School Readiness Danielle Schembri Occupational Therapist What will

School Readiness Danielle Schembri Occupational Therapist

What will we look at today? • • School Readiness Checklist School Readiness Skills Building Resilience The importance of tolerance and inclusion

• Have a quick glance at your checklist and see if there any areas where your child has particular strengths or challenges

The building blocks of fine motor skills • Bilateral integration: Using two hands in a working relationship, e. g. Holding a jar with one hand opening the lid With the other • Crossing Midline: crossing the imaginary line that divides our body into left and right • Hand finger strength • Hand eye coordination: Eyes guiding hands to achieve a task • Hand Dominance: Consistently using the same hand • Hand division: separating the finger/thumb side of the hand from the other for tasks, e. g. Writing • Object Manipulation: Skillfully manipulating tools within the hand. Requires the ability to isolate each finger •

Some ideas to help practice my Fine Motor skills • • Threading and lacing tasks Hand clapping games Playdough Tracing and mazes Cutting crepe paper into small pieces to glue ‘Posting’ items into a letterbox or sorting into small cups Wind up toys Seek Occupational Therapy if needed

The building blocks of Gross Motor skills • Muscular strength and tone • Muscular endurance; the ability to 'keep at it' • Motor (muscle) planning: controlled and coordinated movements with appropriate time and sequence • Balance/postural control; to maintain our position against (moving or still) forces • Sensory processing: noticing, interpreting and responding to the environment • Proprioception/body awareness: knowing where the body and its parts are in space and being aware of movement •

Some ideas to help practice my Gross Motor skills • • • Anything outdoors; park, swimming, trampoline, climbing equipment Practice ‘animal walks’ with me Jump over the cracks on the footpath with me Hold my hand as I hop on one foot Show me how to balance soft items on my head Practice being a ‘rocket’ Kick a ball or play catch with me Throw bean bags into different buckets Pop bubbles up high and down low Seek Occupational Therapy if needed

The building blocks of Self Care skills • Fine and Gross Motor skills and strength • Sensory processing: noticing, interpreting and responding to the environment • Object manipulation: Skilfully manipulating tools with control, e. g. toothbrush, hairbrush, etc • Expressive language (using language) • Receptive language (understanding) • Planning and sequencing: Thinking and following through on multistep tasks to achieve a goal • Compliance: Ability to follow simple routines or instructions without avoidance or defiance • Motivation

Some ideas to help practice my Self Care Skills • Let me do the last part of an activity. E. g. put my socks on my toes and let me pull them over my heels. This helps me to feel a great sense of accomplishment • Use pictures to help remind me what my day looks like • Ask me to ‘be a helper’ in my daily activities • Please have patience! • Give me little reminders to remember “what next? ” • Teach me through pretend play, e. g. doctors, feeding a baby, puppets, etc • Seek Occupational Therapy if needed

The building blocks of Communication and Cognitive skills • Hearing • Expressive (using) language to communicate thoughts, wants, needs • Receptive (understanding and comprehension of) language: • Attention and concentration • Working memory Temporarily retaining and using information • Following instructions at 3 -4 years of age, a 3 part institution is the goal. E. g. "Point to the cat, dog and monkey" • Concepts e. g. Understanding direction, location, position, , quantity, sequence, size, similarities, differences, etc. • Planning and sequencing tasks to achieve a goal

Some ideas to help practice my Thinking and Problem Solving (Cognitive) skills • • Help me complete puzzles Be silly! Pretend to ‘forget’, so I have to remember Play games like ‘Eye spy’ Describe things you see. Are they big? Small? Red? Shiny? Read me stories. Let me make my own choices (and sometimes my own mistakes) Count things as we use them, e. g. how many potatoes are on my plate?

