Sand on the Light Box: Storytelling

After we finished making our sand shapes the other day, I decided on a whim to use the light box / sand combo to do some impromptu storytelling. The first story that popped into my head was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children loved it! Now, keep in mind that I draw about as well as your average 4 year old, and yet somehow even my stick drawings in the sand on a light box are entrancing to young children.

Here are a few pictures I snapped during the storytelling.

Goldilocks

The Three Bears taking a walk in the forest.

Three hot bowls of porridge.

Goldilocks testing the three chairs.

Goldilocks waking up to see the three bears looking down at her.

The story reached its natural end and I was encouraging the children to do a little free play in the sand before it was time to put everything away. Most of my attention was on Ava, but then I realized that Michael had been busy. Next thing I know I turn my head and see this:

Everything you see there he drew on his own. Then he told Ava and I the story of Mama Cat and Michael Cat who had to go out and take their dog to the vet. While they were out a little girl from their village went into their house, sat in one of their chairs and ate up all their food... So, yes, his story was closely modeled after Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but I was very impressed with both his drawing and storytelling nonetheless.

Early Pentatonic Instruments

I was browsing a catalog I received in the mail to see if anything caught my eye for the children and I stumbled across a kinder lyre. It is a small stringed instrument with only seven strings. It is tuned to a pentatonic scale (more on that in a bit) so that the children can pluck any sequence or combination of strings and produce a musical result. I was intrigued. First, I liked the concept of the pentatonic scale. Second, I liked the idea of bringing another instrument (besides the piano which is rarely used) into the house.

Then I glanced at the price. Since this was a catalog of children's toys, I expected the lyre to be priced like a toy. Let's just say that it wasn't, and leave it at that. I tried to put it out of mind, but I found myself thinking about it over the next several days. I decided that I wanted to get a pentatonic instrument for our household and began to research in earnest.

Pentatonic Scale

(I am not a great musician or an expert at musical theory, so take this information as a novice's summary of the information she has researched. If you know more about this and think something is incorrect, please send me an email so I can update this post.)

The typical scale most of us are used to is a diatonic scale with 7 notes (A, B, C, D, E, F, G). The pentatonic scale uses only five of those notes. In an instrument tuned to the key of D, those notes would be D, E, G, A, B. Eliminating two notes from the diatonic scale results in a scale that leaves only harmonious combinations of notes. This makes an instrument tuned to a pentatonic scale an excellent choice for a first instrument for a child.

Choices for a Pentatonic First Instrument

As I was researching pentatonic instruments I found three main options: the lyre (the 7 or 10 string version is often called a kinder lyre), the glockenspiel (a metal xylophone), and the pentatonic recorder.

Kinder Lyre

A kinder lyre is a small stringed instrument. The ones I looked at had either 7 or 10 strings tuned to d-e-g-a-b-D-E (-G-A-B). The music is played by plucking the strings. Here are the four kinder lyres I looked at:

1. Harps of Lorien-Kinder Lyre
   
   
2. Auris Pentatonic Lyre
   
   Here is a video that features the auris pentatonic lyre.
3. Eyster Meadow Lyre
   
   This lyre in this video is an Eyster Meadow Lyre.
4. Song of the Sea Kinder Harp target="_blank"
   
   Here's a sound sample of this lyre.

Pentatonic Glockenspiel

A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument similar to a xylophone. This Auris Pentatonic Glockenspiel has a beautiful tone.

Here is a video of a duet played on two of these.

Pentatonic Recorder

A pentatonic recorder is a woodwind instrument that is similar to a flute tuned to a pentatonic scale. This Choroi Pentatonic Recorder sounds beautiful.

This is a video that shows a Choroi Pentatonic Recorder (you need to skip to about 4:45 in to see it).

Which early pentatonic instrument should I choose?

In my completely novice opinion, the glockenspiel seems to be the most accessible for very young children followed by the lyre and finally the recorder. If I were making a decision on which one to get for our family (a 2 1/2 year old and a just turned four year old) I would definitely choose the glockenspiel.

I wanted the lyre though. I was more excited about playing the lyre myself, and so I chose to get that one. I think the children will be able to play it a little, and they will be able to listen to me as I learn a new instrument. Perhaps we can get a glockenspiel too later and play multi-instrument pentatonic duets. Hmm. I'm probably getting ahead of myself a little.

