Pretty much the entire public school system in Western society (which is the only school system I have personal experience with, hence my qualifier) is rooted in: Adults decide when kids need to know stuff. Adults tell the kids the stuff. Adults test to see if the kids retained the stuff. Adults try to enforce/motivate … Read more
I knew that among the play invitations that I had available at camp*, that I would want to have one more structured, writing-based invitation every day. I wanted this for a variety of reasons: there were several older kids who were going to be coming to camp; writing and literacy is an avenue to so … Read more
I had a student recently who I wanted to give a fidget to. He already had a fidget for his classroom, but I had recently got a big bag of fidgets and found a particular one I thought he’d enjoy, that I would gift to him. I set up a little scavenger hunt for our … Read more
Compared to the other two apps I’ve named, Forest and Finch, this one is much more of a game and also much much simpler in function. I believe it was designed for children and young people, but I enjoy simple games, so I really liked it too. The entire “self-care” function of this game is … Read more
Continuing my series about the apps I use in my everyday life: FINCH This is my current app obsession. Finch is a little virtual bird. You set goals in the app for taking care of yourself, and as you complete the goals, your little bird goes on adventures and unlocks clothes, furniture for their house, … Read more
I sat in on a behavior plan meeting one time where the adults were somewhat baffled. All the “usual tricks” hadn’t worked for the child: reward charts, earning privileges, stickers, etc. Finally what they agreed as a team to put into the behavior plan was that this child would respond best if given “unconditional positive … Read more
Those who have followed this page for awhile know that sometimes I talk about my own journeys with becoming more self-aware of my own needs and what’s going on in my own body, since I didn’t start to really know that any of that would be helpful or necessary until a few years into adulthood. … Read more
(From the archives of my own personal FB page, a story from when I was an early therapist. I would do some things differently now, but I still appreciated the story.) *** I have a kid who I see every week at the same time. He’s usually working on the same in-class spelling worksheet, and … Read more