tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53619653448630761152024-03-20T05:07:27.111-07:00Learning with LMLM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-50581497707508016252011-04-13T12:21:00.000-07:002011-04-13T12:21:13.126-07:00Kindness<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">A wise woman who was travelling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveller who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveller saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveller left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">"I've been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone."<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">“The Wise Woman’s Stone” </span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Unknown Author</span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Yesterday somebody did something very generous and very kind for me and LM, which greatly touched me. This person, whom I have only met online, went out of their way to help me without having been asked and without expecting anything in return. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">It is acts like this, pure, selfless acts of kindness, that make me reflect on how lucky I have been so far and how life has always brought me together with people like this person. I wish with all my heart that only beautiful things happen in their lives and that their kindness and generosity return to them tenfold.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">If you are reading this post, I., you will know it is about you...</span></div></span>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-53637187966484901002011-04-08T12:15:00.000-07:002011-04-08T12:15:45.813-07:00Update on LM's English Reading<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">First of all, my hello to Marta. Thanks for reading my blog!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Secondly, let me share my exciting news: I think LM is finally getting the hang of reading phonics! Hooray!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I have to say, I was a bit worried about this aspect earlier. She started her reading journey about a year ago or so with <a href="http://www.yourbabycanread.com/">Your Baby Can Read</a>, which was kindly donated to us and which was an absolute and immediate hit with her. As the title suggests, this DVD series is generally intended for younger users, so I did not follow the suggested schedule with then 3.5-year-old LM, but simply let her pick any volume she wanted to see.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I was pretty laid back about this venture and did not test her for the first month or two, as, to be quite honest, I did not expect to get quick results. I then made a few cards with some words from the show hoping that seeing them in this format might assist her learning. To my astonishment, she could read all of these words without any problem! I remember laughing at myself for having laminated those cards to prevent “wear and tear”. Silly me!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I also printed a few of Fry noun cards, which can be downloaded from <a href="http://www.uniqueteachingresources.com/Fry-1000-Instant-Words.html">this very helpful site</a>. She grasped those quite quickly too. She also enjoyed <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Hundred-Words-English-Usborne/dp/1409510301/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302287090&sr=1-1">Usborne First Hundrend Words in English</a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">It was at this stage that I started thinking about shifting my focus away from the whole-word approach and start introducing phonics. Learning letters and their sounds was easy and painless. I can’t even remember teaching these specifically as LM somehow “sponged” them in. I am attributing the success to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/LeapFrog-Factory-Roy-Allen-Smith/dp/B0000INU6S">LeapForg’s “Letter Factory”</a> as well as <a href="http://www.preschoolprepco.com/h/p/mtl/index.php">Preschool Prep Company’s “Meet the Letters”</a> DVDs. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Blending sounds together, however, proved to be a problem and we experienced a major stumble when I attempted to introduce the first CVC words from <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/FleschCards">Larry Sanger’s Fleschcards</a>. LM would sound out each letter perfectly well, but then would blend them into some completely different word. I persevered for a week at the end of which LM simply memorised the first set and could read the words, but still only as whole words. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Arguably, some kids “figure out” the phonics once they have seen a good number of whole words, but I was not quite convinced that it was the way for LM to go. Not exactly reaching my goal at that stage with Fleschcards, I decided to put them aside for the time being. In the meantime, I thought I could work to LM’s strengths and teach her some sight-words. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Well, how do you teach sight-words to a speech-delayed child who does not even use them correctly when talking? I saw little point in showing LM cards with words which had no meaning to her and which could not be easily illustrated. What helped was reading books with simple senteces where these words appeared alongside the words she could already read and which had meaning to her.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">She was initially very reluctant to look at the sentences in the printed books and would completely lose interest if I started running my finger under the lines. So I prepared a few PPT books for her with herself as a main star. She was very curious to see the picture following the text so she eagerly read every word on the preceding slide. She also demanded to read them again and again, so there was the necessary element of repetition allowing some of the sight-words to “sink”. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">We have now moved to <a href="http://www.ladybird.co.uk/ladybirdworldwide/readityourself.html">Ladybird “Read It Yourself” series</a>, and going through Level 1 books, which I do recommend. Each book of this level starts by introducing keywords, so when the child starts reading the story s/he can easily recognise these words. Many sentences are partially repeated, which helps to gradually build up reading confidence.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">A couple of weeks ago we also ran the trial version of <a href="http://www.brillkids.com/teach-reading/">BrillKids Little Reader</a>, and this looked a great programme which would probably work very well with LM. She loved the animated presentations and still keeps asking for more although our trial period is now over. Sadly, this software is not free and at this moment I cannot afford buying it, so I had to turn down the full-version upgrade offer.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">This, however, brought me back to Fleschcards. I found out that a member of BrillKids forum has put these cards into the PPT format and kindly made these <a href="http://forum.brillkids.com/profile/?u=38125">freely available</a>. Big thanks to annisis! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I started with the first three lists and I can see that LM is now successfully blending sounds! She sounds out every letter, then blends the last two sounds and then blends both of them with the beginning sound. I know these are still very early "phonics days" but I think she is now at an entirely different level. I also think I now have a better understanding of why LM had difficulties blending sounds initially, but I think I should write up my thoughts in a separate post.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">My plan for now is to continue with Fleschcards and to try out some other first reader books. LM has also started to enjoy <a href="http://starfall.com/">starfall.com</a> which is absolutely great. I don’t want to lose the momentum but I know with my daughter I need to tread very carefully to make sure reading becomes her favourite activity and not a chore. I you have any tips or recommendations, please feel free to share them in the comments. I will greatly appreciate your input! </span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-45164883452154929942011-03-15T13:04:00.000-07:002011-03-15T13:11:22.030-07:00Soft Mozart: Dénouement<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">As a way to conclude my excessively long saga about choosing a piano programme for LM, let me announce that we have received Soft Mozart software and have used it for a week now! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">LM has practiced two more pieces this week (“Hot Cross Buns” and “French Song”). After three weeks of playing nothing but “Ode to Joy”, which is a bit more advanced than the rest of the introductory pieces, these were given a cordial welcome and did not present much challenge. LM could play the songs with both hands the first time she saw them on the first presentation with quite a good score. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">LM is also doing well with the exercises suggested in the curriculum. I have to admit I was very sceptical initially about the benefits of Hanon stretching exercises and the like to a four-year-old, but I do see how these seem to be helping her with playing the pieces. Her coordination is improving and so is the strength of her fingers. Quite surprisingly, she also happens to love playing the exercises although she was a bit rebellious when I first suggested them. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I plan to keep our music routine to short daily sessions five days a week, at least for now, since these seem to be working for us. I would like to devote more time to solfeggio, ear training and, perhaps, start looking for ways to introduce some theory concepts too. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I am very likely to be updating this topic!</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-27105834783167276822011-02-28T15:06:00.000-08:002011-03-03T07:28:08.908-08:00Soft Mozart or Piano Wizard: My Decision<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Yesterday I finally made up my mind and placed an order for Soft Mozart (Home Version). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Although <a href="http://lmshomeschool.blogspot.com/2011/02/piano-wizard-or-soft-mozart.html">my initial intention was to test both programmes and pick the one best suited for LM</a>, I decided not to try out PW and simply went for SM. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The reasons for this decision are numerous. First of all, LM seems to have made a very good progress with a demo version of SM, which, no doubt, would not be possible with traditional lessons in LM’s case. She can now play a passable “rendition” (well, for a four-year-old!) of “Ode to Joy” on the third presentation (both hands and no assistance from me) and, now that she is getting comfortable navigating the game herself, she has been insisting on playing it on the sixth presentation, which shows the piece in an equivalent of conventional notation. This has been going quite well too and although at this stage she is probably relying on her memory, she does appear to refer to the screen and follows the notes with her gaze. Since this method seems to be working, I feel discouraged to try an alternative. Even if PW is a superior method, trying it now would probably cause confusion since LM has got a good hang of SM’s approach.