Canadian Down Syndrome Awareness Week : Fine Motor & More!

I actually wrote this post last year but never hit publish so I thought I'd post it tonight. It has some fun activities include some that are great for fine motor.

Between my 4 daughters, its now ski race, basketball (jr. high,high school  & middle  school teams), swim & dance season so I've been too busy to blog much.  I thought I'd post some pictures of some of the activities we've been  doing.

We've had this for quite a while but K still enjoys it.

We tried some graphing.  We didn't have any jellybeans as indicated in the activity but these colourful markers work well.

This way how K spent her day at her older sisters basketball tournament.  These giant size Jenga blocks were great fun! There were a number of other kids there that day, both older & younger. They all played so well together & these blocks were wonderful for such a wide variety of ages.  K decided on this pattern herself

Pizza night! Here's K working on her fine motor skills by creating her own pizza.

Mastering buttons

A little handwriting practice with Handwriting Without Tears

This is a  pit full of beans that the younger two girls had a great time exploring in at a children's museum while on holidays.  It was pretty cool!

I always try to keep activities fun & exciting for K.  Her she is working on her 

fine motor skills by using tweezers to put shapes into her horse's cart.

K's Favorite Apps August 2013

I did a post a few years ago on K's favorite iPad apps.  It's way past time for an update.  These are some of the apps we've enjoyed since then. Many of them are great for doing program.


First things first -  Where to get the deals!  I like Smart Apps for Kids  & App Friday
If you watch these sites often you can get some really great deals. There are also a couple of good FaceBook groups that post lots of deals.  One of them is Free Apps For Kids.   I'm Sure there are a couple of other real good ones but they don't seem to be coming up on my FaceBook feed now & I can't find them so please leave me a comment if you have any other suggestions.


Language Builder is an app that we have used for speech. It contains photos of people engaged in various activities & allows you to record a sentence about the picture & then play it back. I was lucky to find this one for free but it is now listed at $9.99


We've just recently started using an app called  Speech Sounds on Cue.  According to their description it contains over 500 videos, sound clips and colour photos designed to help adults and children to produce the consonant speech sounds in isolation, in words and in sentences. 
Thankfully, I found this one on sale as the cost now is $24.99.


Rainbow sentences is going to be my next purchase ($7.99) as soon as I get to town to pick up a new iTunes card.  From their description:

Rainbow Sentences is designed to help students improve their ability to construct grammatically correct sentences by using color coded visual cues. The who, what, where, and why parts of sentences are color coded to help students recognize and understand how combinations of these parts create basic sentence structure.
Students will learn how to recognize the parts of sentences such as nouns, verbs, and prepositions, improve their understanding of how combinations of these parts create basic sentence structure. Students have the opportunity to record their sentences in their own voice to improve their receptive and expressive language skills.

Sounds pretty cool right?


Simply Smarter Kids - Memory - Memory is one of the apps that was fairly recently released by NACD. This is a great app for working on  sequential processing, short-term and working memory & really follows the neurodevelopmental approach to developing memory. The app is a pretty good price at $1.99. K loves animals though so to keep her interested I ended up adding on the animals package which cost another 99 cents.


Mem Magic is another memory game. In this game there is a circus theme.  3 performers are shown for several seconds, then one disappears & the child must remember which one is missing. Its not either of our favorite but K likes it & I like that it approaches memory in a different way than most. Free!


Fun with Directions & More Fun with Directions are two grat apps for auditory processing. You can set it to easy intermediate or advanced.  I loved this app but I wish it had a couple of higher levels as K is outgrowing it. I like that  you can set this app to voice or written commands so it can be used to practice reading comprehension as well.  The downside is the price.  I've had it for a couple of years & must have either gotten it when it was cheaper or when it was on sale as I know I'd have been too cheap to pay the $15.99 price tag :)


Splingo's Language Universe is my favorite auditory processing app -  K loves it too.  Help an alien get home to his planet by following directions.  Correct answers help him build his spaceship. There are four difficulty levels:
•Level 1 -contains instructions of 1 main word and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 18 months onwards, e.g. “find the apple”
•Level 2 - contains instructions of 2 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 2-3 years, e.g. “find the red apple”
•Level 3 - contains instructions of 3 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 3- 4 years and upwards, e.g. “find the big red apple”
•Level 4 - contains instructions of 4 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 4 years and upwards, e.g. “give the big red apple to the boy”

In my opinion, Splingo's Language Universe is well worth the price at $2.99.


