Life is Therapy--We're Moving!

Relax Dad and Nana and any other family member thinking "This is how I find out?" We as in we the series, "Life is Therapy", is moving. After this post, I am going to post the Life is Therapy series on Wednesdays Tuesdays [****editors note: I changed this to Tuesdays from Wednesdays after the post had been up for a few hours. Everyone who comes looking on Wednesday should see the post from Tuesday.] So those of you who are looking for Life is Therapy, please be sure to check back each Wednesday for ideas on how we can all challenge, encourage and inspire one another while helping our children develop to their full potential.

If you're not familiar with the Life is Therapy series, please see the introductory post here. There is one more thing that I want to be sure to say before I get to today's post. I do wholeheartedly believe that children learn most easily and most effectively in their natural environment in the course of their daily routines. However, any long term reader of this blog knows that I also wholeheartedly appreciate the work of skilled educators and therapists. It all works best when parents, educators, and therapists work together to help a child build skills. Rely on your child's therapists and teachers to help you identify both your child's strengths and weaknesses. Then find a way to incorporate those things into your daily routine. Be sure that you play mostly to your child's strengths and chosen pursuits.  This will cause your child to have lots of success and it provides internal motivation to continue when a task/activity is a bit more challenging, not to mention what it does for a kid's self esteem.

Speaking of a child's "chosen pursuits", have I ever mentioned that Jack loves being outside? So much so that I'm sure if he ever saw this post, he'd pack his bags and head to wherever Marlboro Man lives so he can be his son. So anyway.....

Anytime we can be outside, Jack is sure to be having fun and the more fun Jack is having the more he is paying attention and interactive. On a recent trip to the park, I stumbled right into working on prepositions with Jack. I say I stumbled into it because I had absolutely no thoughts of "teaching" or "working on" anything other than having some fun.

It all started as Jack went through the tunnel.

I said, "Jack through the tunnel." Jack repeated "through tunnel" as he made his way through. We repeated it back and forth a few times until he got to the end.

When he reached the end, I said, "Jack get out." He repeated "get out" as he stood up to get out. Then he stood outside the tunnel and said, "out". "Out" I repeated.

Next, he walked over to the tunnel slide and said, "I" as he sat down at the edge.

"In the slide," I said. We repeated this back and forth a few times and then

he stood up and said, "out". Hooray! He not only changed up the conversation a bit but he demonstrated great knowledge of the difference between in and out. After that he turned around as he said, "Down the slide!"

and "get out" at the bottom. Shortly after that, he peeked over the rail of the bridge.

Then we played on and off the bridge.

So, is your kiddo having trouble understanding all those in, on, off, over, under words (prepositions)? Head over to your local park and have some fun!

Notice that we also got in plenty of gross motor therapy with all the climbing, crawling, sliding, walking, and running we did. Jack also got plenty of orientation and mobility practice as he made his way around the playground, around the equipment, and around all the other people there. There was plenty of sensory input with all the running and swinging and sliding as well as the light breeze. There was some fine motor therapy too. There were rocks to pick up and sand to play in. Of course, working on the prepositions comprised our speech therapy. He practiced socialization by waiting for his turn on the slides and/or swings and making his way around and through other people on the playground.

More Life is Therapy:

Introductory Post

Rainy Days

Now it's your turn to participate. This is where we share our ideas and stories with one another. We're all in this together. Let's laugh together, motivate one another, and stimulate each others ideas. If you have a blog, create your own "life is therapy" post and link to the specific post in the Mr. Linky below. If you don't have a blog just leave a comment with your life is therapy story.

Not sure what would make a good link up? Here are a couple of posts that I found as I browsed the net. They are both good examples of life is therapy. Click here to see how Hannah found math very handy and here to learn how to help a child distinguish between two similiar sounding words.