Rainbow tower

I told my little preschooler we were going to make a rainbow tower. He has speech difficulties, but he made it clear he wanted to know how we were going to make it arch like a rainbow. I thought that was adorable. I obviously just meant stack it in rainbow patterns and to his mind, a rainbow meant an arch……so cute.  (ps making tall towers is great for precision work for little ones)

Letter Y – OT, handwriting without tears, alphabet puzzle, etc

Today I worked with a 4.5 year old preschooler on his “y” in his name, and when he finally got it, we did a “Y” dance, plus he got 2 goldfish. He did it successfully a total of 7 times, so we had seven dances and 14 goldfish from the bottom of the container…he would chortle with glee each time he got slightly more than 2 goldfish (ie goldfish debris). Pretty cute. 🙂 PS: On normal paper we couldn't get the Y….but with the little gray boxes of Handwriting Without Tears, he was finally able to do it.
The first time he got it right, after we've been trying for quite a few sessions, I jumped up and did a celebratory “You know how to do a Y” dance, and then it became mandatory for each subsequent Y. lol.

We also cut up straws and shot them into the waste basket, worked on a few different letters, and did an alphabet puzzle which is shown a few down, a 1 dollar foam one. He did NOT want to do the puzzle, but I turned it into a game…I push out the foam letters saying “WHAT! Go to bed!! Stop jumping out of bed!! What do you think you're doing!!” Then I sigh and am like ugh…have to get all these letters back to bed…they are really misbehaving….so then I start putting them back, but I might, for example, put Mr W in Mr D's spot, and be like MR W!!! STOP PLAYING! STOP DANCING IN MR Ds SPOT!! If you don't behave it's going to be a time-out!! And so then we get into putting all our letters back into bed, and it's quite an ordeal, with a lot of threatening of time-outs, and dancing in the wrong spot, etc. And if the kid is struggling to put the letter back where it goes, I push it out again after it's in, then admonish that letter for getting out of bed again, etc. So it's super dramatic and silly.

Squiggles

The squiggle drawing, monster theme, that we used the story cubes with. See below.

Story cubes for OT work

Story cubes are making the rounds in OT land. About $6.95 on Amazon.com. 9 dice, 54 images, batrilions of ideas. Lots of ways you can play with them. I like them to help with idea generation for kids struggling with that, common in autism etc. Today was my first day using them. For one child, he rolled all 9 dice, picked an image, then wrote the first sentence. We were using a monster theme. Then I'd write the second sentence after I picked an image off the dice I rolled. Repeat. But the possibilities are endless, y'all have OT brains, figure it out. 🙂

By the way, if you can see the “squiggle” on top? The first graders have “book of squiggles” where they have a partial drawing, that they can turn into whatever they want, then write about it. Super cool.

Today I had a boy doing it who drew a poisonous snake, but wrote “bo not touch” and I was like “Boo not touch???” and they thought that was hysterical……..then he WANTED to write it that way. Those b and d reversals are tricky. 🙂

Alphabet game for OT handwriting

So today we were using Story Cubes (post to follow on what that is) to write a story. The little boy (whose work has gone from COMPLETELY illegible to the beautiful writing you see here, in first grade), I’ll call him Lyle so the rest of the story makes sense. Ignore the horrific construction of that last sentence. Anyway. He did an absolutely beautiful “p” and I was like ooh, that “p” gets a gold star, wow, amazing. So I put a tiny pencil mark next to the the P on that alphabet puzzle you see (it was a dollar).  That was all I planned to do, but then he thought that was a new game more or less. So for each letter he did, he tried to do perfectly, so that he could get a mark next to another letter. So he’d do a letter, examine it for perfection, fix it if it wasn’t, then make a mark next to it on the puzzle. It became a game where he wanted “L” to win since it’s the first letter of his name. So I suggested the word lollipop, lol. I don’t know if you can see the dots next to the letters, make the picture big to see. But I think I’ll try erasing those dots and playing that game again with him or other kids to work on perfect letters….and/or will laminate the alphabet to use a dry erase marker next time, or who knows. Pretty fun! Such lovely handwriting! My mom’s friend who is visiting said “That’s nicer handwriting than what my high schoolers produce.” 🙂

Oh. And my pencil didn’t have an eraser and his did, and I would sometimes make a mistake (I was on another piece of paper) and pretend-weep and be like “I don’t have the force”….because he is a Star Wars kid so we call the eraser “the force” that saves the letters. So he was like what!! you don’t have the force!! and would then use “his force” to help me out. ahahaha. Remember that if you have kids who don’t erase and tend to just write over it, it may be because erasing is not an easy skill for them…check out their eraser skills…..