Some ideas to help practice my Communication skills • Ask me questions. “what did you do today? ” “what do you like about that one? ” • Sing songs and nursery rhymes with me • Read stories with me and make pretend stories together • Play pretend with puppets, dolls, tea parties and doctors • Practice following instructions that are not everyday tasks • Describe what you see • Use your gestures and your words • Make sure hearing isn’t an issue

The building blocks of Social Emotional Skills • Attention and concentration • Receptive and expressive communication • Play skills; including parallel, cooperative and associative play AND knowing how to initiate play and engagement with others • Emotional awareness; understanding and recognising emotions in self and others • Pre-language skills, e. g. Gestures, facial expressions, joint attention and imitation • Self regulation: the ability to change or maintain our behaviour or attention as the task or environment requires it • Empathy: understanding how other people are feeling in particular situations •

Some ideas to help practice my Social Emotional skills • Ask me ‘can I play? ’ • Take turns with me • Tell me when I do something that you like, what I am good at, what you like about me • Teach me to share with others in structured games (e. g. games where I know what a turn ‘looks like’ • Tell me how you are feeling and ask how I am feeling today • Practice making different facial expressions • Practice drawing people • Seek Occupational Therapy, Speech Pathology or Psychology if needed

Keep practicing and playing • None of this happens in isolation! Skills are built together

Resilience; What is it? • 1. the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity. • 2. the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

Why do I need resilience at school? • Reminding me that I am safe when I am dropped off • Reminding mummy / daddy that I am safe when I am dropped off! • Tolerating activities that change from day to day. Sometimes we have assembly. Sometimes my teacher is sick • Understanding that some friends don’t always want to play with me • To have fun in the playground without an adult right next to me • Knowing that sometimes the activities we do in class are not the activities that I want to do • Knowing that we often have to pack away the things that I like • Handling that I will not always win or get a turn at group time • Building independence for later school tasks, such as catching the bus or talking in front of my peers

How do we build resilience? • Having a ‘safe’ place to go when I am stressed or angry • Discuss my fears with me when I bring them to you. • Shelter me from some of the things I don’t need to see yet, e. g. scary movies • Remind me that trying and doing my best is the most important thing • Tell me “stop, I don’t like it” if I do something that you don’t like, e. g. smacking you • Talk about your feelings and ask me about mine. Remind me that it is OK to feel angry or sad • Help me to find the right words when I want to describe what I have seen or thought. Pictures may be helpful at this time • Play pretend with me

• • • Give me opportunities to take turns with others Let me play independently with other children Remind me of all of my talents and the things you love about me Tell me when change is going to happen to help me prepare Keep some routines constant, e. g. bedtime Give me a good night’s sleep Ask me to help you; or to help you to help other people Take breaks to just run and play sometimes Involve me in taking care of myself; brushing my teeth, cutting my sausages, putting on my shoes • Teach me how to be positive and ‘look on the bright side’ • Remember and appreciate that sometimes I will be stressed or angry. . And that’s OK!

Finally, Remember TOLERANCE

Be Tolerant • At Spring Farm Public School, we believe whole heartedly that every person is an important part of our school community. We all have our own unique differences and abilities and this is what makes us so wonderful.

Why is Tolerance important? • Every child enrolled at Spring Farm Public School has the right to learn in a safe and nurturing environment. Nobody should be denied the right to educational opportunities

Inclusion at school means … • • • Everybody feels safe and respected. Full stop. Embracing differences Learning in the least restrictive environment Have the same learning opportunities as peers Learning socially appropriate behaviours from peers • We all learn to be a valued part of a strong community

Equity vs Equality • Equality is treating everyone the same. Equity is giving everyone what they need to be successful.

Does this mean my child will ‘miss out’ or ‘be overlooked? ’ • Absolutely not! In fact, research suggests that removing the ‘stigma’ of disabilities for ‘typically developing peers’ positively influenced the knowledge, attitudes and even behaviours toward peers with autism in a recent study* • The constantly moving day program in a school environment allows for many different modes of learning. E. g. small groups, whole class room or 1: 1 opportunities. Each and every child within the class will have the opportunity to engage in all of these modes of teaching.

What if a child with a disability has a ‘behaviour’ that might influence my child? • Any ‘challenging or antisocial behaviours’ are taken seriously for all students. • Where behaviours are noticed, behaviour support plans are put into place to help; – Establish the ‘function’ of a behaviour – Develop a ‘response’ plan – Teach a new behaviour • Behaviour support plans are reviewed regularly and often with the input of external therapists.

Questions?