Technology and learning disorders

If your child has an IEP and any issues with learning, make sure your school is using the vast choices available in technology to help. I know it’s at least partially because of my pushing for a better curriculum that our district will be offering Co:Writer in all 6 elementary schools starting in the fall. See the product demo for info.

Here’s a writing sample from Nea using Co:Writer. There is no way she could produce at this level without this tool.

The rocket ship landed on the moon and the man got out. The man said one step for a man. The man said one leap for a man. The man go in the rocket ship. The man go back home.

Nea has been using Lexia and Symphony Math this year, and I asked whether it was available to us at home as well. We were the first in the district to ask and receive it. Just another free (to us) tool to use this summer.

We have not yet tried Khan Academy but will be using it with both girls this summer. It comes highly recommended, and it’s free. 

Our school district will have all kindergarten through second grade students using iPads this fall. Our school started piloting them two years ago, and now the program is expanding. I am, with the district administration, forming a district-wide support group for the parents of special needs children, and one of the first things I brought up was adding a list of iPad apps on the district web site. We need to communicate more widely what works in the classroom, so that the learning can continue at home. 

Low-tech, but worth mentioning: we received some unused workbooks from the school because I asked for more summer materials. They are from the mainstream math curriculum, but are the older versions that no one is using. You never know what you might get until you ask! 

Any other recommendations? What is your child using?

Wo die wilden Kerle wohnen

I'm sure most of you, if not all, have heard the sad news that Maurice Sendak has died. I've been meaning to write this post for years. I guess today is the day.

Back, way back, when I taught German to high school students, I would occasionally read them children’s books that I hoped they were familiar with. Die Kleine Raupe Nimmersatt and Wo die wilden Kerle wohnen. And also some others that were new to them, like Gustav will ein großes Eis and Vom kleinen Maulwurf, der wissenwollte, wer ihm auf den Kopf gemacht hat -- both also excellent, if somewhat weird.

Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt was pretty fantastic for the vocabulary covered. Days of the week, common food items ("Ein Stück Schokoladenkuchen, eine Eiswaffel, eine saure Gurke, eine Scheibe Käse, ein Stück Wurst, einen Lolli, ein Stück Früchtebrot, ein Würstchen, ein Törtchen und ein Stück Melone."), some nice adjectives. But Wo die wilden Kerle wohnen is that rare bird, a book that is arguably even better when translated.

Die wilden Kerle brüllten ihr fürchterliches Brüllen und fletschten ihre fürchterlichen Zahne und rollten ihre fürchterlichen Augen und zeigten ihre fürchterlichen Krallen.

That’s some fine literature right there. Makes the original seem a little wimpy: 

The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.

See?

RIP, Mr. Sendak.

Garden 2012

I could be weeding, but it’s pretty wet out, so I’m on my porch swing with a sandwich and a laptop instead. Only a few more Fridays that the kids are in school, and Fridays are my only non-working days, so gotta soak up the lazy while I can.

It’s been an odd Spring, here in Chicagoland. More Springy than usual. Other years we go Winter, Winter, OH HELL SUMMMMER! But this year has been (very mild) Winter, Winter, OH HELL A WEEK OF SUMMMMER! Then cold and dry. Then cold and wet. Then one day of HOT. Now back to Springy. It’s very confusing, but the plants seem to like it.

Been eating plenty of asparagus already, and the radishes are doing great. I’ll be making rhubarb pie this weekend, I think. Or cobbler if I’m lazy. And I might be. Moved the strawberries into a strawberry pot to make more room for tomatoes. Plus the chipmucks eat them all anyway. I have ideas about how to prevent that, now that I have a portable pot. Onions doing better than normal. Bunch of stuff self-seeded, like the bok choy, orache, broccoli raab. We’ll be eating lettuce soon. The raspberries that came over the fence from the neighbors are spreading a lot, but I like raspberries, so that’s fine. Peas, carrots, beets all coming up well.

