A bit about myself, my family and an outside activity.

I felt it time to introduce myself and my family. My name is Kele and I am a full-time mom as well as a grad school student working for a MA in Family and Disability Studies. My husband and I have two sons, one that is on the autism spectrum, P- age 5 and one that is not, Z-age 3. Our home is run in a controlled chaos sort of way. We adapt to meet our sons where they are either developmentally or emotionally. I am always in search of projects/activities that I can do with both children and find that many things can be tweaked to suit a child's needs. 

I myself have been focused on getting back outside and trying to create fun directed activities to keep my kiddos somewhat out of the muck along the sidewalks. (I can only handle so much dirty) I typically start an idea plan by looking at what my goal is, I think of what my children are currently interested in (right now exploring and being superheroes)  and what skill we may need to work on or develop (listening and patience)…so things begin to take shape from here. 

Goal: Kids outside engaged in activity that keeps us clean.

Activity: A “Search for Spring” walk that will include a sound hunt as well as a visual collection of spring signs.

Sound hunting is something that I am a bit focused on right now. Often P has a hard time separating sounds out of the din. His hearing is superb and often is the cause for over stimulation or a fear trigger. So I will give him things to listen for and then let me know when he hears it. For the walk I plan on drawing out pictures of the sounds for him to check off as he hears them. My theory is that the activity will allow him to create a filter to listen through, and the physical act of marking off what he hears will be a great motivator to him…he loves a list. For his younger brother I will be doing a similar hunt but for visual signs of spring and then he can use his camera to take a picture of what he finds. Z loves snapping pictures so a directed list of things he should take pictures will suit him perfectly.

I remember a time when we could not take P out for walks without fear of him bolting or melting down due to the sensory overload. We have built up slowly to being able to get outside and have P stay present and aware with us. This is the reason I designed our search for spring walk, as yet another way to get outside in a controlled manner.

Thanks!

Shooting Stars dive into the ocean and the Dragonfly room is besieged with pirate fun!

The Shooting Stars have been exploring the ocean the past couple weeks and the Dragonflies have been rowdy bunch of pirates.  To keep the ocean fun going this weekend, my boys and I made windows into the ocean. This activity was fun as I was able to hear from my kiddos all about the new sea animals they are learning about as well as what they would do if they were pirates (get all the chocolate chip bars in case anyone was wondering).  The activity consists of making essentially a ship porthole but I told my kiddos that they were windows to the ocean.

Materials:

Paper plates

Construction paper

Tape and gluesticks

Plastic wrap

Markers/Paints

Any additional bling you may want, we used some black sequins and white paper confetti

Directions:

To make the porthole I prepared some of the pieces without my children. Taking scissors cut out the inner circle of the paper plate and lay the paper plate upside down on the background paper and trace the outside and inside, remove paper plate circle and set aside. Now cut out around the larger of the circle tracings. This will be the background piece to the port hole as well as let your child see the area they have to fill in. Let your child create a world of ocean fun. We cut out little fish from construction pare and used markers to add color.  While your kiddo is filling in their idea of an ocean, this is the time to create the “glass” port hole cover. Tape a piece of plastic wrap to the paper plate that has been cut into a circle. You will be attaching the plate upside down onto your child’s picture so tape the plastic to the inside on the plate.  Once your child is done their scene, have them run along the outer edge of their paper with a glue stick. Place the paper plate over the top of the image and secure with tape at 4-5 points around the plate. My boys did not want to decorate the plate itself but encourage your child to let their imaginations soar…or should I say swim? We taped ours to a sunny window and pretended to be peering out into the oceans that they had created.

This activity opens up a lot of space for talking and sharing with your child. I was pleasantly surprised at the knowledge that my children have about the ocean and the animals that live within it. I am not sure that would have surfaced had I not continued the ocean themed experience here at home. I encourage parents to try and connect school curriculum with home projects/activities. It shows our children that we care about what they learn and that we support and encourage learning...not just at school but everywhere! If I had not been taking photos throughout the process I would have ended up making a port hole for myself!

A slight turn in direction...

As parents, we are all busy and our time is stretched thin. Our monthly playgroups seemed too hard for a lot of us to get to during the time frame we had available. My reaction to this issues was to go digital. I will be working with the teachers of the Dragonfly room and the Shooting Stars room and designing activities for you all to do at home with your kiddos. I will put up a blog post and either a video clip or a still shot montage of an activity for families to look at when they have time, in the comfort of home.  the goal is to have a new post every two weeks, I would love to see what you are all doing at home with your little ones to bring the new ideas they learn at school into the family home. Please comment and share, I know I can always use new ideas!