I know we sometimes make it sound like roses and sunshine around here, but there are plenty of times it’s not. I’m not even sure what makes a ‘good parent’, but there are plenty of times we don’t feel like we are. But I think if we can take the frustrations and doubts along with the work and the achievements, do the best we can, and keep our feet moving forward, that sounds like enough to me. I’ll let other people figure out what being a good parent actually is. “People who are doing the best they can” feels like a good definition to me.

It sounds like your daughter is really starting to shine now! It’s those victories – no matter how big or small – that make all the difference. Yay! And it sounds like you got to go to a store and she did something really great while you were there. Sounds like improvement there too!

Your Blog is the reason I even play-teach my girl .Every time I get frustruated with her..which is pretty often..mostly when she does senseless things like crashing on sofa, bed ..sensory seeking..my husband tells me ,that I shd follow your example i.e be a good parent , he knows I follow your blog regularly .
Keep on blogging I have great expectations from JMan..
2day we went 2 ikea ,and when we entered the bedroom section ,she started saying sleep ….I was sooo thrilled ..pointing to the bed

Good thinking about the envelopes! That one hadn’t dawned on me because the flimsy envelopes we use here seemed like they wouldn’t last long in our house. You can certainly get higher quality ones, though. I found some old ones I used for mailing resumes a long time ago that would work much better.

I also thought about cutting up manila folders and sealing the edges, but that seemed pretty clunky when I tried it.

I think in the time-rationing we do around here that just buying the pockets was the path of least resistance. Plus my crafty creativity still isn’t anywhere near at the same level as our teachers!

If she’s doing a lot of associating of places and things, try taking pictures of those shops and using them at home to teach new words. Using her interests to make learning more fun and engaging for her makes a big difference as you’ve already discovered with Elmo!

The best idea for that I’ve heard so far is to get the pictures from Google Images, paste them into a Word document, type the word for the picture under it, then size all that so it will print roughly at the size of a flash card. I’d get some white card stock to print these on. If you’re good with Word, you can set up tables and print several to a page. I should put together a template one of these days for doing that. It makes more sense when you see it perhaps.

I think Goosie Cards are most helpful if you plan to need them over the long haul and buy ones that focus on specific learning goals. They have been great for us. If she’s progressing quickly through speech and identifying things, do-it-yourself cards may be more appropriate since you’ll be frequently adapting to her evolving needs. Goosie does offer discounts for kids with special needs (See the application letter I posted.), which I believe they said were becoming more generous this month.

Another option is to get packs of flash cards from someplace like Target or a bookstore. I’d highly recommend getting ones with real photos rather than the ones that just having drawings.

I personally think gibberish is great. To me, it’s still a form of communication and engagement with the music. You’ll obviously be working to refine that into clearer and clearer speech over time, but we’ve learned to celebrate every kind of communication and build from there.

It sounds like your daughter is really progressing well! Good for her, and good for you too! And thanks for all your great questions and contributions here. Keep them coming!

Also – and this is usually the case anyway – I’d recommend that all flash cards you get have letters that are both sans-serif (no little squiggly lines on the letters – the regular paragraph text on this site is sans-serif; Times New Roman is a serif font) and the various parts of the letter should have the same width throughout. I think these are much easier to read for kids. If you look at fonts on your computer, you’ll notice that many have letters where the widths vary within the letter. And definitely no cursive, handwriting, etc. letters!

Example: All of these are about right in my opinion.

Totally agree on velcro tape. A complete pain in the behind.

Good call on where to put the soft-side vs. the prickly-side. I’ve sort of been doing that by instinct it seems without really paying any attention to why. Sometimes it’s good to be doing something right even if you aren’t doing so intentionally.

Two additional notes to your excellent description –
1) I endorse the velcro dots. As opposed to, say, getting velcro tape and trying to cut it into little squares, thereby testing one’s patience and gunking up one’s scissors.
2) It’s a good idea to put the soft-side velcro on the removable cards and the prickly-side velcro onto the folder. That way you don’t get the removable cards stuck onto things like carpet or clothing or whatever. You probably know that, but in case any of your faithful readers don’t…

once again gr8 post