Share Some Good Stuff

Let's start the week off right - sharing some fun stuff for our kiddos.

I spent a little time this weekend on my newest online love, Pinterest.  If you haven't heard of Pinterest, you're missing out on a seriously fun, creative, inspiring, and educational waste of time.  Actually, it doesn't have to be a waste of time.  For me, it's a really relaxing way to spend a few minutes when I need an escape from it all.

Pinterest is basically a place where you can create and personalize online bulletin boards about anything of interest to you.  You can share your boards with others or keep them all to yourself.

If you're interested, you can follow me there at lanalrush.

Any-who, while scouring Pinterest, I discovered several wonderful ideas for kids with special needs.

Lily still needs a little help identifying body parts, especially her own.  She's more likely to point out someone else's nose or ears than the ones that belong to her!  So when I saw this Ziploc "My Body" Book, from I Can Teach My Child, I knew it would be perfect for the Bird.

I'll take pictures of her cute little ears, mouth, nose, toes, and the like and create a simple photo book.  Of course, Lily would totally scoff at those little baggies holding the photos.  She's way too advanced to let a little ziploc stand between her and whatever is inside.  The photos I take will be laminated for added protection.  I'm also going to create a "book" on her iPod Touch.

Lily is actively learning alphabet recognition so I really like this Letter Search game from Little Hands, Big Work.


But I am 100% certain that Lily will sample the uncooked rice.  I know it won't hurt her.  I'm just trying to decide what will end up being more fun for her - digging for the letters and putting them in the puzzle or eating the rice.  I'm leaning towards eating the rice which then begs the question, "what's the point???"

An activity that might be a little less likely to be sampled but still fun is a Sticky Table.

Placing some contact paper upside down on the kitchen table and then using various things (pom poms, ribbon, foam shapes, pipe cleaners....) to stick on and pull off might be more successful.  And I could use alphabet letters for this.  I'm also going to stick on some of that bubble wrap with those really big fat bubbles for her to pop.

But the one almost guaranteed to catch her attention and hold it for a while?  A Kitchen Duty sensory bin.

While she may not care about washing the dishes, she'll play in the water and we can practice filling and pouring, sinking and floating.  Heck, we can even throw those alphabet letters in again and maybe fish them out with a slotted spoon.

So, if you're hunting up more activities than you'll ever have time to do with your kiddos, I suggest following a couple of Pinterest "pinners":

Tara Bennett (tmoney)
PediaStaff
Sensory Basic

I'm sure there are tons more pinners who share boards filled with wonderful ideas for special needs kids, so if you know of others, be sure to leave a comment and pass them along.

Also, if there's a book that has really helped you along in your special needs journey, would you leave a comment with the title?

We can learn so much from each other so don't be shy - share your ideas and resources!