indoor PE fun

So its quickly coming to that time of year when we just DON'T go outside much, right now its somewhere in the 30's and I know its supposed to rain or snow or something equally nasty like that. Sooooo, I am coming up with creative ideas to give my ADHD crew some PE without going outside. The girls all are very active, they usually play at least 3-4 hours a day outdoors on nice days (yes that is on top of schoolwork done indoors lol) So you can see why the winter is such a problem for us, we can't spend that much time outside playing in the snow (well, some people could but the girls and I get way too cold too fast for that) Well, today during lang. arts with the girls I saw something that made me say "ah-HA!" in my mind. I took a roll of extra tape from our indoor painting (still have lots of painting to do still but we're waiting until spring to finish so that we can open doors and windows for ventilation) and did a bunch of tearing and taping, and voila! In my entry I have a nice blue-tape hopscotch on the floor, just the right size for Melissa and her tall 6 year old self, but small enough that Kimmy can do it too (Melissa is teaching her how to hopscotch now) I have pictures of the kids in action on it, eventually I'll get around to uploading and sharing them.

The next project will be making some bean bags so that the girls can toss them into laundry baskets I think, and I'm hoping to teach the girls some yoga to help them stay flexible. They need a LOT of physical activity daily, and one can only take so much of them climbing onto the top bunk in their room and jumping off onto the floor or Kimmy's twin bed below you know....................................... lol And most of my ideas don't have the potential for broken necks like their bed jumping does.

more hurdles

Well, yesterday I had that teleconference with our supervising teacher. We went over how Melissa did on her 1st grade diagnostic testing. She did really well in reading and writing, she scored just below grade level. It was a much higher score than her teacher and I both thought she'd get, so we are very happy with it. The intervention that we have going with reading has really paid off, I'm so happy that we started right away with it. However, her math score was really low. Her teacher knows that she can do the math that was tested, she had been doing some of it in the elluminate sessions that Melissa's been in. In general, Melissa is way ahead in math. One of the questions, the testing teacher read her a word problem and Melissa had to write the math problem and then solve it. She wrote the problem correctly, except for her numbers being upside-down, and was able to tell the teacher that the answer was 16. Then she wrote the answer 91 on the paper. Soooooo, our teacher and I discussed how to proceed with this. She wants me to get Melissa tested for dyslexia, and I completely agree with that. I've suspected it for over a year now, and the teacher said that she's so confident that we'll get that diagnosis that she'll file paperwork for services as soon as I get a referral from the pediatrician to get her tested. So, I have a dyslexic child with ADHD and auditory processing issues, what a combination. I wonder what the end result of all this testing we're about to start will be. She has an appointment next week to check her weight (she's having some issues with losing weight lately since starting the ADHD meds) and discuss how her meds are working, so I'll get the referral that day.