Choir recital

Sophie once again performed in the choir at school.  They just had their Choir music night and performed songs from Broadway shows.  It was excellent and very entertaining!  I was so proud of my girl up there in front of such a large audience.  She loved the singing as much as us and she was quite happy to sing along in her own way to all the songs whether it was her choirs turn or not!

It is hard to see her in these photos but she is to the far right of the group...

My parents and my niece were able to attend with us so it was a very special evening for Sophie.  Her wonderful EA also took time out of her evening to come and be with Sophie for the recital.  It was so nice to be able to watch my girl be in the choir with all of her friends.

The choir directors have made a real effort to have Sophie even more included this year by having a singing buddy with her all the time.  Her friends love doing this for her and Sophie can watch them and learn from them as well.  A special education music teacher even came to the school to give some suggestions on how to work with Sophie to make it a positive experience for her in choir.  So many good things came from her visit and we know that Sophie benefited from the effort of all involved!

Getting ready for Christmas

Over the past few days I have been getting all of the Christmas decorations out and trying to make the house a little more festive than the usual junk pile look.  We were incredibly blessed to be gifted a new to us Christmas tree, it is spectacular and it goes right up to the ceiling.  I can't wait to get it completely decorated but it is well on its way.

This evening Lucas and Sophie wrote their letters to Santa Claus.  I helped Sophie write hers and she loved watching Lucas write his.  I was asking her what kinds of toys she would like and I am becoming more and more certain that Sophie is answering yes questions with a "ya".  She always does it appropriately and it has become more and more regular over the last year.  I think it is one of those things where you don't want to get your hopes up but even her nurses are noticing it.  She was answering "ya" tonight to questions about Lucas too.  He was putting on a show with his nerf gun and she was loving it.

Sophie's top front tooth is just about ready to fall out and we have been on high alert trying to make sure that it doesn't get swallowed or disappear.  Sophie is a bit of a tooth Houdini and wouldn't you know she did it again.  She has swallowed or spit out at some point three of her teeth over the last two years when getting her adult teeth.  She was having some blood in her mouth the last two days but I couldn't see any on the loose tooth area on the top.  I was really puzzled and checked her mouth and wouldn't you know she was missing a bottom tooth!  I didn't even know it was wiggly.  She has three more wiggly teeth but I think that the front one will be first, the new tooth is even pushing it forward quite a bit but that sucker is holding on just to torture me!  I think she is going to have a toothless grin for Christmas though.  Hopefully the tooth fairy is ready to make some repeat visits.

School days

The usual routine of starting back to school was a bit off this year.  Jason, Lucas and my mom were away for the first 2 weeks of September in Scotland so Lucas missed the first week and a half of school.  Sophie and I were here holding down the fort on our own.

I actually managed to get first day of school photos of Sophie amongst all the rush and anxiety that comes with that first day.  She was excited to see her school nurse that morning whom we hadn't seen all summer.   Sophie was pretty tired but once we were at school she seemed happy, I think it took her a little while to realize that school was back in session.

It was raining that morning so the whole school was in the gym and each child was called by name.  Sophie was pretty excited but I think a bit unsure in there because it was quite loud and overwhelming.  But she was very happy when she headed off to her new class with one of her best friends by her side the whole time.  Three of her very best friends are in her class - yay!

 

So far everything has gone fairly well.  We have one year under our belt of Sophie being in an inclusive classroom and that has helped immensely.  I have become a much stronger advocate for what Sophie needs in the last year and I feel more confident about knowing what is right for Sophie at school. There have been some issues and blips but generally I think we got through the first month fairly unscathed.  Sophie has the same wonderful EA from last year so that has also made a huge difference.  We just had our first team meeting and I think there were some good new ideas that came up and hopefully they will come to fruition.  We are going to start providing opportunities to Sophie to communicate expressively, not just answer to yes no choices.  That is very exciting and something that I have wanted to start doing with her AAC devices.

 

When Lucas arrived home in the second week of school he was very excited to see all his friends and get back into the swing of things.  Lucas loves school and this year he is in the itinerant gifted program.  Children in Ontario are identified as gifted in grade four and can then join the gifted program in grade five.  We are very excited for Lucas to have this extra opportunity for learning at a level more suited for him.  His teacher seems fantastic as does his gifted program teacher.

 

 

Lucas was very excited to show me the kilt that he bought in Scotland. The night he arrived home he let me know of his plan for the next day, to wear his kilt and have his hair all slicked back.  He definitely followed through and I hear the playground was all in a commotion when he arrived.  He sure does have an awesome sense of self and style!

 

Grade 2 and grade 5!!  Amazing!  I am excited to see where this year takes us.

Beyond words

I am sure many people who don't personally know a child like Sophie wonder what other children would have in common with her.  What would they do to play? 

 

She can't talk.  She can't dance.  She can't run.  She can't sit up on her own.  She can't hold a toy.  She can't sing.  She can't play games.  She often can't see.  She can't read.

 

 

It may seem to a stranger that all those things are true, or even to someone that doesn't know Sophie very well.  But those that get to know her, know different.