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Secondly, there are many things I came to liking about SM, which I could not find in PW, at least not in the available videos, and which I would be very likely to miss in PW if I tried it. Please correct me if I am wrong and have misinterpreted the videos, as I have never actually tried PW. For instance, even at the most basic level SM prominently shows the lines of the great stave coloured in such way that it leaves no room for confusion as to which part should be played by which hand. In PW these lines are quite feeble and I can see how that might be somewhat confusing to LM. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">In SM each piece can be presented in six ways of gradually increasing difficulty. In PW the levels are four, and I feel that the transition from level 3 to level 4 could be too steep for LM. Although this might go easily with pieces she would have practiced and partially memorised, I think overall it would take her longer to come to the stage where she could sight-read unknown pieces at that presentation or even from sheets, which is the ultimate goal of both approaches. Also, <a href="http://lmshomeschool.blogspot.com/2011/02/piano-wizard-or-soft-mozart.html">as I have mentioned before</a>, having same colours representing different notes and different colours representing same notes, would not help the transition, neither would it make it easy for her to differentiate between notes lying on the lines and those in the spaces between the lines of the staves when learning to read sheet music.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">SM lets you stop and think before playing each note and would not move until you get it right, while in PW notes keep scrolling up and if you did not hit the correct one at the correct time, you have missed it. As much as I agree with Chris that a “note played out of time is not a correct note”, in my very modest layman opinion, if I wanted to learn to <u>read</u> music notation, I would want to be able to be more in control of the flow, at least initially, and to stop and see how each key relates to the staves, just as I would want to stop and think when reading a text-book. I do, however, realise that with SM, I would need to do some additional work to help LM understand rhythm and note duration.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">SM places a lot of emphasis on learning solfeggio and, as someone with a few years of attending an ex-Soviet music school (although all happily buried in the past!), I relate deeply to it. I did not notice any such emphasis in PW.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Last, but not least, SM has a cheaper basic version with an option of upgrading it to the deluxe version in the future which is so much “friendlier” to our family pocket.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I have come across a few negative points mentioned regarding SM but none of these were major stumbling blocks for me or LM. SM does not have a polished and sophisticated interface, but it does the trick for LM who is completely unsophisticated in terms of video games. In the long-term the novelty of a more flashy game would ultimately wear off and, at the end of the day, it is not a game I am looking for but a tool for helping LM to learn and SM delivers in this respect. LM does not see it as a toy anyway as I have so far used SM as part of very short (5 to 15 minutes) but focused and strongly reinforced sessions. I do, however, let her navigate the game herself and make choices regarding which hand to play and on what presentation, so she does feel in control of her learning. She is also very motivated about these sessions as she always gets a small prize at the end. I feel this way I can ensure the method works for her in the long-term too. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Finally, I would like to emphasize that this decision has been made purely on the grounds of what programme I think is likely to be a better fit <u>for LM</u>. This does not mean that what, in my opinion, would or would not work for her, would equally apply to another child. None of the above comments were intended as criticism of PW which I have never used. Neither am I affiliated in any way with SM and I paid the full price for the product. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I do believe that both programmes are quite break-throughs and it is great that I was in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a position of choosing between the two. </span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-52835305072341452192011-02-19T16:43:00.000-08:002011-03-15T13:06:57.996-07:00Soft Mozart Demo Trial: Our Progress So Far<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><a href="http://lmshomeschool.blogspot.com/2011/02/piano-wizard-or-soft-mozart.html">Having decided on “trying before buying”,</a> I downloaded <a href="http://www.doremifasoft.com/dopr.html">demo versions</a> of “Gentle Piano” and “Guess the Key” games. This went quite smoothly and I had no trouble with the MIDI connection either.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Since the software creator and owner, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/lenkaolenka#p/u/44/e1qwmu0EITo">gave her permission</a> to copy the image of the key stickers from her website to try out the demo, I did so, but rather than using these as guides behind the keys, I coloured them in and turned them into stickers to make it easier for LM to get the idea. This is what the keyboard looks like now (after quite a bit of effort!):</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghkwiclhMimVinPqY4gexYCTMOWL7PdO7xjX37sQSy6fz62jM8PzKacUn44tQYyxnlbgNdjY-F8YkPnb8KyOxifuWTdaREEN-Ctpb3j4Nll5_jX06iPuttC2Vr8tPvhOyiORn1veqVH_M/s1600/Keyboard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghkwiclhMimVinPqY4gexYCTMOWL7PdO7xjX37sQSy6fz62jM8PzKacUn44tQYyxnlbgNdjY-F8YkPnb8KyOxifuWTdaREEN-Ctpb3j4Nll5_jX06iPuttC2Vr8tPvhOyiORn1veqVH_M/s320/Keyboard.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I also downloaded a one-year <a href="http://www.doremifasoft.com/frprma.html">Soft Mozart curriculum</a>, <a href="http://www.doremifasoft.com/frprma.html">solfeggio flashcards</a>, as well as the first part of the <a href="http://www.doremifasoft.com/frauma.html">solfeggio song</a> freely available on their website. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">LM has been playing these two games for about a couple of weeks now. I have so far kept our “piano playing” sessions to 5-15 minutes every day, excluding week-ends. During the first week, we started off by listening to the solfeggio song and sequencing the flashcards with solfeggio pictograms. The visual sequence “sank in” easily, and after we sang the song a couple of times, I started hiding one of the flashcards and asking LM to tell me which one was missing. The curriculum suggests prompting the child to count to the missing card, which, I guess, would be appropriate for an auditory learner, but since LM is a visual learner, she did not need to repeat the sequence and would name the missing card almost immediately.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">We then played “Guess the Key” game. Being a demo version, it only has two levels covering notes do (C) to mi (E). LM quite liked “helping the elf collect fruit”, but she wanted to “feed the spider too” and would sometimes wait for him to come out and take the fruit. What I like about this game is that it automatically adjusts to your speed, so if you keep missing the notes, it slows down, lets you think without overwhelming you and repeats the same level. If you are progressing well, the game may even “decide” to skip a level. LM is doing well with it, although we still need to do a bit of work on flats and sharps. I have also started covering the screen, as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/lenkaolenka#p/a/u/0/KLyN0OuYpIc">this video</a> suggests, to let her guess the key by ear, as I think it is not only a good pitch-training exercise, but, in LM's case, is a great “listening” exercise, as part of her speech and language development programme.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Before proceeding to Gentle Piano, I first prompted LM to play a five-finger exercise suggested by the curriculum, which involved playing five notes from do (middle C) up and down with the right hand, and then repeating the same exercise but from the small octave with the left hand. Somehow, having done this exercise, LM decided that these keys could only be played by these specific fingers so when we got to “Ode to Joy” in “Gentle Piano” and I prompted her to play the right hand, she would only press the matching symbols on the stickers with this precise fingering. Although the fingering was not wrong, it meant that her focus was more on choosing the correct finger than on playing the tune. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The game gives you two different scores: the one on the left side is for the number of notes you have played correctly and the one on the right side shows how close you have been to the perfect timing. While the bigger the score on the left is, the better you have performed, when it comes to the score on the right, you should strive to bring it as close to 0 as possible. This area of the game, in my very modest opinion, could be improved for young learners. While the left-hand score for hitting the correct notes is represented by flowers, and the more flowers you have got the better you have done, there is no visual representation of the score on the right reflecting your timing. Being a perfectionist, LM would get a perfect or near perfect score in terms of correct notes hit, but her timing, at least initially, was quite far from the ideal and this was not represented in a visual way to have any meaning to her. I have found it difficult to explain to her that while it is great to get so many flowers, we also need to make the number on the right smaller. So this has been of little motivational value to her.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I have, however, been using my usual “token economy” and strong backup reinforcers to incentivise LM and to ensure this activity is perceived by her as highly rewarding. She earns a token every time she plays the piece or does an exercise, and after she completes the token board, she gets a small prize. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">We have so far progressed from playing separate hands on the first presentation, to playing both hands on the fourth presentation (with red and blue circles moving horizontally, no pictograms), and I have to say that her transitioning from one presentation to another has been pretty smooth and did not significantly affect her scores, which are now fairly good (that is the score on the right is not higher than the score on the left). I don’t think she is playing by heart yet as her eyes are always on the screen, so it will be interesting to see how she progresses over the two remaining levels. When she plays the piece with both hands though, she sometimes either forgets to change the cord or releases it too soon, so I still need to occasionally prompt her with her left hand to make her learning as “errorless” as possible. