Winter Fest Crafts and Games

This year I volunteered along with one of my co-workers to be chair of the crafts and games at our Winter Fest. This is a time when all of our kids perform their songs they have been working hard on in music therapy and a time for our families to gather to celebrate the season. The theme this year was Christmas around the world. We decided to have our crafts and games split into 5 countries with a game and craft representing the country or holiday celebrated there. We chose Israel, Mexico, Africa, USA, and Sweden. Below are the pictures of the crafts and games we did as well as the posters that were designed by students.

Winter Therapy Ideas

One of my duties as a Occupational Therapy Assistant at my job is to complete a group project weekly. Last week we made water bottle penguins. This was perfect to work on fine motor skills and bilateral coordination. The kids had to hold the water bottles while using their preferred hand to put cottons balls into the bottles. Next I had precut the body, arms, and feet but to work on cutting you could have the kids cut out the pieces themselves, the kids used wet glue to paste them to the water bottle. I found the glue to not want to stick so well so we added a rubber band to help everything stay in place until the glue dried. Next we added the feather and tape around the top and glued the eyes and nose on.

This past week we made Christmas trees out of strips of paper by gluing to construction paper. Each child was given 6 different size strips of paper and were required to sequence the pieces in order from smallest to largest. Once sequenced they glued each piece down and added the trunk and a star. They then dipped a q-tip into white paint and added snow. Really easy and super cute!!!!

Christmas crafting and cooking

This season, as I prepare for Christmas I have been crafting like crazy thanks to Pinterest and even though I did not see this exact wreath, I did come up its the concept. It was simple o make but I did need help from my mom to hold the wreath while I glued. To start I gathered Christmas bulbs, a wired hanger, feather boa, and a hot glue gun. I opened the wire hanger and did my best to make it round (I used a tree trunk to help with the shape) and randomly looped the bulbs on the to the wreath. While my mom held the wreath I hot glued the bulbs together so that they would stay in place. I closed the wire hanger with pliers and then hot glued the feather boa to the back. Took me about a total of a half hour to complete and I love it!! I also spent last weekend busy making cookies. I made fruit drops, pistachio cookies, peanut butter cookies, no bakes, and sugar cookies!!! This weekend I am planning on finishing the Christmas gifts I am making. Photos will come after Christmas.

Busy, busy, busy

Where have the past four months gone? I have been so busy traveling, working, and crafting that I cannot believe it is December 2nd already. I have so much to blog about and cannot decide on where to start. I guess it would have to start with the fact that I passed my boards in October and am officially a Certified Occupational Therapy Asssistant. I love my job and could not ask for better kids and supportive staff. I love going to work every day and being challenged by the kids and staff, all in good ways. In September I travelled to Disney World with friends for a week. We had such an awesome time and I am starting to want to go back to Disney already. I didn't realize how much I would love being there and seeing everything. October kept me busy with studying for my boards and preparing for the fall, my favorite season/holiday. November saw me travel to Warsaw, KY which is a very small town right on the Ohio River. I missed peak season for the fall colors by a few weeks but in all it was absolutely beautiful. The town is extremely small, has only 2 traffic lights, is 20 minutes from another busier town, but has the gorgeous view of the river. There is also this beautiful bed and breakfast called the Riverside Inn, officially on my bucket list of places to stay/visit. I saw Rise of the Guardians last week while babysitting. The movie is fantastic for children with vivid colors and the joys of seeing Santa, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman but the storyline for adults is also important. Each character has been chosen by a higher power, in this case Mr. Moon, to bring a gift to the world. North (a.k.a. Santa) brings wonder, Tooth brings memories, Easter Bunny brings faith, Sandman brings dreams, and Jack Frost learns through the movie that he brings joy. The movie teaches that without these gifts in our lives there is fear, represented by the Boogey Man, but with these gifts and our belief in them we can succeed. I love this movie!!! Especially for the field that I am. The children I work with, the parents I converse with, and the coworkers I support all need this as a reminder because some days our job can seem overly challenging and we can lose sight of these precious gifts we have been given.

Big Girl Job!!

I have done it! I have finished college (for now) and have gotten myself a big girl job. I am a direct one-on-one tutor with children on the autism spectrum and I absolutely love it! Once I take my OTA boards in a few weeks I will then switch over to the therapy department (at the same facility) and will be able to work more one on one with kids needing extra therapy. I am so excited and even though my job can be challenging, it is one that I go home smiling about.

A Quarter of a Century Old

It's true....I am officially 25 and have been for the past 24 hours. Not exactly sure how I feel, I have always liked Birthdays and I don't feel any different, no feelings of being older and wiser. I guess I am excited that now my insurance goes down and I can officially rent a car without paying the extra fees. I also can fill in the 25-34 age group on surveys now! Still, my birthday felt like another day in passing. I'm not exactly sure what I expected but at the end of the day I can say for sure, I definitely missed my grandma more so than usual, even though last year she forgot my birthday she still called me and this year that phone call never came. I did spend my birthday with the ones I love by going to out for dinner, it was really nice even though there was an obvious cloud over my head. I can blame stress and work and exhaustion but I really think it was sadness. So even though I may not have said it yesterday to my family, thank you for being there on my birthday, love you all!

The Last Chapter of my Life as a S/OTA

I have been working extremely hard to become a certified Occupational Therapy Assistant and I am in my final stretch to become one. I am currently a Level II student working at a facility that is contracted through a developmental disabilities board. I am at a location the hires individuals diagnosed with a developmental disability to work on jobs they are contracted to perform. It is a completely different realm than what I am used too (which is the medical world) and within the past three days I have learned so much. It is a completely different setting than what I am used and along with learning about OT and gaining knowledge of my career and how to become a COTA, I am also learning about job production! Many companies come to our business and have us perform tasks. We have a group that collates glass dishes into a box for sale, those boxes you see at Target, Wal-Mart, Kohl's, we do them. We have another group folding t-shirts and sealing them in plastic bags for distribution to stores. The major project we have going on that many of our groups work on his bagging rice husks. First off, I never knew that rice was basically enclosed in this husk. Second off, I never knew how important rice husks could be in the steel world and more importantly in making steel wheels for trains. The husks are important because they won't melt or burn unless they are heated to 1,800 degrees F. This is important because as iron workers are melting and setting the steel wheels they need a product that will help maintain holes in the wheel (for the screws to attach) and will help cool the wheel down effectively without causing cooling errors. This is where these rice husks come into play. Iron workers throw the husk on and the holes are filled and the rice cools the steel down because the husks are a natural cooling agent. Learn something new everyday!!!! I also learned the difference between habilitation and rehabilitation. Habilitation is where everyone is constantly learning new where as rehabilitation is where there was an injury and the person is re-learning a task or knowledge.