Sunday, 19 July 09

Morning exercise at neighbourhood park

Gross motor
15 mins only this morning at the neighbourhood park. Parked at bottom of row of houses which are on a slope - we walked up & back down. That housing area was designed differently - the inclination of the slope alternates...it is a bit of a short steep walk up a slope up then flatten out at the next 2 houses, then the slope again etc. So he gets the "steep bit" to stretch his achilles, gastroc muscles etc.

Speech
He'd name all the brands of cars parked outside the houses e.g. Honda, Alfa Romeo, Toyota, Ford, BMW. Noted his pronounciation of "B" is better (when he says "BMW"). It used to sound like "bern". Now its "bee". Hooray! I use whatever interests him as opportunities for therapy activities, so he's been naming cars for a long time now.

Maths
In future, I can introduce him to counting 2 by 2. Since the houses on one side are even numbered & the other odd, I'll use this opportunity to further his maths (addition).

Garden
- He picked up dried leaves from the grass (bend down, squat, fine motor, hand eye)
- He also plucked all the tiny red flowers from one of the plants (fine motor, hand eye, both hands)
- He ran along the drain cover (visual) which he likes cos it makes a loud sound

Oral Motor
He can now suck up his Yakult using a normal sized bendy straw which has been cut in half, with the straw maintaining it's shape. Straw was placed past his teeth but he didnt bite down on it hard. Only faint teeth mark was visible on the straw. Hooray! We see progress resulting from activities using the various sized & shaped straws!

Kitten
He did quite a bit of squatting & "squat to stand" at the restaurant tonight because he was playing with a kitten.

Ball play
Why?
I wanted him to stretch up high.

How?
- Balls & a basketball hoop. The hoop was given 2nd hand from a friend (easily found in hypermarkets, Jusco). Very useful as it's adjustable as he grows taller - it has suction caps. Actually, it was more like he dropped them through the hoop rather than throw, but it's ok cos he did stretch. But he did only a few balls, so did a variation....

We went upstairs & he dropped the balls over the banister (banister high enough to still require stretching). He wised up after just a few throws & rolled them down instead. So changed the game again...

Helper & I held up an old towel & got him to throw over. Perhaps this was something new so he did quite a few throws. Actual throwing, good strong throws (not dropping), which is good.