Turning Daily Situations into Learning Experiences!

Who doesn't love trucks, tractors, and road construction? Well, unless we adults are stuck in the traffic it causes of course! The truth is, kids (especially boys) LOVE to watch the digging, pushing, and beeping of road construction trucks.

Just outside of a daycare center I visited this morning were workers putting in new water pipes. I decided to take this opportunity and turn it into a learning experience with the child I was seeing.

I see this particular child for speech-related goals and when he saw the trucks, he was immediately excited. He told me, "There are two trucks, one, two!" The child watched the pipe go into the hole and said, "down, down, down." I was blown away by the amount of speech this situation was encouraging.

 

After watching the trucks dig holes for a few minutes, I asked him to choose whether he wanted to play with toys at the table or continue watching the trucks; much to my surprise, he walked to the table and brought a toy back to the window. We proceeded to play with a shape sorter and a puzzle while watching the trucks. We continued to talk about what the trucks were doing, what they were going to do next, and other educational points, such as colors and shapes.

The next time you pass by road construction with your child in the back seat, turn it into a learning experience. Ask them open-ended questions, such as "How many trucks to you see, what are they doing?"

You can also turn routine situations into learning experiences, such as a grocery store visit, doctor appointment, or walking the dog. Try it out!

Katie Zink, ITFS/P

SIGNS YOUR CHILD MIGHT BE READY FOR POTTY TRAINING

According to eHow mom, here are some signs that your child might be ready for potty training:

• The ability to follow basic instructions

• Being able to verbalize words and phrases associated with going to the bathroom

• Keeping a dry diaper for two hours at a time

• Showing an interest in using the toilet

My personal experience as a mom tells me the last bullet point is crucial to effective potty training. If a child is not motivated, it’s simply not going to happen, and his is just not a war you want to get in to. It’s also important to understand that potty training has very little to do with cognitive development. If I recall, Albert Einstein was quite a lot older than “average” before he had any interest in taking on the challenge.

Katherine Generaux, Community Inclusion

Awesome Toys!

I have wanted to share with you guys a few of my favorite toys that I use with my children for developmental play therapy. So here it goes!!

Fisher-Price's Laugh & Learn Learning Piggy Bank
This toy is a must-have for toddlers and young children. This toy encourages counting, color identification, and speech sounds, including animal sounds. The pig even plays music. I absolutely love this toy!

 

Rain Stick and musical instruments
While all music is great, I have discovered that ALL children, no matter their age, love rain sticks. The sound is very calming and children enjoy watching the colors of the beads fall down the stick.

Aquadoodle
There is nothing simpler than water play. Add in a couple of tools, such as water pen, paintbrushes, q-tips, and a circular tube (ex. bamboo) and you are ready for fun! This toy encourages children to use their speech, develops prewriting skills, and encourages imaginative play. Store-bought toys, such as a Thomas train that follows a water path, are also great to add to the Aquadoodle play.

Melissa & Doug Pound and Roll Tower
This wooden toy is great for developing fine motor skills. We can talk about the colors of the balls and count them. Older children can also match the colored balls to their coordinating side. While some children enjoy just pushing the balls through with their hand, many of them want to hammer them through (this is the louder option!) Either way, children love this toy!

Melissa & Doug Find and Seek Puzzles & Sound Puzzles
I have tons of these puzzles, especially the sound ones. I love the find and seek puzzles, children open the doors to find different objects, in this picture, there are animals in the barn. Animals, vehicles, and shapes can be taught using these puzzles.

Garanimals Ramp Racer
This may be my most favorite toy. This toy has been known to invite the shiest children to play. They love watching the cars race down the track, especially when we add multiple cars to the ramp at one time. I encourage the children to tell the cars, "go," "go car," or "go red car," etc.

When I visit the families, many of the parents and grandparents ask about where I get my toys and how they can find them. While I get 95% of my toys from consignment shops and yard sales, through a little bit of internet research, they typically can find out where to buy their desired toy.

 

I am ALWAYS looking for awesome toys to share with my kids so if you have some favorites, please share!!