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd9CfJPle6c&feature=player_embedded">According to the creator</a>, “Ode to Joy” is more difficult for little hands in terms of coordination than the other pieces of the elementary level, such as “Hot Cross Buns”, “French Song” and “Jingle Bells”. So, ideally, we should have learned to play those before “Ode to Joy”. But LM seems to be steadily getting there and she is very close to being able to play both hands completely independently. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Overall, I have been quite pleased with LM’s progress so far, which, bearing in mind her motor delay and coordination difficulties, has been pretty good. As a by-product, I have noticed her pencil grip has considerably improved over the past couple of weeks. </span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-88040778440747863612011-02-15T11:28:00.000-08:002011-02-15T11:29:54.704-08:00Discharged from ENT!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Just wanted to share some good news: LM has been discharged from the ENT (Ear/Nose/Throat) clinic! Her hearing was checked for the third time yesterday and the test showed normal hearing in her left ear and slightly below the norm in her right one (which should not be too much of a concern), and no otitis media! Two years ago she was tested several times over the period of four months and all of the tests showed mild to moderate hearing loss due to persistent otitis media, which was not at all helpful with her speech and language delay. After a particularly nasty ear infection accompanied by an ear drum rapture, she had an operation and had grommets inserted in both ears to help her hearing. The grommets have now fallen out and we needed to undertake more tests to see if another set would be necessary.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The current test results mean we have escaped the second operation as she seems to have won over the wicked moster of “glue ear”. Although it is only one hurdle cleared, I do hope, with all my heart, she will get there!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-71703530711800622732011-02-11T15:19:00.000-08:002011-02-12T08:44:39.536-08:00Activities to Encourage Using Two-Word Phrases<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">First of all, my welcome to Christine and thank you for your interest! I feel flattered that you found my ramblings worth reading, and if you want to share your thoughts or ideas, please feel free to leave your comments! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Continuing from a <a href="http://lmshomeschool.blogspot.com/2011/01/activities-to-encourage-speech-and.html">previous post</a>, I will now list a few more activities LM was recommended in the past by her speech and language therapist. She was then at a two-word level in her language understanding, but still used mostly single-word utterances. These were intended to help her start using two-word phrases more often. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Basic Rules</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">It is important to speak in short phrases so that your child can copy you. The basic rule is still to repeat what the child says and add an extra word, e.g. “dog” – “dog eating”. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Repeat the same phrases over and over again in everyday situations, e.g. “hello daddy”, “bye John”, “cat gone”, etc. When carrying out routine tasks, such as laying the table or tidying up, use opportunities to say who the objects belong to, such as “daddy’s spoon”, “mummy’s book”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Books</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Look at pictures in books and talk about what is happening instead of reading the books, e.g. “baby sleeping”. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Shopping Game </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Set up a shop and place a few items or pictures of food or toys on the table. Ask your child to buy you two things, e.g. “apple and cheese”. Then take your turn to “go shopping” and encourage your child to tell you which two things to buy. You can use this activity to practice using some essential vocabulary, such as food, toys, clothes etc.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Colouring</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Get a picture of a boy and a girl, or a teddy and a dolly, or a man and a lady. You can use your own drawing or try it with any colouring books your child has. Encourage your child to tell you which parts of the pictures to colour, e.g. “the girl’s arm”, “dolly’s dress”, etc. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Teddy and Dolly</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Put a teddy and a dolly (or any alternative pair of toys, perhaps, your child’s favourites) and a selection of objects (e.g. cup, plate, spoon, fork, etc) in front of the child. Ask your child to give one of the objects to either dolly or teddy, e.g. “give the plate to dolly”, “give the spoon to teddy”, etc. Encourage your child to tell you what to do next, e.g. “fork dolly”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">You can use this activity to practice some useful action words, such as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sleep</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">jump</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">eat</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">kick</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wash</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">run</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sit</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">drink</i>, etc. Ask the child to make “dolly run” or “teddy jump”, etc. The child can then tell you what to play with next, e.g. “dolly sit”. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">After you finish playing, encourage your child to tell you where to put the toys, e.g. “teddy box”, “dolly bed”, etc.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">This activity can be extended in many ways and made more difficult as your child progresses. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Lotto</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">If your child knows basic shapes, colours and “big”/”little” adjectives, you can practice these by playing lotto. Create little boards with 4 alternating pictures, for instance, red circle/blue circle, yellow triangle/green triangle, big dog/little dog, green apple/blue apple, etc. Also cut out separate pictures with the same images. Give a board to your child and keep one for yourself, then take turns picking a picture from the pile and encourage your child to say what they have and what they need to complete their board.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Hope some other mums may find these activities useful for their children,</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">LM's Mum</span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-59326090310101296722011-02-04T02:56:00.000-08:002011-02-05T09:26:02.046-08:00Piano Wizard or Soft Mozart?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I still haven’t made up my mind as to which programme to go for and have been busy researching these two software products. The packages offered and the prices are quite different, so I have been trying to strip these of any bonuses or extras, however valuable they may be, to be able to compare the core of each method and choose the one most likely to work <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for LM, </i>taking into account her strengths and challenges. If I can get down to the foundation of each programme, I can then consider everything that comes on top of it before making the final decision. I haven’t used any of the approaches, and my research so far has been purely Internet-based.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Both systems offer a step by step approach to learning to play the piano keyboard from day one and ultimately transition learners to reading sheet music. Both of them are much more than simple “piano simulation” computer games and offer beginner-level piano curricula. Neither of them is a substitute of a good piano teacher, but they can get you as far as understanding the written language of music, learning to hit the right note at the right time, and can actually teach you to play quite a few pieces, which, I guess, is a very good start, particularly if you can’t afford a teacher. This approach would be a great tool for teaching very young kids, those with language comprehension difficulties, or simply those who learn better by seeing and doing rather than by listening and speaking, as it provides the necessary visual support and does not rely much on music theory and verbal explanation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Piano Wizard is a multi-level game which comes with various support materials, including detailed DVD lessons taking you to PW Academy, which lays foundation of music theory, dynamics and technique.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Soft Mozart, on the other hand, is, in fact, a series of multi-level interactive games, each targeting a specific skill necessary for playing the piano. It also comes with a one-year beginner curriculum, covering some aspects of music theory, solfege, harmony and performance.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The two parts of the packages, which appear comparable and which form the basis of the programmes, are the actual PW game and SM Gentle Piano module. Both games have a similar concept of rotating the great stave vertically thus showing how it relates to the piano keys. They both let the players focus on a specific line and, at the same time, encourage them look ahead. These two videos below, in my opinion, give quite a good idea of the steps involved in each respective method.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;">Piano Wizard:</span></i><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;"> </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_o1vjXHGrc"><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_o1vjXHGrc</span></a><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: ES-TRAD;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Soft Mozart:</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/lenkaolenka#p/u/9/6bUeNO6U7tI"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.youtube.com/user/lenkaolenka#p/u/9/6bUeNO6U7tI</span></span></a><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">As these videos show, both PW and SM start out at their most basic levels as simple matching games – you match colours (in PW) or symbols (in SM) on the stickers to those of/on the objects/circles reaching the focus line on the screen, which should be easy enough even for a very young child. Over the next few levels, they gradually transition you to the conventional musical notation. These two programmes, however, appear to use completely different support mechanisms, or, let’s call these “crutches” (not in a bad sense), which are gradually removed to allow independent “piano walk”. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">PW relies solely on colours to represent each key and this support is removed after the game is flipped horizontally and the moving game objects turn into notes. Colour to colour match is very simple and would allow anyone to get started on the piano. The first two levels have a fun computer game-like appearance, with a variety of colourful backgrounds, which would be appealing to game-savvy kids who would not even realise they are practicing. In PW music keeps going whether or not you have hit the right key, to emphasise the idea that music indeed goes on whether you can keep up with it or not, and a note played out of time is not a correct note.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I haven’t, however, figured out how the game manages to get the learner over the fact that each line/space on the staff cannot be assigned one specific colour with the same ease as (all of) the keys of the keyboard, since there is no exact correspondence between the two. For instance, looking at the upper stave, A (“la”), which is assigned a specific space, would be represented either by a brown, or a blue (if flat) or a green (if sharp) note. Likewise, G (“sol”) could be a blue-coloured note too, if sharp, but it would not be in the same space on the stave, but on the line below. Unless I got it completely wrong (correct me if I did!), this would potentially confuse LM at Step 3, when the moving objects become moving notes on the actual stave and could make her transitioning to Step 4 (black and white notes) quite challenging. The programme, however, claims that learners, who reach that stage, stop relying so much on the colours and, presumably with practice, learn intuitively the underlying logic of music notation and how keys correspond to lines and spaces of the great stave. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">SM, on the other hand, relies on a series of support mechanisms, which are gradually removed, as the game progresses. The stickers, with symbols representing notes (solfege or letters) and green/brown lines delineating the grand staff, are only attached to white keys. To the best of my knowledge, the beginner pieces do not involve using any black keys as they are written in do (C) major. The great stave is already prominent at Level 1, although modified and in a vertical position. Once you are comfortable with symbol to symbol matching, the symbols can be removed and you remain with either red (representing line notes) or blue (space notes) circles and match these to red/blue stickers on the keys, while having the green and brown lines on the keyboard as points of reference. These two steps are then repeated with the staves rotated horizontally after which, the circles become regular black notes moving on the staves towards the focus line, at which stage the appearance of the game becomes similar to PW’s Step 4. SM then goes one step further, to actually present all pieces in a static sheet format on the screen with green light highlighting each note as it is played. As for flats and sharps, these, if I understand correctly, are introduced in more advanced pieces by showing tiny black rectangles with flat or sharp signs to the left or to the right of the symbol picture suggesting that a black key to the left or to the right should be played instead. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Unlike PW, in SM the game waits for you to hit the note and will not move further unless you have succeeded, which allows you to be more in control of the music flow and to stop and think before hitting the keys.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Which one would be better for LM? I ask myself this question but I know the proof of the pudding is in the eating, particularly if this pudding is on LM’s plate, who has not followed the typical developmental profile, who may be challenged by what would be easy for a typical child, and, vice versa, could find very easy something a typical child would not. Additionally, both products will be different as to how they measure the progress and respond to errors, which I have left out of my research, since these nuances are difficult to appreciate and compare until you use the software. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Anyway, the good news for me is that it is possible to try both programmes before investing the precious dollars. SM offers free easily downloadable demos of all of their games, including Gentle Piano, as well as a free one-year curriculum. These should give a very good idea of the actual product as they are simply their much shorter versions.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">PW, on the other hand, comes with a two-month (at least for BrillKids members) customer satisfaction guarantee, after which, if the product did not work for you, you can return the game and get your money back.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Since trying out SM seems to be an easier option, as I can start immediately and will not lose any shipping charges should I decide to return it, this is the programme I will start with. My aim is to try it over the following couple of months and see how far LM will be able to make with it, before "gambling" shipping costs on PW. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I see that this post has gone into quite an essay now, so I am going to stop here. Will be updating on our progress!</span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-11484463904015781782011-01-27T04:26:00.000-08:002011-02-04T03:14:36.997-08:00Piano for Visual Learners<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I mentioned some time ago about my plans to increase LM’s music exposure and to, perhaps, start introducing her to the idea of playing a musical instrument. The benefits of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">listening</i> to music are well-known and unquestionable, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">playing</i> music goes as far as <a href="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/65148.php">“fine-tuning” the brain’s auditory system</a> and has a <a href="http://www.naturalnews.com/029324_music_brain.html">profound impact on speech and language, memory and attention, and even emotional development</a>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Playing the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">piano</i> offers further benefits as it involves playing with both hands and is, therefore, a great coordination and fine motor skill exercise, <a href="http://www.brams.umontreal.ca/plab/research/dossiers_vulgarisation/newsweek_musicmind/newsweek_musicmind.html?Story_ID=329414">working the corpus callosum in your brain</a> – yet another important focus area in our homeschool. Since I received some piano training in my (very distant!) past, I feel I would be more comfortable to help LM with this instrument.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">A couple of months ago I tried <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Music for Little Mozarts,</i> as I wrote <a href="http://lmshomeschool.blogspot.com/2010/10/music-for-little-mozarts-music-for-lm.html">here</a>, but, unfortunately, LM did not share my excitement about the programme and we did not progress very far with it. It did not offer enough visual stimuli to LM, the Beethoven Bear and Mozart Mouse storyline did not inspire her to explore the black and white keys and was simply beyond her level of comrehension. This is why, at that point, I decided to leave teaching her to play the piano aside till, perhaps, she was ready one day. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">My hopes rekindled when I learned about two software programmes, which looked like they could provide the missing visual support to learning the piano. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two programmes in question are <a href="http://www.musicwizard.com/Music/Home/index.cfm">Piano Wizard</a> and <a href="http://www.doremifasoft.com/">Soft Mozart</a> and they both offer a game-like approach to learning to play the piano (keyboard) and, ultimately, to read sheet music. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">They both claim to be suitable for young children and older learners with a variety of aptitudes, and have excellent reviews. This could be a way round her current auditory comrehension difficulties!</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Having raised some sponsorship from LM’s grandparents and procured a more decent keyboard, I have found myself at crossroads, as I can’t make up my mind as to which one to go for! Neither of the programmes comes cheap, and with money being a HUGE issue for our family, I have to be careful with my investment. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">While the two programmes seem to be very similar at first glance, you will find some essential differences once you look at them more carefully. The creators of both programmes Chris Salter (Piano Wizard) and Hellene Hiner (Soft Mozart) have been great contributors to <a href="http://forum.brillkids.com/">BrillKids forum</a> and they have had a few very heated discussions regarding a variety of subjects pertaining to musical education. If you would like to learn more about these programmes, I recommend reading through those discussions (trying to remain impartial to the contributors' communication styles!).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I will continue researching these two methods and will write up my thoughts. In the meantime, if you have had experience with any of these programmes or are simply willing to share your views, I will greatly appreciate your input!</span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-28060772280531636812011-01-18T12:53:00.000-08:002011-01-18T12:53:20.337-08:00What a Feeling!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">What a fantastic feeling to open my dashboard and see another follower! Thank you for joining me, Tracy, and thank you for educating me about VACTERL. I have to admit, to my great shame, I knew very little about it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">You are doing a great job at your <a href="http://thereedfamily-blog.blogspot.com/">homeschool</a> and I loved your new video of Maggie reading! </span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-9931670295800116922011-01-18T12:02:00.000-08:002011-01-18T12:08:26.361-08:00Activities to Encourage Speech and Language Development For Younger Children<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I wrote some time ago about my <a href="http://lmshomeschool.blogspot.com/2010/12/speech-and-language-therapy-another-diy.html">DIY plans regarding LM’s speech and language</a>, and described the <a href="http://lmshomeschool.blogspot.com/2010/12/activities-to-help-attention-and.html">activities we currently do to improve her listening</a>. I thought I would also step back and review the activities we had done in the past hoping these may be of help to some visitors of my blog. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">When LM was initially referred to have her speech and language assessed by a therapist a couple of years ago, she could only say a handful of short words. I was given a list of recommendations targeting her vocabulary, understanding and use of language. Some of the suggestions were quite common sense while some were something I hadn't really thought of before. I suppose that these activities would be relevant for preverbal children or those at a single-word level in terms of their language. In fact, some of these activities can be started from birth as a preventative measure to help the child hit the language milestones on time. