Category Archives: Therapy

Helping Kids with Anxiety

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I found this at our library, What to Do When You Worry Too Much: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Anxiety. (Probably good for adults, too.) The intro is for adults/parents but the book is geared towards kids reading it could be read to kids as young as Ben (5) but easily readable by C (8) on his own. I found him exploring it this morning and the older three are all working on it now. It discusses in kid friendly terms what anxiety is (worry) and has them write or draw pictures as it goes throughout discussing what worries are, why people seem to have more than others, how it makes our body and mind feel, and then coping techniques. The kids seem to be really enjoying it and it’s prompting some great discussions. So far I highly recommend it, anything that engages the kids this well and helps them discuss their concerns and gives them an emotional vocabulary is a win in my book. 🙂

Pictures of the kids’ artwork to come, they want to show off their drawings. C’s is cracking me up.

Cam

These are three different sources of worries. The worry bully makes the worms to go inside of you & the worry worms make the worries. (The bully has no hands but uses the grappling hooks to get on your shoulder and get inside of you.) With the worry worm it burrows inside of you and if you don’t listen it uses its slapper to slap you! (He saw some science show about parasitic worms, I’ll spare you that explanation, it was gross.) The worry gas is what makes the Worry make you worry.

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Ben’s worry (spelled “worey” down the side.) This is a bad house and a dream catcher to catch his bad dream and there’s a pea shooter coming to help and it killed the bad guys.

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Table of Contents:
1. Are you growing worries?
2. What is a worry?
3. How do worries get started?
4. Making worries go away?
5. Spending less time on worries.
6. Talking back to worries.
7. Re-setting your system.
8. Keeping worries away.
9. You can do it!

Exercises:
– draw something you worry about
– do you know someone else who worries?
– how does worry make your body feel (stomach, heart, etc)
– what is something you can say or do to help you worry less about your fear?
– set up worry time (15 minutes) and make a worry time sign
– imagine a worry box & draw a picture of it; put your worries there until worry time
– imagine a worry bully & draw a picture of it.
– What will you say to the worry bully?
– What can you do to stay busy while ignoring the bully?
– Draw the worry giving up and going away.
– Draw a list of activities you can do to reset your system.
– Write a list of relaxing things you can do to reset your system: meditation, deep breathing, tense & relax muscles, warm bath, massage, visualize happy memory.
– Draw a picture of a special memory or place.
– What do you do to take good care of yourself? Draw it.
– Draw yourself doing something you are good at.
– Draw yourself without your worries.

Key Points:
– Logic is when you think about what is really true instead of what you fear.
– Resetting your system with activity or with relaxation.

Dance Studio

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We’re emptying the sunroom to turn it into a dance studio for the summer:

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A friend minored in dance in college and offered to do an intro course for our collection of kids. My Mom helped find clothes & such and we’ll host it in our sunroom. Good incentive to tackle this pre-baby, the sunroom needed some sorting out.

I’m excited, this will be a low stress way for the kids to try a new activity and it’s at our place (bonus) and it’s FREE! (Double bonus.) Plus I knew some of our kids would not be interested in a formal class and others would not do so hot in a traditional class between attention span, sensory and/or motor issues, and we certainly couldn’t afford dance class for five kids so I’m feeling very blessed to have this chance for them – and grateful we have such a fantastic sunroom. Now we just need lots of mirrors, hmmm… 🙂

Preview for tomorrow, they’re trying on their outfits:

Cam

Children’s Development

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I really liked this article. I agree with the author that therapy can be beneficial and sometimes absolutely crucial to children, but sometimes we need to step back and remember (even as we do therapy!) that children develop at different paces and with different talents and challenges. As much as I try not to, I do struggle with comparing my children’s various trajectories with milestones, learning styles, developmental steps, and academics. They each have their own paths and I want to back off and put less pressure on myself and on them to try and meet some completely unnecessary and vague guideline or goal of development. They are all still so young… they’ve got time. 🙂

This does NOT mean we stop therapies because we absolutely believe they benefit the kids. It means that I look at therapy as a tool in the process and I don’t stress about us needing it still… there’s no deadline for developing these things or learning certain subjects. I’ve got them all at least until 17 years of age (so I guess there is a deadline of sorts! 🙂 ) But let’s relax and just have fun with this therapy stuff and the creativity necessary to find an approach that works for each child to develop their talents. We’ll get there and we may as well enjoy the process!