OT surprise…I have no idea what this picture will include!!

Still need to figure out formatting. I basically have 12 pictures of 6 pictures each for the next few weeks….I had a photo shoot OT toy party this weekend. But I send this via email so the picture is a surprise. So I guess it will either be self-explanatory, or I will have to go back and explain things soon. For now it's 9pm and I am trying to calm my brain down to go to bed. Very busy life these days. Looking forward to AOTA conference in Indiana next month – I bought my plane fare, am sharing a room with LIBBY and one of her peeps, and registered for conference…..so it's official. Who is coming to our session on social media on Saturday morning? Who is gonna come say hi to me???? Can't wait to meet y'all……

OT pictures/chat/ideas

OT 1:30am update

Well I slept too much today so now I'm awake. I have tons of pics to post to the blog, but for now just going to do my typical rambling 😉

The other day one of my little 3rd grade boys with autism walked in (on his toes, of course!) to the Learning Center and I said “Good to see you, my friend.” He said in his stilted voice “I really liked to hear that.”  I thought that was so insanely cute. He was also very excited about an upcoming jog-a-thon, saying “I am going to run like Lightning McQueen.”

I had another 3rd grade boy with autism say “Miss Karen, let me read this to you.” He's hyperlexic. So I sat with him and he showed me what was on his iPad. He started to read it, and matter-of-factly was reading “blah blah overweight nudist blah blah lesbian wedding blah blah” I was like WHAT! It turns out it was a Seinfeld episode summary he had gotten off of Wikipedia. I was like “This isn't appropriate for school” but it was all I could do not to laugh. That same child loves to translate words into Spanish using Google Translator, and when he wants to do past-tense, he just adds an “ed” to the Spanish verb.  Clever!

I did a duet poem with a 2nd grader with autism the other day from the book Joyful Noise. The poems in that book of duet poems are not really intended to be read by someone so young, as the vocabulary is advanced, but he is hyperlexic as well so had no trouble. I like using it because it forces the child to wait his turn and work with you at reading at the same pace at times (you each have a column you read at the same time – some times just you, sometimes just him, sometimes both of you). We took a little video of us doing it and he started by saying “My name is John Doe, and this is my trusty assistant Miss Karen, otherwise known as Miss Awesome” AHAHAHAHA I love it.

Someone asked me today what my favorite part of my job was. I thought about it for a second and decided it was when I showed a child they could do something they didn't know they could do, or they mastered a skill for the first time (like tying a shoe, or writing neatly). Really just seeing a big smile on my child's face is what I live for.  And um, I love toys. AHAHAHAA

I took out ALL the toys from my car finally, including a bunch buried in my trunk, and re-organized them. I'm going to end up with a fine motor bag, visual motor bag, sensory motor bag, and seasonal bag, in my car. Because for example I just bought a ton of seasonal toys that I love, like the tower of bunnies, bunny spring-ups, etc etc. I want to post pics soon of all that stuff.

As a therapist who runs from school to school each day, I have to carry every thing I am going to use with me. I've done this a year now – literally my one year anniversary was this Saturday as a school OT – and I'm still trying to figure out the best way to organize myself so I don't get so loaded down. I've also been more in a toy mode lately, especially as we get close to spring break, but we're still certainly working on goal areas! One thing that frustrates me with organization is that a lot of things that are fine motor are also visual motor, etc, so having separate bags isn't that easy.

I'm slowly starting to catch up with work, although I have a long way to go in some arenas. Good thing break is coming up soon, I can try to catch up a little, although I have a friend coming into town for most of it! I just thought to myself I should go see Grandma over break, and then remembered she is gone now. 🙁 That makes me sad.

