Development Delays - Pushing the Envelope

One of the difficulties in having a child with a diagnosis, whatever that diagnosis maybe, is that some people stop seeing the child as a person. They start seeing them as a set of deficits and differences, a problem that needs to be solved. Nurturing and encouraging the child's strengths and talents, of which there can be many, may not seem as important because all the attention and focus is on 'fixing' the issues. As a parent I have been guilty of this, but the more time I spend with Sam as an educator, rather than his mother, my focus is shifting. I'm learning to use a wide-angled lens, rather than a zoom lens.

 

Sam is incredibly curious and loves to know how stuff works. He is more than capable of taking in complex concepts and although he may struggle with foundation skills like reading, this does not impact on his understanding of the world around him. He is very visual and that is a strength I use to his advantage. This week we continued looking at where rain comes from - The Water Cycle - but we looked at a smaller part of the process with a very cool experiment I found online called 'Weather in a Cup'. It is a hands on activity that demonstrates the process of condensation and precipitation in a simple, but fun way. All you need is a clear plastic cup (or jar), water, shaving cream and blue food colouring. Check out the pictures below.

 

Development delays do not mean you have to delay learning. In fact I believe in pushing the envelope by exposing Sam to more advanced knowledge where he has a strength. When he achieves goals he feels more confident. This confidence then helps him when he tackles tasks that do take more effort. 

 

There is no better feeling than seeing Sam overcome a learning challenge.

 

What got up to this week.

 

More new sight words this week. First we sound them out, then we write them.

And today we are feeling happy :)

Learning about vowels.

Mazes are a fun way to work on pencil grip.

Reviewing our numbers 11 to 20 with a fine motor skills activity. Good old Play Dough.

Watching a learning video on You Tube - counting 11 to 20.

We finished our work with addition using the number line method. Sam picked this up straight away.

This was our 'Weather in a Cup' experiment.

 

We also watched the You Tube song video 'The Water Cycle' again. It's really catchy.

Very effective isn't it?

The shaving cream represents a cloud. You simply add drops of food colouring (condensation) until the food colouring starts to go through the 'cloud' into the water below - precipitation, or rain.

We finished our experiment by recording our observations.

More sight word practise.

Creating number art with paint and cotton buds.

Another sight word activity. We wrote the words in glue, then used coloured sticks to make the letters.

Sam decided to use lower case letters for 'then', hence the broken sticks.

The muscles in Sam's hands and wrists have begun to stabilise and strengthen, so I am spending more time on writing to improve his pencil grip.

Using shells for counting practise. I wrote the numbers 1 to 20 on the back of the shells...

... then he sorted them into the correct order.

Next he used the shells to help him with his math activity sheets.

This was a really fun geography project. We built a city. I found two places online where I could download roads and building templates. And they were free.

Sam coloured his buildings while Daddy helped stick them together.



Daddy helping Sam create a road layout.

Next he added the buildings and other features, like trees. We made the trees using circles of green paper and clothes pegs.

Then came the animals, Minecraft characters and of course cars.

We had a good selection of buildings - school, library, shops, restaurants, a church, tall buildings and houses.

 

If you would like to build a city of your own, below are links to the websites.

 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Free-Printable-Road-for-creating-towns-great-Geography-resource-K-3-1459972

 

http://www.parents-choice.org/article.cfm?art_id=254

I Can't Do It!

"I can't do it," cries Sam as he looks at a math activity sheet I had copied for one of his lessons. "Next week." Meaning, that looks really hard and I don't want to deal with it. Let's leave it until next week and then maybe you will forget about it.

 

This may surprise you, but these words are music to my ears.

 

Twelve months ago, when Sam started Prep, he had very little expressive language. He could understand a lot more than most people realised, but he was not able to verbalise his feelings and needs very well. This lead to frustration and behavioural problems. He would cry and physically try to avoid situations he found difficult. Today, he can tell me how he is feeling and I can help him with my words and actions. I tell him that I know it may seem difficult at first, but I am here to help him and we will do it together... and we do.

 

Last week Sam worked really hard. I was very proud of him and wanted to acknowledge his effort. At school, students' efforts and achievements are recognised with rewards, e.g. Student of the Week awards. I see parents posting pictures of their kids holding their awards, beaming and a little part of me feels sad. Sam misses out on that. So I decided to create my own reward system and last week Sam received my 'Star Student' award for 'Being a Great Learner'. He was chuffed.

 

Here is what we did last week.

 

More sentence building. I found this activity online. The coloured words make creating sentences easy and fun.

We practised matching our number words and numerals.

 

We spent time practising our addition skills (and writing.)

Shape activity sheets also helps with our writing skills.

 

We learnt about where rain comes from. Sam loves the You Tube video and song I found called 'The Water Cycle'. He can sing along with it now.

This week we started looking at shape patterns.

And in History, we looked at Sam's Story. Then...

 

...and Now. We talked about how he has grown and changed. Each year of his life had a story and a picture. Sam cut out the pictures and we matched them to the correct story to create a picture book.

His sister was off school sick one day so she joined in this activity. We created more art from our weekly sight words.

 

Beautiful.

 

This was a really fun art activity I found online - marble painting. You drop a couple of marbles into different coloured paint.

 

You drop the marbles onto a piece of paper in a baking tray...

... then you roll them around.

 

Marble masterpieces! Easy.

More sight word practise. This time he wrote them on the chalk board.

I wanted to assess Sam's understanding of letters and the sounds they make. His speech difficulties affect how he responds when I ask him what sound a particular letter makes, so I made an accommodation and turned the activity around. Each line had three sets of letters. I asked him to circle the letter that makes the sound....E.g. 'ah' for ant. Doing it this way, Sam was able to correctly match the sound and letter for each letter of the alphabet.

More number recognition practise. I shuffled the plates, placed number '1' on the ground, then asked Sam to find the next number as I sorted through all the plates in my hand. When I came across the correct one, he shouted out 'Yes', pulled it out and put it on the floor. Whilst he still has difficult pronouncing '13', he recognises all the numbers and knows what order they follow.

Making patterns a bit more interesting. We had toy soldiers and blocks to play with. I would start the pattern and then ask Sam would finish it. This meant he had to identify the pattern first. Not a problem.

Sam then decided I had to play too. He created patterns for me to follow.

I created a simple template with six circles and laminated it.

More patterns with coloured pegs. Bonus - fine motor skills get a work out.