Alphabet Soup by Lyn Armstrong OTR/L

I am thrilled to have discovered occupational therapist Lyn Armstrong's website and book. http://www.lynaot.com/

I was also honored to learn that she knew who I was and had been sharing my books with parents at her training workshops!!!
http://www.lynaot.com/workshops/
These workshops- geared towards groups, impart information to enhance the classroom environment and home instruction, and to improve the child's educational progress.  Click on the link above for the list of workshop topics or email her for more information at lyn@lynaot.com


Alphabet Soup by Lyn Armstrong is a compilation of fun activities to develop an interest in letters. It is written for parents who want to help their young children build foundational concepts  such as:

• 1. letters stand for an object's name
• 2. letters are a means of communication
• 3. letters are part of everyday life
• 4. letter learning can be fun

Children learn these concepts best by putting away workbooks and pencils and engaging in fun, creative play activities. I love how the author begins by describing how to motivate children by beginning with familiar tasks and teaching to develop trust, learning and finally proficiency.  Each activity includes:

• materials needed
• how to construct and use/play
• what developmental skills are worked on (i.e. gross motor, fine motor, perceptual, language, tactile etc.)  

Activities are designed to appeal to a young child's interest in play experiences such as ball games,  driving toy cars or pretend play with dragons. The video below demonstrates an example of how Air Hockey using the nasal syringe develops hand strength, visual tracking, social skills and handwriting as the boy keeps score.


Alphabet Soup also focuses on using visualization and stories to learn and remember letter formations. For example, a story about going fishing with lowercase c, a, d, and g  involves a fairy godmother waving her magic wand to turn Mr. c into an a. Now that letter a has one little foot to hop around on!

The book's illustrations are fun and describe the games well. Beginning on page 57 readers will enjoy bonus lists of activities that develop

• strength
• organization and sequencing skills
• bilateral hand use
• finger dexterity
• pre-writing skills such as making letters out of dough 

and how to adapt commercially available games to work on different skills

• removing the Cootie (by Hasbro) bugs from play dough
• sorting ants from Ants in the Pants (Hasbro) according to color
• placing matching letters on Don't Break the Ice (Hasbro) ice cubes to hit.

Armstrong also sells sturdy alphabet playing cards that can be used to play traditional games such as Go Fish. Since the children will be using easy to identify letters, games reinforce letter identification and discrimination. 
http://www.lynaot.com/products-page/
I recommend Alphabet Soup for 75 pages of activities and teaching strategies that develop many foundational skills required for reading and writing. Young children deserve fun and games and this book provides exactly that!

Check out a long list of helpful blog posts at: http://www.lynaot.com/blog/

Phonics Phone from bottle Handles

I came across this blog about phonics phones. I had never heard of this before but Face book Friends say they are fun and can help improve reading fluency since they amplify sound and can help children focus and pay attention to sounds while they speak or read. This nice teacher explains in her blog why and how to make them out of PCV pipes....
http://blog.maketaketeach.com/how-to-make-a-phonics-phone/


So I had to try this out by cutting up a couple of handles from detergent bottles. I pushed one inside the other and taped in place with the snazzy duct tape. You can easily adjust for size. I will add tape to the 2 ends to make extra smooth but wanted to show you how it looked first.  I have to say that it does nicely amplify sound. But I have no idea if it provides the same result as the ones made from pcv pipe or purchased. I can easily make them out of different color bottles and let children choose colors and have their very own for hygiene purposes. I think that the one I just made is actually from handles cut from very large OJ bottles. I collect the handles thinking that I will have a use and here we go.... 

Opening Button Squares

I brought some button squares to try out with my older clients 2 girls are 4 years old and the first child in the video is a 3 year old boy.  Button squares are easier to manipulate than the buttons on clothing. The child can bring them right up to the face and grasp close to the button and button hole without the clothing getting in the way. I cut the "buttons" out of detergent bottles so that they can be extra large.

You will see in the video the towel that  I sometimes use during hippotherapy. I sewed  blue and red pockets to them so that the children can color match when opening up the button squares.  I also like teaching them to sequence taking each piece from the respective pockets to fasten. I was amazed to find that one little girl visually attended and motor planned to unbutton. Only a few months ago she was pulling and not paying attention to positioning the materials. So I think that someone at home and school must be working on this, also...... 

Untying cord to Remove Rings

 My focus today was to teach my older clients to untie loose knots to remove small rings. First I made some rings the size I wanted by cutting up as shampoo bottle.

