"Let's Go Fly a Kite"

We tried to get our foam kites to fly in the classroom today, but the big stand-up fan wasn't exactly cooperative.
Using the power link Power Link link enabled the students to safely depress a large switch to make the electrical connection to the fan, but the fan control panel was a little sophisticated and required two buttons to be depressed before turning on--those power links don't like electrical devices that are so fussy.   So, we used a human to press button #2 on the fan once the student activated the target switch.

Yesterday, one of my teacher friends was looking at me a little funny when she saw me making silly kites out of thin foam, "Do you think that will work?" she asked.  Well, no--not for running around the room with them in the air.  However...

...it worked just fine with them suspended from a PVC pipe, so the wind could blow them around.  Plus, the thin foam kites will have more of a chance than their traditional paper cousins to stay intact when students explore them orally!

Turns out the little video clip used by the teacher, taken from the last scene in Mary Poppins, was a bit of a tearjerker, but it included the perfect song for our activity.

Smart Technology to Aid Folks with Brain Injuries

Another great article by my work buddy, Fiona:


/mobile-devices-as-cognitive-aids-for-people-with-brain-injuries/

Inflammatory Title But Still an Important Subject

There have been many articles in our local paper recently about the importance of moving throughout the day, not just when we're at the gym or briskly walking the family dog. 


It's striking closer to home for me since I'm in Week 9 of a ten-week program of strength and cardio training, run by a local physician, Dr. Madge Zacharias.  The weekly lectures have us all cringing at the chemistry behind what's happening in our bodies when we have too much blood sugar flowing around and not enough muscle action going on.  Anyway...


In today's newspaper I read the phrase, "Sitting is the New Smoking," and the thought was intriguing so I looked up an article from last year by a writer who used a similar line in a blog post:
Blog post about the effects of inactivity on our health


Don't know about you, but I'm sure sitting much more in my job than I did when I first became an OT (1978).  Lots more paperwork now.  Thankfully, there are oodles of stairs at our office building and those long school hallways make for fine trekking.  But, I still have to go to my boomer gym x3 per week...

Find Your Best Color

Pure fun and bling here--people say that a person looks good in certain colors more than others.  Well, I think my dear daughter's puppy has found his color--sky blue!

Photo by J. G. Collier--2014

Mardi Gras Stamp Activity

Well, it was supposed to turn out to be a beautiful, Mardi Gras mask on the students' take-home papers, but the non-artistic OT didn't realize how gloppy the finger paint would be and how it would obscure the details of the stamp.  Oh well...
The hard-working teacher for middle school students with intellectual disabilities provided lots of cool Mardi Gras bling:

I made a stamp of a short mask and we used purple, red and gold (AKA yellow) paint to stamp a mask on the handouts.

The print (second, below) created by spreading a thin layer of yellow paint on the foam stamp design looked the most like a mask.

Mardi Gras butterfly???

Next time I need to make the carved layer of foam a little higher, so the paint only contacts the raised foam and not the wood block foundation. 

Article in RichmondMom.com on Brain Injury

...and then the unthinkable happened


Person-centered article on brain injury by my work buddy, Fiona Bessey-Bushnell.

Friendship Braids

Five young teens with long, long hair--what do you do at a b-day party?  Braid them all together!

Yes, that's four braids among five friends. The b-day girl and her friends loved the limelight for their great achievement.  When it came time for the cupcakes to be gobbled up the braids quickly disappeared.