This is a repost from my life coaching blog. I wanted to share this here because the chances are VERY high that you've experienced this at some point. What I share below has made such a difference for me and I am hoping that it can also help you! Thanks for reading! Margaret I have found that dealing with people staring and offering "advice" to be one of the biggest challenges parents of children with special needs face, especially when they get brave and take their child out into the … [Read more...] about When People Stare, Mind Your Own Business
My Obstacle Course Station Ideas
What’s Perfect About This?
Deep breath followed by this fabulous question, "What’s perfect about this?" I asked myself this question as I woke up one morning to find red pepper flakes in the cast iron skillet and an interesting aroma coming from my son's room. Turns out that he loves to spin and really loves to spin glass jars. He poured out the curry, coriander, cumin and thyme into containers and when I asked him why, he said, "Mommy says don't spin spices because they could break and go all over." This is true. This … [Read more...] about What’s Perfect About This?
Halloween
I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday. Halloween holds a special place in my heart, not because I love it or love to dress up or scare people (I actually don't), but because it is the holiday that woke me up a bit to something I had been overlooking with Andrew. We were in the grocery store a few years back, when he was 4 and was not speaking any consonants. There were decorations up all over the store and he pointed up at a witch and asked in his own way, what it was. It hit me like a … [Read more...] about Halloween
Enchanted Learning Halloween Themed Pages
If you have been following my posts for a while, you know how much I love to use materials from www.EnchantedLearning.com. Here are some examples of what they have to help build math skills using the Halloween theme. Note: This is just me, but I wanted to make the papers look a little more appealing so I trimmed them and glued them onto black construction paper before "laminating" them with clear contact paper. I did this so I could reuse them in future My Obstacle Courses as … [Read more...] about Enchanted Learning Halloween Themed Pages
Halloween Sticker Patterns
This is a super simple way to build patterning skills along with fine motor skills - Halloween themed patterning! I had some packages of Halloween themed stickers (could be any theme at any time of the year though) and got out some orange index cards. I began a pattern using the stickers (shown in the photo) and when Andrew got to the station, he looked at the pattern, found the sticker that went next, peeled it and worked to stick it on the card. Seems easy enough, right? This was … [Read more...] about Halloween Sticker Patterns
Halloween Ring Sort and Count
This is one of my favorite station activities because it was one of those moments where I realized that I could take an item, alter it a bit from it’s original intended use and create activities with it to build skills and find out what Andrew knew. I purchased a package of Halloween rings (either from Target or Michael's, cannot remember) and used my scissors to cut off the ring part. (I don’t know about you but those rings were never very comfortable and I knew that Andrew would never wear … [Read more...] about Halloween Ring Sort and Count