A really cool thing has been happening lately.
Trevy has been coming up with fun learning games from his own imagination!
This is a HUGE new skill. He’s always relied on me teaching him how to play appropriately. The ability to think up and implement playful ideas on his own is a big success and hopefully, a movement towards more independent play! Not that I don’t love being with him every.waking.second.of.the.live.long.day…buuuuut…
Take this color sorting game for instance.
I put together a tray with foam blocks and color guide crayons (from an Abeka set I used with the big kids…but I lost my red and had to use it’s imposter from a Target calendar I bought ages ago 
). My idea was to have Trevy start by matching the foam shapes to their color guide.
I wanted to focus on several skills:
Visual Discrimination
Color Matching
Sorting
Fine Motor (I’m always always factoring in fine & gross motor opportunities as well as speech)
Shape Matching
and eventually move towards patterning ie. blue square, blue square, red heart with the goal of Trevy imitating or finishing my pattern
He was interested in my first idea (basic color matching) for all of about two seconds…
Until he had his own idea and declared…
I bih-wud!
Trevy Speak for “watch me, mommy, I’ve got this super cool idea to build with the blocks!”
He was totally 100% in after that…
for approximately three minutes
especially because building also means crashing! If you could only hear the belly giggles he has when he’s destructive! Those are the moments when my heart soars and I just want to eat him up!
**********
A friend gave me a GINOURMOUS bag of Thanksgiving stickers and they were SO cool!
Since Trevy needs to really work on his sorting skills I came up with another sorting idea.
I was going to have him sort them into piles. I’ll be honest, I’m a bit of a cheapskate so it never even crossed my mind to have him peel and stick them. I was secretly hoping to keep using them! Maybe even squirrel them away to use next year too!
Well…
once again, Trevy took my idea and ran with it!
He was all about the picking and peeling and especially the sticking!
To help guide him towards my sorting goal (and prevent sticker-geddan in the schoolroom) I gave him four pieces of paper.
One for Veggies (pumpkin and corn)
One for Leaves
One for birds (turkeys and owls)
One for animals
He’s so in love with the sticker sorting activity that he’s requesting (by bringing me the tray and saying “do this”) several times a day!
I feel SO wonderful seeing him have fun while working on SO many great skills at the same time! I mean, picking stickers…that’s some of the best fine motor work out there! And it’s too cute how he’s so proud of himself when he peels it in just one piece! And it’s super cool that he’s leading me…and really, his ideas are even better than mine!
I love sharing Backyard Therapy ideas that work for Trevy in the hopes that they might work for your kiddos too!
***bonus*** It just so happens that a sorting app is FREE today too! Snap up Families 2 while it’s FREE***
…danielle
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