Continue reading »]]> Sophia was my third child. I was an experienced mother. I knew what normal was and I knew a red flag when I saw it. Total meltdowns in public places, always wanting her clothes off, hiding under my end tables, crying because the wind hurt her face, screaming in terror at moving things like grocery carts and wagons, not sleeping more than three hours at a time and a bedtime routine with more steps than a country line dance that had to be done in exact order, were all red flags of “not normal”.

My mind became obsessed with what was causing this behavior. Poison in our well water, a food allergy, a tumor in her brain, a demon in her bedroom, toxic exposure to the paint primer I used to paint her nursery, a baby switched at birth, mercury poisoning from my new found love of tuna and salmon during her pregnancy, or a mental illness passed down from some unknown relative locked away that my family never told me about. Regardless of what “it” was that made her this way, my baby girl was different than normal and I would need to find a way to deal with it.

At first, it was embarrassing and scary all at the same time. I was questioning my own experience as a mother. When I shared my concern with friends and family, most of them wanted to find a way to reassure me that it was “probably normal” and she would grow out of it. How was any of this “probably normal?” As most conversations go, I would bring up a concern, they would blow it off and then spend the next twenty minutes making me listen to how their child did the craziest things as a baby.  Frankly, I didn’t want to hear it. To be honest, I didn’t have time. I needed answers, solutions, interventions, anything to help my daughter. These stories didn’t help her or me.

I avoided most of my friends and family for quite a while. It wasn’t a sudden decision I made one day, it just happened over time. Sophia was impossible to take into public anyway so we avoided anything that was not at our house. When people came to our place she would end up upstairs away from them most of them time and I followed her. Over time, we became quite secluded from friends, family and public places. I worked hard to avoid letting people see her meltdowns and catered to her obsessive behaviors just to make it through certain situations. Of course, the more I hid her from the world and our friends and family, the more they had no idea what she was really like.

One day I was dropping off my ten year old son at school and was hoping to pull off a quick stop to the grocery store to get some things without Sophia, now 4 years old, having a total melt down. She could usually handle only one event a day and it clearly needed to be on the schedule. This was not on the morning schedule but I decided to go for it.

“Mommy,” she asked nervously, “we are going the wrong way? I want to go home.”

I let her know we were stopping at the store.

“I want home. I want home. I want home. Pleeeease. I want home.”

Her agitation was building as a sippy cup came flying up to the front of the car. It was a tough decision but I needed to go to the store. No one was available to babysit. Getting out of the car, she grabbed her clipboard, pen and bubble gum. Her knuckles were white as she gripped for something to comfort her as she went into sensory hell for her. She navigated the parking lot carefully avoiding any blemish, painted line or crack in the pavement. As we walked towards the carts she passed the line-up of gumball and toy machines. She obsessively lifted up each metal flap to check inside. I was in a rush. “Mommy, I have to check the machines for candy.” I let her get through all eight machines, never asking for an actual coin. She was searching for order, symmetry, conformity, sameness, routine. Whatever you want to call it, it boils down to sensory safety for her.

I settled her down into the front of the cart and positioned her clip board. “Mommy, it’s cold, it hurts,” she said about the cart. We started in produce and she did okay. She began to get bothered by the cold air and grabbed for a green twist tie to fidget with. “Mommy, I am cold.” I tried to walk as far away from the cereal aisle as possible but could not avoid it.

“Coco Pebbles!” she yelled. We made a quick grab, it was only our sixth box at home and we walked fast before she noticed all of the other gluten based cereals she couldn’t have. She got busy copying letters from signs in the store on her clipboard. Three letters into Pepsi, she yelled, “Wait!” and she made me wait while she finished the other letters. By the third aisle I am realizing I needed more than I thought but Sophia had started to undress in the cart. I calmly pulled her shirt back down and sternly told her to sit down and keep her clothes on.

I had mastered how to predict what would set her off and almost always had a carefully crafted “plan B” in case that happened. If I saw the warning signs that she was “going down” I would find a way to end on a good note instead of a meltdown, even if it meant leaving an entire grocery cart of groceries in the middle of the store so I could leave before she undressed and started screaming.  Unfortunately this time, I didn’t have the luxury of leaving the cart, I needed to check out.

“People are looking at me,” she started yelling and half crying. Yeah, no kidding…I need to speed up, I thought to myself.  Sophia started stimming by repeating over and over “go home, go home, go home”…escalating now into an angry opera. It is loud and people were looking but it’s better than a full scale meltdown. This, I can deal with. I mean singing is good. It’s better than a naked four year old bolting out of the cart and store.

