Electronics

Daniel loves anything to do with computers, televisions, computers, electronics, computers, portable DVD player, and his Casio keyboard. You get the idea I'm sure.

He loves turning things on and off. His way of controlling things.

A while back I believe I told you that we programmed a page on his ECO to change the channels for the TV. Its fun times when Daniel wants to watch a different program than what daddy does. So they fight and go back and forth for control. If he doesn't win, he'll just turn the TV off , look at you with a satisfied grin on his face like "Well, if I'm not watching what I want....neither are you!"

So when we recent acquired the PowerLink 3, you can imagine our excitement.  My mind went nuts thinking of all the things he could do that he'd find fun.

So we've had it for about a week and here are some of the things he has done so far.

We've made vanilla ice cream with crushed Oreo ice cream.  YUMMY

He has used the little blender we had so much that he blew it out and we had to go get a new one!

He made my breadcrumbs that were used in dinner the other night.

Mixed up his own dinner. 

Oh and who doesn't like some dinner time music from the radio?! Don't get into a song cause he'll most likely turn it off - or that could be because we're singing?  And for those hot flashes that I get, Daniel is so kind to turn on the fan! ;) 

I found an art project on Pinterest (love that site!) and we modified it so Daniel could do most of it.  We glued our "yucky" crayons and used the PowerLink with a single switch to turn on and off  a hairdryer and melt the crayons.  Big time fun!!  Besides electronics, his next favorite thing is anything to do with arts  and crafts! So you can imagine the excitement

After we glued the crayons to the top and I finally figured out a way to mount the hair dryer, we had success.  If anyone decides to do this, I strongly suggest that you put the board inside a box as there is a lot of splattering off the picture.

 Finished piece of art.  Beautiful don't you think?

Numbers....not his thing!

We do a lot of 'teaching' at home. All of it really. Daniel does not attend public school-he is considered 'home bound' but does have the help of school district.

Daniel gets tested just like everyone else and is doing really well, your typical 6 year old.  Typical also when it comes to showing what he likes and does not like!  Bring out anything with reading, the alphabet, letter sounds and that type of stuff and he's all for it.

Bring out numbers or try to count things with him, and he will not cooperate as much.  He knows his numbers up to 30.  But, it is very obvious to all involved that numbers are NOT his strong point. Well yesterday because it was the first of the month, we were going to be home all day I decided to make a whole day out of getting Daniel to participate with me in number activities. And Damn it, he was going to enjoy it!

 We started with making our numbers for our February Calendar.  You can find really cute things on Pinterest. You can request an invite on pinterest or let me know and I'll invite you then you can follow me!  We got them for free.  Free is good! So because I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to neatness and I know we get kind of rough with things, I decided to do the cheap mans route of laminating.  We use clear contact paper.

Now mind you this isn't a quick job, especially when I'm trying to incorporate the teaching with Daniel.  After I printed and cut out we put them in numerical order.  He did pretty good with staying on track, then "oh darn" I dropped them and they got out of order again!  Silly mom!  He wasn't buying it so we stuck them on the paper out of order!

To make sure there weren't any air bubbles, he had to step on them. 

I have Daniel pick one of the numbers with his device (AAC therapy) that is also on the bunch of numbers he is standing on. We have to stomp with first the left foot then with the right foot the same amount as the number! (might as well get some physical therapy in there too!)

Of course I can't keep them in  sheet form so we have to trim them up again.  Here is where we get some of our occupational therapy involved in the day.  Daniel cuts some of them up with his scissors. Again because of my "sensory issues" I have to trim all the others to make sure they are perfectly square and have the rounded corners (this is one of my issues - not a Daniel-ism".

We also played some other number games with these calendar squares. I put nine different squares on the table and we played a modified bingo game.  We counted by 2's, then 5's. We did some simple adding.  We did one to one games, I would count out how many red, pink, and white felt circles and he would have to match the numbers.  Also did some simple patterning. We talked about different things that were going to be happening in February.  All the while incorporating OT, PT & AAC (speech) therapy. 

Then of course we wrote in his journal. Yes, more numbers!  While we are writing, he tells me where the date goes, what the date is (on his device) and I choose to write something about what we've done in the day.  Then I read it to him, underlining the words as I read it to him, then of course we COUNT each word and he has to tell me what numbers are in the number before I write it.

Got to love the kid, he entertained me the whole day as we fought to get through the numbers! I did bribe him a bit and tell him he could play on the computer if we got through everything.

 

LINKS:

*Calendar numbers can be found here at Doodle Bugs Teaching.  There are tons of cute things on here.

*The scissors which are very cool can be found here

*The trackball (new discovery, he is just learning to use, but I love!) can be found here

*ECOpoint to control the colors and communicate here

*We also use Intellitools/Classroom Suites for his school work and many projects, to find out more about these click here

*Walker is the KidWalk

*Seating system is the Mygo

*Hand Braces are Benik