Making Yarn Dolls

Pinterest is dangerous. I was browsing pinterest to find something quick to do with the children yesterday and came across a link to a page with a tutorial on how to make a yarn doll. I thought to myself, we have yarn. I bet the kids would like this activity.

Then I was sucked into a two-hour time warp where the first one turned out all right and was well received, but I knew the next one could be even better (and then both children could have one). After the second was complete I was so much better at it that I wanted to try a second girl doll.

So, here they are. The first attempt is a girl doll. The second attempt was a boy doll for Michael. I tried adding a smile. I have to admit, the end result was a little creepy. The third is another girl doll and my personal favorite. She was bigger than the first and so we called her the mama doll.

The children adore the dolls and I had fun making them so I consider the activity a success.

The Weekly Review: Week 51

SLP Resource of the Week

I found this articulation rating scale at The Learning Curve. Michael's /f/, /v/, /s/, and /z/ are all habitually produced interdentally. When I ask him to close up his teeth to keep his tongue behind his teeth for the production of /s/, he locks those teeth together successfully, and then all the air escapes laterally. The sound of his /s/ production is much sharper if I just let him produce it interdentally. In fact, if I'm not looking at his mouth, I cannot tell it from an /s/ produced in the traditional fashion. You'd think it would sound like a /th/, but instead it comes out as a crystal clear /s/ sound.

So, I tested to see if he could hear the difference between a sharp clear /s/ and a mushy /s/ production with a lot of lateral air escape, and he could tell the difference when I do it. But I have difficulty giving him feedback. It is certainly an improvement if he keeps his tongue behind his teeth, but that isn't good enough. The visual rubric of the articulation rating scale might be just the thing to give him feedback that is more meaningful.

Ava this Week

We got the book The Seven Chinese Sisters by Kathy Tucker a while back. The children and I thoroughly enjoyed it. During the first reading the children were captivated and just the right amount of scared when the dragon snatched the baby sister. The book ended up in Ava's room and she's been requesting it nightly. Her second-favorite part is when the baby's first word is "help". Her most-favorite part is when the baby shouts "No!" at the dragon.

One morning this week, as I was downstairs in the kitchen early making breakfast for the children I heard Ava's voice coming clearly through the monitor. I knew exactly what I was hearing when I heard her saying, "No! No, no, no dragon." I stood there motionless hovering by the monitor straining to hear every word as she flipped pages reading the story to herself. It made me so very happy.

Weekly Michael

I wish I could capture this moment in parenting time. Michael has been a delight lately. I love him and enjoy him more every day. He is fun to be with. He's having true conversations with his sister. He is delivering appropriately timed, genuinely felt thank yous. He loves to sing, tell stories, create art, and build complex creations from legos. All of his songs/stories/art/creations have elaborate back stories that are actually pretty interesting if you just take some time to listen. And it is so simple to make him happy in return. All he needs is a little undivided attention. He absorbs the positive attention and then continues happily on his way.

Ava's and Michael's Weekly Home Therapy Notes

I've continued to work with both children together and we're finding a new rhythm. We work for 20-30 minutes a night (4-5 nights/week). Right now I'm pushing the s-blends and l-blends pretty hard. Our sessions are pretty intense and I probably get a minimum of 100 productions per child per session. I usually just drill. I tried my speech caterpillar just one time. It slowed us down too much. For the most part I stick to drill because my children will tolerate it and it allows us to get more speech productions in during the session. I'm going to stick with it as long as it works.

Ava began working on blends three weeks ago. At that time, they were almost impossible for her. She tried and failed to sequence the motor planning over and over until I finally found the right combination of simplifying the production and cueing that worked for her (very slow production, separate the two consonants of the blend, emphasize the second consonant of the blend auditorily, use tactile cueing to emphasize each consonant of the blend). When I switched blends it took her several attempts to reboot her system for a new consonant (sp instead of sm for example).

Since then, she has made amazing progress. She can produce the blends and switch from one blend to another with only light to moderate cueing. She still needs a slight separation of the two consonants in the blend. She also does better with a visual cue that emphasizes that she is trying to produce a two-part blend. And that's it. With those two aids, she's at about 85% accuracy in direction imitation of single CCVC words.

Colored Glue Tracing: Pre-Writing

Michael has only recently started to demonstrate a hand preference (leaning towards right hand). He starts with his right hand when cutting, using utensils, and when writing. Perhaps because he used both hands equally for so long, he still struggles with his writing grip. He still usually grabs writing implements with his fist and gets frustrated with crayons, markers, and paintbrushes because he doesn't have the fine control he wants.

He does well when tracing in sand though and enjoys that activity so I decided to do a similar activity with the children yesterday. I wanted to do another activity that would exercise pre-writing skills while removing the frustration of an actual writing implement.

I mixed up some colored glue using white school glue and liquid tempera paint and put them in small squeeze bottles I got here. (Those two ounce squeeze bottles have been a great purchase. I've used them to hold colored water, puffy paint, and colored vinegar for a wide variety of projects. They are the perfect size for toddler/preschooler hands.) I also printed some pre-writing strips I made in publisher on cardstock (Feel free to download them and use them yourself. They are at the bottom of the post.).

As you can see, Michael started with his right hand, but as he fatigued, he switched to using both hands. This activity was much more difficult for Ava. She started by trying to fill in the lines, but quickly switched to simply playing with the colored glue on the paper.

Michael also traced over some words. He was still excited about the project when I ran out of printed strips so I suggest we make a card for his Daddy. He dictated a message. I wrote it on construction paper. Then he traced it with glue.

All in all, the activity kept the children entranced for at least 45 minutes. Michael had more fun than Ava, but she struggled with it more. I have lots of colored glue left over for another project (yet to be determined) and Ava will enjoy it more when she can use it creatively. For the purposes of this project, I couldn't have been more pleased.

Here are the strips for anyone who is interested. Click on the image to open to full size. Then right click and save to your computer.