Ashley made a lot of progress this last year in school, therapy, and with Son-Rise Program at home! She did so well in school with wonderful teachers who believed in her and also challenged her! We also have amazing therapists for Ashley with ABA and Speech! For Son-Rise, we are blessed to continue this summer with our volunteers of Tracy, Miranda, Chloe, Pam, Jeremy, and me in the Playroom each week! We are going to work on a theme each day starting with "Letter of the Day" and build on it! I first got idea when we saw the song "Letter of the Day" from Sesame Street and Ashley did NOT take her eyes off the screen!
Ashley and her 3 SLE Teachers at the class Christmas Party!
Ashley's Son-Rise Team
Ashley's Speech and ABA therapists
Most of Ashley's really big victories this past school year have been posted on my Facebook page. This facebook post was one that I wanted to document on Ashley's blog!
Facebook Post and Video from April 10th, 2017
"the LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes" Psalm 118: 23
Two years ago, Ashley was non-verbal. We started Son-Rise Program and she started to occasionally repeat sounds/words. In the last year she has excelled at saying 1 word requests for her high preferred items and also imitating new words on request! In the past month, we have been trying to build on her words. We were asking "Can you make a sentence?".
Now I quietly look at her and she spontaneously says "I want ....". I caught a few of them on video this past week (Elmo, Ice, Phone, Tracy, juice, bus). You can see how hard she is working to verbalize it all on her own!! We are so thankful to God, our Son-Rise volunteers, our Speech & ABA therapists, teachers, and family who all challenge Ashley and BELIEVE in her!
REQUESTING FRIENDS
This past year Ashley has started requesting friends on her Ipad!!!! This picture was when Ashley was requesting "I want Noah" because she wanted to play with him and their toy wagon! They love to run laps around the stairs pushing their toy wagon that is filled with Noah's Robots and Superhero toys! She also likes to requests a few of her friends from school! It is great to see her requesting friends because she WANTS to be social and play WITH them! :)
(In the picture below, we had to spell Noah's name like Nowah so that Proloquoe2go would say it correctly.)
Playroom Flooring
We were gifted with new flooring for Ashley's Playroom this summer! We are so grateful to Pam and her husband for their generosity and we are excited about the new sensory activities we can add with Vinyl flooring! We removed the old carpet and carpet pad easily. We covered the floor with karate mats and cut some pieces so that it would fit from wall to wall. Then we added a large Vinyl sheet and it comes up along the wall a few inches. This will make it easier to clean up messes and more cushion underneath! We followed the Son-Rise Program recommendations for flooring in the Playroom.
Panoramic Picture of Playroom
Son-Rise Program for Summer
Ashley's goals for Son-Rise will stay the same working on games to increase her eye contact, interactive attention span, nonverbal communication, and verbal communication! Our Son-Rise team members are so dedicated and excited to play with Ashley each week! We are grateful for each of them and how much they give of their time each week!
We are going to do a theme for each day starting with "Letter of the Day"! Since Noah is getting older, he is starting to notice everything and wants to be included in everything. I love this theme since it will allow me to do quick and simple activities with both kids throughout the day! Noah and Ashley are almost on the same level with education so focusing on 1 letter or 1 number each day with fun activities will help them both! We will incorporate it into the Playroom and also her wonderful therapists are pointing it out on their community outings!
Below is an example of our first day "Letter of the Day: A" and we will adjust as summer goes. I only took pictures the first day to show our team what we were doing at home throughout the day.
I also would love anyone's help in planning out the Letter of the Day with crafts, sensory activities, edible crafts, snacks, etc! :) Jeremy, Miranda, and Chloe helped me brainstorm most the Letters that go with each letter especially ones that are motivating for Ashley. However, we will be repeating the Alphabet this summer so we will need extra ideas!
Letter of Day "A"
Date: Monday, June 12th
Theme: Letter A
TABLE WORK AFTER BREAKFAST
1) Page 3 of “Sylvan PreK Page Per Day Letter” workbook
- Tracing: Letter “A”
- Sing: Song from Sylan PreK Letter A page
- Manipulatives to make Letter: Crayons
2) Elmo Letter of the Day Song: Letter A https://youtu.be/GEQfcjWAsvI
After lunch, we looked at her Disney Dictionary book with Abu and Aladdin! Then they traced the letter "A" and "a" in the "Write and Wipe Book".
In the afternoon between outings, we colored "Ants" from the movie Bugs Life which is a movie Ashley will watch on youtube sometimes. She picked the coloring sheet that had the 2 main characters and traced "Ants" at the top.
After dinner, we used small Twizzler strings to make the letter A and then they got to eat them!
At first, Jeremy helped Ashley make the Letter A by placing it over that letter in her book. After that, she could make it correctly on the table!
We also traced the letter A in box with kinetic sand as a Sensory Activity! Kelsey also pointed out Letter A when they were in Target since they had July 4th USA decorations everywhere!
Speech and ABA Therapy
Ashley's new goal in speech is to start using verbs in her sentences and learning those action words.
Ashley's ABA therapists (Monday-Thursday) will be doing in-home therapy in the mornings and fun community outings in afternoons! Summer is a great time for Ashley to work on her independent skills and self-care skills. I am excited about the game plan they have put together below with some chores they can do each morning (walk around the block to check the mail, put clean clothes away, Oscar Food and Water, vacuum rugs, dirty clothes into the dryer, close/open blinds, unload dishwasher, wipe counters, and brush teeth, etc).
She will also starting making her own PBJ sandwich doing ALL the steps on her own! I am thankful for their help so that Ashley can get 1 on 1 time with no distractions! She is also making great progress with potty training so I am praying we make great progress with that this summer. She will also get to do therapy play sessions with Charlie and another friend this summer! She gets to go on new adventures each day and LOVES those outings! She is also making progress on community outings by waiting in lines, accepting no, eating in restaurants, using public bathrooms, sitting at library story time, requesting items from strangers, etc. They are helping make our lives easier and so thankful for wonderful team!
Thank you for reading this blog about Ashley's summer program! We would appreciate prayers this summer and any ideas for her program!
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