We've just said goodbye to the wonderful world race team that was with us. The world race is a Christian organisation wich organise gap years around the world. This team were travelling to 11 countries in 11 months doing volunteering projects in each one. The extra pairs of hands meant we took the opportunity to take the children on trips. I went on a trip to the children's museum with some of the children in courage home. I had great fun playing with Molly and doing lots of silly things. Molly loved wearing the different coloured wigs and painting on the walls. I have to admit, the wigs were great fun! I really adore working with Molly and am getting better at understanding exactly what she is trying to say to me. In the afternoons I do school work with her. She is currently working on reading the names of colours and matching them to the correct colour picture. She has learnt this so quickly that I plan to move on to spelling them soon! With Molly I have been reading some fairy tales wich prompted us to make a princess crown for her to wear. She loved this activity and wanted to wear the crown all the time! When we finished the crown we decided to build a princess castle. I have collected cardboard boxes and we started it on Saturday. Whenever she has to choose a colour I give her the words only so she has to read them and choose which one she wants. It's a great way of doing school without her realising it. I'm also going to introduce the idea of mixing colours when we start the painting. I'll keep you updated on the progress of the castle. This project is also helping her develop her functional communication. For school we use a large board wih Velcro strips on it. She can use her hand to choose from 4 options although this takes a lot of physical effort for her. I would love for her to be able to use a communication book like I have seen used with other children with CP but we don't know how to start teaching her to use it. If anyone has any advice, please let me know.
Dinah has finally mastered the ring stacker. Her foster mum has been workin on it wih her for 9 months and it suddenly just clicked. It fills me with confidence that she will get the things I'm trying to teach her if we continue to repeat them and don't give up on her. It's very easy to give up when a child simply doesn't seem to get it but this shows that she can learn it, but she needs time.
I am no longer doing 1:1 work with Brianna, although I still love to hold her when she's in a good mood! I now work with selah instead, a sweet toddler in the same house. She has recently started preschool but is quite far behind so we're trying to help her catch up. She can now colour sort and we're working on recognising the names of colours. Her fine motor skills are also very poor so we work on puzzles and 'writing'. When working with her the other day, I was trying to get her to draw straight lines. I know she can do this when she wants to. We're working on lines first, then circles. I drew a line, then did a hand-over-hand line with her, then she drew a circle. Then another circle. Then another. She was ready to move on from straight lines I think! The can be quite stubborn when she wants to be.
On Monday I went to the park with 2 other volunteers and 7 of the jubilee house girls. The girls were so excited when we told them to get their shoes on! (Finding shoes is a different story) The girls had a great time uhaving henna done on their hands and climbing up onto the big boulders. At the top of the park. All the girls did great, no meltdowns, arguments or injuries! My slightly less exciting trip with a jubilee child was to get an X-Ray of her foot. She had fallen down the stairs a few days earlier but on Tuesday she was in a lot of pain and her whole foot looked very swollen. In India you can just turn up and get an X-Ray at the diagnostics centre so that's what we were recommended to do. She has only been and SCH a couple of weeks so we weren't sure how she'd do but she was great. We took her to Starbucks afterwards as a treat. (The first Starbucks in southern India opened a few months ago and just so happens to be in our neighbourhood!) She wasn't sure about the milkshake at first but soon decided she liked it. After all that, the foot wasn't actually broken and looks much better now but we were all glad we checked.
Tomorrow I start teaching. At jubilee house, 4 of the girls will be going to maintream school. The rest will be taught at the on site school organised by the Rippees. Eventually they hope to have qualified teachers but for now all the teachers are going to be volunteers/foster mums. I will be teaching a phonics class and some preschool classes, working on shapes, colours, animals ect. The children understand some English, some better than others. I love teaching and am really looking forward to it but I've never had to teach phonics before. If anyone has any advice, let me know. It will be great for the girls to have some structure in their day.
When I'm not working, I have great fun with the other volunteers. The other night a group of us did laser tag. It was so much fun, even if I did come 7th out of 8....
The other week we also went to a blind resteraunt. All of us who work with blind children were invited to go. It is run by an organisation which aims to decrease stigma surrounding disabilities in India. The resteraunt is totally dark. You actually feel like you are blind. All the waiters were blind and the food was delicious. It was a great experience and I totally understand why many of the blind children have sensory issues and struggle with food. 
I know that was a really long blog and I'm sure there are other things I wanted to write about but I can't remember them now. I'll try not to leave it so long next time!
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