International Day of Happiness

This year marks the 2nd annual International Day of Happiness on March 20th! Basically, it's a day where we are encouraged to pursue happiness in our lives and countries are encouraged to guide public policies to improve the well being and happiness of everyone. You can read more about it here or get a few ideas on how to spread happiness through The Happiness Challenge here.  What a fun day!  

Support Group

There will not be a regular group meeting this month for S.O.A.R., instead they will be having a social activity for the children. It is scheduled for Friday, March 21st @ 5:30 (45min class). This activity will be at Mountain Yoga, on Highland Drive (1300 E) and just north of 9400 S. The instructor, along with other professionals, have taken the time to modify this class so that children of all abilities can participate. Siblings and parents are also welcome to participate. They will need to cap this class at 15 participants, so those interested will have to RSVP to beccafenander@moveplaytalk.com by Friday, March 14th.  Please include the number and ages of each participant.

How Does Your Engine Run?

Our schedule for Large Group is going to be a little crazy next week, but for good reasons.  Our preschool Occupational Therapist, Shanon, is going to come do a large group with me.  We will be talking about "How does your engine run" or helping the children with self-regulation.  Because of that, we will be doing both Miss Jeana and Miss Ange's Large group on Monday and then again on Thursday.  There will not be a learning card, but here is our weekly handout:

You can learn more about the Alert program here.  Also, because our Tuesday/Thursday students in Miss Ange's class missed out on our Preschool Ball Large Group, I will be doing that with them on Tuesday.  If you haven't had a chance to check out that post, you can find it here.  

Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month

This month is Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month and this year's theme is "Ability at Work."  Twenty-seven years ago, in 1987, President Ronald Reagan chose this month to encourage Americans to put away their stereotypes and provide opportunities for individuals with disabilities to reach their fullest potential.  So this month especially, we are encouraged to recognize people with disabilities as valuable, contributing members of our communities.  As a way to participate and raise awareness, The Arc has planned for a National day out.  You can read more about it here.  They simply want to encourage people to go out and enjoy something fun on March 29th.

A few facts about Developmental Disabilities:

• approximately 4.6 million Americans live with developmental disabilities
• developmental disabilities are severe & long term 
• can affect cognitive ability, physical functioning, or both
• some may be purely physical (e.g. blindness from birth)
• appear before age 22 & are likely to be life-long 
• some developmental disabilities include: cerebral palsy, epilepsy, autism, & other neurological conditions
• there are many causes, but a few include:
• Genetic or chromosomal abnormalities (e.g. Down syndrome and Rett syndrome)
• Prenatal exposure to substances (e.g. fetal alcohol syndrome)
• Certain viral infections during pregnancy
• Preterm birth

So this month, get active, and spread the word about Developmental Disabilities Month!

The Vacuum Sound

This month we will be working on our vacuum sound, the "v" sound.

Use the following ideas/worksheets to target our "v" sound this month:

• in isolation practice in front of the mirror or with a computer video
• CV combinations (vo, ve, vi, vu, etc.) while playing with toys or games
• these sheets for initial /v/ and final /v/ at the word level
• use the above sheets to focus on initial /v/  and final /v/ at the sentence level

All of our sheets for our vacuum sound are from Mommy Speech Therapy!  There is also a wonderful article on teaching /f/ and /v/ to your children, so if this is a sound we are working on at school, this article may help with practice at home.  During drill work you can cue your child to "bite your lip" for correct placement, as this is what we will be talking about during group.  But keep this minimal during daily routines.  Also, to talk about the difference between /f/ and /v/, we will be feeling our throats/vocal folds while producing each sound.  We will talk about how we "turn on" our voice for the /v/ sound.  When we turn on our voice, we should be able to feel the vibrations in our throat.  You can practice this at home as well.  Keep in mind, this sound may be a later developing sound for some of the students; /f/ is usually mastered by age 4, where /v/ is later, between 5 and 6 years of age.  

The Cat in the Hat

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!!! March 2nd is Dr. Seuss's Birthday, so to celebrate we are having a very Seussical Large Group next week.  Below is our learning card:

We are going to read the first part only of "The Cat in the Hat."  In case you don't have it at home, you can get a video reading here.

After reading it, we will each get to pick an item out of this box:

Once we have our item we will label it and then figure out different ways to balance with it, just like in the book.  We will have this fun music to move to as well:

Last we are going to toss our "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" dolls around the circle:

Whoever catches the "Things" will have to show us their object and tell us what it is.  It should be as fun as a ham-ikka-schnim-ikka-schnam-ikka-schnopp!  Our weekly handout is from Speech and Language Kids.  It gives some great ideas for working on vocabulary at home. If the file she provides includes pictures your child already knows, cut pictures out of a magazine with more advanced objects to work on.  

Free App Friday

Wow, it's been a while since I have had time to post about free app Friday!! There are 27 free apps listed over at Smart Apps For Kids, so check it out.  Also, Best Apps For Kids has a list of free apps as well as App Friday.  Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend.