Here We Go!! Life is Here to Enjoy!!

Life is Here to Enjoy         ~Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

What a concept! Such a simple quotation and such a simple mantra and we don't do it very often; but in the next two weeks, my coworkers and I are going to have a great deal to enjoy!  

Six days and Summer Day Camp-Listening and Language is happening!  So exciting!  

Here's just a little taste of the activities:

The 'Little Travelers' will be singing, listening to rhythms and durations, moving with the sounds, and playing an instrument; cooking – sharing the fun with the older campers in putting together their snacks; Ducks and playing in the water (buckets of water); Splash with other animals and playing in the water (buckets of water); Pop with bubbles and balloons.  The 'Little Travelers' will be doing this with the guidance of a parent.  Woo hoo! That's only the first week!

The 'Junior and Master Travelers' will also be singing, dancing, and cooking.  They will be Dinosaur excavating; discussing Dinosaurs and their Fun, Dinosaur Games! Generally become Dinosaur Experts!  

The older campers, or 'travelers', will have partners; and some of the partners are siblings.  They will be enjoying activities that help them understand each others actions and feelings.  Discussion within a game among the siblings and friends will target behaviors and emotions, so that they learn to listen to each other and understand what is being said along with understanding the emotion that goes with the behavior.  In other words - walking in another man's shoes.  

Overall, summertime and camp 'Here we go!'  

Youth comes but once in a lifetime.         ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

and I get youth for my whole lifetime!  What fun!

 

Let's Talk about the Beach!

It's heating up in the desert! Let's talk about the beach! 
Even if you can't go to the beach, you can have some fun with play and talk.  And in order to play you need some toys.  Any 'dollar store' at this time of year has beach items; bucket with shovel, floaties, squirt guns, and beach balls.  You're all set up to have some fun and create some language!
Bucket and shovel - Dig, dig, and dig some more!  While you're playing with your child; you're talking about digging in the sand.  'Let's dig a hole.  Let's dig a big hole.  Let's dig deep.' 'What's in the sand?' 'What's in the bucket?' You can take some small plastic toys; talk about them/name them/if they make a sound/play with them - then hide them in the dirt or grass(depending on where you are =) ).  Ask your child to find one of the items you hid.  Don't make it too difficult for them to find.  Or take one of those items and hide it under the bucket.  Ask your child what's under the bucket.  If it's an item that makes a sound - make that sound and ask your child 'what do you hear?' and let them name it and see it! Take turns - have them hide one on you!  Have some fun!
Squirt guns - 'Let's go get daddy!' 'Let's go get mommy!' 'Let's go get sister/brother!' Make sure the rest of the family members are on board with this; have them hiding somewhere calling the child's name!  You tell the child 'Listen!  Where are they?' and go find the one you are going to shower with water!
Beach balls - This is inspired by an article I read in Scholastic and loved it so much I wanted to share.
If you have a little one that can bounce on a larger beach ball, with you as the support and guide, talk about 'bounce, bounce, bounce on the ball' or 'roll the ball' and talk about all the colors on the ball.  A little bit older child, you can buy those beach balls that have graphics like bugs, or ocean animals, or dinosaurs.  As you toss the beach ball, say 'find the ladybug', 'show me the starfish', 'where's the purple dinosaur?' and have them take their turn tossing it back to you. 
Mom and Dad - you can have so much fun playing at the beach - go in the backyard - get wet and dirty and have some fun with words and language!

Summer Fun: imitation and the magic of words

Summer time! Summer time! Fun time and Hot time!  If you live in the desert you know exactly what I'm talking about.  As I see in the news - all areas of the states are experiencing a heat wave!
You try to keep up with things to do this summer and not have your young ones out in the heat all day, here are some games to play or sessions to keep them going while cooling off in the house!

The Importance of Imitation and the Magic of Words -
Our children are great mimics and they learn to talk by imitating the sounds they hear, especially from you. They also need to figure out what all those sounds mean, in order for them to do that, they need lots of social interaction, especially from you.  For instance, your child loves to listen to music; whether it be children's singing tapes or the music you share in the car or at home.  Make dancing with them part of the music activity.  They will be looking to you to sing with them and teach them the words.  So their nursery songs like 'Itsy Bitsy Spider', or 'The Wheels on the Bus', or 'BINGO' are all fun with their acting out counterparts - do that with them!  But even more fun is when you are listening to the country, pop, or rock song.  Dance with them!  Show them those low-down beats or bass drums can make you 'see how low you can go' Swoop down and touch the floor!  And when you're not singing, listen to those higher notes and lift your hands high up in the air, 'turn around like you just don't care'.  Or lift up your child to show how high notes can go in the song. 
While we're talking about sounds - include in your listening, imitating time to listen to the sounds around the house and pretend play.  Let's pretend to build that blanket tent in the living room with the nail, hammer, and saw.  Where did onomatopoeias come from? People imitating that sound in words; so, pretend with that bang! bang! bang! while you're putting the blanket over the chairs.  Sst, Sst, Sst, with the saw as you saw the blanket to make it fit around the floor with your saw, and swish, swish, swish with the paint brush to make your tent lovely - like a castle for girls - or manly - like the barricade for boys.

Whatever the case, make it up!  'Pretend' for children helps them to practice real-life skills with imaginative fun and sounds turning to words, so let the abstract sounds turn into concrete meanings. Go ahead! Go have some fun!

Communication, Community, and the Love of Both

This particular post is brought to you by a friend that made me stop and think - although it is something I've thought about before - I believe this friend brought it home for me.
I love helping parents and children realize that listening and spoken language can be done and we can do it together.  When children become a part of my therapy sessions and when parents come to classes at school - I want them to have the feeling that anything can be accomplished and we have a starting place to build on.  I teach the children how to listen, give them tools and strategies to become the best at aural capabilities in my activities and I teach the parents how to become a partner in the listening and language communicative intent.  Their part?  Give their children their undivided attention and become their voice for just a little bit.  Their part is to become the expressive partner for just a little while.  Their part is to believe their child will model themselves after them and believe they can teach their child how to speak and become the 'expressive talker'.  I know in my heart that we have the best activities and can give the parents and children everything they need (as I stated before); but even more important - we can give them what they need available the whole time they are with us.

Now here comes the part my friend made me think about.  What happens after they (child and parent) leave us.  Have I outfitted them with all the listening and language strategies to make them successful oral/aural communication partners?  Will the outside community be able to impart their communicative intent on the children and have the children follow what is going on?  And the second part - will the outside community be able to understand the family?  Will the outside community be able to understand where the children and parents are in their listening and language journey and will the family be able to impart that wisdom and journey to the community?

In all of this generality - I want families to understand that no matter how much fun we have and no matter how much listening and language is done within the protective confines of therapy; there is the outside community.  We still have to remember individuals and independence - we also have to remember these individuals go back into a community they feel doesn't understand them.  We have to give them; everyone involved; parent and child - the communication skills to advocate and believe no matter what community activity comes their way.

What families have in common the world around is that they are the place where we learn who we are and how to be that way.                          ~Johann Georg Zimmermann

and how to show the community to understand why we are that way!

It's Almost Here! Camp Time!

Once again, I spent time putting together activities for summer camp and I am so excited I have the opportunity to do this!  I met with friends and co-workers to discuss and explore the fun we are going to have in one month.  Wow! one month away.  But I wanted to write it down one more time and see what you think.  A camp of fun - listening and language. 
Balloons - you can do so many things with balloons.  I read that in a workshop book for children and they were right!  Elicit language while moving a balloon across the room without using your hands. Two campers will be working together to move their 'dinosaur egg' (that's our theme this year-Dinosaurs) to the nest on the other side of the room.   Campers have to make a plan and tell each other what they need to do to move the balloon.  Pick dinosaur names and share with the group - talk about your dinosaur and what your dinosaur will do-paint a puffy dinosaur, make dinosaur feet prints and plan a dinosaur t-shirt!  That is all in one day!  And we plan on doing so many other things for two weeks.  Campers will be moving around in physical motor skills, dancing and playing games.  Campers will be chefs and deciding on what dinosaurs will be snacking on for the day.  Campers will show feelings of dinosaurs and discuss family siblings.  Campers will just have overall fun while 'listening and learning language'. 
The young ones of the camp will be having water fun through Splash, Quack, and Moo!  Sounds fun already.  Through the use of music and learning animal movements - students will use their vocalizations and words to talk about the heat, talk about 'cooling off' and talk about splashing in the water.  They too, will have music, snack and overall fun.  Come on - you know you want to join us - please do! 

Spring Time Fun

I am sitting nice and cozy in my home - watching the worst wind storm I've seen in years out the living room window. It's definitely spring time in Texas! As I look outside - I'm thinking of lessons I would love to do next week given the windy spring season has subsided. It's time for blooms, flowers and bugs! Yes, I said bugs. As much I hate them I love them, especially when I am looking at my clients and their wide-eyed faces or wrinkled up noses. They either love them or hate them as well. But my the language you can cultivate!

One of the lessons I love to do - goes with the book, "In the Tall, Tall Grass" by Denise Fleming. It is a little boy down in the grass exploring all the insects with rhyme, that's one way to enjoy, but the other way is just as fun. We make 4x4 cards of tall grass and glue it on a Popsicle stick. We get down on the floor and explore.

Before hand, I have gone to the dollar store, which is now busting at the seams with spring fling; and bought play rakes, shovels, Easter green grass and miniature plastic bugs - all varieties. Butterflies, ladybugs, grasshoppers, crickets, dragon flies, spiders, and ants to name a few - they have been placed on the floor and hidden - as we are on the floor, they explore and I make the sounds. Butterflies flitter, flutter; ladybugs dart and dip; bees hum and strum and so on. This is appropriate for four year olds through six year old to build vocabulary with action words.

For the younger group of children, I paint a mural of all green and place next to the toys. I have through the years bought lots of rubber stamps of various items through Oriental Trading - what a great outlet for materials. Anyway, I have bugs - the children pick a stamp to use on the mural and as they stamp down on the paper I have them listen, discriminate, and imitate. It could be as easy as 'hop, hop, hop' for grasshopper or a little harder 'flitter, flutter, flitter, flutter' and they go find that bug in the 'tall, tall grass'. Tons of fun for the afternoon.
Oh how I wish the winds would go away!!!

Get in Touch for Summer Camp

Summer Day Camp 2012 - Fun with Listening and Language is going to happen!  I am very excited about this!  A friend told me; 'Stop saying 'if this camp happens' and start saying 'when this camp happens'.
She was right - I started putting the word out, started having meetings and talking to people and asked for help and everyone said - 'Yes'.

We have put together a fun time and fun ideas and fun language activities.  We will talk, talk, talk, and sing, sing, sing, with Babies and Parents in the 10 mo. to 2 year old group.  This will run an hour a day.  We will learn some language while playing with activities dealing with Farm Animals, Water, and Dirt in the Toddler group; and we will continue to develop vocabulary and language when becoming scientists tracking around the world dinosaur bones with Little and Master Travelers.  Those three groups will run three hours a day and the camp itself will run for two weeks in June and two weeks in July.

The idea behind the camp is for our children not to lose the concepts and language they gained during the school year and continue to listen and to talk with help from teachers, professionals and family members.  Little ones who are not in school also continue to work with their parent in learning to listen and parents learning that auditory intake happens all the time. 

If you want more information, or just see whats happening - head on over to http://speakwithcathy.com
and get all the info.  For now, just know I am excited! yea!