 

 

Sophie can do all those things, just not in the typical way.  And even the things that she can't do at all, it doesn't matter to her friends.  It doesn't matter.  They carry on and either help her to do it or find a way to do it differently with her or do something completely different.

 

This is friendship.  This is life as Sophie's friend.  It is the child who doesn't see the stereotypes, that adults and children who don't know a child like her sometimes hold. 

And somehow these children in her life know that Sophie loves them right back.  They see how she watches them, learns from them.  They don't need her to tell them, they just know.  It goes beyond words.

This is what inclusion brings to our life, to Sophie's life, to their life.  This is why we believed so strongly that Sophie should go to her home school with her brother, with children from our neighbourhood.  Children that she will grow up with and lean on and give something back to.

 

 

This is what I dreamed of for my children.  To be happy and safe and loved.  To know true friendship and to be proud of their accomplishments. 

 

This is just grade one,  but it's going to be hard to beat.

All by herself

Sophie's class is working on individual presentations for social studies, they are talking about community helpers, which in turn means that they talk about the jobs that family members do.  So Sophie and I decided that she would talk about her Papa, my dad, who is an artist and retired teacher.

Sophie and her Papa with one of his paintings

Today while I was retrieving Sophie's Step by Step with levels talker switch to use for the project , I came across her adapted crayon holder.  It has been quite a while since we used it but I knew it would be perfect for this too.

She thought it was super fun to be colouring all by herself.  She was very focused for a long time.  Sophie chose all her crayon colours, just like she does with paint colours.

 

I want Sophie to be able to do as much independantly as possible.  She gets a lot of confidence when she is able to do something without help, again the active learning motto that we live by. 

The step by step talker allows Sophie to tell her classmates stories, or ask them questions.  Every day at school Sophie tells the class something about what she did at home the night before.  For this project I put some messages on her talker so that she could tell her class by hitting her switch all about her Papa who is an artist and teacher.

Looking away before she hits her switch.  Sophie almost always looks away first before reaching for something.  This is a classic thing to do for someone who has a cortical vision impairment (CVI).

 Reaching for her switch.

 Got it.

Loving the message and proud of herself.  :)

Tomorrow Sophie will be able to take to school a piece of her artwork along with a photo of her Papa and herself with his artwork.  I know that she will love telling her friends all about it.

Songboards, what's not to love.

This past Friday there was no nurse available for Sophie at school so she had to have a home day with me.  We had a fun day and did some computer switch work and we also pulled out one of her favourite items, her songboards.

We have an Old MacDonald songboard and a Wheels on the Bus songboard that are on loan to us.  We use these pretty much every day because she loves them so much.  The songboards are an excellent way for us to incorporate symbols into Sophie's day.  She responds very well to music and songs so it is a wonderful way to keep her engaged while using the symbols with her.

This songboard folds in half, on the back side it has a strip of velcro where I can put symbols for her to make a choice.  We keep it to two choices for Sophie and she lets us know which animal she wants to sing about next by giving a smile, a look or a touch to the symbol she wants.

She LOVES it so much, I think she would have us sing these to her all day if she had her way.

I have found a few other songboards on Boardmaker Share, a wonderful online community where you can find other boards that people have made with Boardmaker.  I am still learning Boardmaker but it will be so awesome once I master it.  I will be able to make symbols for us at home for whatever subject I like.  For example, if we are heading to the beach I could make a board about that.

The school is working hard with symbols as well and it is just a matter of time before Sophie starts to memorize some of the symbols, then we move on to her having an usable language. 

Smiles to that!

Christmas games and crafts

Today was a stay in our jammies kind of day for Sophie, Lucas and I.  Jason was out of town for the day so we stayed inside while the rain poured down.  We made our own fun with some holiday games I had made.

A little while ago I found a Christmas bingo game on a great crafty blog I have been reading.  So I printed it all out and had it laminated.  I glued the calling cards to some card stock to make it sturdier and we used some of Sophie's glass beads for the pieces.  I am hoping to adapt this for Sophie soon, but for now I put each calling card on her game card as it was called and she seemed to like that.

Sophie thought it was pretty darn funny to mix up all the pieces as we were playing.  I had adapted another item with magnets that morning and Lucas suggested that I should make her pieces magnetic and she could play on a magnet board.  Brilliant.  I knew I kept him around for a reason. ;)

Lucas and Sophie both got right into it and I think this could be a great time waster in an airport or for long car rides.  It is a great way to introduce symbols for Sophie while having fun too.  Now that we have boardmaker I can use similar symbols for her communication boards.

 

After we had played Bingo for a while, Lucas wanted to do the Advent calendar for today.  He knew what he wanted to draw right away.

We don't have a door that can hang a wreath very easily so Lucas wanted to draw a wreath for the front door.  I thought that was an awesome idea and his drawing is now the centre piece of our door's window.

As we were about to start Sophie's drawing our friend Claudia came to help me out for the afternoon.  So the two of them dug out a canvas and some paint and got messy.  Sophie loves painting and she loves Claudia even more so she had a blast.  They did some fingerpainting and created a Christmas masterpiece together that I will be able to show when it is all dry.

We managed to fill the day and had a fun weekend despite having these yucky colds.  Hopefully the sun will be out tomorrow, it always makes me feel better.