Our miracles in progress

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Pictures of the 5 of us

Some of you have heard me saying that one of my dreams is a professional family portrait. I think the dream is getting closer and closer to reality. Look at these great pictures of the last weeks!

Pictures of our June Playdate

Forgot to upload these pictures weeks ago. This was the 2nd time we hosted the playdates with my friends Laura and Mangala, two wonderful friends I only found because of SonRise :)

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Ideas for games with Liam

Here are ideas to try this week for Liam:

1) Kristen created a poster with Phrases for Liam. There are two options to use this poster. One option is to practice the sentences in scenarios created with characters. The characters could be the pillow pets, or stuffed animals, or plastic animals, or puppets, or vehicles. The phrases are all things that Liam could learn to be able to express himself more accurately, things like:

· I don’t like it

· I am bored

· It’s hard

· I would rather do something else

· I don’t want to play this right now

· I rather tear paper

· Leave me alone

· I am tired

· I am grumpy

· I want to go downstairs

· I want to throw

Another option is to go to that poster every time Liam WHINES. You could show him 3 options of sentences and ask him if any of those is what he is thinking or feeling. Like: “Why don’t you want to play? Is it becase it is hard? Or because you want to tear paper? Or because you want to go downstairs to jump?” Help him with options and help him to see that those explanations are more helpful for us to give him what he wants.

2) Megan had an idea about using Liam’s vehicles as characters. We could put the 3 houses that we have: the dollhouse, the Barbie house, and that white house, and we could have the vehicles live in the houses and visit each other and do stories with them in a “city of 3 houses”.

3) I got a vehicle magazine. Megan said we could cut vehicles and create posters of “I like” and “I don’t like” and we could ask him questions such as “Which one do you like?” or if it is related to drawing, it could be “which one would you rather have me draw?” We could also combine the things from the vehicle magazine with the things from the house decoration magazine to see what Liam puts in the “Like” and “I don’t like” posters.

4) Google and see if you can find vehicle crosswords. We have done this in the past, but it was more with instruments, I think.

5) Create lots of opportunities for YES and NO answers. He is doing great with them, so let’s make sure he is practicing that a lot to refresh his mind about YES and NO.

6) I brought out the vehicle domino. Teach him to play domino. Don’t let him throw the pieces. He can throw pillows instead.

7) I brought out the vehicle memory game. It matches vehicles to their context. Look at the corner for the clue that matches the cards. Don’t let him throw the pieces. He can throw pillows instead.

8) With the throwing, he can throw light stuff and at the end, tell him to clean up. Don’t let him throw puzzle pieces or small cards because we lose them.

9) With the wooden puzzles that he loves (transportation), you could be in control of the pieces and ask question such as: how many pieces do you want? So that he practices answering “how many?” type of questions.

I will talk with Megan again in about a week, so let’s practice these ideas and let me know any questions you have for her. She will be coming to Houston in August, but I don’t know the dates, yet.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Group meeting - May 2013

MAY GROUP MEETING – May 24, 2013

LIAM

GOAL 1: Inspire Liam to practice his sense of independence (“Go get your clothes from the drawer and get dressed”, “Go get the book that is under the pillow”, “Bringing the fire truck from the closet”)

Games:

- Hide favorite things in the room and give him directions to find them. For example: puppets, cars, puzzle pieces. Remember the hide-and-seek games we used to play with Duch.

GOAL 2: Show Liam how to express his likes and dislikes: “I like …” and “I don’t like …”

Games:

- Gather stuff, like clothes, books, snacks, and toys, at the start of the session. For example: A princess book and a transportation book, a shirt with turtle neck and a sleeveless shirt, a tomato and brown crackers, a doll and a ball. Ask him: “Which one do you like?” in an open-ended question. Give him time to respond. After some tries, if he has not responded, you could switch to “Which one do you like best, the transportation book or the princess book?” The goal is for him to start expressing his opinions: “I LIKE ….” And “I DON’T Like …”

- “I LIKE/I DON’T LIKE Posterboard”: Have a posterboard on the wall, one for Liam, and one for you. Each posterboard is divided into “I like” and “I don’t like”. We could bring magazines and cut pictures of things and do drawings and ask him what he likes, seaweed or spinach, or Target or Walmart, etc. It could be opposites: I like sunny days vs. I don’t like rainy days. You could also fill your posterboard with your likes and dislikes. When explaining what you don’t like, you could model why you don’t like it: “I don’t like sweaters because they are itchy”.

