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| Yes, this is the tree yoga pose in front of the Christmas tree :) |
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| Only we know what this means to us :) |
What Matters Most
8 years ago
Sunday, November 27, 2011
The 2011 Christmas season has started
The Christmas spirit has arrived! I remember the year when Duch got into Christmas! This could be Liam's year :)
Thanksgiving 2011!
We had an amazing Thanksgiving! It was really the first time we decided to actually have Thanksgiving since the kids were born. The first four years, Antonio and I just sat at a table and ate whatever we found in the fridge. Last year, some friends did come and brought a turkey, but we did not involve the children. This year, we were super adventurous and went to Christy's house with everybody!!! It was a great first Thanksgiving for the kids! The pictures tell it all :)
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Save the dates for Megan Simpson in January (6, 7, and 8)
We have booked a new outreach with Megan Simpson for January 6, 7, and 8. For those of you who are new to the team, Megan is a SonRise teacher who has come to our house five times in the past two years to play with the kids, teach us techniques, answer our questions, and give us ideas for new goals and new games. Please mark your calendars. If you are in town, we really encourage you to spend the most time you can with us during the outreach. It is a great training opportunity for everybody in the team, and Megan will also observe sessions and provide feedback. The last time she came, I know Jessie, Kristen, Kaffie, and Shelby enjoyed her feedback and learned a lot from her. As we get closer to January, I will have more info for you about the outreach.
Updates and Tips about the games in the playroom
We are excited about all the things happening in this house lately. Duchis keeps getting closer and closer to Tony, which is such a great miracle to watch! Liam is also showing such great interest in observing games and paying attention to what we do. His awareness and communication keep growing day by day. Tony is doing great in school and is such a great model for Duch. You should see him asking her LEGO questions! And she answers them all! Here are some latest news and ideas that seem to be working for the kids:
- Angela created a vehicle matching game with cards and played it with Liam yesterday. You can find it in a zip-lock bag in the lower-shelf on the left side, in a basket. They were matching pictures with words and talking about the cards and Angela says Liam was like 45 minutes with her putting all the attention to that game. She later tried the game again matching the cards with real vehicle toys in the room to create an extension of the game. Angela said she will try to create a similar game with cards of furniture and rooms of the house since Liam likes that theme a lot. Feel free to try the game with the cards.
- Jennie, the speech therapist, and Shelby have both told me that Liam loves rhymes! They write rhyming words on boards. Sometimes they use the cards. Jennie create a song like this: "sun - fun - bun - and run - -- they rhyme!"
- "Hullaballoo" has been a HUGE success with the kids. Duch and Tony do everything in the game. Liam is super excited watching and seems more and more open to participating, too. Keep trying in a fun way.
- Many people have been working on stories with Liam. He LOVES to contribute more and more to stories.
- Kaffie, Tony and Duch put on a Peter Pan show with the curtains-show idea.
- The "friend-Candyland" idea has worked beautifully with Duch and Tony. Thanks to Kristen and Jordan for helping me in its construction. I will create more questions to make it even more fun.
- Jeannie also created a dice with questions that Duchis likes! Celebrate her for answering questions and tell her to read the questions to you, too. Also encourage her to answer with longer sentences.
Next week, because Tony will be at home, we have a great opportunity to have more session with Duch and Tony together. Here are some tips I have received from Megan and from Alex, a therapist who works with Yulene. I participated a few weeks ago in a joint session with Alex, Duch + Tony + me.
- Play games that both kids are likely to like. If there is a situation in which each kid wants to play something else, explain to them that you can all take turns to play each of the games. Tell them you can play Tony's game for 15 min and then Duch's game for 15 min and then YOUR game for 15 min. Tell them that that is what friends do and that it is fun to play the games that each of them like.
- I want to teach them how to ask things from each other because right now they just come and take the thing/book/toy from each other without saying a word and they just leave. So, if you see a moment when Duch takes something from Tony or Tony takes something from Duch, try to repeat the transaction showing them what to say. So, you could say to Tony: "Tony, let's do that again, but this time you can ask Duch: "Duch, can I have that book, please?"" Another option is: "Duch, it is my turn to look at the book, please". So, try to des-accelerate the exchange, so that they take time to ask first. All of this in a very loving and funny way.
- If Duchis leaves the game, ask Tony if he knows how to call Duch back, like "Duch, come back to play with us". Or tell him, "tony, let's call Duch together: DUCH, DUCH, come back to play". Give him tools so that he knows what to do when she leaves.