Katie Zink
Infant-Toddler Family Specialist/P

TOO OLD TO BE A PRINCESS?

I thought I would treat my two young granddaughters with tickets to attend Catawba College’s Delphi Annual Princess Party. Activities including nail painting, cookie decorating and craft making. The two-year-old was up for it. She strutted into the event wearing her Rapunzel outfit and was ready to partake, and she became totally ensconced in the whole princess fantasy. In the car on the way to the party, however, the seven-year-old informs me that princess stuff is for babies. Really? I don’t think I even started thinking about wanting to be a princess until I watched the movie Snow White when I was six or seven. Now seven it too old for princess-play?

These kids are growing up too fast these days, and I don’t like it.



Note: Turns out the seven-year-old had a really good time, but please don’t tell anyone. I wouldn’t want her friends to think she wasn’t cool!

Katherine Generaux
Community Inclusion

SOME MOTHERS GET BABIES WITH SOMETHING MORE... ♥

 One of my friends posted this on facebook and I just had to share it.    This is for all mothers of children with special needs.  Blessings, Norma Honeycutt, Executive Director 

SOME MOTHERS GET BABIES WITH SOMETHING MORE... ♥

 

My friend is expecting her first child. People keep asking what she wants. She smiles demurely, shakes her head and gives the answer mothers have given throughout the ages of time. She says it doesn't matter whether it's a boy or a girl. She just wants it to have ten fingers and ten toes. Of course, that's what she says. That's what mothers have always said.

Mothers lie.

Truth be told, every mother wants a whole lot more. Every mother wants a perfectly healthy baby with a round head, rosebud lips, button nose, beautiful eyes and satin skin. Every mother wants a baby so gorgeous that people will pity the Gerber baby for being flat-out ugly. Every mother wants a baby that will roll over, sit up and take those first steps right on schedule. Every mother wants a baby that can see, hear, run, jump and fire neurons by the billions. She wants a kid that can smack the ball out of the park and do toe points that are the envy of the entire ballet class. Call it greed if you want, but we mothers want what we want.

Some mothers get babies with something more. Some mothers get babies with conditions they can't pronounce, a spine that didn't fuse, a missing chromosome or a palette that didn't close. Most of those mothers can remember the time, the place, the shoes they were wearing and the color of the walls in the small, suffocating room where the doctor uttered the words that took their breath away. It felt like recess in the fourth grade when you didn't see the kick ball coming and it knocked the wind clean out of you. Some mothers leave the hospital with a healthy bundle, then, months, even years later, take him in for a routine visit, or schedule her for a well check, and crash head first into a brick wall as they bear the brunt of devastating news. It can't be possible! That doesn't run in our family. Can this really be happening in our lifetime?

I am a woman who watches the Olympics for the sheer thrill of seeing finely sculpted bodies. It's not a lust thing; it's a wondrous thing. The athletes appear as specimens without flaw - rippling muscles with nary an ounce of flab or fat, virtual powerhouses of strength with lungs and limbs working in perfect harmony. Then the athlete walks over to a tote bag, rustles through the contents and pulls out an inhaler. As I've told my own kids, be it on the way to physical therapy after a third knee surgery, or on a trip home from an echo cardiogram, there's no such thing as a perfect body. Everybody will bear something at some time or another.

Maybe the affliction will be apparent to curious eyes, or maybe it will be unseen, quietly treated with trips to the doctor, medication or surgery. The health problems our children have experienced have been minimal and manageable, so I watch with keen interest and great admiration the mothers of children with serious disabilities, and wonder how they do it. Frankly, sometimes you mothers scare me. How you lift that child in and out of a wheelchair 20 times a day. How you monitor tests, track medications, regulate diet and serve as the gatekeeper to a hundred specialists yammering in your ear. I wonder how you endure the praise and the platitudes, well-intentioned souls explaining how God is at work when you've occasionally questioned if God is on strike. I even wonder how you endure schmaltzy pieces like this one saluting you, painting you as hero and saint, when you know you¹re ordinary. You snap, you bark, you bite. You didn't volunteer for this. You didn't jump up and down in the motherhood line yelling, Choose me, God! Choose me! I've got what it takes."

