out our time and helping them know what to expect during the day.

I began by making a list of EVERYTHING I could think of that our family does, including at-home routines, errands, recreational activities, and social opportunities.  This was a lengthy process, but I came up with about forty things and I found a photographic image to represent each item.  I then opened up Microsoft Publisher and using the business card template, created a card for each of the items on my list that included text and the images. Then I used my Xyron Creative Station with the magnet-laminate cartridge to turn the cards into magnets.  They ended up looking like this:

I also made text-only magnets that represented "morning", "afternoon", and "evening" and the seven days of the week.

Then I went to a craft shop and purchased a small metal board that is often used by cross-stitchers to keep track of their patterns. I love this board because the size and weight makes it portable. The only drawback was that the edges were fairly sharp... a problem that was easily remedied with my stash of cute Japanese washi tape:

I was then ready to introduce the concept to the kids.  I decided that we would use the board three times a day.  In the morning at breakfast I would sit with the kids, and introduce the plan for the morning by lining up the magnets in the desired order.  It was important to me that we only did a section of the day at the time, so as not to overwhelm them with more information than they could handle. This is what a common morning looks like for us:

Then at lunchtime, we come together again with the board and plan out the afternoon.  The nice thing here is that in the afternoons, there is normally some flexibility for them to have some decision-making power.  In those cases, I decide on a group of activities that I approve of, present those options to the kids with the magnets and let them create their own afternoon schedule.  (This is also really helpful when we leave the kids with a sitter, because it gives them ideas of what we have available to do in our home and helps them to get their time together off to a good start.)

When Darin comes home from work and we are all sitting together at dinner, we can then plan the rest of our evening as a family and invite him into the flow we've had going that day. This really helps us all to finish our day well.

One of the things that I find helpful is that when one or both of the kids desire to stray from the routine, we can grab the board together and discuss it.  Sometimes we can't be flexible and we have to stick to the plan. In that event, the board is a visual aid to help them understand that.  Other times, we can be flexible and change things around, but first we physically add, remove or rearrange the magnets on the board to agree upon the changes.

Now that we have been using the board for a couple months, I find that we have some decent habits formed and we don't always have to use it for EVERY portion of EVERY day, but when things are starting to get a little chaotic, and we need to restore a sense of order, we pull out the board and magnets. Since they are familiar with the system, they have an easier time accepting and cooperating with my or Darin's intervention.

This is a tool that complements my personality because I was able to use my creativity in putting together the magnets and board, and it allows for the flexibility that I crave.  It also has helped foster a sense of peace within our household because it acknowledges the kids' desires for involvement in decision-making while still maintaining my and Darin's roles as parents.

What do you think? Have you discovered tools or strategies that help bring routine and order to your family's life while still acknowledging your unique personality?  I'd love to hear what has worked for you!

xoxo,