Prewriting - Getting ready to Write!

Adeline's motor skills are weak, so we are working hard to improve that.  I would like to start teaching her how to write letters soon but I feel that we need to strengthen the muscles in her hands a bit more.

What we are doing:

1.   Crawling every day.  Crawling strengthens the hands as weight is put on them.

2    Hanging from a monkey bar.

3.   Playing with play dough

4.   Lacing beads

5.   Peg board
 
6.   Scooping with a small scoop is very good because it forces you to use your pincher grasp.

7.  Drawing lines - we have been doing lots of matching pages.  I laminate them and use them over and over.
   
8.  Prewriting  pages-  I love these pages from:  3 Dinosaurs  

The number matching page is also from  3Dinosaurs 

We love these dry erase makers they are thin like a pencil and Adeline can erase when she is finished.

Introducing Adeline's baby brother

We have been gone for such a long time.  Adeline's heart has been repaired and is working great and she now has a new brother.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers over the past few months.

What We Have Been Up To

We have been absent for a while and I wanted to give an update on some of the things we have been doing.

1.  Reading these wonderful Biscuit books almost every day!  Adeline loves these and so do I.  They are simple and use repetitive language, making them very predictable.

  2.  Playing with Unfix Cubes.  These are great little manipulatives that really work fine motor skill.  These cubes are also used to teach many math skills such as patterning, counting, sorting, counting, etc.  Right now we are just learning how to put them together.     

 

3.  Coloring our ABC's

4.  Learning animals,  I recently found a great box of social studies and science cards.  The cards are actual photographs.  We have been working on the animals first.

 
5.  Putting clothes pins off and on a box.

These are a few of the thing we have been doing during the past few week.   Adeline is scheduled for heart surgery in about three week.  We are praying that she stay healthy until then.

Activities For a Platform Swing

The weather is amazing here and we have been playing outside.  Last summer Adeline's grandpa built her this great platform swing and we have been doing many different activities on it.

First - Puzzles, both sitting on the tummy.  The whole time the swing is moving gently to challenge her balance and work the core strength.

Being on her tummy works on upper body strength. 

 Second - Adding rings to stacker both sitting and on the tummy.

Third -  Adding pegs to a pegboard.  I had to hold this in front of her but it worked great.

Fourth - Reading flashcards.

Fifth - popping bubbles.  I do not have a picture of Adeline popping bubble but this is also fun to do.