Letter School is our favorite printing app - Each letter on this app starts out with a little song. That says the letter followed by an object that starts with that letter. There are three levels of difficulty when writing each letter.  The first level guides you right through whereas the 3rd level requires the child to write quite independently although it does start to give hints if the child is having trouble. Numbers are also included & the quantity for each number is sthown before the printing begins. The special effects include fireworks, songs, trains with the whistle blowing, flowers growing, neon lights & lots more- very exciting stuff to motivate kids.  Well worth the $2.99.
 

Another handwriting favorite of ours is Write My Name by Injini.  This app allows kids to practice writing letters, sight words & most importantly lets you program in words such as your child's name. This app costs $3.99


Daily Art  - We use this app for encyclopedic knowledge. It is great for people like me teach my kids about art when I don't have a lot of knowledge in that area.

 
K really enjoyed Monkey Preschool Lunchbox when she was younger. It has games that teach concepts such as shapes, letters, colours, & matching. This app costs 99 cents.


Bugsy Kindergarten Math is an entertaining math game in which the child guides the hamster as it tries to fill it's fridge with food. K enjoys this & plays it often. This $2.99 app teaches math concepts such as:

- Numbers — 0-30
- Counting — count by 1, 2, 3 & 5
- Comparisons — quantities & numbers
- Writing Numbers — 0 - 9
- Pattern Recognition — simple & complex
- Number Bonds — number relationships
- Basic Arithmetic — addition & subtraction up to 20


Park Math was K's favorite math app for a long time.  While it's not an absolute favorite now she still enjoys it a lot. There are quite a few activities for th e $3.99 price tag. The child wanders through all the playground activities with various animals such as hippos, ducks & dogs while doing various math activities.


There are 3 Levels for Preschool, Kindergarten and First Grade
- Level 1: Count up to 20; addition/subtraction with numbers up to 5
- Level 2: Count up to 50; addition/subtraction with numbers up to 10
- Level 3: Count up to 100; addition/subtraction with numbers up to 20



We used the I Like Books app quite a bit when Kas was about 4 years old.  This app has 37 stories to choose from with nice photographs on each page. She still uses this app from time to time. Free!


Lakeshore Learning has an app called Beginning Sounds Sorting Game in which the player sorts each object depending on the initial sound. 99 cents.


Find them all is a game that requires the child to search for various animals on the farm. An in app purchase opens up a number of other habitats but we have only used the free farm habitat.


K has several Stella & Sam apps. While she's never watched this program on TV, she loves all of the apps.


K enjoys the Miss Spider apps such as Miss Spider's Tea Party.  $2.99.


 Toca Doctor was one of K's favorite games last year. The list price is $2.99 but I've seen it come up for free. The crunchy mama in me sometimes cringes at some of the "medical" types games but for a kid who occasionally has to go for blood work & see specialists etc. I think it's good to have some playing doctor fun.

What are some of  your kids favorite apps?

Fun Fine Motor Activity

A friend gave me these sheets quite a while ago. I'm not familiar with the program these sheets are from but the writing on the bottom right says Do A Dot Art. We've been photocopying them so we've gotten a lot of use out of these sheets.  Initially, when K was younger we used bingo dobbers to do them. K is working on printing now though so they are a little too easy so we decided to use them for fine motor skills instead.

K placed some glue on a spot on the paper then used the tweezers to pick up a pompom & put it in place.  We are always looking for new & fun activities to do with K so it was nice that this activity was a hit.

Canadian Down Syndrome Awareness Week -Printing practise

K is finally started to agree to doing some handwriting practice. For the longest time, she didn't like writing of any kind.  Following in the footsteps of KJ, my now 9 year old, she didn't even want to pick up any kind of crayon or felt pen.  I tried to give K lots of opportunities, while not pushing & she is finally much more agreeable to this sort of thing & often initiates it herself now.  

We have been doing Handwriting without Tears for a while now but sometimes it is nice to do something new different so I try to have lots of different options for K.  

I think any kind of writing is helpful to gain the fine motor control needed so we use lots of different mediums.

I have a peel & stick chalkboard in K's room for her to play with whenever she wants.

We like the magna doodle for in the vehicle. It's pretty sturdy & I don't have to worry about losing pens. We do take coloring sheets or blank paper & pens at times but the magna doodle is our constant travel toy.