My friend who came over tonight to provide moral support while I organized toys, is a great artist/creater, so we got out Sharpies and decorated a bunch of plastic Easter Eggs. It started when I realized some of my easter eggs had little holes in top, so I stuck toothpicks in them, but they wouldn't go all the way through and looked like antenneas. So I decided to put an alien face on it. We ended up decorating a bunch either with patterns the child would have to match up, or just silly stuff. I am going to make a laminated checklist (maybe a normal piece of paper in a sheet protector), and have a brief description of each egg, ie blue jumbo egg, and have the child come check off each egg as they find them…….another good one is to write words in each egg and then they have to write the word, or a sentence, etc. Or write an action and when they find it they have to do what it says such as 10 jumping jacks. So many ways to use plastic easter eggs for handwriting, visual motor, hot/cold game, lefts/rights directionality, etc etc……I guess speech therapists could do the directionality up/below etc too!

I bought some like seventy cent putty “knives” and scrapers at the hardware store recently….the kids are way more into play-doh when they have actual grown-up “tools” to use with it.

I was working with a Hispanic little girl who had an accented I in her name, but didn't like it, and would just do a normal i instead. Mom reported this to me and I was like hmmm. I had an angry bird on my keychain the little kids were looking at, and the diagonal eyebrows gave me an idea. I told her that she had an “angry I” in her name just like the angry birds….and then all the kids around her wanted to show me how they could draw an angry i. So now she is okay with using her angry i in her name most of the time, and she notices when other kids have an “angry” letter too. I love it 🙂 So many kids just need a little gimmick and then it's fine.

I realized a few hours ago I could maybe use Jenga blocks to make little angry bird structures….now just need to get an angry bird to throw at them…..I could maybe draw an angry bird on an Easter egg and weight it with fishing weights or something, I dunno. The slingshot part is the hard part. I know they have games you can buy but I already spend a ton of my own money on toys, am trying to think of ways to do it for free with what I have. 🙂

The other day I did a lesson on flexibility for my self-regulation seminar with four little guys. I thought about it for quite a while. I did several things. For one thing, I showed them how a hard rigid tree can fall over in a storm, but a flexible tree sways in the storm and survives. I had them stand and be rigid or sway as I gently (Very gently) pushed against them so they could see what happened. Then I had brought a bunch of different objects such as an orange, a sock, etc. We talked about how an orange could be a ball, it could be eaten, maybe it could be used in a game, etc etc….and that a sock could be a mitten or a stocking etc. One of the items I grabbed on a whim was a stuffed snail I had gotten in Colombia that was beautifully colored and how it too could be several things. At the end of the lesson, I asked the kids what they had learned. One kid said “I learned about a snail” and all the other kids agreed. The snail was apparently their favorite part. I was like……wow. Awesome. So glad my lesson on flexibility boiled down to liking my snail. AHAHAHAAHA.  I clarified the lesson, but it reminded me I should weave more concreteness throughout the lesson as to what we are specifically trying to understand. I tend to be quite verbal (and I speak fast) so it's not exactly ideal for little dudes with autism. I'm also very aware of the children's need for structure so we begin and end the same way and I tell them the schedule of our seminar in advance, ie first this, then that, etc. However, I'm not a teacher in the classic sense of the word and tend not to use typical teaching strategies. An aide was telling me after the seminar how she liked my style and I was like ??? and she explained that when I was handing out hair things (as one of the items that had many uses), I basically slung-shot/threw one to each kid, instead of being like “Okay, each of you stand up in a line and come get one thing from me.” I wouldn't have even thought of that. Not very teacher-l
ike I guess. The aide said she thought it was good for them to get a different experience where they did get a little more freedom/wackiness. I dunno. In some ways I think I need to work on talking more slowly, being more strict, etc. And then in other ways I think she is right and it's good for them to see different styles with slightly less structure….who knows!! I do know as a general rule I am super lenient with things like having to walk single file in line. I see the point when there is like 30 kids, but if there is only like four…..why does it matter that much?

The things I ponder to myself at 2am. Learning out loud, right?

AOTA conference is coming up, and deadlines are looming for our social media presentation. I need to get crack-a-lacking on that ASAP along with taxes, NBCOT renewal, etc…no biggie…NOT. Yikes. Today I was only semi-productive, mostly rested….my toys are about completed though. Tomorrow is paperwork day!!!! Bleh…

Ok I guess I am going to try to go to bed now that I've de-cluttered my brain into my blog. Hopefully I'll also upload a bunch of pics tomorrow to the bloggie.