- I saw that at the end of the session, Alex asked them questions like: "Tony, what was your favorite part of our play session? What did you like the most?" Then, she asked the same to Duch. Then she asked, "And what part did you like the least? What was the part that you did not like so that I know about it?" I thought that was a very sweet way to get them to think about their time together.
- We also noticed that Duch has something like "performance anxiety". We were playing circus with Alex in Yulene's house and every time we asked Duch to do something (like jumping in the trampoline or going on a swing) she said NO NO NO. But, when we would not be looking or would be looking at Tony, she would go and do it quietly. If we would celebrate, she would say: "I did it" looking nervous. So, Alex says that maybe she is self-conscious and does not want to do some things in "public" or maybe she does not want people to make a big deal of the things she does. So, Alex says that we could give her control of the celebrations by congratulating her when she does something in a quiet way, and then ask her: "do you want me to celebrate big or small?"
Have fun!!!
- Angela created a vehicle matching game with cards and played it with Liam yesterday. You can find it in a zip-lock bag in the lower-shelf on the left side, in a basket. They were matching pictures with words and talking about the cards and Angela says Liam was like 45 minutes with her putting all the attention to that game. She later tried the game again matching the cards with real vehicle toys in the room to create an extension of the game. Angela said she will try to create a similar game with cards of furniture and rooms of the house since Liam likes that theme a lot. Feel free to try the game with the cards.
- Jennie, the speech therapist, and Shelby have both told me that Liam loves rhymes! They write rhyming words on boards. Sometimes they use the cards. Jennie create a song like this: "sun - fun - bun - and run - -- they rhyme!"
- "Hullaballoo" has been a HUGE success with the kids. Duch and Tony do everything in the game. Liam is super excited watching and seems more and more open to participating, too. Keep trying in a fun way.
- Many people have been working on stories with Liam. He LOVES to contribute more and more to stories.
- Kaffie, Tony and Duch put on a Peter Pan show with the curtains-show idea.
- The "friend-Candyland" idea has worked beautifully with Duch and Tony. Thanks to Kristen and Jordan for helping me in its construction. I will create more questions to make it even more fun.
- Jeannie also created a dice with questions that Duchis likes! Celebrate her for answering questions and tell her to read the questions to you, too. Also encourage her to answer with longer sentences.
Next week, because Tony will be at home, we have a great opportunity to have more session with Duch and Tony together. Here are some tips I have received from Megan and from Alex, a therapist who works with Yulene. I participated a few weeks ago in a joint session with Alex, Duch + Tony + me.
- Play games that both kids are likely to like. If there is a situation in which each kid wants to play something else, explain to them that you can all take turns to play each of the games. Tell them you can play Tony's game for 15 min and then Duch's game for 15 min and then YOUR game for 15 min. Tell them that that is what friends do and that it is fun to play the games that each of them like.
- I want to teach them how to ask things from each other because right now they just come and take the thing/book/toy from each other without saying a word and they just leave. So, if you see a moment when Duch takes something from Tony or Tony takes something from Duch, try to repeat the transaction showing them what to say. So, you could say to Tony: "Tony, let's do that again, but this time you can ask Duch: "Duch, can I have that book, please?"" Another option is: "Duch, it is my turn to look at the book, please". So, try to des-accelerate the exchange, so that they take time to ask first. All of this in a very loving and funny way.
- If Duchis leaves the game, ask Tony if he knows how to call Duch back, like "Duch, come back to play with us". Or tell him, "tony, let's call Duch together: DUCH, DUCH, come back to play". Give him tools so that he knows what to do when she leaves.
- I saw that at the end of the session, Alex asked them questions like: "Tony, what was your favorite part of our play session? What did you like the most?" Then, she asked the same to Duch. Then she asked, "And what part did you like the least? What was the part that you did not like so that I know about it?" I thought that was a very sweet way to get them to think about their time together.
- We also noticed that Duch has something like "performance anxiety". We were playing circus with Alex in Yulene's house and every time we asked Duch to do something (like jumping in the trampoline or going on a swing) she said NO NO NO. But, when we would not be looking or would be looking at Tony, she would go and do it quietly. If we would celebrate, she would say: "I did it" looking nervous. So, Alex says that maybe she is self-conscious and does not want to do some things in "public" or maybe she does not want people to make a big deal of the things she does. So, Alex says that we could give her control of the celebrations by congratulating her when she does something in a quiet way, and then ask her: "do you want me to celebrate big or small?"
Have fun!!!
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Summary of Group Meeting - November 5th, 2011
Hi everybody!