This Giant wipe off book is a fun way to practice letters. It was a 50 cent purchase at our annual town wide rummage sale which raises money for local events - win, win!

and another rummage sale purchase - this Discovery Toys printing set cost $1.00 & is so much fun with multicoloured pens.

I often leave a different style of pen, crayon or paint brush on her little table that sits in my kitchen to hopefully entice her to do some art.

I printed off worksheets from First School & ones like this from Preschool Learners - There are thousands available on the internet & I love that I can just search for whatever K is interested in to use activities she enjoys to learn with.

I recently discovered this printing worksheet maker - with this I can make any kinds of sentences which is great for keeping K interested.

These are just a few of the printable options but there are thousands & thousands available on the internet.  My favorites are actually bookmarked on our other computer that I isn't here right now but there are many other great sites. Sometimes I will just do a google image search  - I always get lots of great ideas.

K's handwriting is starting to improve.  Sometimes her art is not recognizable - she still enjoys filling in the entire page on her magna doodle, but then some days I get artwork like this:

What activites do you use to help your kids with printing?  Please feel free to share your ideas & links in the comments:)

Simply Smarter Kids Memory APP

 NACD came out with a new app a while & just released an update a few days ago.  This is a really good app for memory & I often use it when working on visual object sequences.

Simply Smarter Kids

Simply Smarter Kids YouTube video

The Alphabet is Boring:)

Here is another recent question:

In your blog you mentioned that your daughter knew her alphabet by the age of 2.
What program or strategy did you use to teacher her this skill?

To be honest, I did not teach her the alphabet & did not plan to teach her until she was close to school age - but K had her own timetable & taught herself!

K did watch the Love & Learning videos  on & off from when she was about 1 to 2 years of age.  We also had the Leap Frog alphabet fridge magnets on our fridge & a set of letter fridge magnets & probably a few other toys with letters that allowed her to learn them on her own. She surprised me one day in the hardware store, when she started pointing out letters on the signs.  I still remember my shock & amazement when she toddled over to a  Shamwow display rack, pointed at the M & said M,  mmmm.

As I stated earlier, I did not plan to teach her letters & don't see the point in purposefully teaching this to a very young child.  The alphabet really has no meaning to a toddler & won't be much fun to learn.  Because sight words are the most effective way to teach a toddler (teaching phonics is really important, just not at this age - click on this post as well as this one for my reasoning for this), I don't think that teaching the alphabet is helpful.

Sight words are so much more fun! Put yourself in a toddler's shoes.  Would you rather learn that A says aaaa, or that M.O.M. spells Mom? We focused on the most important words in K's life first.  Family & pet names, favorite toys, foods & animals. Reading needs to be fun at this age in order to foster a lifelong love of reading.

If however, you have a school age, or almost school age child, letters will probably be more beneficial to help them keep up with what the other kids are learning.  We did intend to teach K letters by about age 5, before we realized that she had taught herself the alphabet.

Some good resources that I can think of off the top of my head are the many iPad/iPhone apps available.  We like LetterSchool lately for printing practice, but I think it would also help a child learn the letters.

There are some good DVD's out there but my tired brain doesn't seem to be able to come up with a title tonight!  I'll try to edit this with an example.

This is a similar product to the one that k used to teach herself the alphabet: LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Alphabet.

Alphabet letters are everywhere, making it so easy to incorporate fun games into everyday life.  There are big foamy bathtub letters & letter stickers to do different projects with. Our local Dollar Store has tons of different types of letters in the toy aisles -you could do so many projects with them.  Pictures, paintings, make one of those find the letter I Spy bags or put the letters in rice or popcorn for a tactile experience.  Use tweezers to grab the letters to work on letter recognition & fine motor at the same time.  Look for letters on signs, etc when going for walks. 

................and lastly, of course good old flashcards - They are tons of commercial ones available, or I'm sure BrillKids has some too.

Fun Activities - Folding Crafts

One of the activities we like to do with K on a regular basis is to work on folding skills.  Often we use ready made books that are so simple just to tear out the page & practice folding. We have run out again though, so we have been trying to find some on the internet, which isn't the easiest task.  

We made these little snack holders the other day, filled them with popcorn & watched a movie - K was so excited that we'll have to do this again!