Sand on the Light Box: Pre-Writing

I sat down on the computer and made some simple design cards. I intended to print them on cardstock and laminate them, but ran out of time so I just printed mine on regular paper.

Then I set up the two light boxes with the translucent shallow boxes and sand. I held up one card at a time and encouraged the children to try to copy the design in the sand. I gave feedback, tips, and encouragement as necessary. Michael could copy all of the simple shapes on his own and did pretty well with some tips on the more complex shapes. Ava was able to copy the very simple shapes on her own, the intermediate shapes with some tips, and the complex shapes with a lot of assistance.

This is an excellent activity for developing pre-writing skills. Pre-writing skills develop the fine motor strength and control necessary and the hand-eye coordination for writing without actually holding a writing implement (crayon, pencil, marker, etc.).

Here are the cut out cards and some examples of the children's copying. Michael used the orange sand and Ava used the blue.

Ideas to expand this activity:

1. Have the children name the shape (if it is simple) or name the shapes that make up a more complex shape. For example, "This is a square with a plus inside."
2. Show the card and ask the child to make a big, medium, or small version.
3. Add something to the picture. For example, show the oval and ask, "Can you draw this oval with a triangle on top?" (or underneath, or to the left, or to the right, etc.)
4. Subtract something from the picture. For example, "Can you draw this house without the roof?
5. Show two cards and ask them to draw both in their sand box at the same time. They will need to learn, through trial and error, how big to make each and how to leave room for the second while making the first.

Hospital Visits as a Measure of Progress?

Ava and I were back at the ER Friday night for croup again. Friday was Michael's birthday. I sent Daddy home to spend the evening trying to make Michael's (small family) birthday celebration as much like it would have been as possible.

Cons: Well, those are pretty obvious. First, Ava couldn't breathe and needed a steroid to calm things down. Second, it was happening on Michael's birthday.

Pros: It was a mildly interesting fact that I was spending the evening in the exact same hospital that I had been in four years earlier.

Also, it gave me a chance to really see how much progress Ava's made with her sensory issues since our last trip to the hospital (almost exactly 7 weeks ago). Wow! The difference was amazing.

Last time Ava screamed when they weighed and measured her. She screamed when they took her temperature and measured her oxygen levels. She screamed when they took her blood pressure and examined her. She screamed when taking her medicine.

This time she was great. She was a little nervous and wiggly, and cried a little occasionally, but overall she handled everything fairly well. She was even charming with strangers. She was being cute and trying to be funny and enjoying the attention. This is the same child that used to act like direct eye contact from a stranger was an assault. Oddly enough, this trip to the ER was a huge way to track some pretty amazing OT progress.

(And we were sent home without an overnight stay or breathing treatments necessary, so this trip was much more successful than the last one. Hurray for not waiting until things were absolutely critical this time.)

Puffy Paint on a 3D Cone

I was inspired by a couple of ideas I found on pinterest.

Source: delawarecountymoms.com via Jamie on Pinterest

Source: housingaforest.com via Jodi on Pinterest

First we made our own "puffy paint" combining equal parts flour, salt, and water (we used 1/3 cup of each to make about 5 oz.) and then mixing in some liquid tempera to color. The children chose to make red, purple, and orange. I then used a funnel to put the paint in small 2oz squeeze bottles.

I then set the kids up with some white cones I had made from cardstock and trimmed so they would stand up straight. I also taped them to a base to catch spills and keep them from tipping over while they were being painted.

We ran into a problem right away. The paint wouldn't squeeze. I found a small pair of embroidery scissors and managed to make the holes larger and that worked for a while. We continued to have trouble during the activity with the holes getting blocked by small lumps of paint or because the paint dried up in the tip. We would shake and tap the bottles and I'd use the scissors to clear out the tips of the bottles and that helped. I honestly think the children would have played much longer if we hadn't had the technical difficulties though.

My only suggestion would be to use squeeze bottles with much larger holes than ours - perhaps ketchup style holes. Or just use a paint brush.

They had a blast though. From the start of the project (making the paint) through then end of painting the cones, the kids were engaged for a full hour and a half.

The Weekly Review: Week 35

Favorite Blog Quote this Week

I identify strongly with the following quote from this post: "Children are wonderfully wonderful but they are also bottomless gulleys of sucking need..."

The Weekly Procrastination Update

With the 2 additional hours of CEUs I managed to get this week I now need 10 more in the next 12 days... Hmm. I don't seem to be gaining on this situation.