We had a great group meeting this Saturday. Thanks everybody for attending!!! I will be meeting with Shelby to bring her up-to-speed! I appreciate that everybody else was able to make it! I am posting here the notes that I distributed you so that you can always come back here to see them.
Duchis -- IDEAS FOR ASKING HER QUESTIONS AND FOR HER TO ASK QUESTIONS
1. Put a string across her room and a curtain.
• Stage: put shows together.
• Play Fashion Shows, Rock Concerts, Circus shows, Recitals and ask her questions about all the details of the shows. Ask question like: Who are the models? What outfits are they going to wear? Where could we go with the outfits?
• Ask her opinions.
2. Transform playroom floor into a board game, like “Friend-Candyland”
• Put 25 pieces of paper on floor, create a board game.
• Have a big dice with numbers
• Each paper has a question. When you roll the dice, you land somewhere.
• Each friend takes turns asking questions to the other friend.
• Questions could be like: “What do you like to ….?” “Where do you like to go …?” “What is your favorite …?” “How do we do …?” Also, cliffhangers like “Once upon a time, …. . What happened next?” “I saw the funniest thing happening on Saturday” … “What happened?”
• Some spaces are just going to say: “Ask a question about a favorite food”, or “Ask a question about the time when your friend was a baby”
• Other spaces are just fun stuff, like jump, run over, spin around.
3. Building things: “Where do this go?” “How do we do this?” “What part comes next?” And then … come on ask me a question” -- for example: Legos or the same car idea we have for Liam below.
4. Play reporters. Two microphones. “Today I will find all about you, and write a story” “We start by asking questions, isn’t that exciting” “First question is: What is one thing that you played today with your friend Mary” “Barbies” Did you play Barbie like going to the supermarket or like going to the circus?” “You just said Barbie, what does that mean?” And you act out the options. And then exaggerate like crazy the celebration when she responds.
Liam – IDEAS FOR SENTENCES PRODUCTION
Techniques are:
- Lots of modeling
- Lots of pausing and giving him a lot of time
- Giving choices: “I have this car, I don’t know what to do with it”
- Talking less so that he can talk more
- Use a game to introduce 1 or 2 key phrases per game.
1. Create your own book (big poster boards – like 2 for 4 sheets) using the flashcards for ideas. Make the book BIG. All sentences are connected to one story, like “Liam’s adventure”. Taking turns in creating the story. We could even stick the Baby Einstein flashcards as part of the story.
2. Take pictures of people doing things and use them for the story. What do you think these guys are doing right now? “Mom ran across Leo and … What do you think Leo was doing?”
3. Use a pillow case like a mystery bag. In the mystery bag we could put cards or things. The question is: If we had this, what do we do with this….? And then you get to do it. Parts of this: “what do we do with this part?”
4. Building a car with a laundry basket (RIDE BUCKET). All the parts of the car are made with paper: Wheels, lights, radio, horn, etc. “Let’s build a car”. Where does this go? What does this do? What do we need? Every time he gets a part, he gets a ride in the car. This idea can be applied to MANY vehicles. All the parts can be created with paper/poster board as part of the session. Will get some Velcro, too.
5. Build a TV again. Have a remote control. He clicks and point. You tell a story, act something out, something exciting. Fast forward, stop, slow you down, rewind, change channel. Then when they get behind it, they pick the topic. We pick the animal channel and see what they say about animals. We ask questions about animals when he is in the animal channel. In the music channel, he gets to sing songs.
6. Clown camp: banana peels, balls, fortune teller (“it looks like the next things mommy will do is: …. Banana peels”), magician, spinning, facial expressions.
7. Reduce the number of “What do you want?” questions and do other questions like “where did you go?” “Who has come to play with you today?” And then also combine: open-ended questions, multiple choice questions, and yes/no questions.
8. Model 1 or 2 phrases in each game you play. That way it is easy for him to recognize the one thing he needs to learn from a game and when he says them, he gets something he really likes. Model the key sentences from a game. And explain to him: The reason I am explaining this to you and the reason I am repeating these sentences like crazy, is because if you say these sentences, you will get all these things. E.g.: let’s put _____ in the box.
9. Play SCHOOL with Liam, he loves it! Also, use the multiple ideas that came with his new card box.
Our picture was in honor of Duch and her love for YOGA!!!!!
We had a great group meeting this Saturday. Thanks everybody for attending!!! I will be meeting with Shelby to bring her up-to-speed! I appreciate that everybody else was able to make it! I am posting here the notes that I distributed you so that you can always come back here to see them.
