Thursday, June 11, 2015

Summer Break is Almost Upon Us

Yes, it's true.  At this time tomorrow I will be enjoying my first evening of summer break.



Summer is my time to reconnect with friends, spend lots of hours digging in the earth and take day trips to view the beauty of Virginia.  Sample Summer Fun  De-cluttering is a big passion of mine and you can read some of my posts on this beloved topic in my other blog:  Blog B  New posts will be coming soon!

My school OT blog will take a little rest until school starts up again in late August.  Relish your summer!

Update:  6-12-15  In the clear--work all done.  Enjoying the good life.  Thanks be to the Lord.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Student Loan Forgiveness

To encourage all those new OT grads to apply for jobs with public school systems...

...this is the program one of our newer therapists is using to reduce the overall cost of paying back her student loans:

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service

She estimates that she is having a large percentage of her grad school loans "forgiven" via this program from the U.S. Dept. of Education.

Something to ponder.  Work in public schools!  You can keep your general OT skills sharp by sweating away in hospitals, clinics and assisted living facilities during the summer months.  Or, you could travel, drink coffee and just enjoy life during the summer, like I hope to in just two more days.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Smoothies for Summer

My SLP buddy and I ended our "College Cooking" groups with a personal favorite--Smoothies!

Students were not required to consume the end product; several shared with classmates or eager adults.  Our high school students with autism don't always trust us when we tell them something tastes good, so they relax a little when they know they don't have to actually put anything in their mouths.

As usual, my buddy created the board with picture symbols needed for the task:

So the fun began--students practiced ripping off the seal from the ziplock top bags and put their fruit selections into the blender.  The orange juice wasn't quite defrosted so students had to use a spoon to scoop the concentrate into the blender.  For this smoothie we just used ice and orange juice for the liquid, no frozen yogurt.



We did add a little water so the mixture would blend, then it was time to brave the blender and listen to the very loud grinding and feel the vibration of the contraption as it whirled the chunks of ice and fruit.



We discovered that some batches were very, very tart due to using too much OJ concentrate.  However, we managed to drink them up without too much grimacing.

Summer and Smoothies--looking forward to savoring some homemade concoctions in another week or so!