Jar Jack-O-Lanterns

I recently saw an activity in Family Fun magazine that I thought would be a lot of fun for my kids. Basically, you take clean, empty jars and paint them orange. Before painting, however, you put masking tape in the shape of a Jack-O-Lantern's face on the jar. When dry, you take off the tape, revealing the face. Then, light a candle inside or use a flameless candle and VOILA!  Jar Jack-O-Lanterns. This activity is fun, inexpensive, and easy. I decided to do it on a day that I watch a fourth child as a pre-Halloween activity.

The kids really enjoyed covering the jars in orange paint. I made the faces ahead of time with the tape and just had them pick out which jar that they wanted. This was just to save time. If I do it again, I would let them do the faces and would make the openings bigger. I also would use acrylic instead of tempera. That was actually my original plan because acrylic tends to cover better, but I didn't have any orange acrylic paint and had a whole bottle of the tempera. 

It DID however, look like a pumpkin massacre all over the art table when they finished. Maybe I should just display the art table on Halloween....

Once they finished drying, I was eager to see the final results. Here they are! They will definitely be out front on Halloween... imperfections and all.

The jars after drying before candles.

The jars all lit up... the faces are a little hard to see.

The winner of the easiest to see face is Kate's.

Watercolor Art

The kids are still working on making and collecting their very own Artist Trading Cards. I feel that it is still best to let the kids experiment with the given supplies without too much direction. I decided to go ahead and give watercolors a try this week. The only directions were to color in the card as much as they could with the watercolors. I really like the way that Kate experimented to blend the colors together and how Benjamin used black in the center of the cards after using the lighter colors.

Benjamin and Kate liked the watercolors so much that they wanted to paint on bigger sheets of paper. Kate loves to cover the entire sheet of paper in colors right now and does so with anything she uses. Benjamin wanted to try and make some cool designs. I also had them name their paintings for the first time ever. I think I am going to continue having them do that in the future. Kate named her large painting (bottom) "Christmas Decorations." Benjamin named his (top), "Roller Coaster." The trading cards will go into their collections.

Retell Shmetell

One thing that both of my boys are HORRIBLE at is retell. I am not sure if it is because of their speech delays or attention... who knows?!??!? They have a hard time with reading retell, but they also have a really difficult time with daily retell in general. I really have to prompt them to get them to tell me all about their day and they often go off into tangents or sometimes completely lose focus and start telling me about their favorite toys. In fact, Andrew's reading retell is the poorest part of his academic performance at school right now. So, now I need to come up with ways to help them learn how to retell. I am also doing this with Kate for preschool, but she already seems to be a natural at retelling everything and finds this very easy.

Fairy Tale Retell
Don't you just love when you come up with a name to an activity and it just fits well and maybe even rhymes a little.

1. First, I read a fairy tale from a fairy tale book that I have. The hope is that these stories are already familiar enough that the kids kind of know what is going to happen.
2. I sit the kids down on the rug and have them look at the pictures that go along with the fairy tale. That way, they are able to remember what happened during the story.
3. I then have them tell me step by step what happened in the story. I prompt them at the moment by writing numbers on the white board and asking them, "What happened first?" "What happened next?" The goal is to have this be the only prompting and to occasionally remove all prompts.
4. I then have them re-read what I wrote on the whiteboard for them. This is so they can get practice retelling without me having to ask questions. I am hoping the process will be more ingrained in their brains by doing it this way.

The white board as Ben retold me the story of Godilocks.

Eventually, THEY will read the stories. I just want them to start out by having me read them to them to practice the narrating and retelling. Once that skill seems to be under control, we will move to them reading it and then retelling it. We are still practicing this skill with all books that we read, trying with and without prompts. This is just a time a couple of times a week that is set aside specifically to work on it.

Modified Readers' Theater
Benjamin is a very kinesthetic learner. So, I decided that a good way for Ben to really understand what he is reading is by having him act it out. I have been having him do this with stories that have a clear storyline. In general, this activity doesn't work well with phonics readers.

1. I take a story that has recently been read by either Ben or by me to the kids. I take the most popular characters and assign those parts to one of the kids to act out the part.
2. I then re-read the story (editing out unimportant details) aloud while the kids act out what I am reading. 

We do this activity both with puppets and with the kids as the actors. They LOVE to pretend to be the villains or the heroes and do a great job creating voices and movements to be the characters.

What can't be taught...