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">5-Minute Play</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">One of the most important activities I was recommended by the speech and language therapist was to introduce short 5-minute play sessions throughout the day – as often as I could. The following are the list of rules I was to stick to.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Remove all pressure to talk – <u>DON’T ask your child to repeat what you say</u> and <u>DON’T ask questions</u> (you know the answers to!).</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><u><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Sit at the same level as the child</span></u><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> so that they can see your face – lying on the sofa while your baby is playing on the carpet won’t do; reduce any background noise.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><u><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Follow your child’s lead</span></u><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> and copy their play in silence – if your child starts banging toys, do exactly the same. This is intended to attract your child’s attention.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Wait for your child to make an eye contact with you:</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">If they look at you but don’t say anything, smile and say a word for what they have in their hand or say a word for the action they are carrying out;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">b.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">If they make a noise, but not a specific word, try to guess what they are saying, praise them with a nod, a smile, and model the word you think they are trying to say;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">c.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">If they say a word and it’s close but not quite right, <u>do not correct</u> (saying, "oh no, it is wrong!"), but again praise them and <u>model</u> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the word you think they are trying to say clearly, e.g. if they say “gog”, you reply “mmm, <u>d</u>og!”</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 72pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">d.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">If they say a word and it is clear, repeat the word and add on another, for example, “baby” – “mmm, baby’s <u>sleeping</u>!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Running Commentary</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Outside the five-minute play sessions, during bath times, feeding times and when outside, provide simple 1-2 word commentary. For example, you could get down to your child’s level during their bath time and use words like “splash, splash”, “soap”, “duck”, “quack, quack”, etc.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Copying All Vocalisations, Words and Sounds</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Never leave your child’s vocalisations unnoticed. This will give your child good feedback and will encourage them to copy your sounds and words. Add simple sounds to everything, such as “brum-brum”, when playing with a car, etc.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Pretend Play</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I was also advised to encourage LM’s pretend play skills by modelling simple play sequences. Show your child how you bath, brush, feed and dress a doll or a teddy. You can do it during play times as well as bath times and mealtimes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Body Part Awareness</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">You can work on body part awareness during mealtimes, bath times and play times. For example, during bath times get to your child’s level so they can see your face and introduce each body part by emphasising the word while doing the action, e.g. “Let’ put soap on your <u>head</u>.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Offering Choices</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">When offering something, don’t just give a single object, but provide a choice and encourage your child to make their choice by looking, pointing, reaching, gesturing or vocalising. When the child makes</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">a choice, give it to them while saying the name of it. For instance, during a snack time you may want to offer them an apple or banana; if they choose the banana, you give it to them saying “banana”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Singing and Sign Language</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Encourage your child to add sounds, words, and actions to nursery songs, such as “The “Wheels on the Bus”, “Old McDonald”, etc. Introduce the animal sounds with simple signs. Put toy animals in a bag and bring them out one by one making the sound and the sign for each. Encourage your child to add sounds, words and actions. (Sign language is a brilliant tool to enhance language, but this could be a whole new topic, so I will not dwell on it here.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Looking through Books</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Introduce name of animals, food, etc. in simple stories, such as “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”, “Dear Zoo”. You can combine this activity with the previous one. For example, you can get a bag with the animals featured in “Dear Zoo” and use them as props while you read the book and let you child hold the toys.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Encouraging Eye Contact</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">This used to be LM’s weakest area and I was advised to encourage her to look at my face with simple things like playing “peek-a-boo” and making faces and sounds while sitting at her level. One of the great activities which helped was blowing bubbles and saying “ready, steady, go!” while holding the bubble stick near my face. I gradually increased the time she had to wait looking at me before I blew the bubbles. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I will update this post if I remember more activities.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">LM’s Mum</span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-14040139161373775642011-01-12T11:24:00.000-08:002011-01-12T11:24:48.707-08:00Extension of Mandala Activity – Colouring within Lines<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Colouring has never been LM’s favourite activity. No number of new crayons, pens, pencils and markers or colouring books with her favourite characters could make this idea attractive to her. In the end, it was strong reinforcement, moving from very small basic pictures towards more complicated drawings with multiple sections and ensuring that she is successful at each step which got her to accept colouring as not such a bad idea after all.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Although her technique has greatly improved, she still struggles to stay within the lines. One way to progress in this area is to start with basic line drawings with smaller colouring areas and thicker outlines and gradually increase the colouring areas and fade the thickness of the outlines. Depending on your child’s level of skill you may start with colouring areas as small as one square inch and lines as thick as one inch to ensure that the child is successful at each step.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I have described <a href="http://lmshomeschool.blogspot.com/2011/01/mandala-activity.html">here</a> the Mandala activity I am starting with LM. Although the original right-brain method does not require colouring the patterns, I thought I might as well let her colour them in at the end of the exercise and also double this as a “Colouring within the Lines” activity. So my plan is to widen the outlines with a thick marker (to save ink) and then gradually narrow these down to see if that will help her improve this motor skill.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKh2g-IKceIokDLVWRyqp30wbVULsw3O8MwwbBsjeLW5uh92QDB-PQX8vj6bf_bWk8U2_rvj-4jT-feeGeNwnmDl39G-IM3nq-O1vvK7mrQz53jKPbrZ0k0nzFAL17kzD5d_W34TmD1l0/s1600/CWL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="153" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKh2g-IKceIokDLVWRyqp30wbVULsw3O8MwwbBsjeLW5uh92QDB-PQX8vj6bf_bWk8U2_rvj-4jT-feeGeNwnmDl39G-IM3nq-O1vvK7mrQz53jKPbrZ0k0nzFAL17kzD5d_W34TmD1l0/s320/CWL.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-90132130093749429002011-01-09T13:00:00.000-08:002011-01-09T13:23:26.458-08:00Mandala Activity<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I would like to begin this post by thanking Shen-Li for becoming my follower! I have to say I am honoured and thrilled that such a seasoned blogger in the field of early childhood development has found my novice journal worth visiting again. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have been stalking <a href="http://figur8.net/baby/">Babylicious</a>, one of Shen-Li’s own blogs, and I have to say it is my absolute favourite! This blog is well-known among supporters of early education and needs no promotion, but if for any reason you have not seen it yet and you would like to learn more about the most current ideas regarding parenting, do subscribe to it!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Shen-Li writes a lot about right-brain education, which is a fairly recent movement in early education and which has been attracting devotees all over the world. The information published on her blog is not easily available anywhere so you can be sure to learn something you have never heard of before. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Inspired by <a href="http://figur8.net/baby/2010/08/02/right-brain-activities-for-home-practice-part-4-mandala/">one of Shen-Li’s posts</a>, I have come up with the idea of creating this versatile mandala activity. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsX2AbmeCGYZooq78wRavAQ3V6sMpuXiy1BAd75fASHhAgCyuEN1j7AS59CnmmH_gcgq-im_bkU-MdazY9DDInOL7L93-kJ_wcD4ztZJ0Ajy3DL9yhUdaqA8dzal0_TUzHhCGtJUGX-XU/s1600/Mandalas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsX2AbmeCGYZooq78wRavAQ3V6sMpuXiy1BAd75fASHhAgCyuEN1j7AS59CnmmH_gcgq-im_bkU-MdazY9DDInOL7L93-kJ_wcD4ztZJ0Ajy3DL9yhUdaqA8dzal0_TUzHhCGtJUGX-XU/s320/Mandalas.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I cut out a few different shapes out of cheap thin felt, which can be laid on top of one another on a white felt board (you can find the instructions on how to make a felt/flannel board <a href="http://www.ehow.com/way_5158012_basic-flannel-board-instructions.html">here</a>) to create numerous mandala patterns. I have started with very basic patterns for now but, depending on how well LM does with these, I might move her onto something a bit more complex.