We are getting into a good routine with short activities throughout the day and quick reminders at random times. I keep a dry erase board with a marker close by during the day so we can write out words fast. Here is an example of what seems to be working best for Ashley and our schedule:
After Breakfast: We start with our "Letter of the Day Introduction". Noah and Ashley each do 1 page in the Sylvan Letter of The Day Workbook by tracing the Letter 4 times, make the letter using different manipulative items each day (Popsicle sticks, twist ties, crayons, pipe cleaners, etc). Then we watch the Sesame Street Letter of the Day Video which is a huge motivator for Ashley having characters dance and sing! After the video, sometimes she will do more tracing in the Write and Wipe book doing Upper and Lower Case letter followed by the Sesame Street video again!
Morning Walk: We take our flashcard and look for items that start with our letter. License plates have been really helpful to see them visually.
After lunch: We do a short tracing worksheet that also has space to write independently. Then we might use food items to make the letter (marshmallows, DOTS candy, pretzel sticks, etc) or do edible craft about that Letter of day theme.
Throughout the day: We keep the Letter flashcard in a Ziploc bag so all her ABA therapists can take it out too. They are wonderful at pointing out things with that letter of the day!
Son-Rise Session: We try to plan games, activities, and snacks around the letter of the day!
Night: We do a short tracing activity or fill in missing letter worksheet which is followed by a fun activity with daddy (bowling, Freeze dance game, hopscotch, etc.)
Letter of the Day Journal
Letter A : We started Letter of the day on Monday, June 12th. For the first day, it went much better than I expected especially since it would be adding a new routine for Ashley. Doing 1-2 minute activities for the Letter A was perfect for her attention span. See blog Ashley's Summer Program 2017 for details on letter A day!
Letter B : Bugs Life was our movie and craft theme since she likes that movie right now. On her walk with Amber to check the mail, they spotted Birds. We did some Baking muffins that afternoon and Ashley is getting better each time with cracking eggs, pouring, and stirring! When daddy got home, we played Bowling for a few minutes and then got a Bath with Bubble Bath!
Ashley also ate a salad with Black Beans and other ingredients for lunch! She is making great progress trying new foods and seems to like most of the new foods! She also got to swim in Blue water wearing her Blue Bathing suit doing a social skills therapy session with new friend. You can see Ashley is holding his finger so the he will get in pool with her!
Letter C : When Noah, Ashley and I went for our walk this morning, we spotted a lot of C words (car, cat, cloud, concrete) and on a Recycle Bin we pointed out the 3 C's on the can! We also colored Father's Day coloring pages to make a Card for daddy.
Son-Rise Session: Pam came to play with Ashley in the Playroom and they had a picnic lunch with foods starting with letter C (Chicken nuggets, carrots, chips, cookies). Ashley helped her in kitchen to prepare and even washed & peeled carrots! Pam also came wearing the letter C on her shirt and she made a C headband (Cowboy boots, candy cane, Cross, Cowboy hat, Cat)! Ashley had sooooo much fun! Pam planned out everything for their session and I was inspired by her excitement and creativity for letter theme!
After dinner, I asked Ashley to write the letter C on dry erase board before the kids finished Cookies from lunch. She wrote the letter C independently (no assistance, no visual, no tracing) and did it perfectly!!!! I was so impressed! She got lots of praise and tickles. I asked if she could do another one next to it and then kept going which is pictured below! This was huge victory and confirmation that all this prep work is going to be worth it!!!
Letter D: Thursday morning after Letter of the Day introduction, we went and got Donuts! Ashley said "pink" when pointing to donuts through glass and then "les" (for sprinkles) when I asked her if she wanted sprinkles too! She also did great sitting there patiently after she finished and no behaviors. We have had so many issues in the past with treats because Ashley always eats super FAST and Noah eats soooo SLOW. Our therapists have helped us tremendously in this area and Ashley is making so much progress not taking other peoples food, whining for their food, and accepting no for when she cannot have an item!
After lunch, we did a short D tracing worksheet and then made the letter D using DOTS candy!
She had fun at a splash pad with Amber that afternoon and was trying to engage with some girls her age! We are so appreciative that they are helping us with her transitions from water activities because it can be so tough leaving splash pads and pools.
Letter E: On Friday, Tracy was not able to come, so I did a joint Playroom session with Noah and Ashley. It went much better than I thought and it was a great time to work on social skills with her brother. We did an Egg hunt for theme Letter E in the Playroom but there are not a lot of hiding places. They still loved it and each got 5 eggs!
The night before I found expired Elbow Macaroni in our pantry so I thought maybe I could put them all in a container and bury Elmo (more E items). I also brought upstairs 2 small measuring cups since I know Ashley likes to pour things. It turns out that Ashley LOVES just playing with the Elbow macaroni. She would put her hands in it, grab handful and then slowly let them fall back into the bowl. Noah wanted to get a small measuring cup of Elbow Macaroni and dump in too. At first Ashley did not want him to scoop it out and tried to grab the cup. I intervened and told her to ask nicely with her words. She must have heard me earlier say we could use our cups to "pour" so she looked at Noah and said "I want pour". She did that 2 times after and it was really enjoyable being in Playroom with both kids! I also found a very cheap sensory activity for both kids so I will need to buy more dry pasta! :)
Papa came to treat us for lunch at Chic-fil-a and the kids were so Excited! Again Ashley did fantastic sitting with us at the table and sitting patiently until we were all done. She did so great and even left the playground with no behaviors!
We also went to swim lessons with Alison and she is trying to help Ashley with arms that "reach" for the sky. Noah is doing great learning new instruction from Alison and really loves it now!
