Friday, March 6, 2009

31 Days of Crafts for kids ... and more ...

I was inspired by this post I ran across this week at The Artful Parent. She posted a list of 31 activities to do with her daughter in March. She has some great ideas, which are especially helpful for the art-and-creativity-challenged parent, like myself.

My lack of planning has severely limited the types of activities I can do with my children. With just a little bit of fore-thought, we could be doing so much more to explore and learn and grow.

In the near future, I am going to begin a new series listing the arts and crafts, gross and fine motor development activities, and speech exercises that I will be doing with my son for the month (or maybe only a week at a time).

As many of you know, my three-year-old son has some developmental delays in his motor skills (both gross and fine) and in his speech. These have led to years of therapy in New Jersey's Early Intervention program. However, these services were only available until his third birthday, now we are on our own, until we are ready to put him in the public school system.

I have years of therapy sessions and advice from speech and occupational therapists that I can draw on. I just need to get it all down on paper and really get busy working with my son so he does not continue to fall behind in his speech and motor-planning.

Stay tuned for fun ideas to do with your kids...

4 comments:

jennifer said...

Good thoughts! I know Kennan and Brayden would love to do more crafts with me!

Christy said...

Thanks! There always seems to be something more to do with the kids, eh? =) But I am inspired to try!

Alisa said...

Love the craft ideas!

Not sure if this applies (I imagine you've looked at most angles) but school districts have to offer special services to children at the age of 3. Part of special ed (there's been lots of debate about waiting that long because early intervention is the best, as Joshua has received, but nationally special ed starts at 3). If you haven't heard of this, maybe contact your district office or something like that?

Christy said...

Hi Alisa - yes it does apply, but they only have preschool classes to offer. All the kids in the class were so much bigger and older than him (about a year older). It was too much for him, so we decided to put it off until next year when he is the right age for the class. =) Thanks for the suggestion.