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">This could make an activity as it is and you can let your very young child experiment by making his/her own patterns while practicing colour and shape names. However, if you would like to use it as a right-brain activity and strengthen your child’s photographic memory, then draw the black and white outlines of your patterns on paper, follow Shen-Li’s instructions and reuse these pieces time and again to create new combinations. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I have drawn a dozen easy mandala outlines containing basic shapes, which could be a place to start if your child, like mine, is completely new to this kind of activity. Feel free to download these <a href="http://www.4shared.com/document/KoUynAqC/Easy_Mandala_Patterns.html">here</a> and use them as a size guide when cutting out felt shapes. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Bye for now!</span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-77728372676247602782011-01-02T15:10:00.000-08:002011-01-09T13:20:32.447-08:00Art Matching<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Matching is a fun activity which reinforces visual discrimination and concentration and which is an important prerequisite skill for reading and writing. We started this activity with LM long time ago and have progressed from simple picture-to-picture matching to matching shapes, letters, numbers, words, words to pictures, numbers to quantities, matching emotions, etc.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt2U7MrX-qmuAvpXMV4czAGC2tToPhumNblO_Yesjii8eem19nbBYYjhpI_OVnKjCzJTUGr6MKzONtibRwuK0OJFhP-aUYTMhMS0zPtvvcqZ0Yjq96sflm2TmB51hFFck6jUuhhIso9W4/s1600/Matching+Sheets.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt2U7MrX-qmuAvpXMV4czAGC2tToPhumNblO_Yesjii8eem19nbBYYjhpI_OVnKjCzJTUGr6MKzONtibRwuK0OJFhP-aUYTMhMS0zPtvvcqZ0Yjq96sflm2TmB51hFFck6jUuhhIso9W4/s320/Matching+Sheets.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I ended up with so many sheets that I created a “Matching Book” which is, quite basically, an A4 folder where I would “mix and match” different sheets and which I would offer to LM as an activity to complete independently to keep her busy for a few precious minutes.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj65DzQgR9V29QIkwO56gHaAoD7UW9xvJzzIFm9cnOiBrWShjJVXHXFRUuXJTa1j0m-M7GC4tW94zALUmbGY16S_abu3Ysjc0SUNz3u6HC4zXOtnGCtbXEV_jHRbB9bK1_e_Z6uyr0PjOA/s1600/Mstching+Book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj65DzQgR9V29QIkwO56gHaAoD7UW9xvJzzIFm9cnOiBrWShjJVXHXFRUuXJTa1j0m-M7GC4tW94zALUmbGY16S_abu3Ysjc0SUNz3u6HC4zXOtnGCtbXEV_jHRbB9bK1_e_Z6uyr0PjOA/s320/Mstching+Book.jpg" width="298" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I recently added a few more picture-to-picture sheets which are, in fact, reproductions of famous masterpieces. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEMOw40QAVjPFquRZbUnNJWHy4is3Ww8Er6BdRG-Dz8VQb8Mjc2P4wEJFJeYH4YWcN1tIhu-HdBPmvnVSQW4aZ7kgaxQHxLd6bMWJqMf3MMFnLpSUVXdbNnfGM6xcasqlbouyo-GyprG0/s1600/Art+Matching.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEMOw40QAVjPFquRZbUnNJWHy4is3Ww8Er6BdRG-Dz8VQb8Mjc2P4wEJFJeYH4YWcN1tIhu-HdBPmvnVSQW4aZ7kgaxQHxLd6bMWJqMf3MMFnLpSUVXdbNnfGM6xcasqlbouyo-GyprG0/s320/Art+Matching.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The idea came after I had bought <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Start-Exploring-Masterpieces-Fact-filled-Colouring/dp/0762409452/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294009564&sr=8-1">this colouring book</a>, which, to my disappointment, did not have any colour reproductions of the paintings. As I needed to procure full colour versions of the masterpieces for LM’s reference, I decided to double this as a matching activity. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">These sheets will probably deserve a separate folder as I am planning to extend this activity in the future by turning this into title-to-painting and artist-to-painting matching activity. Another thought would be to take <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lucy-Micklethwait/e/B001H6PVJ6/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1294009667&sr=1-1">this idea</a> and to create a few “I spy” tasks to find some details in the picture, but this, for now, is only at the “planning stage”.</span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-39254401563773527242010-12-17T15:47:00.000-08:002010-12-17T15:47:30.536-08:00Activities to Help Attention and Listening<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the history of “glue ear” (otitis media) and ear infections, it is no surprise to me that listening is one of LM’s biggest challenges. She was deprived in this important area of sensory stimulation very early in her life, which may explain her current auditory difficulties. So this is one of my most important focus areas. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ability to pay attention and to listen is a vital skill for encouraging good communication skills. It is more than simply “hearing sounds” as the child needs to learn to filter sounds, to sort out which sounds are important, what they mean, to remember and to act on the new information. It is necessary for having two-way conversations. Here are some easy listening activities I have found, which are appropriate for young children:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“LM, LM, what do you hear?”</span></span></b></div><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a simple activity we have been doing on the way to LM’s school, which is a good 15 minute walk. I ask LM to listen carefully to the sounds around and tell me what she can hear (e.g. card driving on the road, a plane flying, wind blowing, birds singing, etc.)</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Copying Sounds</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have filled a variety of containers with rice, pasta, beads, etc. I put them on the table in front of LM and sit opposite her. I then ask her to turn away and listen. I pick a container and shake it while she is not looking. I then ask her to turn back and find the container I have just used and make the same sound. I recently started to make it more complicated by making a sequence of sounds and asking LM to make the sounds in the same order.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Songs and Stories</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Quite often when I am reading a book for LM, her attention starts drifting off. When that happens, I give her a rattle and ask her to shake it every time a particular character or action is mentioned (e.g. “wolf” in “Three Little Pigs”). To make it more difficult, you can ask to do different sounds for different characters.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Drumming</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">I play a pattern of beats on the table with chop sticks and get LM to repeat it. I vary the strength and the rhythm of the sounds. To make it more difficult, you could use a variety of surfaces to bang on (e.g. different saucepan lids), a variety of sound-makers (shakers, rattles).</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I will probably be updating this post if I find more activities of this sort.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bye for now!</span></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"></span>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-83535042137831267532010-12-17T15:11:00.000-08:002010-12-17T15:11:10.957-08:00Speech and Language Therapy - Another DIY Project<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been searching different resources for some games and activities to help LM with her speech and language. Sadly, the UK National Health System has cut down on individual speech and language therapy system (if there was an “angry” font, I would have used it for writing this!) and we can't afford hiring professional help. As much as I understand that one needs to be qualified to help a speech-delayed child, I guess doing something about it is better than nothing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I have found a few interesting activities and I will be writing these up here as I go. My plan at this stage is to focus primarily on language development, but I will be doing some work on speech and articulation too. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I can’t remember if I mentioned that LM is being raised in a tri-lingual environment, not because she has overly ambitious parents, but simply by the nature of our family composition. While my first language is Russian, her dad’s is Catalan, and, since we don’t speak each other’s languages, we have to communicate in English, which is also the language of the environment we live in. I can’t do much to help LM’s Catalan, but apart from Russian and may be even more than on Russian, I will certainly focus on English, which will be the language of instruction once LM starts school.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">My current target areas are:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">1.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Attention and Listening</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">2.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Comprehension</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">3.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Vocabulary Building</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">4.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Expanding Sentences</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">5.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Grammar</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">6.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Telling Stories</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">7.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Interaction</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I will be using these to label my posts to make search easier for those who may be interested in this information.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"></div></span>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-56115231510347830092010-11-22T02:05:00.000-08:002010-11-22T02:05:26.394-08:00Just a Quick Update<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I have been quite busy recently and I haven’t updated my blog in a long time, so I decided to write a quick post just to show I am still around!</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">First of all, thank you Reei for becoming my follower! I am very excited and flattered! Reei has her own <a href="http://parentinglittler.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: blue;">blog</span></a> which is a great read and very insightful.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I am currently doing some research on the different ways to help kids’ speech and language development and will be writing about my findings soon. This is LM’s biggest challenge at the moment and as we have been generally let down by the National Health System, who have introduced further cuts to the funding and have cancelled all individual S&L sessions, I will need to do a lot of DIY work here.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">For now, I just wanted to thank all those who visited and commented on my blog. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">LM’s Mum</span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-42653442107445481752010-11-03T05:33:00.000-07:002010-11-03T07:26:28.792-07:00Egg Carton Math<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I would like to vary LM’s experience with numbers and, inspired by <a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_2118880022"></span>Numicon<span id="goog_2118880023"></span></a>, I came up with this idea of recycling egg cartons:</span><br />