You're a woman who doesn't have time to step back and put things in perspective, so, please, let me do it for you. From where I sit, you're way ahead of the pack. You've developed the strength of a draft horse while holding onto the delicacy of a daffodil. You have a heart that melts like chocolate in a glove box in July, carefully counter-balanced against the stubbornness of an Ozark mule. You can be warm and tender one minute, and when circumstances require intense and aggressive the next. You are the mother, advocate and protector of a child with a disability. You're a neighbor, a friend, a stranger I pass at the mall. You're the woman I sit next to at church, my cousin and my sister-in-law. You're a woman who wanted ten fingers and ten toes, and got something more.

You're a wonder.

~By Lori Borgman

Valentine's Day Crafts!

I always take the opportunity during holidays to make cute arts and crafts projects with the kids.

This week we made Valentine's crafts, including paper hearts and stickers.

The heart stickers were a favorite, especially when we used glue!

We worked on colors, "Would you like a red heart or a purple heart?"

Children practiced peeling the paper off the back of stickers.

We worked on fine motor skills while squeezing the big glue bottle.

And at the end, children got to show Mommy and Daddy their beautiful Valentine's art and each kid was so very proud of their own work, "Mommy, look at my heart!"

Katie Zink, ITFS/P

PREPARING CHILDREN FOR A MORE GLOBAL FUTURE



NC-Prek students at Partners In Learning are discovering that the world is not only big but also very interesting, and their teachers are nurturing their curiosity about diversity through meaningful explorations of different cultures.  This week several of our classrooms are celebrating Chinese New Year with activities that have captured the children’s interest and imagination.   Photos of the Great Wall of China are posted in block centers to inspire children to construct their own great walls.  In Ms. Lori’s class, children have learned to count to ten in Mandarin, while in Ms. Megan’s class, children are discovering the geography of our planet.  “Look!  China is on the other side of the world “, one child announced as he held up an inflated world globe.

Our curriculum is designed to spark an interest in and appreciation of cultural diversity.   It is our goal to build a strong foundation for our 21^st century learners to take to their next educational experience in preparing students for a more global future.

Katherine Generaux

Community Inclusion

WORDS OF WISDOM TO ALL PARENTS

This is me, Katherine, with my friend Maxx -  a VERY easy child to love!

ADRIENNA BASHISTA IS COMING TO THE CONCORD PUBLIC LIBRARY



From her website: "I feel very strongly that the only way parents of children with special needs, but especially those special needs that are ‘invisible’ can be as effective as possible is if they have a strong network of support, have time and space for reflection, allow themselves to grieve the loss of their "perfect" child, and if they practice good self-care, including eating good food, getting adequate sleep, taking care of their bodies through exercise and preventative health care, and giving themselves opportunities for joy in their everyday lives."
This quote comes from the author, Adrienne Bashista.  She will be at the Concord Public Library on Saturday, February 16th at 2:00 to speak about topics from her new book, Easy to Love, but Hard to Raise:  Real Parents, Challenging Kids, True Stories. 

Katherine Generaux, Community Inclusion

Meet Dollie

Several children greet Dollie when the come to school in the morning and when they leave to go home, just like Adalyn.

 

 



Dollie Partners, 3, brightens everyone's day at Partners In Learning. She is our center dog. There are several benefits to having a pet. A pet can be a bridge between a less socially outgoing child and other potential playmates.

Because of the special bond that often develops between pet and child, pets can sometimes fill the role of comforter. Since the relationship is non-judgmental from the pet's perspective, a hurting child might be more willing to initially trust a pet than a person.

Pets can facilitate various aspects of emotional development such as self-esteem and a sense of responsibility. As kids age and take on more of the care for the pet, it helps to build self-confidence. It is a misunderstood fact that pets teach children responsibility. Parents teach responsibility. Pets just make a good vehicle for learning!

 

 

Michelle Macon, Family Support Advocate