This is a video of Ben telling me the exact notes that I am playing on the piano without looking. This is NOT something that he has been taught. This IS something that he has been doing since he was 4 years old. I have video of it somewhere from when he was little, but I am not quite sure where that footage is at the moment... probably on my old dinosaur of a computer that is being stored in our computer graveyard in the basement. I just thought that I would post the amazing skill that he has. He continually missed one note in this video (F# when in the higher key), but I really wonder if it is more because my piano needs to be tuned... who knows!? I can't even come close to doing what he can, so I have no idea if that is what an F# is supposed to sound like. All that I did was show him what the names of the keys were when he was about 3 years old. This is a skill that I believe cannot be taught... or at least one that I didn't teach him.

Number Line

We are still working on using the number line for addition and subtraction.  One of the activities we do every day is using a laminated number line and have him complete math problems. He uses a game piece as his marker to help him keep his place. I have found that the larger number line is easier for him to use than the small one in the book. By laminating it, I can write the math problem that we are working on in dry erase marker and then erase it once we figure out the answer.

Ben doing an entire page of math using the number line.

What special need does he have?

Today, a little girl asked me that question. She wanted to know what special need Benjamin had.  We get questions all of the time from kids, but what I think is most important to realize is that they aren't being malicious, they truly are curious about what they see.

I explained to the little girl that Benjamin has something called Cerebral Palsy. It means that he doesn't move as easily as she does, talks a little slower, and sometimes has a difficult time making friends. I told her that he loves to play with other kids, but sometimes doesn't know how and that it really helps him when other children show him. She's very sweet and caring and immediately said, "I'll be his friend!" (she had already played with him on a playground for a half an hour and had been holding his hand as they walk, so I had a feeling that would be her response).  I then told her about all of the things that Ben likes to do. I told her that he loves to read, play on a playground, be silly, and that he plays baseball. I have found that is important for other kids to realize that even though they may act a little different, my boys are a lot more like them than they aren't.

Kids commonly ask questions about Andrew's wheelchair. I have found that teaching Andrew to answer these questions has been very effective. I have actually heard Andrew say, "It's how I get around. You walk and I need a wheelchair." In fact, very recently I heard him having a discussion with another 7-year old who said that he wanted to ask Santa for a wheelchair for Christmas. Andrew looks at him matter of factly and says, "Why do you want a wheelchair? You can walk already!" There was another time at the park that Andrew was talking with a little boy who then offered to switch him.... Andrew's wheelchair for his scooter. Andrew said yes....I had to intervene...

I have found that if Andrew opens the conversation with other kids, then they are more likely to accept him. We have actually had more issues with parents than we have with kids. Parents don't really know how to respond to the kid in the wheelchair. They don't want their kids to say anything that could be offensive and often tell their kids, "Don't look at him," or "Don't talk to him."I get not wanting your kid to be offensive, but it is more offensive when Andrew hears the adult telling the kid to ignore him. So, when Andrew was old enough to understand (around age 4), I began to teach him to say hi to kids that we pass, especially kids who were looking at him. This opened the lines of communication and usually, the parents would see that it was ok for their kid to talk to Andrew and that Andrew wasn't offended by the normal, "Why do you have a wheelchair?" Also, the wheelchair has light up wheels on the front. I have found that this alone is a great conversation starter for kids. They see them and then say, "WOW! His wheels light up! That's so cool!"

This is all working for now. We luckily live in a community that is very accepting of my boys and their disabilities. The teachers and parents at our school have as a whole been awesome with talking to the kids about differences in people and including the boys in anything that they can. We haven't had to deal much with bullying or negativity (a couple of isolated incidents). I know as they get older, the boys will probably have to learn new strategies to cope. For now, we are all fine answering the questions as they come.

Baseball Time!

Ben and Andrew

My boys both play buddy baseball. It is a special needs team where the kids are teamed up with typical children (usually middle or high school aged kids) and play a game. There is absolutely no score keeping. In fact, most kids hit a "home run" every time they hit the ball and run all around all of the bases. The plays that the kids make in the field are getting the ball and then throwing it either to first base or home. Nobody is ever out. This makes it a great experience for the special needs kids who would otherwise not be able to participate on a baseball team.

Ben's first attempt at hitting without a tee.

I am very proud to say that at baseball this week, both of my boys attempted to hit the ball without a tee! The coach pitched to them. Benjamin tried his hardest to hit the ball and did with some help from a buddy! Andrew, amazingly, hit the ball on the first try without any help! It was the very first time that he had ever even attempted to hit the ball without a tee. Everyone was so excited!

This year is the first year that my boys have had any interest in fielding at all. Ben did so great this week chasing after all of the balls in the field. I have never seen him run around the field so much during a game. 

Andrew in the field.

This is their 5th season playing baseball, including Fall and Spring seasons. It is amazing to see how much they have progressed in this time and how their confidence has increased.