The Weekly Celebration

Four years ago, in the wee hours of the morning, following 19 hours of labor, we welcomed our 8 pound, 6 ounce firstborn into this world. We joined all the other parents who have experienced this profound transformation.

In the four years since then he has grown from a helpless (and rather incessantly noisy) infant to an amazing young boy (still incessantly talking). He loves cars, tools, building things, fixing things, and destroying things. He loves petting a kitten and watching her purr. He takes pride in being a big brother and loves his sister's company. He can read three-letter words, write his name, and will listen happily to any story. He carries a tune nicely and loves to sing for an audience or just to himself. He began preschool this year and is doing amazingly well there.

I am simultaneously excited about what the next year will bring, intimidated by the challenges it will hold, sad at how fast the time will go by, and curious about the little boy he will be when he turns five. Raising a child is such an adventure.

Ava this Week

Twice a year, we have parent conferences at Ava's preschool. They use a checklist of skills and write (N-not demonstrating, S-sometimes, A-Always) next to each item. 6 months ago Ava's sheet was full of Ns and Ss. This time almost everything was an A - even in the communication section. The combination of speech services, OT services, and preschool has been so powerful.

The Weekly Michael

This is really the first year Michael has fully understood what a birth day means and what birthday celebrations are about. We've been celebrating off and on all week. First his grandparents came into town and we had his party. Yesterday they did some special things at school. Tonight we will give him our gift, a gift from his godmother, and his gift from his other set of grandparents. He has been so mature about all of it. He is excited, but not crazy over-excited. He's been grateful, polite, and appropriately thankful when receiving gifts. He's been good about sharing with his sister. All in all, I've been struck by what a sweet, mature new 4 year old he is. It's been a wonderful (and busy) week.

Stimulability from a New Perspective

As I was taking a course dutifully working towards earning my 15 continuing education credits for this year I came across an interesting article that reminded me of several concepts in articulation/phonology treatment that I hadn't had time to think about recently.

In a nutshell, I was taught to address the error sounds a child is stimulable for first. That seems to make sense. In theory they would make progress faster and with less frustration than with sounds that are harder for them.

The article I read claimed that more recent research (I have not had time to look up the source articles yet, so take this with a grain of salt until I can confirm.) shows that often, children will acquire the sounds they are stimulable for on their own given time. Therefore, time in therapy should be spent on the sounds they are least stimulable for. If you spend 3 months establishing and working on /k/ and in the meantime, the /t/ which they were stimulable for pops in on its own, the child now has some mastery of two sounds at the end of that time period instead of just one.

This therapist chooses two targets to work on with a child at any given time. She chooses the two most complex sounds the child is not stimulable for that have the most contrast (voicing, manner, place). This is an entirely different model of choosing targets than I was taught to use, but the idea is intriguing.

I have two questions for any readers that might want to discuss this:

1. Have you encountered this approach to articulation/phonology therapy before, and what do you think?
2. If you agree that this approach has merit, do you think that this approach also applies to children with motor planning problems (apraxia)?

The problem with making assumptions about therapy materials.

I bought a therapy resource that was designed specifically to target early emerging sounds. Even better, the resource stated that it included 100 words per phoneme (20 one-syllable initial, 20 two-syllable initial, 20 two-syllable medial, 20 one-syllable final, and 20 two-syllable final). I thought to myself, "Why did I spend all that time designing my own early-emerging sounds card sets? There was already something out there!"

Well, I pulled it out the other day and excitedly flipped to the one-syllable final /p/ words to use with Ava. It was new. It was colorful. It was a spiral bound book that stands up like an easel. It was new and shiny. I had high hopes. There were 20 one-syllable final /p/ words. They were easy to find, and Ava was interested. However, I was able to use only 8 of those. I was so disappointed. Let's take a look at why.

First I had to eliminate all the words with blends (CCVC). That eliminated 6 words (stop, sweep, clap, step, scope, and grape). Then I had to eliminate the 6 words that began with phonemes that were too difficult for her (cup, cap, chip, drape, cop, and rope). That left me with 8 (soap, type, ape, top, shop, ship, map, and soup).

Of those 8 words, two began with /s/ and two began with /sh/. If your client is having difficulty with those phonemes you would be left with only 4 words to work on.

(If I apply these same criteria to my own final /p/ card set I am able to use 24 of the 30 picture cards in the set. I have to eliminate the 4 that begin with /k/ and the 1 /l/ and the 1 /r/.)

I encountered similar problems with the other one-syllable words. If you are going to design a set of cards designed to target early emerging sounds, it is not actually helpful to have so many of the words include sounds that emerge late or words that include more complex syllable shapes.

I suppose the moral of the story is to try to get a good look at the actual word lists in the materials you are about to spend your limited resources on. It is definitely possible that when you get a good look at what is included the set may not meet your needs.

Visual Aid:

1. cup
2. soap
3. cap
4. stop
5. type
6. chip
7. sweep
8. clap
9. step
10. scope
11. ape
12. drape
13. top
14. cop
15. shop
16. rope
17. ship
18. map
19. grape
20. soup

Try it for yourself. How many of these words would you actually be able to expect your child/client to produce accurately?

Celebration

Michael's birthday party was outstanding. I couldn't possibly say better things about the place that we used for his party. The children had a wonderful time for 90 solid minutes. The activities were perfectly designed for the age group. They alternated structured games with free play and changed the activities available for free play each time. They did a nice job of making Michael feel special as the birthday boy without making the rest of the children feel left out. Michael will remember his party happily for a long time. Here are some scenes from the party.

King...

Last night, Michael was having a conversation with his grandfather about the animals he's seen at the zoo. Michael rattled off a long list concluding with gorillas. His grandfather asked, "Have you ever seen a movie called King Kong?" (The answer is no.) Michael thought for a long moment and replied, "Well, I know a song about King Kong." I thought to myself, "Really?"

We all let that sink in a bit, and then just moved on to another topic of conversation. Michael seemed to be thinking. Then he started singing:

"Old King Kong was a merry old soul and a merry old soul was he..."

Everyone cracked up. Parenting is such fun sometimes.

Waiting

My husband's parents are in town to celebrate Michael's birthday with us. We went to dinner last night to kick off the festivities in style. The children were getting a bit impatient while we waited for our food to arrive. Grandma taught Ava to use her iPhone to take pictures and that was a huge hit. Michael immediately wanted to "play". I pulled out my phone and showed him how.

I kid you not. In five minutes he took 271 pictures. He took extreme pride in the fact that he had taken about 30 pictures in a row of his Grandpa's arm and I have all the shots to prove it.

At the end of the meal, the children were waiting again while the adults finished up. They took a few more pictures, but that wasn't going to do the trick a second time. Grandma picked up Ava and they went for a little restaurant tour to talk about all the pictures they could see. It was sweet to watch Ava in her Grandma's arms chattering away happily. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but she had a lot to say.

Little Imp

Yesterday morning Ava started calling, "Daaaaaaa-dee! Daaaaaaa-dee!" I wasn't quite sure where she was so I called back, "Daddy's in the shower sweetie," but she didn't seem to hear me. I went searching.

I found her in her room. She looked pretty surprised to see me open the door rather than her daddy. (She had locked herself in. I had put a childproof doorknob protector on the inside of her door the day before when she kept wandering instead of napping.)

She quickly said, "Let's do speech Mommy!" I was pretty startled at this out-of-the-blue suggestion until I saw the open baggie of froot loops on the floor. Apparently she had taken off with the bag from my tower of speech supplies and snuck up to her room with it.

She figured volunteering to do speech would get her out of being fussed at. It worked actually. I said, sure and headed downstairs to find a card deck. At that point she helpfully pointed out, "The bag is already open Mama!"

The Weekly Review: Week 34

The Weekly Procrastination Update

Last week I mentioned that I need to get 13 more hours of continuing education credits by the end of the month. Since then I got two. That's better than 0 right? Now, that leaves about two-three more weeks to get 11 more. Hmm...

The Weekly Accomplishment

I'm managing to fit some speech drill in with Ava on a daily basis. Sometimes that is two 30 minute sessions. Other times it is 5 minutes. All of it is better than nothing.

Now, the kittens knocking over my rather precariously balanced tower of speech materials three times in a row was less helpful. The first time I simply sighed and picked it back up. The second time, I scolded a bit and picked it back up again. The third time I used several inappropriate and uncharacteristic words before picking up the tower a third time and trying to re-stack it in a way that was less tempting to kittens. Good thing the children were napping at the time.

Sibling Moment

Michael is starting to feel proud about being a big brother I think. I told the story about him defending her when eavesdropping on our speech session. Later, when he overheard his grandfather teasing her a bit, he piped up rather loudly with, "Don't talk to my sister like that, Grandpa!"

