Friday

This morning Alex & I spent well over an hour doing workbook pages. I realize that some children are bored by this, but she has enough of me in her to like doing this sort of work. I have a Fisher Price preschool workbook from Nancy and it is really great. The illustrations are great and the activities are appropriate and to understand. The first few pages had dots outlining different animals. Alex has tremors in her body, especially her hands, that make fine motor skills very difficult... but she did this so well all by herself! I am so proud of her that I had to include pictures. She did this completely independent with her right hand. It isn't perfect, but it is very good!



We practiced tracing some letters and numbers, but her hands were very shaky from other tracing, so we we did it with my hand over hers.
Visual discrimination is hard for Alex unless it is something really obvious. This workbook had practice pages with 4 of the same object, one being in a different position. VERY hard. We talked through it and I pointed out how they are different and she circled the appropriate one. Another page focused on noticing details. In a small box was a detail of a larger picture, and she was supposed to find the detail in the larger picture and circle it. She did pretty well with this. We used to do mazes hand over hand and I did most of the guiding, but today she did the guiding and did very well. I think she is getting the hang of that. Connect the dots (from number to number or letter to letter) is also difficult. We also usually do this hand over hand, but today she tried a little bit by herself. It's getting better. She is pretty good at drawing vertical and horizontal lines, as well as slanted lines. Curved lines are more difficult, but she is getting much better, she just has to build some confidence there. When given 2 pictures of different sizes, she can point out the larger or smaller one, but when you add in a 3rd she has difficult understanding which is in the middle. This is something Heidi (speech therapist) has also noticed and is working on. More or less is also a difficult concept that we have been working on. She can count how many items are in each group, but doesn't understand which one is more.
Oh, while Alex & I are working Emma usually sits beside me (and crawls all over me). We make sure to take breaks to read a book Emma has picked. I am getting better at juggling both girls while doing school work.
This afternoon we took my dad to the podiatrist and did some more work in the waiting room. Both of the girls wrote on their dry erase books. Emma mostly scribbled, Alex traced letters (with encouragement). She is getting so much better! Alex can also write her first name and tell you what her last name is. Emma always wants me to write her name. I write the E, she says, "E". I write the M, she says, "M". Then she skips the second M and goes straight to the A! I have to remind her that there are 2 M's. Writing Emma's name always leads to her asking me to write Alex's name, then every other person she can think of.
At bed time we read a few books, then pulled out "My Goodnight Book". Alex usually 'reads' it, but the last few night Emma has also started telling the story. I'm so impressed!