School Days

We have enrolled Peter in a non-public school that specializes in aural rehabilitation for deaf children. Most kids there have Cochlear Implants, but some have hearing aids, and there are also quite a few "hearing peers" (mostly teachers' or therapists' kids) mixed in. This school has students from all over the SF Bay Area- I have heard from parents who commuted from Monterey and Berkeley. The school said there had even been some from Marin, which seems really far away, but I don't know if its a worse drive than Monterey. Right now I know of families coming from Santa Cruz, Fremont, and me from my mountains.  So this school has got a good reputation, and draws from a pretty big area.

 A lot of people get their Early intervention programs to pay for it, since their EI departments don't have the training to help CI kids.  Santa Clara County has a program.  I can't speak to the quality of the program until I have seen more, but they have one, so they won't pay for anything else. So we are footing the bill. Is it worth it? We will see. There are some things about the school that have nothing to do with classes that I wanted for Peter- things like seeing loads of other kids with CI's, and having friends who also have CI's. I was hoping to meet other parents, and expand my support network.  I was willing to spend the money to make sure Peter had experienced teachers and therapists. So what does a day look like at this school?

Today we arrived about 10 minutes late- thanks to crazy traffic, a three car pile up (off on the left, but still slowing everything down) and a motorcycle-car incident (motorcyclist hit the car, I think- he was standing there looking embarrassed).  I bring up the commute because that is the one thing I really really really don't like.  But we get there and go to Morning Music first thing. There is a half hour of music for everyone- lots of classic kid songs, mixed with some just for the school, and some dance music once in a while. Last Thursday the woman who leads had a fake chicken and did the chicken dance- Peter was shouting "la la la" right along with her! After music each class is sent off to their room.

9:00 Circle time - I guess some classes start with free play, supervised and narrated by the teacher and an aide, but Peter's class all just head to the chairs first thing. There is another boy with hearing aids, a little girl with normal hearing, and Peter. The little girl has only spoken Spanish up to now, but she is learning English quickly. During circle the teacher does things like blowing bubbles, but it isn't just bubbles. First she gets two bottles out, and asks them which one has bubbles in it, based on weight (if they hold it) or looking in it. Or she has ice cream cone shaped bubble bottles and has them pretend to lick to increase awareness of their tongues. Then she tries to get them to ask for the bubbles to be opened with "O!" Or "open" or "open bubbles please" - depending on where they are in their speech development. Peter is slowly warming up, but until today he was just very observant, and didn't participate as much. Then they try to blow the bubbles, ask for more (mmm, or more, or bubbles!) and eventually say bye-bye to the bubbles. Then we do songs, and the kids then use a pointer to see if they can match up a picture to a song.  We also talk about who is there, and today we also talked about the mommy and daddy of each child in class. The teacher and aide do most of the real talking, but they are really good about waiting to see what the kids will say, and praising them for talking.

9:30 Peter and I head to another room with our Speech Therapist for our 1/2 session. The class does snack while we are gone, talking about colors, textures, crunchy, flavors, more, etc.

10:15-10:45 After our therapy time the class has about 1/2 hour outside. The adults narrate some of the play, but also give the kids a chance to just run around or dig in the sandbox (Peter's favorite thing outside).

Back inside there is some guided activity- today it was stories, then a monkey tree toy, then using cut up maradi gras necklaces like noodles.  Lots of auditory input, sensory stuff, and so much individual attention. But most important to me- Peter is having fun while learning.

11:15 we do a quick cleanup and a goodbye circle with more songs and pictures. We head out at 11:30.

I like that Peter is getting so much attention, and there is a lot to be said about "monkey see, monkey do". Peter will mimic other kids much faster than he will mimic me;)