Ava this Week

I'm trying to pay attention to how often I don't understand Ava. It is more often than I think. I have a strategy I use in these situations. I can often tell if she is making a comment or asking a question due to her inflection. If she's making a comment I can't understand, I'll say, "Tell me more." and hope to get additional hints from her expansion. If I still don't get it I'll make a generic comment like, "That's really cool." (if she sounds positive) or "That stinks!" if she sounds negative and just move on. But we've missed an opportunity for more meaningful conversation. If she's asking me a question, I'll respond with, "Well, what do you think?" and hope that she'll answer her own question or that whatever she says next will give me a better clue about the subject of the original question.

The Weekly Michael

We're getting ready to celebrate Michael's birthday this weekend. His actual birthday isn't until next week, but I'm not sure I'm going to try to explain that distinction to him. He is adorably excited. When asked his age, he now responds with, "Almost 4!" instead of "3 1/2!" The party will be small, but hopefully just right for us. My husband's parents are travelling in from out of town and it will be wonderful to have them here to celebrate with us. My parents will be there as well and we'll have a few close friends that Michael is really comfortable with. I'm looking forward to it too. Watching 0-4 has been an amazing transformation.

5-15-30 - Every Little Bit Counts

I suppose that sort of title usually applies to exercise. In this case I'm talking about speech practice. I've been attempting to incorporate therapy into our routine for months now. I've been largely unsuccessful.

Recently I've been motivated to try again. First I came up with a reinforcer that worked well - about three times. Then Ava decided that she'd rather skip speech even if she had to give up her treasured "colored cheerios". Apparently I wasn't destined to make one thing and have it work every time forever after. :-)

I admit. I hadn't even printed out all of my own card sets. Today I printed out two more. I'm stashing sets around the house. I'm trying to pull them out in those moments. You know, the ones where an activity wraps up sooner than you expected and you wonder how on earth you're going to make it through the next 5-15-30 minutes. Sure, she still whines a little, but I tell her that we can't do anything else until we finish a little speech. It doesn't take us long to go through a card deck and with more of them printed, she's seeing fresh pictures each time. If she's in a good mood and doing well, I'll do the card deck several times in a row. We'll say the words individually, say them with the prompts on the back, say them two-three times in a row, or pair them up and say them in pairs.

Taking speech in smaller, spontaneous chunks seems to be working better for us. I'm having to work to get Michael to not chime in when it is Ava's turn. Otherwise I can't hear her response well enough to give appropriate feedback. Other than that, it isn't a problem having him around during our practice sessions.

I'm not trying to teach anything new. I'm just trying to establish some final consonant usage in running speech. I'm working on that with the easiest consonants. I should take a baseline from some conversational speech so I can recheck in 2-3 weeks to see if we're getting any carryover at all. It would be a great experiment.

A Wayward Defender

I've been squeezing therapy with Ava in after her nap. She tends to wake up before her brother, so the time works fairly well. Yesterday, Michael woke up and came downstairs in the middle of our session and hung out nearby eavesdropping.

I have been working to get Ava to add in the "easy" final consonants (for Ava, /p, t/) at the end of the first word in a two word sequence or at the end of the second word in a three word sequence. So, we said, "wipe". Then, "wipe, wipe". Then, "wipe, wipe, wipe". That was fairly easy. So then we said, "Mama wipe". Also fairly easy. As soon as we add, "Mama wipe eye(s)" we lose the final /p/ sound in wipe. I was trying to get it back using visual, tactile, and gestural cues and she and I had gone back and forth several times.

Then, from behind me Michael piped up, "Mama! She SAID that!"

I love that his instinct is to defend his sister, but his timing wasn't the best. On the other hand, I did take a moment to explain to him what I was looking for demonstrating the difference and when I turned back to ask Ava to try one more time, she got it. Not a bad way to wrap the session up.

If You're Happy (Emotions Version)

I was first introduced to this idea several months ago by our Parents as Teachers home educator. I wanted to make our own version and couldn't remember the details so I did an online search for "if you're happy emotions" and found two helpful resources. This page shows the basic lyrics and some visual cue "faces" you can make. Another page gave me the brilliant idea to simplify the lyrics to make them more accessible to children with speech delays. Here's the project.

