AnnaKate's speech therapist emailed me about playing dress-up with AnnaKate. It is a great way to cover lots of skills, work on following directions, expose AnnaKate to some new vocabulary and have fun! I put together a dress up bag for AnnaKate and we have had a blast playing.
In the bag we have clothes, shoes and hats for mommy/daddy, AnnaKate and our Mandy doll. (By the way, the Mandy doll was mine from 1977. I still have her clothes and my grandmother even sewed and knit some clothes for her.) I ask AnnaKate to put Mandy's hat on Mandy, to put mommy's hat on mommy, and to put AnnaKate's hat on AnnaKate. She does such a good job following directions and putting the right hat on the right person (but it is really funny to put Mandy's hat on mommy!) We do this with shoes, jackets, scarves, etc. We spend a lot of time laughing and learning.
Even though I am a teacher, I am not really great at coming up with ideas like this for AnnaKate. I do lots of things but I so appreciate AnnaKate's therapists and teachers taking the time to help me be a better teacher/therapist/mommy to AnnaKate.
What kind of things do you do with your child to help their development?
**I thought I would get a picture of us playing dress-up but the week did not allow for that. The only thing it allowed for was an intestinal bug and lots of diapers.
Billy and I married in 1998 after dating for 6 years. In 2006 we adopted AnnaKate. We were lucky enough to meet her birth mother and take her home from the hospital. At about 4 months old, AnnaKate was diagnosed with Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome. Through all of AnnaKate's struggles and delays she surprises and delights us daily! Thanks for marking this spot and coming back often to check in on us.
7 comments:
That sounds wonderful! She is so fortunate to have such a great place to go to school, but even better to have a mom and dad who are so attuned to her needs.
Hmm what do I do to help my guys? I'll get back to you on that one!
What fun!!!! I hope she is feeling better very soon. Thanks for your email, the first three words made feel better....I knew just hearing from you would do the trick!
Addison's therapist just told me this week (she's right at 15 months now) that it would be good to start having her point to items in books. For example..."Where is the girl?", "Where is the ball?" so that she can expand her vocabulary and learn to identify objects. I am excited to start trying, but nervous at the outcome. Addison is nothing like Weston when it comes to books. Weston has always LOVED to sit still and listen and look at the pictures. Addison on the other hand has an attention span of about 2 seconds, flips the pages as fast as she can, and then says "all done". So, my new goal is to work on this!! :)
That is SUCH a cute idea! I love it! I know we were always encouraged to start allowing Caden to make choices - do you want the orange sippy or the green sippy? Do you want crackers or cookies? Then he pointed or signed or even talked as his development allowed. It's been good for him!
Our latest thing is to work with puppets. Lukas is all over them, of course, but I'm trying to let Natalie have her turn, and encourage her to vocalize as much as she can for the puppet she's wearing (i.e. quack like a duck). I'll let you know how it's going.
Oh what fun! Dress up is so much fun for children! How great that you still have the Mandy doll. I still have my original cabbage patch doll, Joy Noel.
I hope everyone is well now?
I had Mandy, too! I'd completely forgotten about her until I read this post, and then when you wrote the name "Mandy" a little bulb went off in the back of my head. I remembered her name and her face, then when I clicked on the link you provided I remembered all of it... Mandy's eyes, hair, that pink dress and hat, those tights! It's like I saw an old friend! Thanks for that Kelly and AnnaKate!
Post a Comment