Libby was seen in her room for a 45-minute treatment session after two week winter break. Libby was happy and worked well during today's sessions. The focus of therapy on fine motor skills specifically grasp patterns, ocular motor skills (saccades), self care skills, and handwriting. OT has also focused on sensory processing and having Libby be more comfortable with wearing a variety of clothes (weather appropriate) and different hairstyles (only wants to wear her hair one way which is down). Began Libbys session with hand strengthening activities to create a more stable base for fine motor tasks. Libby does well with different exercises/games to increase her hand strength. We want to build the strength of the intrinsic muscles in her hands and endurance for writing and other fine motor tasks. We continue to work on learning handwriting through Print Island. When provided with visual and auditory cues Libby is able to write approximately 50% of the lower case alphabet well. She is being taught these lower case letters using a multi-sensory approach which encompasses auditory, visual tactile and kinesthetic cues. She learn well with this approach. She continues to make gains with letter recognition of both upper case and lower case letters. Progress has been steady this school year and she continues to be a pleasure to work with.

Lucas was absent.

We continued to read the coming-of-age novel "The Outsiders," by S.E. Hinton. Additional characters were introduced, and Chris was queried about their personality traits and the language used to paint a picture about their appearance and character. We discussed and identified figurative language and how it enriched the text.

PJ was absent today

Review what we mean by past and present. Show Libby pictures of objects from the past and the present. Compare and contrast the pictures...not just the objects, but also the picture quality to show how things change over time.

Begin to plan for argumentative writing on marvel vs. DC comics. Create a T chart with facts about both to use, pointing out that argumentative writing does include a section that shows positives about the opposing side.

Use computer to write about yesterday's activity. Write what we did, use senses to describe and then suggestions for the next time it is made. This is the first step in showing grammar and sentence structure when writing.

Use clay to form letters and say their sounds. Play letter bingo for recognition. Read we & get story, introducing how we & get are spelled and look. Practice sounding out words from the -ot and -op word families.

Using clay, form the letters from the alphabet. Use them to say the sounds as well. Use the clay to shape the sight words for the week. Create word families for -ot and -op. Read Frog and Toad chapter.

Review how opinion writing and argumentative writing are similar and different. Look at examples of each in 5 paragraph format.