Wii Therapy

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The kids broke the Wii (again) and Kit pulled it out today to fix it (hooray!) and I’m thankful. We’re doing Wii Fit and I am reminded that this is really, truly fantastic therapy for our kids. Even physical and occupational therapists use this for therapy so I know it’s legitimate. 🙂 And very fun, and now that we’re officially entering summer time (90+ degrees) I’m glad we have a fun indoor exercise option.

This is E seeing how close she can get to her sister without getting in trouble for harassment:

This is J feeling victorious that he ran off with the Wii controller while Mo was playing:

These are the kids crowded around to see how Mo was doing – I told them if they are watching they have to be doing the exercises, too, but they were ignoring me. Mo’s wearing her “exercise” clothes:

I don’t think we’ve bought any Wii games before (I don’t think, Kit? Did we?) because Kit would just review whichever ones we wanted back when we first got the Wii. Now that site is down so we don’t have our free Wii game hook up but after seeing the Wii Fit in action I felt like it was really, truly a good investment for our kids with motor challenges. I still believe it, especially seeing little ones doing the hula hoop and the snowboarding and watching the balance challenges – it’s great. And since it cost the equivalent of one hour of private physical or occupational therapy I figure we can’t beat that price for the benefit it gives the kids!

Vision/OT Ideas

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From Little Four Eyes:

Flashlight Tag – In a dark room (we play in the evening) the child takes their flashlight for an eventful game of flashlight tag. The parent slowly moves their light along the wall in all sorts of directions and the child’s job is to catch their beam. This works best if you have 2 flashlights or laser pointers that make a very clear beam on the wall.

Hit my ballon (or ball) on a string. – Tie the balloon on a 1-2 foot string and have your child watch the ball and “hit” it when it comes close to them. We aim for making contact 10 times. Today we played with a ball, but it moved too fast and Elly was not able to keep her eyes tracking on it and ended up just batting at it and getting lucky a few times. A balloon would slow the game down.

Dancing Finger Puppets. – Hold the puppets in front of the child’s face and have them follow the dancing puppet as you move it slowly back and forth, up and down and in a circle. Ask them to tell you the attributes of the puppet – what color is the face? How many dots are on the tummy?

Pop the bubble. – Have your child put out their pointer finger and practice popping imaginary bubble gently with a slow tap. The key is to make sure the kids are looking at the bubbles. Then begin blowing bubbles and having your child slowly pop them. If they are having trouble with their fingers, a paintbrush also works and they can “paint” the bubble to pop it.

Tricycle or Bike obstacle Course- Set up a few cones and place a card on top of the cone with a picture or letter on it. Have your child “Drive” through the course avoiding the obstacles. Encourage them to read and call out what is on each card as they go around it.

Motor Lab & Cursive

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I wrote “left” and “right” (in cursive) on two scraps of paper then taped them to the wall. Mo had to bounce and tap the paper with the correct hand but they were on her opposite side – so she had to cross midline to tape the left with her left hand and vice versa.

It was hard for her, which is usually a good sign for me that we’re on the right track doing therapy with her. 🙂

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One piece fell and she taped it back up at a different height, which would be a good way to play around with this exercise. It was from Ready Bodies, Learning Minds which we use at home for occupational therapy exercises – we (and the book) call it our “Motor Lab” time.

And related to fine motor, we’re focusing on getting through some of our Cursive First book this week before we start with our spelling lists from SWR. This is Christopher’s notebook page today as he practices and this is his third day with cursive. Some of those are my sample letters, of course, but I am really amazed at how quickly both kids are picking up the cursive.

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And Joseph wanted a turn after Mo, this is to note the kids in the their cute matching shirts, compliments of Katie’s boys.
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And Emy wandered off during motor lab and I found this:

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We work them hard around here. Poor thing, passed out with her LeapPad.

Spring 2009 – What We’re Using (w/pictures)

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What we’re using for school this next semester:

First, Christopher – this should be his first grade year. He’s in Saxon 2 (which is second grade level) and First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind book 3 (which is 3rd grade level.) He’s reading whatever books strike his fancy and we’re reading aloud to him still. He’s also using his composition book for his handwriting practice and dictation but typing his book reports (and using a new typing program.) He writes letters and is writing in his journal for more writing practice.