 

Here is a link to a post I did on the same subject a while ago - Paper Folding

Fun Activities - 5 Little Penguins

We've been having fun using these little penguins to learn about math lately.  It is a simple song about 5 little skating penguins. We have been using the story for reading practice and speech.  Most of the activities we have been doing are math related.  We have been counting the penguins on our fingers and using the equations to help work on subtracting the penguins. 

 

For kids who don't know colours yet, these little penguins could be used to match alike colours or to match the colour to the matching word.  Likewise, the penguins could be numbered to work on numbers & number words.

Here is the website that I got the penguins & story from.  They have tons of free printables in a large range of themes & include a daily free printable.  Here is a link to their site:

Child Care Land Free Printables

Fun Activities - Cooking With Chef K

First, start with premium ingredients - rice, beans, sparkles, little Christmas & winter snowflake  & star decorations & whatever else Mom has available.

Measure all of the ingredients carefully.

Pour back & forth between each bowl several times. Then stir well.

   ................and make sure you clean up the kitchen when you are done...............right K?...........K?

Fun Activities - OT With Pompoms!

OT..................and math, & speech and................

I thought I would do a series of posts on some of the fun activities that we do with K.  I rarely seem to have time to post about that sort of thing  & that probably gives my audience a narrow view of what learning looks like in our home - yes, we love flashcards, but there are so many other ways to learn!

 

This is one of the activities we did when K was little, but I dragged it out of the closet the other day just for fun.  Because she hasn't seen it in quite a while, K had a great time with it.  If I remember right, she was about 2 when we played with it a lot.  

The tongs were to help with fine motor skills.  The different sizes of pompoms varied the difficulty level & we used various types of tongs too.  

We sorted by colour and size, talked about the colour names & which ones were bigger or smaller.

I wrote a different number on each cup & K would count that many as she was putting them in.  

I think K's favorite activity was just pouring the pompoms from one cup to another.

For as simple as this activity is to set up, there are tons of ways to learn!

Santa Claus came last night!

Actually, this was a gift from K's Grandma & Grandpa.  Santa didn't bring any educational toys this year, just a talking, moving baby doll, Littlest Pet Shop toys & a Barbie...............& of course, the most important thing on K's list................chocolate!

K has been really enjoying the map. It uses the pen from her LeapFrog Tag reading system.

 

Right now, she is mostly just exploring, but it has lots of games to challenge different levels of players, so I'm hoping that she (& her sisters) will get lots of use out of it.

While we're on the subject of geography, my older girls love the app Stack the Countries.

I was honestly very surprised that this has become a family favorite.  Even my husband plays this often.  My 14 year old loves to challenge everyone, & I'll have to admit that I don't give her much competition!  She is a whiz at knowing where every country is. Usually my older kids resist their Mom's educational activities, so this game is really a hit!

Look What I Can Do All By Myself!

Today, I had a little time to waste while waiting for winter tires to be put on my truck.  I really didn't need much for groceries, but thought this would be a good time to try out an idea that I had read about recently.  I'm not 100% sure, but I think I might have read about this idea on Geraldine's blog The Down Syndrome Action Plan.  Today was K's first, mostly independent shopping trip. It was a great way to incorporate reading into an activity which required thinking, memory & learning new skills.

I didn't think of this ahead of time, so I quickly scribbled down 

a few items on a scrap piece of paper. Here is her list:

 

....and off she goes! Sorry for the terrible picture.  Next time, 

I'll have to remember to take more than one. I think the little carts are adorable!

Some of the items were a difficult for K to reach, so I did help a little.  Next time, I'll be prepared with a list for her ahead of time that included things that are easier for her to reach, but all in all, it was a great first experience.

Awesome Website for Encyclopedic Knowledge (Doman Bit Cards)

This is not part of K's program, but she really loves this sort of thing, so the other day, I made her some bit cards just for fun.

I found this website called a - z animals - it is great for making bits! It has pictures as well as all kinds of information of each animal.  I actually haven't been using the pics too much, because it is easier to use google images & find a more clear, concise picture without lots of background clutter, but the information is so easy to cut, paste, & reorganize & use for the 10 pieces of information on the back of the bit.

They have an animal of the day, so if  you were doing a program including this, you could even make one card each day based on that animal.  It can't get much easier than that!

If anyone has a good website of pictures that can be printed off in an 8.5 X 11 size & still print really clearly, let me know please :)

A paper animal jungle

 K got  book last year for Christmas, which was full of cute little paper folding activities.   The book is done now & I haven't been able to find a different one, so I've been searching the internet for some.  I came across this site: paper folding activities  It is full of adorable little animals to fold.  I printed off a set for each of my 2 younger girls.  We will probably do one a day with K, to make the last a while, but KJ had a great time this afternoon, creating a whole menagerie!