If You're Happy Song - Emotions Version with Visual Cue Cards

Making the Cue Cards

Group Planning

I sat down with the kids and drew a happy face. I asked them how the person felt and they responded "happy." I asked them "How else can people feel?" They responded "sad" and I asked how the face would be different if the person were sad. They told me a frown (and demonstrated for me). I made a sad face with a frown. We then worked together to discuss, demonstrate, and draw the other four emotions (sleepy, surprised, scared, and mad). We also chose the color for each emotion. I let the kids choose and so our colors are a bit unorthodox.

Make and assemble fronts and backs of Cue Cards

I then drew the faces on the circles and wrote the matching emotion and action on the back as a cue for myself when I was holding them up for the kids.

Identify Emotions / Sing the Song

There are a wide variety of activities to do with these cue cards.

1. Adult hold up the cards and leads the song.
2. Distribute the cards to the everyone (we had two each) and take turns holding one up and letting the person holding the card be the leader.
3. Use the cards to help the children learn to identify emotions (without singing) in flash card mode.
4. Have the children mimic the facial expression of the card you hold up.
5. Let the children make an expression and you try to guess which one they're making by holding up the matching card. They get to tell you if you're right or wrong. Get it wrong on purpose sometimes so they can enjoy telling you no.

Song Lyrics

You sing the song to the tune of If You're Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands. If you are a teacher, parent, or early childhood educator who has no need to simplify the lyrics, just use the original wording. I'll give the simplified version in a bit.

Here are the originals:

1. If you're happy and you know it clap your hands...
2. If you're sad and you know it say "boo hoo"...
3. If you're mad and you know it stomp your feet...
4. If you're scared and you know it say "oh no"...
5. If you're sleepy and you know it take a nap (or close your eyes, or make a yawn)...
6. If you're surprised and you know it say "oh my"...

Here is how to simplify the lyrics:
If you are doing this activity with children who have speech delays, slow it way down and encourage them to sing along. (Or at least repeat "boo hoo," "oh my", and "oh no" when cued.) Once they have learned the song encourage singing by doing the activity where they get to hold the cue cards and lead the singing in turn.

If you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands.
If you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands.
If you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands, clap your hands.
If you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands.

If you're sad, sad, sad say "boo hoo".
If you're sad, sad, sad say "boo hoo".
If you're sad, sad, sad say "boo hoo", say "boo hoo".
If you're sad, sad, sad say "boo hoo".

And so on...

SLP Notes: This activity is great. You hit speech, language, vocabulary, and pragmatics all at once and can emphasize whichever is most important for your goals with a particular child. It can be adapted high (original version, fast pace, child led). It can also be adapted at a mid-level (modified version, medium pace, cued verbal participation). It can be adapted very low as well with modified version, slow pace, and only gestural participation or cued vocalizations (yawn, crying, snoring, exclamations of fear or surprise) to work on turn taking. Even using the activity to draw the child's attention to your facial expressions could help you work on eye contact if your goals are at that level. For vocabulary you get the emotions themselves, but also the parts of the face including eyebrows and terms like smile and frown.

I have NO IDEA!

The worry is so acute when they have no words and all the other children seem to be talking. Then, if you're lucky, you see progress when therapy begins and the feeling of relief is so profound. Sounds are better than silence. Single syllable words are even better than sounds. Two-syllable words or two-word utterances are even better than that. And then you get sentences, and lots of new words and you start to think it will all be okay.

Then there's a long plateau. Her immediate family understands her most of the time. I get a lot of practice, and at her age (2 1/2) she's almost always talking about something where I get some context clues. Being able to understand her most of the time gives me a false sense of security as well.

Lately, Ava is singing. It's adorable and a sign of great language development. Now, when I say singing, I don't mean the ABC song or Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. I mean just making up songs out of the blue.

She learned it from me. I make up songs about what we're doing all the time. If we're getting dressed I'll make up a silly song about putting on shirts and socks. If we're eating breakfast I'll make up a song about how our food tastes good to our mouth and then travels to our tummy to give us energy for the day. If the kids are running circles in the house I'll make up a song about how many laps they've managed to do. (I know, I'm a dork.)

A few days ago I noticed Ava starting to do the same thing. She made up a song about her baby and feeding her. Then she made up a song about going to the grocery store. I caught about one word in ten of those songs and only because I had some context to help with the guessing.

She's also making up songs about random thoughts in her mind. I can tell she's singing "words" and is super excited about whatever story she's telling. I can tell she wants an audience and wants to talk to me about her song. She's just bursting with pride at making up her own songs. I can see all of that clear as day.