One aisle later she grabbed the bag of bread from the back of the cart and chucked it down the aisle. As I moved swiftly through the last two aisles and promised her we were almost done, she returned to her clipboard and wrote letters while she sang “ABCDEFGHIJKELEMEOPEEEEEEE…”

We passed the deli on the way to the check out. They were sampling something with a strong smell and she plugged her nose. “That food stinks!” she said obnoxiously loud.

We made it to the dreaded check-out lane. As we waited in line, she wanted out of the cart to see the candy. I took her out. She grabbed a pack of her favorite bubble gum and laid on the floor spinning on her back. I tried to pick her up and she tried to run. I left the lane to bring her back. Holding her, she began to hit me to let her down. I let her down and she went back to spinning on her back on the floor. Again, given the choice between her running away, hitting me as I hold her and spinning on the floor…I’ll go with spinning on the floor. I notice now that most people within my vision are watching and probably thinking something is either wrong with that child or that mother for letting her do that.

I wished my family and friends that all said it was “probably normal” and that she would “grow out of it” were here now in the store with me, watching this all unfold. It’s odd that when you are a complete stranger you can make more realistic and honest observations than when it is someone you know and love.

As we left, she headed one more time to check all the metal flaps on the candy and toy machines. I made the guy carrying my groceries wait until she was finished and he seemed annoyed, but screw him. He had no idea what was going on. Hoping to avoid any other irritants to her, we quickly got in the car and headed straight home.

Before I took the groceries out of the car, I carried her in the house, brought her to her room and got her settled in the swing in her room and all that is comforting to her. ..a familiar movie, dim lights, a gluten-free snack and the long row of hot wheels she left so neatly from that morning. As I left the room she took off her shirt, pants and socks and began repeating the memorized lines from the movie.  That will be it for her today. One thing a day.

At this point in our life complete strangers had a better view into my daughter’s true behavior than my family and closest friends.  In some ways, I felt relieved by that. It left my daughter some dignity and helped me to avoid unwanted conversations. However, in retrospect, there is a down side to hiding these wonderful episodes from those closest to you. They never saw enough to understand that something was seriously wrong.  So, when I made vulnerable attempts to tell them how frustrated I was or how scared I was about her behavior and development, some of them thought I had absolutely lost my mind.  It was time to really let the cat out of the bag, so I decided to let them witness a few of these meltdowns and obsessive behaviors for themselves and more importantly for me to be validated as not crazy.

Her behavior was easy to expose and I confess that I knew her buttons well enough to draw out some of her behaviors by pushing the right buttons. I stopped carrying out Plan B escape routes and somehow managed to ask for another cup of coffee as the warning signs of her upcoming meltdown went off. I even took my mom to the grocery store with me one day.

I am not sure what type of reaction I was really expecting, but most of the comments I got were along the lines of “you know, all kids have their moments and tantrums. It’s normal.”  I think some of those people actually thought that making that comment to me would make me feel better. As if I could say “Yes, you’re right.  It’s normal for a kid to have meltdowns over the smell of the free sausage bites, to the point they are hitting their mother with cans of corn from the cart and chucking loaves of bread across the store at anyone close. And yes, every normal kid goes through a stage of being so afraid of a moving grocery cart that they run frantically out the door into the parking lot.”

Whether it was from lack of awareness and education, denial, shame, or baby-boomer optimism, they did not want to acknowledge that anything was wrong or different no matter what behavior I allowed them to witness. I didn’t have time for relationships with people that didn’t share in my concern. My only focus was to figure out what the problem was so I could start helping her. Anyone that couldn’t at least share my concern and help me was an obstacle. I spent every waking hour observing her, researching on the Internet and doing everything I could to get through another day without falling apart.

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Look back advice: You need a partner. Finding one person that authentically understands and cares as much as you do and will help you get back up when you fall, will be the source of energy you need to keep moving forward. This is a long game and it is exhausting and emotionally overwhelming. You need someone that is willing to give and receive little in return. Someone that recognizes their role and will be there to listen to you rant, complain, cry, work out conspiracy theories and send encouraging notes. Whether it is a friend, neighbor or someone in your church or community, find one person.  Your spouse is already in this with you whether they are in denial or not. So try to find someone in addition to your spouse. This effort will payoff for years to come. In time, this one friend will see the same fruits of their labor that you will see and you can be proud of the things you accomplished and the quality of life you have improved for a beautiful child.