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Moira is in her kindergarden year. She’s in Saxon 1 (first grade) and First Language Lessons grade 1. She’s also using a workbook for some extra reading practice, Bob books for reading aloud, and her composition book for handwriting practice. For therapy we’re using a phonics book (for speech), Ready Bodies, Learning Minds for motor and sensory work and The Out of Sync Child has fun for sensory issues, speech & motor. Plus the Webber Phonology cards.

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For math manipulatives we have geoboards/peg boards, math cubes, tangram pieces and some plastic shapes. And a ton more, but these are the ones they use most. We have toy clocks, calendars, counting bears, flashcards, etc.

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For art we’re mostly using the Complete Book of Arts & Crafts right now, but we also have the science arts book, Annotated Mona Lisa, Discovering Great Artists, and some art history books (serious ones) from my family (they all did AP art history & one minored in it in college.) And we have sketch pads for the kids for their nature journals, among other things. And an obscene amount of art supplies. We try to do art on Mondays.

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Music – we have a basic beginner piano book C is almost done with and Mo will start with, along with the Primary children’s song book and a simplified hymn book. We have lots of toy instruments like triangles and shakers, the guitar, piano, and drums. We let the kids play on Garage Band, Kit and I play for them (guitar and piano) and we use Pandora to expose them to various composers. We’ll be doing artist & composer studies later this year, picking one of each to focus on per semester. (It will be a good education for me. We do music study on Tuesdays.

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Wednesdays we do an Out of Sync activity and focus on some extra motor work/sensory stuff for Moira, though all the kids participate. We do speech on Monday & Friday with Mo.

For history we’re in book two of Story of the World. We also have some geography encyclopedias, Circling the Globe, various atlases, blackline maps to go along with our history curriculum, and the biography books for the kids to read about some famous figures. We’ll be supplementing a LOT more with “living books” and biographies as we get more in depth later on – the Story of the World is a four book series we’re doing twice through so next go round we’ll have a lot more enrichment activities and additional readings. (Ask me if that made no sense at all and I’ll explain later.) Thursdays we do history and every other week we meet with a co-op for an enrichment activity.

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Science this year is earth & space, we have a variety of books and posters & the NASA cards. Right now we’re just doing some readings but we hope to add in science experiments again soon. The science readings go along with the history timeline. Life science, earth & space, chemistry, physics on a four year rotation.

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We also have some science experiment books and encyclopedias. There are more books for life, chemistry, and physics that I’ll photograph when we get around to those. And the Magic School Bus books. Plus we have the magnifying glasses and other hands on things for the kids. We do science on Fridays.

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We do language & math daily, we do the “specials” each once a week. Art, music, sensory (therapy, history, science.

The language & math with Christopher takes about 30 to 45 minutes total. The language & math with Moira takes about 30 minutes total. If they dawdle it takes about an hour. 🙂 They both need one-on-one attention to cover the new math concept of the day and do the language, Mo needing more help than C, of course. The extra subject takes 30 minutes to an hour, depending on what we’re doing. We also doing reading aloud with the kids for at least an hour a day but often two or more hours with them reading to us, each other and us reading to them.

Oh, and cost – we bought the Magic School Bus books from Scholastic for cheap. The Well Trained Mind book 3 and workbook I got off Amazon (it was cheaper that way) and the workbook for Saxon 2 we bought new. Those are the only books we bought new and we didn’t pay full price for any of them. Everything else we got as a gift or free from another homeschool family, bought used from a library sale, or found on Half.com or Amazon.com for used. We’ve not spent a ton on these, though if we find a book we fell would be good we find a way to get it. We did buy the manipulatives new, of course, but we purchased most of them during Mardel’s 20% off educators sale. Homeschooling does not have to be expensive.

Okay, I hope that answers most of the questions re: what we use!

And here are links in the post I wrote up, if you want to find out more about the books we use.

I lied – the Ready Bodies, Learning Mind program we purchased new as well. The therapy things are often harder to find used, but we checked that out so we knew it was something we felt good about.