2 July 2009

Went to Low Yat this morning cos I want to buy a netbook but ended up confused with the wide variety & might even consider getting a low end laptop instead!

What he did do today:

- Escalator: we’ve been teaching him to step on and off the escalator every time we’re at the shops. It involves balance, co-ordination, good reflexes. If he focuses, he's able to time his step on & off quite well. But he's often distracted by his surroundings. Since it’s quite dangerous, we hold both his right & left arms, for now.

- Running: he loves to run, so I usually bring along my helper to supervise him when I know I’d be busy

- Speech: he’ll say the names of the vehicles he sees on the road, while in the car & at the shops. E.g. Perodua, truck, Toyota jeep. He's crazy about vehicles, so no prompting needed here.

- Counting: he counts he number similar vehicles that he sees e.g. 3 Proton, 2 vans

- Alphabets: he’ll say the name of the alphabet in advertising signs that he sees in the shop E.g. A-c-e-r

- Learning to unlock: Just introduced it this week. I want him to eventually be able to unlock the door with a key. I detached the key from the key ring cos he grasps the key ring instead of the key. At this stage, I insert the key; I show him which direction to turn, with my hand over his & help him turn it when he's unable to. Good for wrist movement & for strengthening his hand muscles, hand eye & a practical activity.

- Play masak masak – pretend play; colour matching of spoons & forks to the plates; movement of both hands E.g. right hand was holding the kettle & I gave his left hand a spoon for him to match; fine motor E.g. he pulls apart the Velcro fruits (the type which you use a play knife to cut through the velcro joining the 2 halves)

He had speech therapy this afternoon. Spoke very softly except towards the end of the session. Not sure if it’s because we changed the timing of the therapy to the afternoon & he's therefore more tired compared to during a morning session, or because he was a bit uncertain what the therapist wanted of him.

It was good of the therapist to include activities to prepare him for kindy. E.g. getting him to practice saying “Teacher, I want to colour”, “Teacher, I want to drink”

We did one activity to improve his articulation of the letter “k”, which I think he did quite well. On and off we did do similar “k” sound activity in the past at speech therapy so I guess he’s progressed.

This evening, he got his dose of exercise, by running in the garden & playing with the helper. I think I’m down with the flu or something cos I’ve been very tired these few days & having bad headache now. There's much more I want to share on the stuff I did with my son last week, but it'll have to be postponed again...