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I am asked very often what I noticed early on with my daughter, now diagnosed with PDD-NOS and Sensory Processing Disorder,” that concerned me. I had kept a journal for years about my emotions through this time period. I decided to pull them out and start a series on my blog about my Sensory Memoirs, my journals of Raising a Beautiful Disaster. Depending where you are in the process, I hope these encourage you, strengthen you to help someone you know who is struggling or validate your emotions. Your feedback would be a helpful encouragement to continue with this series, so please share your comments.

Emily

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Continue reading »]]> Every day non-threatening environments such as a grocery store or mall, can be highly stressful and disruptive to a child with sensory issues. But for most of these places, we know the environment, we know the coping mechanisms we will use to help our child navigate and if a melt down occurs, we know how to keep our little one safe and make an exit to a more calming environment.

My daughter Sophia has always been a runner. Even in the grocery store at a very young age, the slightest sensory intake could make her bolt on me. In one situation, I had to make a quick decision to leave my three year old in the cart alone, to chase after Sophia to keep her from running out the automatic doors and into traffic in the parking lot. I said a quick prayer and hoped that a guardian angel would keep an eye on her while I ran after Sophia. After that incident I rarely took both of the girls together anywhere for safety reasons. As my son got older, he became a really great help in these situations.

No one likes to play the ‘what if’ game, but what happens if you are suddenly unable to tend to your child? If you were in a car accident and unable to move or unconscious, what are the chances that your sensory child would bolt from the car into traffic or wander into a neighborhood? Would medical responders or good Samaritans know your child was even in the car with you? If you couldn’t communicate, how would you describe what your child looks like? Would they know your child has sensory issues and how to help them stay calm? And if they had to transport your child to the hospital, what difference would it make if a nurse had advance knowledge that your child had sensory issues or special needs to properly care for them?

Below are a few small preparation steps that could save your child’s life:

• Place an envelope marked “EMERGENCY” on the outside of the visor in all of your vehicles. Inside the envelope, place a paper or index card with the following:My son SHAWN is 7 years old and is AUTISTIC. He has SENSORY ISSUES and does not respond well to loud noises, bright lights or strong smells. If unsupervised, he is likely to RUN or WANDER away and does not respond to his name being called. If he is missing from this vehicle, please assume he may have wandered or run away until you can confirm he was not in the vehicle.  The best way to CALM him is to move him to a quiet place with dim lighting. His favorite movie is _____ and his favorite snack is _____.

  He is currently on the following MEDICATION:

  An emergency supply of his medicine is in my purse.

  EMERGENCY CONTACTS:
  1.  Name, relationship, phone 1, phone 2, phone 3
  2.  Name, relationship, phone 1, phone 2, phone 3

  Also tape a recent picture of your child and their full name and nick name

• In your cell phone, add a contact name that begins with ICE and dials to your primary In Case of Emergency contact. This helps medical responders find a contact quickly.
• Have an extra supply of their medicine secured in the trunk or glove compartment if you don’t normally carry it with you in your purse.
• A copy of this card and photo should also be in your wallet/purse if something were to happen to you unrelated to your vehicle.
• If you are in a situation where you can’t move but are conscious and you are afraid they will leave the vehicle, try singing a song with them that they know well. I taught Sophia the Twelve Days of Christmas and use it all the time when we have a lengthy transition to get through. Somehow it distracts her and buys me significant time.

The most important thing is to spend a few minutes thinking through this situation and adapt the message and plan based on your specific needs. If you have anyone else that drives your child on a regular basis, you should consider putting this envelope in their vehicle as well. Even the smallest fender bender can cause a major swing of emotions and sensory processing that can create a very dangerous environment for your child. As my friend used to tell me, “your child is predictably unpredictable.” That means to plan for the worst and hope for the best to keep everyone safe.

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When I was in high school I can remember seeing “special” kids in our assemblies with big brown headphones on that looked as if they came from the reading room. I didn’t understand what they were for until I had my own little sensory cutie. Headphones can be a huge help in reducing noise and sensory triggers. Even a few years ago, the headphones available were either super tiny or big, ugly and awkward. If I was going to put my daughter in a pair of those, I might as well of ordered a t-shirt to go with it that said “I have a problem!”  But with a twist of fashion fate, we are now in an era where headphones are cool. Especially the big ones!

Today’s headphone fashion has given our little sensory cuties a whole new collection of headphones with hundreds of colors to choose from, great noise reduction controls and adjustable size. Even if my little one doesn’t have her headphones plugged into something, she doesn’t stand out. In fact she looks cool and that is a fashion gift!