Letter F: Saturday morning we did our new summer morning routine: Letter of the Day book tracing letter F, make the letter F using pieces of yarn, and then watched our Sesame Street Letter F video. Jeremy joined us for the first time though since starting. We then went on a family walk around the neighborhood looking for Letter F and I also bring a Flash card with Lowercase and Uppercase F. We found Flower, For sale sign, Ford logo, F in license plates, and F on Fire hydrant. When we got to a truck that had F in the Ford logo and license plate, I asked Ashley if she could point to the letter F. She found them both!!! Then after we went to have Fun at the Veteran's Pool with other special needs families.
Son-Rise Session: After the pool, I got to have a session with Ashley in the Playroom! We had feathers, flags, fairies, frisbee, finger puppets, foot tickles, finger tickles, and made the letter F with our pretzel sticks at snack time. She loves the new flooring because she was able to line up her Disney Fairies! She spontaneously said "I want etzel" for pretzels and then said that each time wanting more snack! She also spontaneously said "T-bell" for Tinkerbell! She said several other words but trying to stick to big highlights this summer!
In the evening we made the letter F with marshmallows and I know the kids love the Edible Manipulative activities to make the letters! I tried a new activity of Finding Letter F jumbled with other letters like a word search but turns out that was too overwhelming for Ashley. I am learning a lot as we go along. :) Ashley also was able to go back to the pool for 2 more hours with Jeremy so she went to bed quickly after almost 5 hours of pool time today!
Letter F (repeated for Father's Day): Before church, the kids each gave Jeremy their Father's Day Cards and he was impressed with their coloring!
Son-Rise Session - She wanted to play with similar F items again like yesterday. I brought in the magnetic Fish game that goes in circles, she let me take a turn and use pole to get a Fish. Then she would look at me and say "ish" for the fish. She spontaneously said "I want etzel", "T-Bell" (for tinkerbell), "Pour" (when I scooped some shells out), "b-beans". She let me trace her Foot on paper and was so ticklish in between her toes so there was lots of laughter. I also sang a little jingle "finger on the foot" giving tickles on her foot with my fingers which lasted a long time, lots of laughing and great eye contact!! We think tickles are her love language! :) I also painted her Fingernails and she wanted to use all 3 colors (dark pink, light pink, and green) on her nails. I asked if she would paint my Fingernails and she did quickly with light pink! It is hard to see in the picture but my entire fingertips are covered! haha! I love that she painted my nails and we will keep trying!
We also made the shape of F using Marshmallows and she is getting really great at writing letter F independently! Also, if we see a food box with letter F on it I will ask her to find the letter F and she is pointing it out correctly every time!!!
We then had Fun at the pool with family on Father's Day! Ashley engaged with Chloe and Grammy multiple times and it was sweet to watch! By the end of the day, Ashley was able to write the letter F independently and shown below!
Letter G : Today Ashley looked for a Garden, Garage, and Green Grass on her walk! She also went with Kelsey to Grocery store with her Grocery List of 4 items which all started with Letter G! She did a great job shopping and seemed to enjoy it!
For snack that afternoon, I tried to get the kids to make the letter G with Granola Cereal in the Greek Yogurt.... I did not think how difficult this would be for them! haha! That was not easy for them especially since the pieces were all different sizes so we just stirred in the granola and ate it!
For dinner, we included Guacamole, Grapes, and Green beans! Ashley seemed to struggle writing letter G and lowercase g but she will get there! She is trying so hard and I am so proud of her!
Ashley is now flexible at bedtime and I can read her a short book before bed!!!! Tonight I read "God Knows All About Me" and would look at the book when I stressed God for letter G! She used to keep saying "bye" and would direct our arm to the door indicating she wanted us to leave.
Letter H : After the Letter of the Day introduction, we went on our walk wearing our Hats! She does not normally like anything on her head but she even put her hat back on when it feel off running. We couldn't find many H words except a lot of Houses. I thought Ashley looked so cute in her pink hat that I ran ahead of them to try capture picture. She started laughing when I ran and then wanted me to keep running. She said "run" and I would run about 10 steps ahead of Noah and Ashley while they caught up since I did not want too get far from them with driveways and cars. I would pause to wait for Ashley to say "run" each time and we did that about 8 times until we got home! I loved hearing their laughter and we will be doing that a lot more!
She had a social skills therapy play date with her Best Friend Charlie! She helped push him in circles and actually wore her hat. Ashley had NO behaviors at this park which was so surprising because the pool was next to them and open with people inside swimming. This shows huge progress therapists have helped her make because this park would NOT have been possible 2 years ago during open pool hours. We have only gone to this park when the pool was closed.
However, when Ashley got home from the park, she kept requesting "swim". She had a major meltdown and it was hard to get her to speech therapy. Noah is learning to ignore Ashley during these times and move to the other room. If anyone gets too close when she is super frustrated or having a meltdown, she might grab the person's arm and squeeze hard. Ashley's meltdowns are one the hardest things for me to deal with. I know the only way for me to respond in a way that is loving is for God to do it through me. I have been reading this book "A Praying Life" by Paul Miller in our small group at church. It really helped me today during her meltdown and how best for me to respond which was praying for her, Noah and myself. The author of this book has a daughter with autism and I love his examples of how to pray for our kids. It is a life changing book and so much great discussion!
When daddy got home, we played Hopscotch but did not follow any rules for first time tonight. We just hopped on the numbers and Ashley even did it a few times after watching daddy do it. She always gets extra energy when her daddy comes home and desperately wants his attention! Noah loved being challenged to skip numbers and made big hops!