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<div align="center"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX3BFZf1gn1pQvRxxHmaa_lBpjqVjnVMzdRBgGFApgoVoTKABAkr8Jay9W4u6hxzraEI4NRlbs2rz-6zKWEFhL3OWmKDnKDtyccLl8JF7teeSksiFZw9nkuFHsLpmK6CphjywTobFPvqw/s1600/Numicon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX3BFZf1gn1pQvRxxHmaa_lBpjqVjnVMzdRBgGFApgoVoTKABAkr8Jay9W4u6hxzraEI4NRlbs2rz-6zKWEFhL3OWmKDnKDtyccLl8JF7teeSksiFZw9nkuFHsLpmK6CphjywTobFPvqw/s320/Numicon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
</div><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">As you can tell, omelettes have featured extensively on our family menu recently!</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Well, although these are far from the nice and sleek Numicon shapes, and they certainly do have limitations, I think they can do the job of providing a mental reference for numbers. There are a few activities I am going to do with LM and, if these go well, I may splash on the real thing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">My current list of activities, starting with the most basic, are:</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Sequencing the “shapes” from 1 to 10 and backwards;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Matching number symbols to “shapes”;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Odd/even numbers;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Larger/smaller numbers;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Understanding two-digit numbers (place value);</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Exploring number bonds for different numbers, e.g. 10 can be made of 1 and 9, 2 and 8, etc;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Basic arithmetic, e.g. adding one more to each “shape” to get the consecutive one, or doing subtractions by covering some of the cups.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Using the "shapes" as frames and practicing counting and arythmetic with small objects (placing them in the individual cups).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I suppose, I could stretch these further. If you have more ideas, let me know!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">LM's Mum</span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-74412659840096797992010-10-25T13:53:00.000-07:002010-11-03T00:39:47.410-07:00New Challenges with Old Puzzles<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Completing jigsaw puzzles are a great educational activity, which helps to develop manual dexterity, hand-eye coordination, memory, reasoning, concentration, etc., and I am happy it has been one of LM’s favourite activities. However, after completing any given puzzle a couple of times, she seems to start losing interest in it, so I have been looking for ways to “challenge up” her old puzzles. Here are a couple tricks I have learned:</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">You can mix two or more different puzzles, depending on the difficulty, for example two 50-piece puzzles or three 30-piece ones are fine for LM for now as she is comfortable with 100-piece puzzles. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Another way is to ask your child to do the puzzle upside-down with the pictures facing the table and with the shapes of the cuts as the only guide. LM quite liked this new approach!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">If you know any other way to make a puzzle a bit more challenging, please let me know.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-41272288928179449512010-10-15T15:20:00.000-07:002011-04-15T23:52:23.261-07:00Music for Little Mozarts - Music for LM?<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Although teaching playing music to LM is by far not the biggest priority for me at this stage, I would hate not to give her some sort of introduction to it. Besides, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1252652/Learning-play-musical-instrument-helps-young-brains-develop-language-skills.html">it is suggested</a> that “</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">playing a musical instrument significantly enhances the brain's sensitivity to speech sounds” and “could help normal children as well as those with developmental problems”.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">So after some research and thanks to the <a href="http://forum.brillkids.com/">brillkids forum</a> (which, by the way, is indeed a brilliant forum!), I have been pointed in the direction of “Music for Little Mozarts” series by Alfred Publishing. There is a free downloadable sampler at </span><span sans-serif??,?serif??="" style="font-family: ";"><a href="http://www.mflm.com/"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">http://www.mflm.com/</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> which gives a bit more detail about the programme.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">This programme can be purchased as a deluxe package (containing Level 1 only), but coming at a fairly steep £45, this, unfortunately, was not an option for me. So as much as I would like the whole kit, I decided to limit myself to a Level 1 Lesson Book, Level 1 Workbook and a set of Flashcards (the plush characters could become potential Christmas gifts though!). The set arrived yesterday and I already laminated some of the flashcards (the laminating maniac I am!). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">I have gone through the first few pages and will need to think how to adjust it to LM’s peculiar learning style. Quite incidentally, and again on the same forum, I also learned about a series of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UicMxcENEk&p=BBCFBA566A9E3429&index=10&feature=BF">“How to Teach Piano to Kids”</a> lessons by Expert Village on YouTube, which ties up nicely with the “Music for Little Mozarts” approach and which is something I will definitely be referring to. (By some reason the lessons do not appear listed in order, so in case you, like me, get lost among the videos on the playlist, here is the order I think they should have been listed: the lesson, appearing as the last one, is, in fact, Lesson 1, the first one is Lesson 2, eighth – Lesson 3, fifth – Lesson 4, seventh – Lesson 5, ninth – Lesson 6, fourth – Lesson 7, third – Lesson 8, second – Lesson 9, sixth – Lesson 10.)</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Sadly, I can’t afford buying or even hiring a piano at this stage, so I am hoping to go as far as I can with a little electronic piano LM got as a present from her relatives, and see where it takes us (wish me luck!).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Anyhow, I am not going to rush it at all and will only offer it to LM every so often, as the much more imperative staff we need to go thought with her on a daily basis leaves hardly any time for anything “extracurricular”. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">I do hope she takes to it and likes it just like I do!</span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-10415944233694088852010-10-10T14:16:00.000-07:002010-10-13T07:19:51.218-07:00Calendar Time – October 2010<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span ?times="" en-gb?="" new="" roman?;mso-bidi-font-family:?times="" roman?;mso-fareast-language:="" sans-serif??,?serif?;mso-fareast-font-family:="" style="font-family: '; font-size: 12pt;">Here is a short update on our calendar time (you can read my previous calendar post <a href="http://lmshomeschool.blogspot.com/2010/09/calendar-time-september-2010.html">here</a>).</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span ?times="" en-gb?="" new="" roman?;mso-bidi-font-family:?times="" roman?;mso-fareast-language:="" sans-serif??,?serif?;mso-fareast-font-family:="" style="font-family: '; font-size: 12pt;">Apart from the new header, I have now added cards with the words “yesterday”, “today” and “tomorrow”, which we attach to the bottom of the corresponding number card with the help of tiny decorative pegs.</span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXfSWGh7f1ULrpclv_ascHkTHY53-i-9wO2udYLrFeflsYIVNRE0ckXNymmNuan5Nsmu4YzzR4opi9BY2KpGfRSdnPPa2GXZvE8dv0w2LhvP7V82oa-8Q0Qjnp8YSMKdBMRI9gv-2WMG8/s1600/P1502_09-10-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXfSWGh7f1ULrpclv_ascHkTHY53-i-9wO2udYLrFeflsYIVNRE0ckXNymmNuan5Nsmu4YzzR4opi9BY2KpGfRSdnPPa2GXZvE8dv0w2LhvP7V82oa-8Q0Qjnp8YSMKdBMRI9gv-2WMG8/s320/P1502_09-10-10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-DiTymq73J5GodMHHL0yCCFN1peM5lpp8RUXppa89DRUxJxg0mn17-72aMFJCmMYkSB2RqPG10J9siyTkx49HAWmBBfB4CC3ym_h8YagCJLPaUGuiT7zPHpP6pnQ5E-O2-3DPvQMlsE/s1600/P1503_09-10-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-DiTymq73J5GodMHHL0yCCFN1peM5lpp8RUXppa89DRUxJxg0mn17-72aMFJCmMYkSB2RqPG10J9siyTkx49HAWmBBfB4CC3ym_h8YagCJLPaUGuiT7zPHpP6pnQ5E-O2-3DPvQMlsE/s320/P1503_09-10-10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span ?times="" en-gb?="" new="" roman?;mso-bidi-font-family:?times="" roman?;mso-fareast-language:="" sans-serif??,?serif?;mso-fareast-font-family:="" style="font-family: '; font-size: 12pt;">It was LM who gave me the idea: the first couple of times after we had put up a new number on the board, she would take the next one from the hook at the bottom of the board and attempt to pin it in the following cell. I explained to her that that was something we would do “tomorrow”. So now every time we put up the new date, she would point to the following card on the hook and say, “That’s tomorrow!”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span ?times="" en-gb?="" new="" roman?;mso-bidi-font-family:?times="" roman?;mso-fareast-language:="" sans-serif??,?serif?;mso-fareast-font-family:="" style="font-family: '; font-size: 12pt;">This month I also started using our calendar time for doing some simple math activities. We count forward all the number cards we have so far put up and then, more importantly, we count them <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">backwards,</i> as it is something I haven’t done with LM so far. This has been quite painless so far as we have started with just a few numbers and will be gradually increasing them to 30.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span ?times="" en-gb?="" new="" roman?;mso-bidi-font-family:?times="" roman?;mso-fareast-language:="" sans-serif??,?serif?;mso-fareast-font-family:="" style="font-family: '; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also decided to let LM choose the colour of the pin with which we attach the card to the board to create a pattern. For example, this month we have started with the easiest ABAB pattern and we alternate red and green pins.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span ?times="" en-gb?="" new="" roman?;mso-bidi-font-family:?times="" roman?;mso-fareast-language:="" sans-serif??,?serif?;mso-fareast-font-family:="" style="font-family: '; font-size: 12pt;">That’s all for now but I will be adding more activities to our calendar time as it has so far been a big hit with LM.