- “Puppets and food and spinner or dice” game: Have a pillow bag with puppets and a pillow bag with plastic food and a spinner or dice with “I like” and “I don’t like” options. You and Liam take one puppet from the bag, one food from the bag, spin the spinner or throw the dice and get to see if the puppet likes or doesn’t like the food. Then, you say it and act it out: “The peacock likes the pizza!, let’s eat it! It’s delicious, yum, yum, yum” or “The flamingo does not like the muffin! Yucky! Let’s throw this muffin away!” So, it could be fun to pretend to eat the foods that the puppets like, and you can give extra context with extra sentences, and then to get rid of the foods that the puppets don’t like and to put them away. We could use spinners from other games (like twister) or the big inflatable dices.

GOAL 3: Help Liam to have a clear and specific way to participate in games (be directive & fun in giving him a role)

Games:

- Liam has been asking for drawing again. The important thing to remember is that even if we have played this game in a repetitive way in the past, HE IS NOT IN THE SAME PLACE. So, this time we can change it up and do it in a very different way, involving him more and asking him to do things:

· What is missing? Draw incomplete figures.

· How do I draw that? Go through the steps of drawing something and the parts of the figure.

· Choices? Colors? Sizes? Shapes? Ask him to choose.

· Expand the picture with scenarios: if you draw a bulldozer, draw a pile of dirt and a building. Explain to Liam with the bulldozer is doing with the dirt, and how it is used to build a building. Write a sentence about the scene.

· While you are drawing, share “I like”s and “I don’t like”s. For example: “I like to color with yellow, because it is a pretty color”.

- The flying puppets game. The puppets are in a pillow bag. You take one out. You ask a hard question about it: “Do peacocks have feathers or fur?” “What do tigers eat?” “Where do camels live?” “Do pandas live in America or in Asia?” “Do butterflies fly or run?” Mix open-ended questions with choice type of questions. When he gets them right, he gets to throw the puppet. You could have fake or real bandaids with you. So, when the puppet lands you could say: “Ouch! I hurt my foot.” And then you get to check the puppet and put a band-aid on or use the doctor’s kit with the puppet and you get to talk about that experience.

- “Knock, knock, who is there?” Games, “Who is at the door?” Games.

- Parachute games putting the puppets on top of the parachute.

GOAL 4: Have fun with Liam by building on any word or sentence that he says and creating a game with it

- Remember when we did this with Duch when she was scripting a lot. Anything she said, we built on it. It’s time to do that with Liam. Even if he says one word “ambulance” or a sentence that has nothing to do with what we are doing “there is a trail”, take that idea and go for it.

GOAL 5: Help Liam to see that using his words when he is frustrated works better than whining

- Again think about Duch, when we would tell her: “You can cry, go for it. I will play here and when you are ready, tell me what you want”. Don’t go for his crying and don’t give him long speeches when he is crying. It is just a matter of him seeing that he does NOT get attention when he is crying. He can cry, but he is not going to get what he wants if he cries. In contrast, when he is calm and tells us what he wants, he gets it SUPER FAST.

- Help him also by modeling “transition” or “protest” sentences: “I am bored”, “I want to play something else”, “I want a break”, etc.

DUCH

GOAL 1: Show Dusya how to ask questions to her teachers, friends, and family (e.g., interviews, conversation kits, guessing games, school games, etc.)

- Come to the room with the game or any object in a closed bag (plastic or paper or pillow bag). Don’t say anything. Just keep your bag with you. The idea is for HER to come and say: “What’s in the bag?” “What did you bring?” “What’s that?” We want spontaneous interactions with questions.

- Come to the room with whiskers on your face, with your head in a bag with circles in your eyes, with your hair in a very different way, with things painted on your face. The idea is for her to say: “Are you a cat?” “Why do you have whiskers?” “What did you do with your hair?” “Why do you have a bag on your head?”

- Cliffhangers: “Duch, I was walking yesterday in Target and you are never going to believe what happened to me. I was walking in the toy section and then … AHHHH!!!!!” The idea is for Duch to say: “What happened?” “What did you see?”

- Cat in the Hat guessing game from Walmart.

- Guess who game. à Need to work on our pictures

GOAL 2: Help Dusya to explain herself in transitions (when she wants to switch activities or when she is anxious about something; e.g., “I am bored”, “I would like to do something else,” “This is loud”, etc)

GOAL 3: Enjoy playing “school themes” with Dusya (schoolwork, school routines, and school dynamics with friends)

· Playground conversations

· Writing games

· Coloring games

· Drawing games

· Work books

· Calendar routine

· Weather routine

· More intensive Miss Rizwana from June 7^th to July 8^th. Then, Miss Rizwana is taking a break from July 9^th to August 9^th. And then we could have again intensive Miss Rizwana from August 10^th until classes start.

GOAL 4: Help Dusya to use her pronouns correctly: he, she, you, I, me, they, us, etc.