Started seeds, of course. Green zebra and brandywine tomatoes, cukes, melons, peppers, basil. All pretty happy. Haven’t started the zukes and other squash yet. Can’t quite decide my game plan on them, vis-à-vis vine stem borers. Plant late, like last year? Worked, but the harvest is so late …

The beans are being moved to a new sunnier location. I’m hoping this means I won’t need a ladder to harvest this year, but only time will tell. I’ll post a photo when it’s looking like something.

Gave up on potatoes for this year.  Bah.

In a stunning upset, both the dill and oregano are coming up gangbusters. I know!

One more story. The neighbor kid was over here recently, and he said he loooves chives. I said, oh, you don’t have any? Here, I’ll pot you up some. So I randomly dig up a little dirt to put in the wee pot, and find N’s wedding band that he lost almost two years ago. What are the odds? So I asked N to marry me. He said yes.

Oddly, my grandfather also lost his wedding band in his garden and found it again years later. Apparently this skill skips a generation.

Apraxia and self-help skills

Twitter (via https://twitter.com/#!/YTherapySource) alerted me to a survey on self-help skills for special needs kids, being collected by an OT. I decided to give it a whirl. As I took it, I realized that this was a nice list to start working on. (Reminder: Nea is almost 8, and has apraxia of speech and also limb apraxia, affecting her fine motor skills.)

It was also a nice list to see things we’ve made progress on:

• Manages safety belt independently in vehicles
• Can receive and make phone calls (to her dad at work)

And then there were some items I’m going to give a pass for now:

• Knows the difference between putting out paper fires from grease fires
• Cleans up broken glass safely

Here’s the list, with my comments.

DRESSING SKILLS QUESTIONS

• Puts on and fastens a button up shirt  – We don’t do a lot of buttony clothing, but we should make sure she can do a button.
• Puts on and fastens tie shoes  – Forget it. When she’s older.

HYGIENE AND GROOMING SKILLS

• Washes, rinses, and dries hands well  – Key word being “well” – a comment that applies to this whole section
• Completes nose care well (blows nose)
• Brushes hair and manages tangles
• Brushes teeth well
• Flosses teeth well – OK, who am I kidding. Should work on.
• Obtains soap and hygiene products for bath/shower

FEEDING SKILLS

• Uses a knife to spread foods (butter)
• Uses a knife to cut foods

TOILETING SKILLS

OTHER FUNCTIONAL MOBILITY

PERSONAL CARE DEVICES

HOUSEWORK/CHORES

• Those sections she is age-appropriate on, or don’t apply

MANAGING MONEY AND SHOPPING

• Identifies the value of coins and bills  – working on
• Makes a simple purchase from a store or vending machine using cash with assistance

MEAL PREPARATION

• Prepares a cold snack (chips, fruit) or meal (cereal, sandwich) independently – Sounds like a really great idea!

PERSONAL SAFETY

• Can dial 911 in case of an emergency – We’ve spent so much time on learning our phone number that I’m not sure whether she can do this. Need to check.
• Follows safety rules when talking with strangers – working on
• Has stranger awareness when asked to leave a location with an unfamiliar person – working on
• Follows fire safety rules and knows family fire safety plan – should work on

TRAVELING

• Uses a key to unlock doors to enter house – should work on
• Follows basic road safety skills (crosses street safely) – working on

SCHOOL RELATED SKILLS

• Brings all necessary materials to school (homework, lunch, permission slips) – This section I’m willing to take the blame on. I’ve been taking papers out of her backpack and putting them back in. I need to stop enabling. It’s her responsibility.
• Brings all necessary supplies home to complete homework assignments or projects
• Completes homework and returns it on time

Also, I talked to our old babysitter, who is off getting a degree in special education (!), and she’s willing to work on getting Nea to ride her bike this summer. We’ve pretty much failed at this. Maybe she will be the lucky charm!