 My 4 year old had very good attention and effort today. She listened and persisted when I told her to move around  the blue and red cords (actually strips of fleece that feel great) rather than just tugging to untie the knots . I'm sure that there are many different ways to practice this skill, but this was one that didn't lend itself to hand-over-hand teaching. I just made sure that the knots were loose enough so that they could succeed pretty quickly before being discouraged.

The children loved the reward of stacking the rings on top of the cat toy mouse. It makes a nice mouse sound and the kids need to stabilize the spring while placing the ring.

 Placing the rings was at just the right level for the 2 year old in the video- teaching her to use her hands together .

Butterfly lacing Board with Motor

I pushed the Thomas the Train toothbrush up the handle opening of a detergent bottle that is cut into a butterfly shape and used as a lacing board. The train theme and motor sound seemed to motivate the little ones, especially the boys.....

I Hate to Write!

As an occupational therapist with many years of experience working with children on the autism spectrum-including my own son, the title “I hate to Write” not only caught my eye.  I needed to find out what strategies the authors offered that would specifically address the unique needs of these students. The book’s subtitle- “Tips for Helping Students with Autism Spectrum and Related Disorders Increase Achievement, Meet Academic Standards and Become Happy, Successful Writers” describes exactly what readers will learn!

Occupational therapist Cheryl Boucher, MSEd, OTR/L and speech and language pathologist Kathy Oehler MS, CCC-SLP provide the perfect balance of information on evidence-based practices and their own strategies based on decades of experience working with students. The combined perspectives of an OT and SLP create a holistic framework for teachers to understand the challenges faced by students with an Autism Spectrum disorder (ASD)-including impaired

·        Language processing

·        Organization

·        Sensory regulation

·        Motor control

The authors explain that by the end of second grade children are expected to primarily express their knowledge through their writing rather than verbally as they did in earlier grades and to have mastered the mechanics of letter formation and spatial organization on the page. The National Common Core State Standard describes expectations for older students to perform tasks such as writing

·         Narratives

·         explanatory texts

·         longer research projects and

·         using a writing style appropriate to the task, purpose, and audience

Obviously, many students who “hate to write” struggle to achieve the early foundational and more advanced writing skills required to meet the national core standards.  Therefore, the authors begin each chapter with a 1) writing requirement, followed by 2) the teacher’s concerns such as “when I ask him to write, he just sits there” or “he writes in fragments. His writing does not make sense”.

Teacher concerns are followed by 3) the “why” – explanations of brain function that impacts sensory processing, comprehension and abilities to complete tasks. Finally, and most importantly the authors provide 4) numerous strategies arranged according to functional deficits such as

·        poor sensory regulation (i.e. provide dynamic seating or movement activity)

·        decreased motor skills (i.e. scaffold with physical supports that are gradually faced, use technology)

·        organization (i.e. use of graphic organizers such as pictures)

As one would expect, this book is well organized with a variety of adaptations and teaching options for each learning goal- so that teachers can pick the ones most suitable for the individual student. My personal favorites are the ‘Laser Power Letters’ activity and using the backward chaining technique to teach spelling.

Finally the appendices provide, yet more valuable information and resources on

·        brain function

·        glossary

·        tips for the left-handed writers

·        letter formation strategies

·        keyboarding and

·        assistive technology

Although I Hate to Write is written primarily for teachers, I think that therapists, psychologists and other professionals on the educational team will benefit from the concrete, evidenced-based information. Parents, will also appreciate learning about the types of educational strategies that are available.  I recommend this book to help those who hate to write (for whatever reason!) to academically achieve to the best of their abilities.

 

Order from: AAPC publishing

Amazon or directly from authors: IHatetowrite.com 

Pulling Snake out of Baby wipe Container

I sewed some small socks together and didn't realize until I got to work that they look like snakes. I just need to add a face for next time. Each sock has 1/2 a plastic bag inside to make it a bit thicker.

I attached some of the rubber bands that are attached to produce- the ones with little labels and the bar code on them. First I thought I would attach stickers so that the kids could tell me what they were, but realizing I didn't have any stickers, I added the round dots used for yard sale labeling and had the kids count the number of dots. Only one almost 3 year old was able to do that and my 4 1/2 year old was not interested in counting. I will buy some stickers for them and have them count how many stickers we find.

In the video you can see a client pushing the snake back into the opening. She demonstrates very good motor planning skills to push the sock near the container's opening. Another client found it tricky to get the snake back inside because she was pushing the snake distally instead of near the opening. This is a great way to strengthen fingers and teach these concepts.