 

This is a similar book to the one that K got for Christmas last year.

These animals will keep us going for a couple of weeks, but after that we will need to find more, so if you know of any other similar sites, please let me know by leaving a comment:)

31 for 21 - "W is for Wabbit"

I know its supposed to be 31 for 21, but I have completed my next 2 posts & want to do a Halloween post on Monday, so I'm going to add an extra.  35 or so for 21 is OK right?  This is a neat story so I really want to share it. You would think that I'd have run out of things to  talk about already:)!

Although K's speech is quite good for her age, we do have a lot of things to work on.  For example, she is starting to be able to say her R's, but still has quite a bit of trouble. It does lead to some funny situations sometimes. Tonight, Kassie asked me to play an alphabet game that she enjoys.   When we came to the letter W, she said "W  -  Wabbit"  I told her "No,  R - Rabbit".  Of course she insisted that W was for Wabbit & carried on through the alphabet. 

Although she was wrong about the spelling, it really showed that she is comprehending how to figure out the first letter of a word, because I'm sure none of us played this game using the word "Wabbit" or wrote "Wabbit" as a sight word.  She was able to sound the word out in her head & come up with what she thought was the first letter.

31 for 21 - Pumpkins, & Spiders - Halloween Fine & Oral Motor Excercises

Boo!!!

 

Here are K's latest 2 crafts from preschool.I thought she did a 

great job placing all of the  features in the correct locations.  

 

 

This is a fun activity that K's preschool teacher had the kids do on Wednesday.  They each took a few spiders & blew them across the table with the straws.  What a wonderful & fun oral motor activity!  The preschool is a social program - academics are not intentionally part of the program, however, K's teacher is awesome at finding neat activities which incorporate new skills. 

31 for 21 - Reading Comprehension

 These neat little cards from Discovery Toys are another  50 cent rummage sale bargain!  

They have short phrases & many of them are actions.  Most of them are really easy for K to read. Although we were very careful to avoid testing when K was young, we are much more relaxed about it now as she willingly reads out loud to us all the time.  I often read that kids with Down syndrome learn sight words, but that their comprehension lags behind their reading level.  I have always thought that k understood basically everything she reads, from simple words to more complex sentences. I purposely never taught her any of the words on these cards & have only had her read them to me.  They are a simple way for me to understand K's comprehension of what she is reading & I am very happy with how she is doing at this.  It is really confirming my thoughts that she is understanding what she reads.

K thinks it is quite a fun game to act out these cards:)!

31 for 21 - Math With Tomatoes?

Math can be done just about anywhere!  I've been frantically trying to get my garden harvested as well as a few organizational projects before I commit 100% to K's new program.  In the mean time, I'm trying to fit learning activities in whenever I can.  Today we did "tomato math".  As we picked tomatoes, we counted & sorted, we talked about colors.  Of course we talked about planting seed & how everything grew & how it is now fall, so we are now harvesting it because it is done growing & winter is coming soon. 

K did great with this until the backyard swing set called to her.........

31 for 21 - More bargains!

I love educational toys - perhaps to the point of being a little bit addicted! lol  I don't like the price tags though, so these are today's 2nd hand bargains.  I spent $1.00 total.  I probably didn't really need 2 of them, but the price was right, & they are both a little different & variety is a good thing - right?  Remember that I said that I have an addiction?

  

  

 

K loved making this rocket ship.  Afterwards, we sang Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, We're Going to the Moon, with the expected toss in the air after we counted down of course!

It's Math Time!

As much as possible, I try to make math a part of everyday life.  Just now, after she had finished her snack, K asked for more crackers. I asked her how many she wanted & she responded "I want 4 crackers please", so we counted them out. Of course, she wanted 4 more crackers several times, but she got counting practice each time:)

Especially when K was little, we counted everything - stairs, food, toys, etc. We talked about her 2 dogs & 3 sisters. 

 

Baking is one of the most natural ways to include math into everyday life. Measuring, using fractions, counting eggs, etc.


As for math programs, right now, we are using a combination of BrillKid's LittleMath & Numicon math.  I really like both & think it is a good combination.

My next 2 posts will be on Numicon & Little Math.