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span></span></div></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-15375282729493231882010-10-04T15:05:00.000-07:002010-10-06T13:31:59.175-07:00DIY Pattern Blocks<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I managed to procure a few magnetic foam sheets quite cheaply at HobbyCraft and made a set of pattern blocks. These are a great math activity and help strengthen visual skills, shape and pattern recognition. LM is now using these to build patterns and to recreate images on a baking sheet:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5VkJlCGSWPMfd3UE2ssFlwrE6757a08hexBrPCPWxeYlyG3tJ1qyJHvZoGz2t0awjOWzmPSJkQF7Zf1z0k9Rz06BGerDHYGx0iXNHdMTELbB5HGsjyfClHQFgMc7hoO1Hrk9ZGEhfOQg/s1600/P2212_30-09-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5VkJlCGSWPMfd3UE2ssFlwrE6757a08hexBrPCPWxeYlyG3tJ1qyJHvZoGz2t0awjOWzmPSJkQF7Zf1z0k9Rz06BGerDHYGx0iXNHdMTELbB5HGsjyfClHQFgMc7hoO1Hrk9ZGEhfOQg/s320/P2212_30-09-10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The magnetic backing is very helpful as it stops the blocks from moving around, so LM does not get frustrated and can show the end result to her daddy!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">There are many pattern block mats available for free downloading on the web. I have printed and laminated the above and a few more from <a href="http://www.prekinders.com/">http://www.prekinders.com/</a> (by the way, you can find many more great ideas there!). Each mat can be printed either as an outline or in colour for a younger learner. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">LM is very confident playing with these so I removed all the lines inside the images and gave her only the silhouettes, just to make it a bit more of a challenge. So this now also became a great activity to develop logic and spatial reasoning. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I guess, tangrams would be a good next step from here!</span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-86517836430704500402010-09-26T14:56:00.000-07:002010-10-30T13:43:20.393-07:00“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to” (Cheshire Cat, “Alice in Wonderland”)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">Last week I finally sat down and thought through all the areas I would like to cover in my “home-school” and made my current priority list. I felt that I was starting to lose the sight of the big picture as I easily get carried away by my and LM’s current favourite activities, which may not be necessarily the most important for LM at this stage. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">The free <a href="http://www.xmind.net/">X-Mind software</a> came in handy as I could actually map out the main areas of focus and, as a result, I can now have my plan all on one page! It is not a curriculum, as this is all a bit too raw, it is simply a mind-map of the various areas which I would like to help my daughter develop. I have assigned a priority to each area to keep on track of what is most important.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">My “map” so far covers (in the order of importance):</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">Speech and Language Development;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">Social and Emotional Development;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">Play and Creative Development;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">Pre-Academic and Academic Learning;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">Motor Movement and Coordination;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">Right-Brain Development;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">Music;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">Art;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">Science.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMUFmGZCCa4WQ1-Cm5ibnpsnc0SWq0NigI5iPgYoElLihPBi-eg4sOYtzpsWMe9aV8StRXo6h-PzZUdPzul5guXTbHdQPjSiurhXX9tXpoMlXQBAlO5v_mPtXi2KG1SgusX1-1ChLtvmY/s1600/Mindmap1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMUFmGZCCa4WQ1-Cm5ibnpsnc0SWq0NigI5iPgYoElLihPBi-eg4sOYtzpsWMe9aV8StRXo6h-PzZUdPzul5guXTbHdQPjSiurhXX9tXpoMlXQBAlO5v_mPtXi2KG1SgusX1-1ChLtvmY/s320/Mindmap1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">I then broke each area into sub-areas, and then each sub-area into further specific lessons which we are currently working on and the lessons to be started soon.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7-DHAMghuI1m0TZj6H_3tCWkdq-gIIztdwjAno3Kie9xuZW1g4Z29gxwa2KagfqMNXMfgYQwwu4lb-y2TUJjAX8ogf32pPQX3JynodQdao8f-yLG3IOuB1lkHmWutb3dtAkL2jOh5ewU/s1600/XMind2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="131" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7-DHAMghuI1m0TZj6H_3tCWkdq-gIIztdwjAno3Kie9xuZW1g4Z29gxwa2KagfqMNXMfgYQwwu4lb-y2TUJjAX8ogf32pPQX3JynodQdao8f-yLG3IOuB1lkHmWutb3dtAkL2jOh5ewU/s320/XMind2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; line-height: 115%;">This is far from being finished and is not set in stone, so I will be changing it as we go and as priorities change. But it is good to see where we want to get to!</span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-55830205971439250732010-09-18T12:00:00.000-07:002010-10-18T07:25:49.219-07:00So Do I!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We had an appointment with a paediatrician this week to assess LM’s development. Although the doctor was overall pleased with LM’s progress, her speech, language and communication are still severely delayed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She is roughly where she should be or slightly delayed on most of the other criteria. I was not surprised to hear that LM is quite advanced in her visual skills and, according to the doctor, this is her way to compensate for the weakness in her auditory skills, which is what often happens with children with early chronic ear infections. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Overall it was a more positive meeting, as this time round a “multidisciplinary assessment” to exclude autism did not dominate the discussion as it happened a year ago. The paediatrician thinks at this stage it is not necessary and would like to see LM again in 9 months. She commented on how interactive LM was and her good eye contact, as well as her "very good concentration". She seems to have noticed a lot of potential in LM and, in her own words, she wants “to see even more results in nine months’ time”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, so do I!</span> </span></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5361965344863076115.post-28930974894887398682010-09-16T13:00:00.000-07:002010-11-02T16:01:46.986-07:00Calendar Time - September 2010<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Somehow I always feel that September is a great month to start something new – to make a new resolution, sign up for a new course, refresh the CV, bin that clutter, etc. I guess it must have something to do with the end of summer holidays and the start of the new academic year, which after many years of attending numerous schools and a few years of working as a teacher, has been firmly ingrained in me.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">This September, I am celebrating the beginning of the new academic year with the start of this blog, which is something I have wanted to do for a while, and this little DIY project: </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMiLOA0bSVHZ-uJqmuAVaG9oT_7YXL02fDMWtedzP84YiL-t1VYbdhFYWKkScfsDQMJYXyWmGjbF1Olr2DWlgh47-C3EZis-cZSNfDb18UrTAxpMbHKiHJrgIiGpRpAJHCx7rr0svZV-8/s1600/P1700_17-09-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMiLOA0bSVHZ-uJqmuAVaG9oT_7YXL02fDMWtedzP84YiL-t1VYbdhFYWKkScfsDQMJYXyWmGjbF1Olr2DWlgh47-C3EZis-cZSNfDb18UrTAxpMbHKiHJrgIiGpRpAJHCx7rr0svZV-8/s320/P1700_17-09-10.jpg" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">My daughter is a visual learner and I hope this will help her grasp some temporal concepts, such as dates, months of the year, days of the week, and seasons. Our mornings now start with fixing the new date on the board and saying out loud what it is. We then change the day of the week to the current one. I also make LM look out of the window and decide what the weather is like outside and change the sticker as necessary. She seems to be enjoying this new routine.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">I spent a few hours trying to find a ready-made board calendar set online and was quite surprised at the very limited choice available to the UK. So I decided to make one myself. I must say it has been quite a time-consuming process, but I am pleased with the result and I know LM will be using this calendar for a while.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">I used a cork board and yellow sticky tape to create the calendar outline. I also printed out the month header and the numbers, stuck them on cheap stripy wrapping paper and laminated each piece to make them last. I then punched holes in each number and hang them on a hook under the calendar (I used the hook from one of LM’s broken hangers and stuck it to the back of the board). I use coloured pins to attach the numbers to the board (although LM is old enough to handle these, she only does it under my supervision, so if you have a very young child and would like to do this activity, you may consider using some alternatives, such as Velcro).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The pieces under the calendar are: </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">An envelope (laminated) with days of the week – I made these the same way I made the month header and the numbers. There are pieces of Velcro attached to the back of each card and there is another piece on the front of the envelope to hold the current day card;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">A weather envelope little holding pictures of different weather conditions with a piece of Velcro on the back to go on the front of the envelope – all laminated;</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">A seasons chart with a little arrow – also laminated and hung on the number hook.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-Dmnbwn4q7MbyIBd12EjVWUmFYUMLXCOyI5xDlUpxCusvSrMp9fMEDHN6nocVl_5Gv_Lec-9s7D2y4ViYohvNZTR_81JxIVQ0LHD7Ss1jtx2LoI6gNQ6vPYbNz7BUv1kAkzqLKwYZjQ/s1600/P1700%5B01%5D_17-09-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-Dmnbwn4q7MbyIBd12EjVWUmFYUMLXCOyI5xDlUpxCusvSrMp9fMEDHN6nocVl_5Gv_Lec-9s7D2y4ViYohvNZTR_81JxIVQ0LHD7Ss1jtx2LoI6gNQ6vPYbNz7BUv1kAkzqLKwYZjQ/s320/P1700%5B01%5D_17-09-10.jpg" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">I used free Microsoft clipart and tweaked it a bit to design the printable pieces. If anyone would like to use these and commit to this project, please let me know, I will be happy to share the files.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">This is still very much a work-in-progress and I am planning to add a few more things to it in the nearest future. I think LM is ready for some more calendar activities. I will post about them separately.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Bye for now,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">LM’s Mum</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>LM'sMumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07244013644761836222noreply@blogger.com2