Day 4 3/2/15

Day #4

3/2/15

 

                Today was the second day I worked with Finny.  When he arrived I met his parents and took him into one of the center gyms.  I discovered last time that Finny was distracted from other groups in the smaller gym.  The center gym today only had one other group.  I think this was better for Finny because he seemed to be over stimulated from others last class.  When the class began Finny was very excited about all the space he had available to him.  He decided to run in a circle and pretended I was chasing him.  I had set a demand on him to pick a piece of equipment to work with.  I decided to follow through on this demand and gave him a piece of equipment to manipulate.  He played with it for a few minutes then started running again.  I used the same strategy but this time with a scooter.  He laid down on his stomach and used his legs and arms to move about.  He kept saying he wanted to go faster so I had the idea to have him hold onto a jump rope and I could pull him.  This would still use his upper body muscles.  I pulled him around and used literacy words (fast and slow).  I would have Finny request if he wanted to go fast or slow.  He really enjoyed the scooter.  He would look at the floor and watch it go by.  I think this may have been stimulating for him.  I had the following question.  Was it okay to continue if this stimulated him?  I allowed him to do this because he was still doing what he was asked and it did not distract him from learning.  After the scooter Finny requested to play with a hula hoop.  I honored his request and had Maddy get a hula hoop for him.  He enjoyed throwing the hula hoops and even rolling it across the floor.  I demonstrated how to walk the dog.  He didn't like sharing the hula hoop but he tried to replicate this motion.  After a few minutes I told Finny it was time to move onto something new.  He did not want to give up the hula hoop.  I told him first bowling then hula hoop and he agreed.  After he bowled for a few minutes I let him use the hula hoop again for a few minutes.  I was using the hula hoop as a reward for positive behavior.  I did this again when it was time to move onto the spinner toy.  He did not want to sit in it but he did like to spin it on his own.  We also put objects in the spinner and watched them spin around.  This is the way I cleaned up at the end of the lesson.  After we cleaned up we finished doing group stretches in the Rockwall gym.  All in all I am starting to figure out what motivates Finny.  Today was a successful day.