BTW I wrote to Abilitations to submit ideas, but never heard back from the person who is supposed to send me the forms etc. Does it sometimes take a while to hear back??

Karen

perceptual issues?

This is going to be included in the IEP report I am writing. 🙂

OT stream of consciousness

It’s funny to me to see what gets re-posted or commented on versus not. I love my blog and I wish I could return to my obsession with it….mostly lately I’m obsessed with Facebook and sloths. Fun, but not exactly good for my career, lol. I had a rough night! So tired! Blegh! I wanted to write something though, and now I am blanking on what exactly it was.

I guess instead I’ll mention some random things or ask questions.

1. I really am perplexed as to how to handle emotionally disturbed kids. I don’t have many on my caseload, but I am around them becaus of time spent in learning centers, and they really perplex me. If they don’t listen to adult instructions and consequences don’t really matter to them, where do I go from there??

2. I need to write about rythym sticks ,but not the normal ones. The ones where you kind of juggle. Have to send a picture though so you know what I am talking about, first.

3. I can’t spell rythym to save my life.

4. I feel like I could do some occupational therapy with sloths. I’m aiming for Costa Rica next summer (this summer I’ll be in Scandinavia).

5. My mind is constantly, constantly trying to think of new OT things.

6. I am doing a ton of inservices to different young grade levels on fine motor center possibilities using cheap things such as styrofoam pretty soon – we are seeing more and more kids, an absolute epidemic, of kids who have no idea how to use their hands or body or eyes. But they’re awesome with things involving screen time. Ugh. So we need to bring back some fine motor centers during short breaks or free choice etc to work on those skills.

7. I have “invented” a cool game that I want to post about, it’s so straight-forward, but first I need to submit it to Abilitations ….I am pretty big on creative commons and sharing everything, but at the same time I don’t want one of my ideas taken and submitted by someone else.  Actually I have 3 inventions I want to submit. I speak with Tonya over at TherapyFunZone.com about them, it’s nice. Oh that reminds me, I need to send her some things.

8. I was thinking about imagination and playfulness and how rigid some of our kids are, especially those with anxiety and/or autism. I turn EVERYTHING into a game more or less. It’s very rare I say “Crumble up this paper and throw it into the recycle bin.” Instead I say “Okay, here is our hungry shark (referring to recycle bin which has a taped shark face on it). Feed it carefully!!! I don’t even really do it on purpose, it’s just how my mind works. But kids get really into it. Seriously. Feeding a hungry shark is way more fun than a normal recycle bin. It doesn’t have to be elaborate..most kids “get it” right away. Try turning all your instructions to do something into mini games and see how it goes. Also, I feel that sometimes lots of tiny steps help kids become more aware of flexibility and imagination. So. For example. When I pick a kid up from his classroom for a 30 minute session, I may say brightly and exaggeratedly, “Today we’re going to do nothing but really hard high school math!” or “Today we’re just going to sit and stare at a wall!” – ludicrous things. Challenging them to say something like “That’s not true” or “Really?” or “Are you kidding?” Or I’ll ask them to come up with new names for the session. “Pick a new name! You are no longer John, you are X”…and I’ll suggest some fun names. Some kids can’t even handle that much change and just want to be their own name. So I chip away at their concept of reality with a lot of absurdity, exaggeration, silliness, etc. Tiny steps. But I strongly believe tiny steps make big changes over time. 🙂

9. Still working on the Pied Piper concept. So many kids hate being singled out and taken somewhere. At my schools, for whatever reason, there doesn’t seem to be much awareness of special ed or stigma attached, but I work with pretty high functioning kids. It’s definitely impressive and makes me glad. But it’s still weird for an adult to show up and take a kid away. (Phones make me nervous, I almost never call for a kid unless the kid prefers it). But random kids come up to me all the time to comment on my hair tinsel, or eyeliner sparkles, or my Mario laptopcase, etc etc. Some of my classrooms get really into me showing up because I told them once I never smile (obviously a total lie) so when I walk in they get really excited about whether I’m smiling or not. My guys love that the entire classroom gets into it before I take them away. The same is true for being “Miss Awesomeness”….kids will ask about me and remember that in a way they won’t remember Miss Karen. (I am Miss Karen to MOST of my kids, but some do way better with miss awesomeness). Is all of this a fool-proof thing? No….but I think it helps my kids feel special to know the other kids are jealous, rather than snickering at them being singled out.