This new craze gives hope to getting through a few more of my older son’s basketball games, an extra ten minutes in the grocery store and less fighting in the back seat of the car. I also use them in the house. Noise from my son playing basketball in the driveway, a neighbor mowing the lawn or extra visitors in the house are all sensory triggers that can be bothersome to kids with sensory issues. Plugging the headphones into an itouch or tv can be a huge stress reliever for my daughter and me!

This is definitely a Top 10 Sensory Hippo must have and it’s also a great gift if you are looking for something for a child with sensory issues. Just make sure to pay a little extra for the ones with noise reduction controls. Very worth it!

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I was asked by a reader to give some ideas to those wanting to buy a gift for a child with Autism or Sensory Integration Disorder. This topic is very dear to me because as a parent of an Autistic child, I could pack a closet with gifts given to her that she really couldn’t enjoy. I clearly understand that most people find themselves in an unusual predicament: they don’t really know what to buy the child, but would be too embarrassed to ask what they need or feel odd giving money or a gift card.  My suggestion is to give a gift card to the parent and a small gift to the child. This is a win-win. Gift cards like American Express allows the parent to buy specialty items that you may not even be aware they need and are not found in traditional department stores.

Now, for the child…think small – big is not always better. I don’t mean the actual size of the gift but the gift itself. If I took a bag of shinny new coins from the bank and wrapped them up with a coin sorter, my daughter would entertain herself for hours. It would cost me less than three new Barbie dolls that she would never play with. Same is true for a small hand held toy that lights up versus a bike.  If you are trying to connect with your little Autistic friend on an emotional level to bond or build a relationship, try making a book or game that is personal.   Here are my suggestions for gifts:

1) Make a story. Take digital pictures of you and your little friend and make a story out of it. Use an event such as them visiting your home, or a trip you went on. Laminate it and bind with a three ring binder or a hole punch and ribbon.

2) Make an eye spy game of things in your house for when they come to visit. Take digital photos of items in your house. Print them and paste them onto a card and laminate. Leave them on a hook near your front door for when them come to visit.

3) Make a tool box of gadgets. Visit some resale shops for safe utensils, tools, and small gadgets that they can explore. Example: measuring tape, stop watch, magnifying glass, shoe horn, tongs, compass, tape, thermostat, stud finder, feather duster, spray bottle, note pad, tape recorder – Tape a label with large print clearly identifying each object and a picture of what to do with it. Use clip art or a picture of you using it.

4) Take a picture of you and the child and order a puzzle. Ask their parents what an appropriate amount of pieces would be. 25 – 50 – 100. Go to walgreens.com for other great ideas.

5) Make a personal calendar of pictures of the child. Some children really like calendars and keep track of the days.

6) Make a memory game. Take pictures of things that are special to your child. Make a copy of each item so you have two of each. Laminate them. Have about 20-30 items. This is a custom memory game.

7) Make an interactive doctors kit: Place a teddy bear in a basket with a band-aid on his arm. Add a few boxes of different types of band-aids (great for improving fine motor skills to open and peel them all and put on the bear.) An ace bandage to practice wrapping up the bear’s arms and legs. Add some wet wipes for them to open and pretend cleaning the bear before putting on the bandages. Wet wipes are an interesting tactile sense and also help teach the child skills for cleaning a boo-boo.

8) Pudding painting basket. Pack a basket with different colors of pudding cups and a white vinyl place mat. Add a few paint brushes too!

9) Take one of their favorite foods and put it in several types of containers. For example, a favorite candy or cereal. A quick trip to a used gift shop such as Goodwill and you can find several types of containers for them to practice opening and closing. Screw top ball jar, Tupperware, plastic with latches. This is good practice for fine motor skills.

10) Seek and find tub. Find some small gifts and hide them in a plastic tub of kidney beans. This can provide hours of sensory entertainment as they put their hands in the beans, practice pouring them from one container to the other and finding all of the objects.

11) Rope swing. An eye hook and hardware to install a swing from a joist can be relatively inexpensive. If you have some handy man skills, offer to make and install a swing for the child. It is trendy now to take an old tire, paint it and make an indoor tire swing if you have the room. You can also purchase basic ones with a seat and a rope.  See my review of the swing we bought for Sophia.

12) Big soft pillow. If you have a furniture manufacturer nearby, stop in and ask for them to donate some extra foam scraps. Take two full sheets and sew them together like a pillow case. Put in the foam and sew the last edge. A big pillow to play on and jump on is always good fun.

