Easter Tradition?

Anybody remember last year's ignoring of the Easter basket? Well this year, Jack actually met the Easter Bunny! Mr. E. Bunny himself went to Jack's school and shook Jack's hand. Ms. Sunny reported that Jack thought the Easter Bunny was one funny guy.

We were thrilled! Since Jack enjoyed meeting Mr. Bunny, we thought it would be a little more concrete for him this year. I talked to Jack about how the Easter Bunny was going to bring him a basket with some surprises. And with a few ideas from some friends, there were great items in the basket. They were sure to please. I just *knew* that this year was going to be different.

To help build the anticipation, I really hyped up the Easter Bunny and the basket on Saturday. Then Saturday evening, I got Jack to help me decorate a very tactile high contrast Easter egg.

It's a foam "egg" on black construction paper. Jack added the bright foam shapes stickers.

I told Jack that we were decorating the egg and leaving it in the basket to let the Easter Bunny know that we celebrate Easter and he was welcome to stop by our house. I even got Jack to help me put the basket in place. My plan was going great!

Sunday morning we woke up to find the egg moved to the art wall and the basket filled.

Dancing, singing, light up rabbit, Spinner rabbit, water balloons, bubble spinner, spinning tops, chocolate Easter bunny, miscellaneous candy, cheese puffs, and popcorn.

And here is a transcript of our conversation:

Marie: Let's see what the Easter Bunny brought you!

Jack: Take a bath!

M: You want to take a bath now?

J: Yes. Irish!

M: Okay, let's go find Irish.

J: Searching. Irish.

M: Searching. (Spots Irish). In the bag.

J: (vision not so good this AM--fluctuates due to cortical visual impairment) Irish?

M: In the bag.

J: Irish?

M: (thumps Irish to make noise) Here's Irish!

J: Irish! (Grabs Irish)

M: (squeezes singing, dancing, light up bunny's hand hoping to generate Easter basket interest) Look!

J: Turn it off.

M: Turn it off?

J: Yes.

M: (turns bunny off)

J: Take a bath (heads to bathroom)

*sigh* Jack was not this conversational last year. He speaks so much more and so much more clearly this year. We have much to be grateful for. But I have to be honest....I really really really wanted him to get excited about that basket this year!

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St. Patrick's Day

 used his two hands to squeeze the glitter glue

and colored a blue shamrock

You may need to click on this to be able to read it

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Sensory Experience with White

Remember Ms. Denise's color plan? Jack has moved on to white.....he's not enjoying it quite as much as black. Here's Ms. Sunny getting Jack to play in shaving cream. I don't know where Ms. Denise was for this shot.

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Jack's Book of Black

I mentioned a couple of week's ago that Ms. Denise (Jack's itenerant teacher) put together a plan to teach Jack his colors so that we could distinguish whether he was color blind or just doesn't know his colors yet.

The first two week's focus color was black. Ms. Denise created this nifty book for Jack.

She brought it to school and had him help her finish the last page.

It was patterned on the Brown Bear What do you see? book series. She made it very tactile with black feathers and black forks and made it interactive by having Jack do the last page. Great work, Ms. Denise!

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Under the Weather Rewind

We're under the weather here so we could sure use some prayers. Jack appears to have the stomach bug that's been going around and another cold. David has yet another cold/sinus infection. Marie is having severe neck and shoulder pains leading to a headache as well as a severely sore throat and ear pain.

On to today's MMM....

I have mentioned numerous times how much I love finger art. No surprise that this litte beauty meant so much to me!

Jack made this last year toward the end of the school year. The aide who helped him reported that at first Jack resisted because he does not like the feel of finger paint. After they told him it was a special surprise for Mama, he happily cooperated.
 
It now hangs on a kitchen cabinet and makes me smile everyday!
 
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Back in Time for the Circus!

Last week, at Jack's school, they had a circus theme. They made cute clown masks.

Some of the kids' masks were a little more elaborate than others. I was really proud to see all the coloring that Jack did on his mask.
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Last week's Life is Therapy asked you to re-think how you "view" tv. You can check it out here. There are more Life is Therapy posts listed in the left side bar.

Kaboom! Painting

I've recently become concerned that Jack might be color blind in addition to being legally blind. When you ask him to pick a specific color, he won't do it. If you ask him the color of something, he usually does not respond.

But it could just be that he doesn't know his colors yet. Jack's "itenerant teacher" (she's the case manager/teacher that he gets twice a week through our local education agency) came up with a plan to teach him his colors. The idea is that he will be "immersed" in a certain color for up to two weeks at a time. We won't ignore the other colors. We will just try to plan activities for Jack using the "color of the two weeks". She has a list that shows which colors kids tend to recognize first. If Jack shows true recognition of the "color of the two weeks", we will move on to the next color on the list. If Jack does not know a particular color by the end of a two week period, I think we'll have a clue that somethings up.

The first color is black....

The new program is supposed to start this week at school but I decided to get a jump on things this weekend with a little Kaboom! Painting.

What is Kaboom! Painting? Well, you take a paint brush covered generously with the paint color of your choice (black for us) and you slap it on the paper while saying the ultra fun word "Kaboom!" only you say it more like "KAAAAAA BOOMMMM!"

After you finish your Kaboom! Painting, you will have an item fit for a rorshach test but if your kiddo is a little resistant to art, Kaboom! Painting could be just the thing to get them to see that art can be fun! This worked so well with Jack that I tried to slip a little coloring into the mix. I grabbed a crayon and handed it to him for the next "Kaboom". He looked at it funny but was still willing to do it. But as soon as crayon hit paper, he said, "All done. All done. Trick. All done."

Well, at least, he did make the one mark.

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Not All "Art Projects" Work Out

So our post this week, isn't your usual kind of craft but hey it's crafty! *Sorry for the blurriness of the photos. My camera phone is having issues or my hand is wobbly--not sure which.

We had a special event to attend yesterday evening so I decided to "sculpt" Jack's hair with mousse and hair spray.

He knew he looked good.

That evening when it was bath time, I discovered something.

Short hair with hair product goes nuts when it gets wet! We decided to have a little fun with all that messy hair product hair. We had it sticking up in various places then I had a brilliant idea!

A Faux Hawk!

 

Or not....

Well, we tried...maybe more hair product next time?

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GHOST!

It's an oldie but goodie! Jack made this ghost back around Halloween.

He made it a school. It's one of the crafty things his sweet teacher has them do. It's tissue paper that was folded over then a tie was added to make a head and then the bottom was left loose to form a body.

Jack loves this little ghost. When they sent it home from school, I initially hung it in the car next to his uber safe booster seat. He loved having it there and would say, "Ghost, ghost!" as he batted it around.

I guess Jack's real contribution to the ghost was it's face.

He seems to like red.

So, of course, the ghost was one of the first things I put up on the new craft wall I designated for Jack. In this shot, you get a two-fer--Jack colored that bear really well after I added some wiki-stix to help distinguish the border.

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Nellie Nurse--Magic Marker Monday

Coloring is quite the chore for Jack.

I hear that some children really just don't like to color anyway and then with Jack's visual impairment you have extra barriers to coloring.

I had hoped that we would one day find that perfect recipe that would turn Jack into that kid that sits at a restaurant table thoroughly enjoying his coloring while we wait on our food. I have since realized that's probably not gonna happen but he still needs practice with coloring.

Coloring is a good fine motor activity however and it is a pre-writing skill so Jack's teachers and therapists and I have tried different things to make coloring more interesting for him.

Here are some of the ideas we've tried:

1. Slick sticks crayons and markers and Window crayons and markers. These crayons and markers require much less effort to make bold bright colors appear so it is easier to see the work you've accomplished.

2. We've found that Jack enjoys doing an activity more when there is a specific purpose for it rather than just doing an activity for its own sake. If Jack knows he's making something for someone, then he is much more into it than coloring for the sake of coloring.

3. There are specialty coloring books available for children with visual impairments. Some books like these were made strictly for the purpose of helping the visually impaired child stay in the lines. Then there are books that add texture to make the drawing themselve interesting. There are also coloring books that are not necessarily made or marketed for visual impairment but have interesting texture as well.

4. We've used Wiki sticks to outline borders and make pictures more visually attractive.

5. We've tried a light box again to attract Jack's visual attention.

6. We've tried putting textured paper under a regular coloring page so Jack could feel it as he colored.

7. Kumon makes coloring books that ease a child into coloring.

8. A sweet friend suggested that we employ Dr. MacDonald's five strategies of Sensitive Responding, Balancing, Matching, Sharing Control, and Being Emotionally Playful  to work with Jack on coloring.

It's still not his favorite activity but he's getting better at it.

Anyone else have any ideas?

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Magic Marker Monday--Christmas Crafts

Inspired by Snow Day Crafts, Paper Plate Bow Wreaths, and Christmas Crafts, Jack and I decided to get crafty this year.
First, we created our own Christmas Tree.

1. Draw a triangle on a sheet of paper.

2. Cover triangle with glue.

3. Cover glue with popsicle sticks.

4. Add popsicle stick as trunk.

5. Turn paper over and using original triangle as a guide, use sharp strong scissors to cut out your tree.

6. Mount your tree on card stock and use other popsicles sticks to create a frame.

7. Embellish with whatever materials you have available. (I did steps 1-6 then I had Jack help me paint and embellish the tree. We used cotton balls to apply the paint to the tree and then we used glitter glue for our star and ornaments. Finally we added cotton balls at the bottom for snow.)

Our little crafty project went well, so this year David, Jack, and I decided to give crafty keepsakes to Jack's grandparents and great grandmother (Nana) for Christmas.

Jack's grandmother is an awesome cook and is always baking up some tasty treats for us and everyone else. When I saw some cute little red and green snowman pot holders I knew that they would make a great base for a special surprise for her.

Next up, we created this sweet little shirt for Jack's sweet Nana.

Finally, there was Jack's Oma and Opa. They have such various talents and interests AND they specifically requested that we not go to any expense to provide them Christmas presents. I have to say that never before would I have imagined giving someone rags for Christmas but given their request and trying to think of something more than just photographs, we went with these....

Just an old clean up

rag, not even new!

But wait!

See my two hands helping you!

It's just an old clean up

rag not even new!

Look closely and

find my two hands

helping you!

As we had hoped, they were all very touched by Jack's gifts.

I must add an extra special thanks to our friends Lori and Kristin who helped with the hand prints. They are experts at child crafts. Thanks guys!

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Magic Marker Monday--Christmas Sweatshirt

Like I said last week, I love my son's preschool teacher. They do such fun things in their class. I knew there would be some very cute take homes for Christmas. I did not know we were going to be this pleased:

I know. I know. It's not the best shot ever but this was after the school Christmas party where I think that they had a straight sugar eating contest or something. Mr. Jitters could not stand still long enough to get a really great shot of the sweatshirt on him.

But here's a close up....

That's right! This Christmas tree was not only made by his two little hands but it is made of those little hands. I've mentioned before (and here, here, and here) how very precious those little fingers are to me. Any time he makes art with his fingers and that showcase his fingers, I am a happy mama.

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