10. The other day I brought in some CVS fine motor toys that are seasonal (cheap and cool…check them out). One were those pop-up things? Where it’s a suction cup and spring bunny, you press down, and about 10 seconds later they jump into the air? Those were SUPER popular. One of my kid flinched each time they jumped, but still loved them. Plus I’d say things to the bunny while it was still down like “Be chill, man. Don’t freak out. Don’t explode. Just calm down.” and then of course it jumps up and the kids thought that was hysterical. 🙂 Then started imitating me. Hearing a 2nd grader say “Be chill, man” cracked me up. ahahahaha. Anyway, these little jumping bunnies are pretty explosive and silly, so for one of my kids, we ended up writing a police report on those bunnies! I just wrote “Police Report” on the top of lined paper, then we wrote Who: Bunnies. What: Exploding. Why: Angry. When: Date Where: Work Room. They were cool with writing a police report, lol.

11. A lot of my kids are supppperr excited to watch themselves on video. Photo Booth has all sorts of funky effects, too. I know you can’t video/tape and show others without permission, of course, but they watch themselves immediately after (like 2 minute clips) and then I erase them. We do a lot of “teaching” videos. I have a kid who is a reaaaalllyyy poor drawer and hates it and avoids it, but when he got to do a teaching video on how to draw, he drew more than any of us had ever seen before. So I’ll say something like “Do you want to make a teaching video on shoe tying, handwriting with special paper, drawing, etc”….they always say yes and never seem to think about the fact it goes no farther than that, lol. They just want to see themselves on camera as an expert. Sometimes we’ll start iwth “What not to do videos”. For example, most of my kids get so frustrated with shoe tying. So we talk about it first. I’ll say, some times my kids get so frustrated, they try tying the shoe a few times, then throw it down and stomp away. Let’s make a video showing that and how that’s NOT what you should do. So we make the video of them throwing the shoe down and being angry and how it’s not okay. Then I’ll chat with them a little about their frustration tolerance that day. “You know, John, sometimes kids get really frustrated with shoe tying. Have you had a frustrating day already? How many times do you think you can try tying the shoe without getting too frustrated? 3 times? 5 times?” They think about it…most end up saying about three times. Which is fine with me. I know that I think of frustration as being a daily budget, and sometimes I can tolerate more frustration than others….so I like to get them thinking about what they can handle that day.

I guess when I think about it, a lot of what I’m talking about is kind of the psychological aspect of OT more so than actual tasks. But getting them to do actual tasks is so much easier when the “psychology” is right…
.that they feel special and not singled out….that they realize they can temporarily change their rigidity with tiny things…that they can teach others…that they can gauge their own frustration and what they can handle at that moment….etc. The actual fine motor tasks are the easy part….getting them in the “just right” zone to attempt a task is the hard part.

12. I’m not perfect. I screw up all the time. I get tired, or say something the kid doesn’t get, or use too much verbal language. (But do remember I have relatively high functioning kids by typical OT standards). Sometimes things don’t go as planned for a variety of reasons. So all this blabber up above is just a stream of consciousness of IDEAL practices that I strive for, but um. It doesn’t always happen that way. 🙂 But I do hope that at the very least, you see some aspects of your OT in a different light, or consider incorporating some of these elements…

13. I would love, love, love, to know if any of you have thoughts/comments/suggestions on any of the above….but please remember I’m a real person with feelings, so if you disagree with anything I say, please use constructive criticism….

Have a great day everyone….I’ve got a cat on my wrist helping me type…am watching the crazy wind and white-capped waves rolling in while I lie in my bed…am super tired from a bad night…….gonna be kind to myself for a few hours while I can and just rest….then off to visit a friend and then to my dad’s house for St Patrick’s food tonight, yum. I haven’t seen my dad since his mother/my grandmother’s funeral. Will be good to see him. Hopefully I can get some more paperwork done tonight too. I FINALLY got all my toys put up, now I need to figure out my papers.

8.