And I have NO IDEA what the songs are about. None. It's killing me. It also makes me realize how unintelligible she is out of context and how very unintelligible she probably is to strangers. So sad. I must find more time for therapy.

Speaking of therapy, my new froot loop therapy reinforcer is working beautifully. She's bringing it over and asking to do speech just so she can have a froot loop snack. Whatever works! Being able to sit down with her regularly and get in sessions of a decent length is letting me get a better feel for her current skills and needs in terms of motor processing. Once I get things better sorted out I'll do a post on the topic.

Science on the Light Box: Baking Soda and Colored Vinegar

Light Box Science: Baking Soda and Colored Vinegar

I grabbed one light box and the translucent tray to go on top. I also got out some baking soda, food coloring, and four 2 oz squeeze bottles filled about halfway with vinegar and gathered the children around the light box on the kitchen floor.

We reviewed what happened when we mixed water and oil on the light box (they stay separate). I explained that this time we were going to put colored vinegar on baking soda. I let them taste the vinegar and the baking soda. They claimed they liked both. I had them make a guess about what would happen when we dripped colored vinegar on the baking soda (their guess was that the baking soda would get wet and turn colored).

We chose four colors of food coloring and colored the vinegar in the squeeze bottles. I also used some leftover colored water for contrast. I sprinkled a rather thick layer of baking soda in the translucent tray and began by dripping some colored water on the baking soda and asking them to tell me what happened. They decided that the baking soda was wet and colored just like they guessed.

Then we tried the colored vinegar and got colored bubbles. We decided that when vinegar combines with baking soda we get a different reaction than when water mixes with baking soda. Vinegar makes bubbles and water does not. That was as complex as we got.

They were quite impressed and couldn't wait to play themselves. I handed them squirt bottles and let them begin.

Ava discovered that if she mixed yellow and blue she could make green bubbles. That was a lot of fun. The next time I try this activity I think I'll give each child three bottles with red, blue, and yellow and encourage them to mix colors as they go.

At one point the first tray of baking soda was completely saturated and I quickly rinsed it out dried it. We distributed a much thinner layer the second time and tried to make actual designs.

Cleanup was as easy as rinsing the tray out and drying it with a cloth.

Simple Homemade Therapy Reinforcer

Ava has an expressive speech delay (definitely a strong motor speech component and a significant phonological processing component). She sees an early intervention therapist weekly and we also see a local apraxia expert a little less often (once or twice a month on average).

(I'm getting to the therapy reinforcer, I promise.)

Even though I'm a certified speech therapist myself we don't do enough therapy at home. The therapist/client dynamic is hard between mother and daughter and I find her difficult to positively reinforce. Ava does respond well to froot loops. Froot loops aren't great for therapy rhythm though. It seems to take forever to chew one and she can't talk while chewing. Kind of counterproductive don't you think?

Then I had a great idea. It just popped into my head. The brilliant idea came as I was lying in bed. Working out the details in my mind stole at least half an hour of sleep, but it was worth it. So, the next day I made this:

I call it the Froot Loop Therapy Reinforcer. :-)

I pull a random froot loop from a bag after several repetitions (5-10 on an easy item, 1-2 on a harder one). She threads the froot loop on the matching color pipe cleaner. When she gets three of any one color she gets to eat them. It worked beautifully. It only takes a moment to pull one out of the bag and thread it but she likes that part so it is motivating. Then, every so often she ends up with three and gets to eat them (very motivating) and I can use those moments to mentally review what I want to do next or take a few notes.

It also has the benefit of working on color identification, color matching, and fine motor skills.

An alternative to froot loops would be threading color coordinated pony beads onto the pipe cleaners, but you just wouldn't eat them when the pipe cleaner was full. You'd need some other higher level reward (perhaps you could then thread three at a time onto yarn to make a bracelet for them to take with them at the end of the session).

Another advantage is that it is lightweight and can be folded flat for storage so if you travel for private practice or early intervention therapy, you could take it with you in a bag easily.

Here's how I made it.

1. Gather materials.
• Piece of cardboard.
• Piece of cardstock.
• Glue.
• Colored duct tape (optional).
• Pipe cleaners (red, yellow, blue, orange, green, purple).
• Tool to poke small holes in cardboard (I used a sewing pin).
2. Poke holes about one inch apart in a line across cardboard.

