What's New With The W Family

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Ben's Favorite Apps

We got our iPad at Christmas. In the months since, Ben has figured out exactly how to operate it. We keep it locked to regulate access for his older brothers. He knows when it is locked and will normally just hit the icon so he can look at the pictures stored on the iPad. (It is great to know I can use the iPad as a digital photo frame and still keep the iPad locked.) He can get into and out of apps with no difficulty and regularly turns the volume up (all the way). His apps are stored in folders- Books, Speech, Sign Language, ABC’s, 123’s, Words, Flash Cards, Potty, Social Stories and Games.
The following is a list of apps that Ben’s chooses regularly when given free time to play on the iPad:

Books

This Little Light of Mine: Has a regular and coloring mode where he can color the picture while the music plays and the words are highlighted.

Love books that highlight the words. Also good music therapy.

Five Monkeys: New app this week but quickly becoming a favorite. This app teaches the concept of Stop and Go. Signing with words highlighted helps reading and 3 choices of song style helps with music therapy.

Bo’s Bed Time Story: Some of it is a little bit hard for him. The object is to help Bo the giraffe get ready for bed by sorting toys, picking out pajamas, taking a bath and so forth. Good for OT for manipulating objects, and early learning stills of matching, sorting, etc.

Speech

InstaPal: Take any photo, and add an animated mouth so that the photo “talks” to you.

Talking Super Car : Talking Car shaped like Lightning McQueen. In addition to him repeating your words, the car can change colors and drive. Very good for kids who like cars.

Signing

Signing Time Flash Cards: One side shows the words, or tap the picture to get a demonstration of the sign. Great for reading or reinforcing signs.

ASL Dictionary: Great for me to use to look up signs I don’t know to use in our daily routine. 4,800 video signs in this app. Ben loves singing to songs on the radio, and we add signs whenever we can to make the songs more fun.

123’s

Counting Bear : Great for working on 1 to 1 correspondence. It is a very customizable app that lets you add your own pictures of things to count and your voice to congratulate them. Great errorless learning app.

Count123: Also great for 1 to 1 correspondence. On this one the items that you count do something. For instance, you bounce the basketballs, fly kites, or find the hidden dinosaur.

Games

Shape Galaxy: Great online shape sorter. Grab and drag the shapes into the correct area on the page. Levels get harder as you go.

Match Frog: Shoot a rocket then identify the color from a choice of 3.

Words

Touch & Say: A colorful happy face sings songs, makes silly noises, and teaches colors.

Sentence Maker: Drag the words of 2 to 3 words sentences into the correct spot to make a sentence.

Flash Cards

Healthy Habits: Choose the healthy answer to a verbal question out of 4 pictures.

Potty

Potty Time: Free app with in app song purchases. Has a reward chart, and a couple songs free, to help teach the potty process.

Pull-Ups iGo Potty: Free App from Pull Ups. Has a song and rewards system also. Games unlocked after a few successful potty attempts.

Social Stories:

Going Places: Has short videos show clips of kids modeling good behavior while going out in public. Covers 6 different scenarios.

Like I said these are the apps Ben chooses to go to. Most are good solid teaching apps, so I rarely feel the need to direct him to different apps. http://freeappalert.com/ is a great place for getting apps that normally have a fee that were just reduced to be free. The apps are updated around noon our time. Some are free for an hour, some for a day, and some for a week. I stalked this site long before we had an iPad and had accumulated around 350 apps by the time we got it. Some apps were not as good as I thought they would be, so I just deleted them.
Ben does have one guilty pleasure app that he picked up from watching his big brothers. Temple Run is game where mutant monkeys chase a person around some temple ruins. Mostly he likes to crash the person or make them fall off the ledge. I guess we all need to have a little fun every now and then.

I am very glad we got the iPad. Ben went from watching and listening the songs to singing along to almost every word in less than 4 months. It has been a great learning tool for him. He is motivated to learn when using it, becase he gets to learn by playing games. What better way to learn is there?

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Ben's Birthday

I just realized that I forgot to put up pictures of Ben's Birthday Party. Ben enjoyed having his Grandparents, Aunt and Uncle, and cousins over for a Birthday barbecue. The weather was perfect in the mid 70s. Not very usual for March in NE. They all enjoyed playing and eating cake outside.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Happy World Down Syndrome Day

Today is the day we join hands all around the world to celebrate our loved ones who were specially blessed with an extra chromosome. While trying to decide what to post today, I went back over the powerpoint that my oldest John did for his 4-H club about World Down Syndrome day 2 years ago, and found that everything about it still applies. It is very similar to the one he did for the fair that year, and got Grand Champion at our county fair and a purple ribbon at our state fair. This is the presentation he started with:

If you would like to read more on World Down Syndrome Day, click here to go to the World Down Syndrome Day link up.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Happy Birthday Ben!

Four years ago this morning I was awakened by a feeling of pressure being released. I knew before my feet hit the floor that my water had broken. But how could that be? I had 3 weeks to go before my scheduled c-section. Both John and Noah had been scheduled c-sections due to John being breech, so I was totally unprepared. I had not even discussed with my Dr. what to do, since I had never even so much as felt a real contraction with the other two.

I called the on call Dr. who said to get to the hospital to get checked ( I felt bad for waking him up, especially when I saw him at the hospital later, to assist in my surgery). I took a shower, threw some things in a bag, we woke up the boys and we started driving to Lincoln. It was about 6:00 am then. I waited until we were just about to the hospital to call my Mother-in-law to come get the boys (she likes to sleep in). I waddled in to the hospital lobby, sat in the first wheel chair I saw, and the boys escorted me upstairs to the maternity ward, while Randy parked.

It did not hit me until right before going into surgery, (when Randy found the first game on TV) that Ben was going to be born on the first day of the NCAA tournament. Looking back now I know why he picked that day to be born. The boy loves basketball. Or maybe it is our fault for exposing him to so much basketball at such an early age. We may never know.

The c-section went quick and soon I was brought my little sweetie for a quick glimpse. (that was all I had gotten of the other two also) We knew from the prenatal diagnosis that he would have Down Syndrome so that part was not a shock. I could hear him cry from the warming table while they patched me up, and knew he would be OK. Next came an hour long echo that I got to watch from the bed just a few feet away. Ben cried an cried while they check him over to verify that tiny hole in his heart the prenatal scan showed was still there. This time I was bothered by all his crying. I just wanted to scoop him up and snuggle him to let him know I was there and he would be OK.

I don't even remember now when I finally got to hold him. I know John really wanted to be the first one in our family to hold him (other than me) and I am pretty sure he was.

Noah was so proud too. Black eye and all.

Both boys got to take him and help give him his first bath.

This sweet little bunny was what they brought me on Easter morning.

They wanted us to stay one more day, but we were ready to go home. I had big boys who needed to celebrate Easter with their family. So we broke out.

Ben has been doing great. He has hit most of his milestones with just a slight delay. We go to speech twice a month and OT once a month. Ben graduated from PT at age 2 because he gets plenty just being a boy who lives on a farm, with lots of room to run. Plus, did I mention that Ben loves basketball!

Today Ben is a happy energetic 4 year old. His heart is good and he is always on the go. He likes to copy his big brothers, play with his football guys, shoot hoops, practice reading his sight words, going outside (to shoot hoops), sing "This Little Light of Mine", read the phone book, fold laundry, tear up the house, watch Signing Time videos and eat. He likes to make friends where ever we go. We are so blessed to have this little sweetie in our family. Happy Birthday Bennie Boy!