Carrot cake bake-off results

Note pictured: cake #6, which was a little late to the party.

There was a lot of smack talk leading up to the last book club. As you may recall, we had decided to get a definitive answer to the age-old question: what's the best carrot cake out there?

First, let's meet our contenders.

Are they not all gorgeous? The judges (2 non-participating book club members, one husband, two THRILLED elementary school kids) decided on two winners. The Best Looking and the Best Tasting. As it turns out, the same cake won both. I'll tell you which number in a minute. Go ahead and pick your favorite.

I've posted the recipe I used before. (Hi, Kate! Yes, your friend's!) That cake is a fairly substantial cake, with a lot of personality. I used the buttercream frosting recipe off the back of the powdered sugar box. Frankly, I was going for the looks category, as I think a good, moist carrot cake tastes much like the next. (And after tasting all 6, I'm sticking with that assessment. They were all very tasty.)

The winner looked like someone had just bought it from a fancy bakery. It's a lighter texture and flavor than my cake.

THE WINNING RECIPE

Jean-Marie reports that she found the carrot cake recipe on Allrecipes.com. It is:

INGREDIENTS

4 eggs

1 1/4 cups vegetable oil

2 cups white sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups cake flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

3 cups grated carrots

1 cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.

2.  In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, white sugar, and 2 tsp vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. Fold in pecans. Pour into prepared pan.

3.  Bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack and cool completely.

FROSTING

1/2 cup butter, softened

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

4 cups confectioners' sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

To make frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 tsp vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Frost the cooled cake.

No word on how to make it so pretty, though. Apparently you'll have to figure that out yourself. She did mention having a set of those fancy icing tips, so you'll want to run out and purchase those. I used a ziplock bag with a corner cut off, as is traditional in my household.

THE BIG REVEAL

(Drumroll, etc.) The winner was NUMBER FIVE! Yes, congrats to NUMBER FIVE, made by our own dear Jean-Marie! I did get an honorable mention for my marzipan carrots, lovingly made by me, using bits of pistachio for the green stems. Several people were surprised they weren't real baby carrots. Apparently not everyone wants raw baby carrots on their cake. Who knew!

Bonus shot of my cake. Because, hey. It's my blog. 

So that was a fun evening. We didn't actually talk about the book much. It was Inés of my Soul by Isabel Allende. Next month's is The Fault in our Stars by John Green.

Self-portrait

This is one of my favorite photos of me. I'm just chilling on the rocky shore of Loon Lake, MN, rockin' the post-triathlon body. I was bleaching my hair for awhile, but I decided it just wasn't me. I'm pretty low maintenance.

Really, it's my homage to Adu Gindy. I'm sure my artwork will remind everyone of her seminal work, The Brighton Beach Barbies. Sadly, I can't find a single image online.

Duluth artist Adu Gindy parodied photographer Craig Blacklock’s series “Lake Superior Nudes” by shooting photos of Barbie dolls posed on lakeside rocks.

Titled “The Brighton Beach Barbies,” the work was Gindy’s commentary on the objectification and artificiality she perceived in Blacklock’s work. The opening reception was literally packed. What was to be a one-night affair grew into a three-week show.

from http://www.businessnorth.com/viewarticle.asp?articleid=1021 

N and I are nothing if not totally hip to the Duluth, MN cultural scene, man. We are sooo hip. We make cultural references so obscure that I'm not even sure where this blog post is going, man.

For the back-backstory, Craig Blacklock's work, A Voice Within - The Lake Superior Nudes (NSFW) Please, to note that the model (his wife) apparently is actually named "Honey."

Quick rule for determining whether it's p0rn or art? If it's in black and white, it's art. (rimshot)

Art

Moved some paintings around this weekend. I tried this one (signed by Keiko Tofuku) over the mantle before and thought it looked too Republican. For some reason, it looks better to me now. I don't know why.