riding the bike!

Izzy has been doing great in school this year. I have been posting about it on my blog, but forget to post here too!

She spends her days with her teacher, Melanie, who is a visual therapist and Michelle who is Izzy's para. They do a lot of visual activities in their little room and then spend time in kindergarten class. Izzy has speech therapy now every day. Margaret (speech therapist) realized that Izzy gets tired of working after 20 minutes so she is seeing her daily for a shorter time. She has been using a storyboard software allowing izzy to press the mouse to have different phrases spoken. When I pick her up she is always prompted to push the mouse to say, "I'd like to go home soon." She uses eye gaze and now is using her hands to make choices. She does a lot of coloring and papers using hand over hand.

Melanie showed me a video that was taken in the classroom of Izzy coloring. She is putting it on a cd for me and when I get it I will load it up so you can see it too. Isabelle is really showing her teachers and therapists that she knows exactly what is going on and with a little patience can show them what they want her to do. Melanie works hard to keep Izzy inspired to work. She brings fun princess tiaras and clip on earrings to encourage her to make choices.

Camilla works with Izzy on Tuesday and Thursdays. This week she rode the bicycle on Tuesday and did great! She held onto the handlebars the entire time and relaxed her legs as the pedals went up and down. Today she was on a board that had wheels (hard to explain), but she was given a hoola hoop to hold and camilla pulled her up and down the hall. Camilla is great and is always coming up with fun things to try.

While I miss Barbara and Niecie who were her teachers for the last three years, this year is off to a great start! We still get to speak to them and fortunately Barbara saw Izzy on the bike and ran for the camera (she knows I love to SEE what Izzy is doing) and emailed several pics to me.

Tomorrow we are going on a field trip! We will drive to Shawnee to visit a pumpkin patch/corn maze. We'll ride on a hay ride and plan to stop for ice cream on our way home.