OT: Post-Testing....PTL!!!!

WHOO HOO! Therapy is done, testing completed, and feedback given...all 100% positive!

In my hour-long meeting today with Ms. Renee, she shared with me Turbo's standardized test scores. The difference that was shown was remarkable! From July 30th to December 17th, he has shown marked improvement!

She still is pretty adament about me getting him into a gifted program. Mainly because he shows characteristic markers of a gifted thinker. I guess, that will be another day.... AHHH ME.

But for now, I am just going to enjoy my hot cup of coffee by the nice cozy warm fire and enjoy a book that DOESN'T have to do with SPD!

Paper Ornaments

We usually make salt dough ornaments for Christmas gifts and for our tree. This year, I decided to try something different. We made pressed paper ornaments. It was really simple, and best of all, not tempting to eat...BLEH!


We started out by tearing 3 LARGE sheets of construction paper into small bits and placing them into a food processor or blender.


Next, we added a 1 1/2 cups of very hot water to the blender and let it sit for 5 minutes.


We preheated the oven to 200 degrees and placed a towel on a plate with a paper towel over it. Then we carefully chose a cookie cutter shape for our ornament. We chose an angel.


Turbo pressed the pulse button on the blender for about 30 seconds just so that a good pulp was created. Turbo touched it, but was pretty much finished after this, as getting messy was NOT a part of the deal...Ahhhh me...


Scoop out the mixture and put it into a sieve to squish out the remaining water. Of note, don't make it too dry otherwise the paper won't stick together and keep its cookie cutter shape.


Using your fingers, squish in the pulp so that every inch of your shape is filled. I didn't fill it to the brim, as I wanted to make a few more shapes than it was called for (they said 3, I was able to make 5).


Then carefully poke out the shape onto a cookie sheet and "bake" it in the over for 2 hours or until it is dry, light and firm at 200 degrees.






Like I said, don't get too much moisture out or it will fall apart!



Glue a ribbon/string with hot glue on the back, add glitter before baking or after and give away!

Sending Santa THE LIST

This year, instead of taking Turbo's Christmas wish list to Golden and mailing it to Santa, we decided to do a different twist on the whole thing. We were watching a Christmas movie where the list was thrown into a fire place (w/o a fire) and the list floated up and out of the chimney and drifted to Santa in the North Pole. Turbo saw that and was infatuated with it. But I decided to take a step further, because lets face it...that list "ain't" gonna float up and out!

We lit a fire, and then had him toss the list in. We told him that the burnt ashes will float up through the chimney and outside into the night sky and drift to the North Pole where Santa's elves will assemble the list back together again and begin assembling his wish list.



This morning, Turbo asked if I thought that Santa received his list yet. Thinking to myself, I told him that I got a confirmation this morning on email to let me know that Santa received it and that his elves were hard at work! His eyes widened the size of Silver Dollars...and well....that's that. I'm not sure if he was amazed, or just filled with wonder why his mama could be so naieve. Time will only tell.

Letter X

X-Ray, Xylephone. Two new words learned today.

The Christmas Season

We've started this tradition of having Turbo look through the magazines that stores send out around Christmas time to make his Christmas Wish List. This year, was no different. One thing that changed was that Turbo is now much more likely to think long and hard about his wishes, as he "has experience" playing with toys.

His list was not that much different than any other 5 year old boy, but man!, did he work hard on it!



Our precious cousins from Fruita sent us a great Peanuts Advent Calendar. We have been reading about the story of Christmas each night at dinner and open up a new window. Each night it suggests a great Christmas activity. One evening in particular we were to make some yummy cookies. We made Vanilla Chai Spice Cookies. Kind of like Gingerbread Men.


I've been reading Turbo the Christmas story and we've been using the Nativity Scene figurines along with the story. We have 2 scenes, and Turbo thought that we had to use ALL of the figurines in one stable.

Tot School: Apple Craft

Tank's apple craft was really simple to do. Using a hole punch, I punched a bunch of holes in a sheet of card stock. Using tape, I taped it to a sheet of paper. Then, giving Tank some red pain, he smeared the paint over the holes. Tactile touch with both the paint and the holes in the cardstock.

Here is the finished product!

Letter V

This week has been a terrible week - school wise. I'm pretty sure that I need to keep my butt in gear and on a schedule if we are going to get this done. With that being said, we got on schedule today, and this week isn't at all lost!

We worked on the Letter V. Turbo quickly noticed that if he were to put 2 letter V's together, then he could write the Letter W. I told him that we would work on that letter tomorrow.

His handwriting is coming along. His size of letters are correctly sporadic at best, but he seems to not fight at all on working on them. Once the holidays are over and now that therapy is finished, we can dedicate more of our time together on correctly writing the letters and making them all the same size succinctly.

His Letter V is acceptable. At least he isn't curving at the bottom like the Letter U. We made some veggies for the Letter V: a carrot and some celery with cheese on it because his Grandpa likes to eat celery that way. Now if only I can convince HIM to eat these veggies. Carrots have become tolerant, but celery will be a new sensation, and I pray that his first time encountering it will be a good one! Grandpa, if you're listening...that means you're involved! LOL!