Getting into the swing

Where have the first few weeks of school gone?
Everyone is getting into the swing of things, Missy's new male teacher is getting his head around Missy's technology and adaptions to activities. It's a lot to take in, thankfully Miss H is there to guide each new teacher with what works best.
While Missys still uses her Dynavox V-Max for the majority of school work, the I-Pad2is increasily used as a reference manual, dictionary, thesaurus, camera, tables of information. We have also been using the Sound Note app on the I-Pad to record Missy's teachers explanation of concepts, which are proving really helpful at home for myself and Missy. She can replay the explanation over and over again, pause if necessary and everyone at home can be consistent with their explanations.

Back to School

Well, the school holidays are over and my kids are pretty pleased to be back, Missy especially. Missy is in Yr 5 and has a male teacher this year a first for her, she thinks he is great. H-HO is in Yr 1.
The girls had a great holiday with most things ticked off their wish list. I didn't get as much ABR done as I would of like, anyway we had fun.

Hitting the beach

Visiting the beach was on the Girls Holiday wish list, so we organised a trip to Collaroy Beach, booked the Beach Wheelchair and stayed the night before at Aunty K and hit the beach the following morning. We had a lovely day , enjoying the easy access to the beach, the surf and rock pool. Missy loved the beach wheelchair that goes easily over the sand and floats in the water, she loved going face first into the waves. H-Ho also loved the waves and has a boogie board on order for the next visit. We finished the day mid afternoon and started the long 5 hr drive home. We had a great day and will be sure to hit the beach again next summer.

Holiday Fun on a Gentle Giant

The girls were lucky enough to visit some friends nearby and have a ride on the Gentle Giant - Daisy. She is a beautiful Clydesdale mare 17.2hh and has had many kids on her back over her 20 year life. Daisy took a very slow pace as she knew there were some girls a little nervous on her big back . Missy's legs relaxed over time and she didn't want to get off.

Anything you can do... I can do...

The Photo shows Missy at her school Presentation Night doing the class dance performance. As you can see where there is a will, there is a way and Missy won't ever miss a chance to be on stage. The performance was to Penny Arcade and Missy was one of the hoop spinners(in between dance moves), she joined arms with one of her friends and they swung it to together. Great Performance.

Meeting Santa

Girls had a great time meeting Santa at a Christmas Party. They talked about how they had been good and they asked him what he would like to eat and drink when he calls into our house.
It been busy time but the girls had a great Christmas time with many visitors. We are slowly working our way thru the list of holiday activities that the girls have stuck on the wall. One of the activites was going out for dinner, which I promised if they had good school reports. They actually had great reports and we were very pleased with the wonderful effort they both put into their school work.

Putting some wheels into the Running Festival

There was much publicity and talk about the local village holding it's inaugural Running Festival. Missy had been talking about the Kids Cup Running race for months and that she was going in it along with H-Ho.
So with anything the planning started, checked with organiser about Missy participating - they were excited about her joining in, checked the course - should be accessible. Unfortunately one thing I forgot to check was if I(mum) could run the 1.8klm length of the race with her, we looked confident as Missy took off at the start in 4th gear on the new powerchair, we got to half way and mum was fading. Dad and H-Ho were in front of us and it didn't matter to Missy that she was at the back , she stayed focused on her driving and came home to great applause.
Great effort from my girls.

How persuasive are your writing skills?

Missy's class have been participating in weekly pre2 Video Conference sessions with another class from a nearby school. This was aimed at improving the students persuasive writing skills through public speaking. Each week six students from each class would present a persuasive exposition on a topic of their choice. One person was chosen as the round winner and sent through to the finals.

Well Missy was chosen as a round winner by her peers and the other school and was very excited and a little nervous about the next round.
Missy's persuasive talk was about "Teachers should let kids dance everyday at school" she outlined the wonderful benefits of it by presenting her speech using her Dynavox V-Max accompanied by wonderful hand and arm actions to enforce her message.
As the morning arrived that Missy was to travel to the other school, she was signing she had butterflies and couldn't eat all her breakfast. She never looked back though and faced her nerves head on, she has actually scheduled to go first and presented her speech beautifully.

Missy was very pleased with herself and so she should be , it takes some courage getting up in front of people you don't know and present a speech on a communication device that others may not be familiar with.

The Artshow

Missy's love of drawing and painting would consume every minute of every day if I let it but there is homework to do amongst other things.
Recently Missy's determination and passion for drawing was rewarded when her pastel landscape was selected to represent the school at a combined school Art Show.
Missy is proudly pictured at the Art Show in front of her picture.