The Boy Loves Proving Me Wrong

Guess who got himself dressed today all the way down to his underwear with nothing but a little up-front verbal prompting from Mom?

He even picked out all his clothes himself.

And to think, just last week I was commiserating about how he’s mastered helping himself to cereal at odd hours of the day when he can’t even put his own underwear on.

All the other kids were at the table eating breakfast, and I went to join them after I saw that he had gotten his nightshirt off and was starting to put his day clothes on.  Next thing I knew he was fully dressed with a big smile on his face, ready to eat.

Think there’s a connection?

The Carb King rides again.

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Pergo, Painter’s Tape and a Plan

Oh, actually this was on my vinyl kitchen floor, not Pergo.

Anyway. . .

I recently saw a more complicated version of this activity on Pinterest.  I simplified it into a spiral maze and used a black marker to ink the letters in alphabetical order on the tape.  If you do this, be sure to change the direction of the letters after every new angle so that they will be facing the right direction as your child follows the tape.  Show your child how to drive on the tape – he’ll get it right away.  I also had the children walk the tape and say the letters as they stepped on them.

Don’t forget to get your tape up after 10 days or so and use painter’s tape, NOT masking tape.  Otherwise you’ll have a much harder time.

U-Tube Videos for Education – Shapes

My friends, after an entire 12 months of blogging, I have FINALLY figured out that I too can put video directly on my WordPress blog.  To celebrate, I have some You-tube videos for you that Noah (6 with Down syndrome) and I watched last week.  Just click on the arrow in the center of each screen shot. Short descriptions of each video are below the screen shot. If you’d like to view the video in full screen, click on the rectanglular box in the bottom right corner of the screen shot. Enjoy!

A catchy rap-type song with simple PEC-type graphics for each shape.

More shapes to a Beatle-ish tune with pictures made out of shapes.

A mellow, dreamy song with simple cartoon shapes that morph. The video and lyrics highlight the number and placement of sides each shape has.

A run-down of the 2-D shapes to a rap/soul beat. This video also points out things in our environment that are examples of shapes. The number of sides of each shape are highlighted and counted.

A Sesame Street-ish video and song pointing out shapes in our environment. Nicely done with shapes being outlined in highlighting.

You can find all these videos and more ideas for working with shapes on my Shaping Up Pinterest Board: http://pinterest.com/mamajoyx9/shaping-up-preschool/.

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• Using U-Tube Videos to Teach Numbers (wordsofhisheart.wordpress.com)