Two people have asked me questions about reward charts in the last week or so, so that seemed like a reasonable question to answer next. The reason for both of them asking it was because I put “reward charts” — i.e., you do x, you get a sticker on your chart (and often when you … Read more
A multi-week activity: a student and I have been working on making “wizard scrolls”. First we used teabags, coffee grounds, and brown markers to test which would make the best “aged paper” by staining them brown and crumpling them up, then letting them dry. Next, we looked at our dried experiments and picked our favorite … Read more
One of the stations in my therapy gym right now is a dinosaur dig. I have had this idea in my mind for a long time and finally had time to construct it during the winter school break! The end result is a bin of sand with “dino bones” to hunt for, and their skeletons’ … Read more
I said this a few days ago as part of a larger post, and I liked it so much I decided it needed its own post. 😉 Some kids are interested in “writing” when they’re 2. They love letters and learn all the letter names and the letter song. If left to their own learning … Read more
This made me laugh out loud. When kids love something, they’ll explore it in every facet of their play if you don’t get in their way! You don’t have to turn it into worksheets. (Yes, even for academic objective purposes. I have a kid with whom I’m working on fine motor control. It would theoretically … Read more
I can understand why some fidgets get labeled as “toys” — or worse, “distractions” — and taken away from kids who need them. It’s because they’re sold in bulk and trendy and seem like fun to all kids, not just kids who need a fidget to focus. Fidgets — sensory tools for tactile (touch) or … Read more
PSA: Everything is “sensory”! (And, again, like I mentioned yesterday…”sensory” is actually an adjective, not a noun…that’s me being pedantic, but it is something that really indicates to me whether I’m talking to somebody who knows what they mean and what they’re talking about, versus somebody who’s trying to communicate in a jargon that they … Read more
There is no need to borrow worry from the future. And that’s exactly what this kind of thinking is: it’s borrowing worry. 5 year olds are not just future adults. They are also present 5 year olds. And they need time to be 5. I tend to talk in generalities when it comes to the … Read more
If a child called “oppositionally defiant” could label the adults in their life, what kinds of things might they call them? Needlessly antagonistic? Endlessly demanding? Perhaps their adults themselves would receive the diagnosis of ODD — Overly Dictatorial Disorder. What about a child called “pathologically demand avoidant”? What might they call their adults — the … Read more
PSA: Everyone is “sensory”. 😊 (A second, more pedantic, more pet-peevy PSA: “sensory” is an adjective, not a noun!) Everyone in the world has a sensory system. Everyone interacts with the world around them through that sensory system. When people say a kid is “sensory”, they usually mean it as shorthand for “sensory-seeking”. But it’s … Read more