3. Cut pipe cleaners to about 2-3 inches long and feed them halfway through holes in cardboard.
   
   
4. Twist them together on bottom to hold them to the right length.
   
   
   
5. Cut cardstock to the same size as cardboard and glue cardstock to bottom of cardboard to hide the pipecleaners.
6. (Optional) Put colored duct tape along sides to make a pretty border and help prevent your edges from separating.
   
   

The Weekly Review: Week 33

Website of the Week:

I browse the web looking for activity ideas a lot. I have about 30 open tabs in my browser at any given time. Often I have two copies of my web browser open with 30 tabs each. Consequently, the computer runs soooooo slowly and will occasionally pop up a message about how I'd better close the browser immediately because the computer is out of memory. Then I panic because I might lose all the tabs. "Oh, no! So many great ideas would disappear forever."

Then I discovered pinterest.com. It is like a virtual bulletin board. Members create boards around categories and they "pin" up pictures with links to the original websites and their comments. Pinterest has a whole category just for ideas other people have "pinned" with ideas for kids. The content is so deep. I could literally spend hours there.

I don't have a pinterest account myself. I desperately wanted one. Organization at my fingertips. Visual reminders of all the cool ideas. I was practically drooling. I requested an invite. I waited impatiently for several days and then I got one. Then I hit a stumbling block. In order to sign up, you -must- sign up through facebook or twitter. That was a big stumbling block for me. I don't want everything I "pin" automatically posted to my facebook account. I don't want pinterest to have access to my friends. It just made me nervous. So I didn't sign up. But I still think about it longingly.

Even if you don't want to sign up though, you should just check it out. It is gorgeous. And so many ideas in one place..... And they're already vetted by other people interested in the same topics.

The Weekly Obsession

If you're a regular reader of the blog, you've probably noticed that I've been on a huge activities-with-the-light-box kick (here, here, here, here). I sincerely apologize if I'm boring you to death. It's kind of the way I work. I get super excited about something and I do it a lot (remember the busy books?) until I get excited about something new and move on for a while. Stick with me and I'll get back to SLP, Apraxia, and other familiar topics soon enough. The kids are finally old enough that we are beginning to do regular "special projects" and it is wonderful. I expect that toddler/preschool activities will continued to be featured heavily for a while.

The Weekly Procrastination

As a certified SLP, I have to get a certain number of continuing education credits to maintain certification. There is no way for me to temporarily suspend certification while I am staying at home, so annual dues and continuing education credits are a must.

Our national organization requires 30 hours of continuing education every three years, or an average of 10 per year. Missouri requires 30 hours every two years. Sometimes the due date for national and state fall on the same year, sometimes not. I have decided that I just need to get 15 annually from now on and I'll always be current. (This is to avoid last year's debacle where I needed to get 30 hours in one month because having two under two pretty much killed all thoughts of continuing ed for 2-3 years).

I joined a pretty nice website (speechpathology.com) that has unlimited access to a nice library of courses for $99/year. I set a reminder in my iPhone calendar to let me know when I had only a month left to my membership. This week it let me know that the time has come. So now I need 13 more hours in the next three weeks.

Instead of hopping right on that, I did lots of light box activities with my children instead. I did mention that I occasionally (umm... often) procrastinate, right?

The Weekly Accomplishment

I sailed right through my husband's first extended business trip post kids. That felt nice. It was a shame that his homecoming consisted of us both realizing we had gotten sick while apart.

Ava this Week

Ava is learning the power of being dramatic and is attempting to determine how much she can use drama to manipulate those around her. Many times this week a scenario went this way:

1. Michael is playing with a toy.
2. Ava decides she would like the toy and attempts to grab it.
3. Michael, understandably resists.
4. Ava bursts into heartrending sobs and plaintively wails, "I want the ______."
5. Now, all of us are wise to the ploy (especially Michael) and so this gets her nowhere except possibly sent to her room until she calms down.
6. Therefore, hopefully, the behavior won't last long. In the meantime, it is definitely pitiful.

The Weekly Michael

When my husband told Michael that he'd be gone for a few days, Michael burst into tears. He was genuinely upset that his Daddy would be away. The next day, he asked his grandmother to help him make a "card" (a tiny yellow post-it, actually) to give to his Daddy when he came home and dictated the contents of the card. He brought it home and put it up on the refrigerator with a magnet. He couldn't keep it a surprise though. He told his Daddy all about the card that night on the phone. It was adorable.