Duchis -- IDEAS FOR ASKING HER QUESTIONS AND FOR HER TO ASK QUESTIONS
1. Put a string across her room and a curtain.
• Stage: put shows together.
• Play Fashion Shows, Rock Concerts, Circus shows, Recitals and ask her questions about all the details of the shows. Ask question like: Who are the models? What outfits are they going to wear? Where could we go with the outfits?
• Ask her opinions.
2. Transform playroom floor into a board game, like “Friend-Candyland”
• Put 25 pieces of paper on floor, create a board game.
• Have a big dice with numbers
• Each paper has a question. When you roll the dice, you land somewhere.
• Each friend takes turns asking questions to the other friend.
• Questions could be like: “What do you like to ….?” “Where do you like to go …?” “What is your favorite …?” “How do we do …?” Also, cliffhangers like “Once upon a time, …. . What happened next?” “I saw the funniest thing happening on Saturday” … “What happened?”
• Some spaces are just going to say: “Ask a question about a favorite food”, or “Ask a question about the time when your friend was a baby”
• Other spaces are just fun stuff, like jump, run over, spin around.
3. Building things: “Where do this go?” “How do we do this?” “What part comes next?” And then … come on ask me a question” -- for example: Legos or the same car idea we have for Liam below.
4. Play reporters. Two microphones. “Today I will find all about you, and write a story” “We start by asking questions, isn’t that exciting” “First question is: What is one thing that you played today with your friend Mary” “Barbies” Did you play Barbie like going to the supermarket or like going to the circus?” “You just said Barbie, what does that mean?” And you act out the options. And then exaggerate like crazy the celebration when she responds.
Liam – IDEAS FOR SENTENCES PRODUCTION
Techniques are:
- Lots of modeling
- Lots of pausing and giving him a lot of time
- Giving choices: “I have this car, I don’t know what to do with it”
- Talking less so that he can talk more
- Use a game to introduce 1 or 2 key phrases per game.
1. Create your own book (big poster boards – like 2 for 4 sheets) using the flashcards for ideas. Make the book BIG. All sentences are connected to one story, like “Liam’s adventure”. Taking turns in creating the story. We could even stick the Baby Einstein flashcards as part of the story.
2. Take pictures of people doing things and use them for the story. What do you think these guys are doing right now? “Mom ran across Leo and … What do you think Leo was doing?”
3. Use a pillow case like a mystery bag. In the mystery bag we could put cards or things. The question is: If we had this, what do we do with this….? And then you get to do it. Parts of this: “what do we do with this part?”
4. Building a car with a laundry basket (RIDE BUCKET). All the parts of the car are made with paper: Wheels, lights, radio, horn, etc. “Let’s build a car”. Where does this go? What does this do? What do we need? Every time he gets a part, he gets a ride in the car. This idea can be applied to MANY vehicles. All the parts can be created with paper/poster board as part of the session. Will get some Velcro, too.
5. Build a TV again. Have a remote control. He clicks and point. You tell a story, act something out, something exciting. Fast forward, stop, slow you down, rewind, change channel. Then when they get behind it, they pick the topic. We pick the animal channel and see what they say about animals. We ask questions about animals when he is in the animal channel. In the music channel, he gets to sing songs.
6. Clown camp: banana peels, balls, fortune teller (“it looks like the next things mommy will do is: …. Banana peels”), magician, spinning, facial expressions.
7. Reduce the number of “What do you want?” questions and do other questions like “where did you go?” “Who has come to play with you today?” And then also combine: open-ended questions, multiple choice questions, and yes/no questions.
8. Model 1 or 2 phrases in each game you play. That way it is easy for him to recognize the one thing he needs to learn from a game and when he says them, he gets something he really likes. Model the key sentences from a game. And explain to him: The reason I am explaining this to you and the reason I am repeating these sentences like crazy, is because if you say these sentences, you will get all these things. E.g.: let’s put _____ in the box.
9. Play SCHOOL with Liam, he loves it! Also, use the multiple ideas that came with his new card box.
Our picture was in honor of Duch and her love for YOGA!!!!!
Duchis' first Trick-or-Treating with Tony!!!
This was not a possibility 4 years ago, ladies! Enjoy the magic of it! Thanks to Shelby and Ashley for taking the kids while I was in my seminar!!!
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| Tony, the pirate!!! |
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| Princess Duchis and Princess Shelby |
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| Look at that smile! |
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| Brother and sister together!!! |
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| Ashley was a pinguin!! |
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