Our new IDEA Box

We played a game in our group meeting with ideas from the SonRise list. Jordan suggested to keep the ideas in a bag, so I created this idea box. I know Maddie has used the suitcase idea and Shelby used the camera idea. Liam loved both of them!!! Maddie also tried the flying carpet with the kids and Ashley made crafts books. Keep using the box, and keep checking the list. I will try to keep the box updated with more ideas, but for now, there are a lot in the box! Have fun! The kids enjoy new things!

Some activities by Duch during this week (will take pictures of Liam's next week)

Duchis is loving her "school" work with ther Sesame Street workbook. She also has Blue's Clues ones. Remember to make it FUN and don't push her to do it. She loves that the workbook is about Sesame Street.

Duchis did several crafts this week with Ashley, Shelby, Kenia, etc, etc. Inspire her to do the work. She likes cutting, gluing, etc.

Shelby brought her mini-photo printer and printed pictures with Duch. Duch loved it!

Here is our princess. She LOVED wearing this dress the whole day.

And, of course, princesses like to jump, too.

Summary of Group meeting (March 20, 2011)

Thanks to everybody who came to the group meeting. I had a second meeting with Shelby and Ashley. Here is our plan of action that we decided:

DUCH

1) She is talking SO MUCH. We decided to raise the bar of her speech by not simplifying our language with her anymore. Like SonRise says: "MODEL THE LANGUAGE YOU WANT TO HEAR." Diversify your way of talking, give her explanations, speak to her like you usually speak and I predict we will see HUGE improvements in her talking. She is like a sponge with language right now.

2) Complicate also the games you play with her. We talked about her looking bored sometimes. Raise the bar in your games because she is READY. We have the idea box (thanks to Jordan's suggestion) and also the list of props that I sent you again. Think of all the fun we had at the end of the meeting brainstorming how to play with a suitcase, band-aids, or magic carpet with them. They are ready for variety.

3) Do lots of CRAFTS with Dusya. As we prepare her to go to school any activity that requires her to cut, glue, color, write, read, etc, will be great. MAKE IT FUN! For example, I got her a school-work book that is based on Sesame Street. She LOVES it! She has been doing pre-K type of school work these last days sitting on a chair at the table and she likes it!!!  Do one page a day at teh beginning to get her used to it. And, don't do it for her, just model and let her do it. Give her lots of praise because her progress is AMAZING!

4) Duchis seems to have improved with her flexibility, but we still want more flexibility from her. Remember to always be HELPFUL and to always give her explanations. When we cannot do exactly what she wants (she wants us to look for extra toys, or switch rooms, or escape), be happy and helpful and don't be difficult, just explain to her why we are not looking for more toys or runnig around rooms.

5) We talked about starting to bring some kids to her room for 15 minutes.  Think about kids in your lives and let me know when you want to try. We need to make it sure exciting for Duchis to share a game with a new friend.

LIAM

6) Liam has been talking SO MUCH this week! Amazing! Keep celebrating his spontaneous language and keep using non-verbal cues and minimal modelling to inspire him to speak more spontaneously. In teh meeting, we talked about using whatever Liam says to create a game. So, if he says "I spy a violin", we start a violin game; if he says "brown bear brown bear what do you see", we start a game with that song; if he says "buffalo", we become a buffalo and we give him rides; if he says "glider" we start flying to different corners of the room, etc. Let's be very responsive so that he sees that talking is so much fun.

7) We also practice game ideas for Liam. You can adapt the same ideas you do with Duchis to Liam, just add his motivations in. He loves vehicles, of course, and he is really into the "brown bear" books right now. He also is completely into tickles, hugs and kisses. He likes to play the "I LOVE .... KISSES" game where he says soemthing like this and we kiss him like crazy. He also is into funny faces and funny sounds. He tells me constantly to open my mouth, to give fishy kisses, to ring like a telephone, etc. Create new funny sounds and faces of your own and I think he will LOVE it. He also loves for you to read new and complicated words from books, like "agricultural airplane,"  "convertible" and "cockroach."

8) Liam is doing so much better with the potty!!!! Thanks for all your patience and perseverance. Keep reminding him to go potty and please remind him just before you leave the room.

9) We kept our eye contact goal with Liam. Celebrate his eye contact and ask him for eye power if he forgets to give you some. His eye contact is going up again, so keep celebrating those beautiful eyes and sweet smile.

10) If Liam gets into something repetitive, like "draw a glider", remember what the SonRise teacher told me about acceptance and love. He told me that when Liam tells me "draw a glider", he could be saying: "Mommy, do you accept me?, Can you like what I like?, We don't need to expand right now, this is what I want to do." Remember this, and LOVE any interaction with our boy, even if it feels repetitive. We surely love him and want to make sure he knows we accept him the way he is right now.

PHONES AND FOOD

11) We talked about leaving the phones out of the room in the phone-drawer. We talked about how this is so important for being really PRESENT and to avoid phone battles with Duch. I know you all have been doing great adapting to this change. Thank you!!!

12) We also talked about eating your food outside of the playroom and not leaving food in the playroom or bathrooms. If you are hungry, take a break, give the kids a break, and come to the kitchen to eat your food. That way we don't have to hide from them since that is not really what friends do with their food :)

YULENE

13) Keep doing Yulene's exercises for Liam and Duch. Just tell them it is exercise time. We got the board for the spinning, so take a break to go to the big playroom and do the spinning exercises there. Also, you can take Liam to the big playroom for some ballpit time and some throwing time.

Two more videos for Liam from Yulene

Hi everbody, Yulene is happy with Liam's progress. She thinks he is toe-walking a little bit less. So, please keep doing his exercises because any progress in his body also affects his development and his brain. Everything is connected! These videos are very short. Enjoy!

Mark your calendars - Group meeting on Sunday March 20th (4-6pm)

We will have a group meeting on the last day of Spring Break. Please mark your calendars for Sunday, March 20th from 4pm to 6pm. That is after my training so I will bring new information that will help us in our programs. I am very excited to go back to Massachussetts! Here is a picture of one of my previous SonRise trainings ... feel the love ... :)