Sick Kid

A little over 2 weeks ago Junior came down with the virus that is going around. It is a bad one and he was quite sick for 2 weeks. He is now on the mend but dealing with his asthma so it will be some time before he is back to baseline. Amazingly he got through a 2 week illness without it going into pneumonia and so far no antibiotics. I think this is the first time ever that he has been able to fight such a lengthy illness on his own. Now to get through early spring with all the pollen and weather changes. Bring on Summer.

Today during stander time Junior was feeling okay so we tried to work on a little of his school work. In his history book he was learning about the postal system. He really liked learning about how they used to get mail from one place to the next and how long it took. Then he learned about the postal system of today.
He got tired quickly as you will see in the pics but still did great telling me each step in the process of getting mail from one place to another.
The boards, after we started I realized I should have added a few more things but didn't want to stop in the middle to redo boards. The symbols are not in any order because I want to let Junior tell me what comes next to ensure he understands what he has learned. I also just did question and answer with what he had learned.

I am working on revising his doctors visit board and adding to it. Anyone have tips on what should be included?

One of his tough moments while sick. Once I got him on his tummy listening to a story,on his ipad, he fell asleep.

A Great Day

I just put this post up on Junior's regular blog and since it is all about the ipad I will just copy it here.

A second day in a row with no asthma issues. WooHoo, loving it and praying the weather will behave so this can continue.
Junior suddenly has a huge amount of energy and is one very happy, vocal guy. He started this morning with a longer then usual stretching and exercise session then spent some time on his therapy ball and swinging. It was funny to watch his face while bouncing on the ball. I slowly moved up to higher bouncing and he broke into this huge grin and then started giggling and if I stopped he would start hollering "or, or"(more, more).
I expected him to need a break before his school time but this kid didn't want to stop. I got him in his stander and then pulled out all his school stuff and he did a full session(and then some).
During his science time he checked out his plants and looked at the differences in them. Measured them and then we charted their growth.
He then answered questions and told me what plants need to grow.
I also asked him what plants we have outside of our house. From his face we clearly have trees around our house.
In history Junior is learning about communities. Today's lesson was on firefighting from our nations early days until the present. He thought it was very neat to learn about how fires used to be put out before the days of the big fire trucks.
Telling me what we do in an emergency(we learned that if you put 911 into his communication program you best put a space between each number or it will say nine hundred and eleven when you choose the symbol)
Junior thought it was cool to pretend this light stick was a fire truck light.
He absolutely loved this fire truck app. It makes the ipad screen the dashboard of a fire truck. We turned the steering wheel, honked the horns, turned on the sirens, hoses, radio, etc. Then time for Junior to get out of his stander, he showed me where he wanted to go next(kind of fuzzy but the top bar shows what he chose, he wanted his wheelchair)
A little ride in his lift to get to his wheelchair.
A little more firefighter fun, then a story.

New App. - Bugs and Buttons

We have a lot of apps we love and I have talked about a few of them. Recently we came upon a new one that is really great. This new app is called Bugs and Buttons. It has the "game" aspect so keeps Junior interested but also teaches lots of math skills. There are many smaller games/educational things(18 to be exact) within the app so it is easy to keep Junior focused. Because of the bugs and great graphics even parts that Junior would typically think were too young for him he likes. One of Junior's favorite things is the little and very real looking bugs that crawl across the screen.

It has been a few weeks since Junior's hospital stay and he is slowly regaining his energy. Yesterday he even managed a fairly lengthy school session.
Here he is ready to work. Sorry there aren't pics of him using his ipad during the session. He is learning about growth so we planted seeds so it was a bit hard to run the camera with my hands covered in soil.

When we started his history he started complaining so I pulled up his "I need help" board and he quickly told me he needed to get out of his chair, then that he needed a treatment.

Now that Junior is feeling better I hope to post much more often.

Happy Valentines Day

Things have been a bit crazy since our hospital stay but are slowly getting back to normal. At some point I will get back to regular posts but am still a little overwhelmed at the moment.
Please feel free to follow us over on Junior's regular blog in the mean time.

Happy Valentines to everyone. The sun came out which means Junior's asthma cleared and we were able to have a nice day. Even got out for a walk.
Junior used his ipad during our Valentine's fun. I got to hear him say Happy Valentines Day and I love you. Something I never thought I would hear. The best Valentines gift possible.(sorry about the angle on these, hard to see in the pics what he is looking at)
making tie dye hearts, he was also making a giant heart window decoration.

Junior's says Happy Valentines to everyone

I Need A Treatment

Junior has been sick the last couple weeks with the stomach flu as well as a UTI. We also had some crazy weather thrown in so his asthma was giving him fits.
When his asthma kicks in I get told this multiple times a day.
(yes, he requests to have treatments)
He and his tubie monkey having a treatment(a very sad face)
Once the treatment starts to work his big smile returns
We decided Junior needed a buddy just like him so meet Tubie monkey(we talked about many names but Junior was set on calling him Tubie)

Sunshine and Ipad Fun

Things have been so busy and I haven't had a chance to post here. So for now I will just share my latest post from Junior's regular blog which shows his ipad in action.

This morning it was cold but the sun was shining. Junior wanted to go for a bike ride but with him recovering from his illness I knew he wasn't ready for that. Instead we went for a nice long walk.
Ready to roll
And we are off
Once we got home we did a little fun school work on his ipad. We are slowly getting back to his regular schedule. It can take awhile after he has been ill and I have learned by experience to not push it. We looked at some new apps I had gotten over Christmas. Several face book pages posted when apps were temporarily free so we have a lot of new ones to check out.
This one ended up being too easy for him but he still enjoyed it because it was set up like a game. Shoot the fish that have a word with a specific short vowel sound. To make this work for Junior I would let a few fish "swim" onto the screen and then pause the game so he could pick(look at) the fish with the correct word.
This is another one we found to be too easy for him but he still enjoyed it. The cloud has a picture and he needed to match the raindrop with the correct beginning letter. When the correct letter is chosen a storm begins with lighting, thunder, and rain, then flowers start to grow. If only there were apps out there which looked age appropriate but focused on lower reading/math skills(1st-3rd grade range). Both these caught his interest and because of the "game like" play they were closer to being age appropriate for him. An app like this but with the ability to match a picture to a word or a picture to a sentence(with difficulty adjustments) would bring it to a perfect level for Junior. They still look a bit young but the fun factor allowed him to over look that. After checking out a few more apps it was time for a craft project and Junior wanted to listen to a story. We are starting a winter unit(ice, snow, cold, and all things winter) so we made a snowman. Love doing crafts on the lightbox.
Listening to the Arthur Christmas story on his ipad
Look at that face, think he is just a bit into the story
Too involved in the story to stop for a picture with his snowman

We are doing an app giveaway over on our Adaptions blog so feel free to click on over and check it out.