13) Care for self basket. This basket has a nice lotion, a nail file, a new soft brush, a super soft wash cloth, a super soft bath towel, a vibrating tooth brush, and a hand mirror. You will need to hand pick these things carefully instead of buying a prepackaged basket to make sure the items are sensory friendly.

14) A Polaroid camera. – This is instant gratification!

15) Dancing Christmas toys. My daughter loves getting a new one of these every year.

16) Wii – I don’t know exactly why but autistic kids love these. If they don’t have one, they will likely love it. Parents will too. It is much easier to have a bowling party in the living room than taking your autistic kid to an actual bowling alley.

17) Felt board. Buy some felt at the fabric store. Cover a piece of thick cardboard with the felt. Using templates cut out felt with items such as animals, trees, people, houses, etc.

18) Wind-up toys. You can’t go wrong with these and they are very inexpensive.

19) Spinning tops. Not the most helpful in cognitive development but fun and entertaining.

20) Fort box or tent.Find a box from an appliance. Feel free to paint if you want or leave it as is. Cut out a window or two. Then fill the box with a few sets of sheets, and other fun props for building a fort such as a tension shower curtain rod, flashlight, string, etc.  Put some grommets in the corners of the sheets to create more options for holding up the sheet. There is actually a really great kit available at LearningExpress.com

21) Plexiglass card holder and box of cards.

22) Sound basket: maracas, bells, whistle, train whistle, musical instruments.

23) Bath Time Basket: Bubbles, bath toys, fun shaped soap, bath robe, plastic dishes

24) Light it up: Stick on push lights, flashlights, color spin on the ceiling, glow in the dark items, light up bouncy ball, sun glasses, and light up stuffed animals.

25) If you are a big spender, than I believe the Apple ipad is the hit of the year for autistic kids. They are the perfect size and the touch screen makes it easy to use. There are several autism apps that have been created for speech and other development areas that you can search for on google. They are great for a child to take in a car, in bed or even at a guests home to keep them distracted from all of the change in routine!

Most important – don’t expect the reaction you want. Even if they don’t look interested when they open your gift, it may take lots of interaction and days of processing and approaching it before they can truly understand and engage it. Look for a win-win. Help out the parents by letting them make the most appropriate and most needed purchases and stick to quick and personal engagement with your special friend.

And if you still don’t think those work, check out a few other links to products at Learningexpress.com that might be perfect!

Happy holidays!

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For years, while raising my Autistic daughter Sophia, the occupational therapists would harp on me to interrupt her any time she resorted to lining things up or got too obsessive about stacking and sorting. There is one part of me that agrees I need to stretch her to move outside of her instincts and learn to “use her imagination” more. But on the other hand, what if her imagination just led her down a path that was different from my imagination and most other children? What if there was something special that she saw in a set of objects that I didn’t see? Testing this thought one day, I sat her down at the dining room table and poured out a bag of M&Ms in front of her. I said nothing to her and pretended not to pay attention to her. I sat for several minutes watching her sort the M&Ms first into groups of like colors. Then, she began creating two rows of different patterns. Those that remained that did not complete the pattern where popped in her mouth. She paused for a moment staring at the M&Ms as if there was some self gratification (without any facial expression) as if it were a work of art to be studied further. She then began kicking her chair and eating one M&M at a time.

My theory proved true. Sophia’s idea of creative play and imagination is just as beautiful as the way my son used to find creative ways to fling M&Ms from one room of the house to another. It is not what some would call normal imaginative play but after enjoying her special and delicate display of these M&M’s I wondered what else she could design. So my advice is to continue “stretching” your Autistic child’s imagination but don’t surpress the beautiful imagination that is trying to find a way to express itself. You may be emotionally surprized and amazed!

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This is another example of how I found things around my own home to practice the skills my Autistic daughter needed and incorporated them into her daily routine. This was my way of a home-based early intervention for Autism.

One of the many tasks at hand was to work on strengthening the muscles in her hands to someday improve her pencil grip. I found that pinching clothespins were just challenging enough. To make it fun I found different places to hang the clothesline and different items to hang.

In my laundry room, I made a line just her size and had a special laundry basket with wash cloths for her to hang. Buying a variety of new colored cloths allowed me to quiz her on colors by saying “hang the green” and then watching her find the green cloths in the basket and hang them. If I said “rainbow” it meant to hang one of each!

