Halloween activity bar

Sophie and I had a little time alone today while her dad and Lucas went swimming so I thought it would be fun to put together a Halloween activity playbar for her.  Sophie has used these types of playbars for many years, usually in the child life room at her therapy centre. However I also taught the daycare how to make them.  I supplied them with seasonal items and they would add to it from there.  They had rainforest themes, Christmas, Halloween, butterflies, etc.

So since Halloween is just around the corner I pulled out some items I had purchased for this activity.  I had bought the spider lights (which I also used for her sensory mirror) as well as some pumpkin bells and a few reflective patches.  There is also a glowstick pumpkin necklace.  Once it was all rigged up it looked pretty great.

 

The light or glow aspect is one that I always try to incorporate into Sophie's play, because of her CVI (cortical vision impairment) it is helpful to have the mirrors or lights to catch her visual attention.

 

 The full glow effect

The wonderful thing about this kind of activity is that it doesn't have to cost alot.  I bought everything, right down to the elastic to hang everything, at the dollar store.  Luckily the daycare didn't need the activity bar when Sophie graduated so they donated it to us.  So thoughtful!

I was able to raise or lower the bar depending on what Sophie seemed interested in.  When she was making lots of arm movements I lowered the bar so that she would hit the bells to make some noise.  I raised it back up a bit when she was more interested in the webbing on the tray.

hitting the bells when she moves her arm

I added in some spiderweb and a flashing spider onto her tray at the end and Sophie had a ball getting her hands all over the web.

This is such a great activity for Active Learning, a philosophy I have talked about on the blog before and one that is so important to us.  Sophie is able to play at her pace and make everything work without any assistance. 

Halloween is just around the corner, we have found Lucas and Sophie's costumes so now it is just a waiting game until the big night!

Wiggles finale

As many of you know, Sophie is the worlds greatest Wiggles fan.  She loves them more than any toy or any other kind of entertainment you can throw at her. 

We have been lucky enough to go to three of their concerts now, the latest one being last week.  It was kind of bittersweet though because three of the four wiggles are retiring and this was their celebration/farewell tour.  A new group will take over but I don't think it will be quite the same.

Sophie was once again awed by the performance.  She watched so intensely and didn't miss a thing.  The songs were fantastic and it was a fun, energetic show as always.  She was very interested in the ballerinas when they came out.

Just like in past performances, one of the Wiggles came down to say hello to Sophie.  This time it was Greg, he asked her name and told her how happy he was that she came to see them and he hoped that she was having a fun time.  Sophie just stared at him with her mouth open, I am sure she was mesmerized by the fact that one of her favourite stars was talking to her live!!
I got this photo as he was heading back to the stage, waving at Sophie.  I know, the photo sucks.  It was an epic fail, I was so excited for her I forgot to take a photo while he was talking to her.

 

Murray and Anthony waved to Sophie a few times as well.  It was really sweet and I am so thankful that they go out of their way to make the night special for all the children there with special needs.  They do this because they love children and they love their jobs and you can tell.  :)

 

Sophie started to get upset as soon as we left the building, just like last year.  She was ok though and for the first time after attending this concert she didn't have a seizure, yay!

 

 Sophie was excited to tell her friends at school all about her trip to the concert, she chose her new Wiggles t-shirt to wear the next morning and she used her step by step button to tell them about her night.  A couple of her friends wrote Sophie some notes that day and one had a drawing of her with the Wiggles and another talked about Sophie and how much she liked the Wiggles.  It was awesome.

 

Thank you Wiggles for bringing so much happiness to one family's life. xo

The colours of Halifax

This past weekend I was lucky to be able to have a three day getaway.  Jason was at a conference in Halifax so we spent all my aeroplan points and I joined him there on Friday night.

I hadn't been to Halifax since I was a little girl so I didn't remember what it was like at all. It is a beautiful, walkable, friendly city and I am so glad I was able to go.

We had very cold, drizzly weather on Saturday and Sunday and the sun would poke it's head out every now and then.  By Monday the sun finally came out which we enjoyed immensely and went for a long walk to Point Pleasant Park. There is a tropical storm brewing in the Atlantic so all the warm air was getting pushed up, the calm before the storm as they say.

We went to a few farmer's markets which were so amazing, they had delicious food and creative artwork and handmade items along with many maritime fruits and veggies.   We had dinner at a downtown restaurant that had some of the best food we have ever eaten. 

The houses were so colourful and unique. So much colour, just like you picture the little fishing villages.

Searching the ocean shore for shells for Lucas was fun and the water was so beautiful.  The park had some beautiful ponds and the trees were just starting to turn.  If we make it the Maritimes again we would love to venture out to some smaller villages to get that different rustic Maritimes feel.

Pickin' pumpkins

Today was a beautiful, sunny Thanksgiving Sunday, but man it was chilly!  We decided to head out to pick our pumpkins today and since we had no other plans we made an afternoon of it.  Of course it started to rain just as we were leaving but that cleared up in no time and the sun re-appeared for us.  I had hoped to find a farm that you could go into the patch but this farm worked out better because it was more accessible for Sophie.

The farm had this awesome old barn but Lucas was not in the mood for posing so I got very few shots before it was game over.  He reappeared a bit later and wanted to help find the pumpkins.

After we found our pumpkins we went for lunch and then for a little hike at the bog.  We had planned to go for a walk through one of the provincial woods to take some photos of the fall colours but it turned out that it was much too rugged for Sophie in her chair.  So we ended up at the bog that we have been to many times before, it was really pretty with all the trees changing colour and losing their leaves.

 

The bog was beautiful as always and there were lots of families enjoying the day there.  Lucas had a great time taking many photos of his own.  He took some really fantastic shots that I will share another day.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Spooky sensory play

Yesterday I had a bit of time to hit the dollar store.  I love that place, you never know what gems you are going to come across.  I found some Halloween items for Sophie to use and we broke them out tonight.  I am always searching for play items that will work with her cortical vision impairment, certain colours, shinyness and textures.  It can be hard to keep her attention if she can't see/hear/feel any of it.

 

I found some gel clings that had some Halloween shapes like a witch and stars and letters that spelled "trick or treat".  I also found some little battery operated spider lights that I LOVE, as well as a Pumpkin glow necklace.  Sophie was very curious about it all.

I pulled out Sophie's mirror and stuck the gel clings on.  Gel clings are great because they stick to any solid surface and they are fun to touch, very sensory in nature.  Of course the mirror is always one of Sophie's favourites too.  We will definitely use all of this on the lightbox as well.

Sophie's teacher has included the words orange and green for this months sight words so the colour scheme is perfect.  We are also working hard on introducing letters.  I am trying to incorporate some of the programming from school at home so that it is hopefully easier for Sophie to recognize and remember some of her school work.

I added on the little spider lights to the mirror and voila, a CVI friendly setup.  I will get out more of the fall and Halloween sensory play things over the next few weeks. 

A few houses up the street from us has the most beautiful tree that is in full on colour change, I think we may have to use some of the leaves in a fall project or two.  :)