For a table top activity, I found a small tray with handles and tied a shoelace across the holes in the handles. I then placed a folded wash cloth over the rope. In a small bowl I put a handful of clothes pins. I showed her how to take each pin and place it on the cloth on the line. Positioning the towel and the pin at the same time was too big of a task to start, so this allowed her to focus on pinching the pin. As she got older, I used the same task but placed letters and numbers on the pins. I could spell words and ask her to put them in order. I could also put pins 1-5 out and ask her to put them in order. And once she achieved that, we worked on putting the pins 1-5 in order from “smallest to biggest” and “biggest to smallest.” This one took her a while but she did eventually get it.

If hanging a line in your home, always remove the rope when you are not in sight so the child does not have any accidents with it. Other places that you might consider are long hallways or in the kitchen between two cupboards. This of course can be a fun outdoor activity as well, just make sure the line is always adjusted to the appropriate height for them to reach.

Again, you will need to have this available for some time before they get the hang of it so don’t give up after the first few attempts. Build it into your routine. If you do laundry, take them with and show them how to hang the wash cloths. If they do it, make a really big deal out of it and have a reward for them.

See other activiites such as the Pillow Pile, UNO, chores, and the counting basket.

If you like this blog, help me grow this community by sharing these pages on Facebook with families that are also looking for these types of ideas!

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When my daughter was young, I did not have the worries of running from therapist to therapist and paying big bills to do so. I didn’t have that option. With guidance from an OT, I would be given a skill to work with her on and then I would invent my own way to conduct it using everyday items I had in the house or could find easily at a garage sale or second hand shop.  After time I got very creative at even combining several skills into one activity.

For example, when I needed to work with Sophia on the skill of sorting and number and color recognition I resorted to handy deck of UNO cards and the infamous cotton rug that was her play mat. To start, remove any special cards so that only numbers 0 through 9 remain. Take out all of the reverse, skip, draw 2, wild cards. Depending on the skill level you are already working with, you may want to start with a 3-4 cards for each color and add more as they advance.  Lay one card for each color at the top of the rug and mix up the others at the bottom. Teach the child by showing them how to sort the remainder of the cards by color. As you lay down the color, say the name of the color each time. This will teach them to recognize the color by name as well as pronounce the word.

Once this skill is developed, lay one row of cards across the top of the rug in numerical order. Now show them how to sort the remaining cards by number. Again, say the number as you lay down the card. As with any skill, consistency is most helpful. Leave this activity out for at least a month. Work it into your routine, maybe immediately after dinner. Don’t wait for the dishes to be done, just jump right to it so they begin to expect it.

See other activiites such as the Pillow Pile, Clothesline, chores, and the counting basket.

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Having put all three of my children through Montessori pre-school, I became very familiar with a work called the One Hundred Board. It is a very simple wood board with 100 tiles that are numbered. Using  your cotton rug, lay the board on the rug and place the tiles with numbers facing up on the rug. Help your child put the numbers in order from 1 to 100. When I first started with Sophia, I only put out the first 10 tiles. Then I added another 10 and so on until she could complete the entire board. It also comes with an answer key for them to match to which is very helpful in the beginning. We also use this to help learning to count by 2, 5 and 10!

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Continue reading »]]> A great way to reinforce the concept of counting money is to find an old change purse and set it in a special spot. Use the same spot every time. Each night, fill the coin purse with a different combination of coins. Set a piece of paper and a pencil next to the purse. Build a routine where each morning, or each day after school, they come to the purse, empty it out and count the money. Teach them to sort the coins first, count, then write the value of the money on the piece of paper. If it is right, give them a special reward. If not, help them count it again. Each day, you can increase the difficulty but make the first few times simple so they feel confident until the routine really kicks in.

See other activiites such as the Pillow Pile, UNO, chores, and the counting basket.

If you like this blog, help me grow this community by sharing these pages on Facebook with families that are also looking for these types of ideas!

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Learning to count money can be a very frustrating concept. I created a Montessori work for Sophia to do at the table.

First, lay out the cotton rug. Then, find a plastic tray that has compartments for four coins. Using cardboard, make a sign for the value of each coin. Then get a dish with several coins in it. The first task is to name each coin and place it in the correct value spot in the tray.

Once they have accomplished this, work on teaching how to count by that value.

The next task is to have them assign coins to a value using pieces of paper with cent values on it . I also added pictures of items from her visual schedule to pretend we were shopping.

See other activiites such as the Pillow Pile, UNO, chores, and the counting basket.

If you like this blog, help me grow this community by sharing these pages on Facebook with families that are also looking for these types of ideas!

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