Message from your EI Supervisors
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Dear Families,
Our thoughts continue to be with our Early Intervention families during these unprecedented times. We hope that you are all staying healthy and safe. Welcome to issue three of our Early Intervention Newsletter, the MEGA issue! For this issue, as we prepare for the upcoming three-week program break, we asked our staff to share fun, functional activities that you can do with your children at home to keep them engaged and active during their time off, and boy did they deliver! This issue is PACKED with all kinds of wonderful examples of how learning can happen anywhere!
We are in awe of the way that our staff and families have worked together to continue to support the early intervention needs of the children while in-person services have been suspended. We sincerely hope that the break serves as an opportunity for everyone to recharge, rest and spend time with your loved ones and doing the activities that bring you the most joy.
We hope that you find the information and activities helpful. Please see the list of upcoming parent training dates. Also, please continue to visit the DCIU website for organization and program updates, COVID-19 information, resources, and e-learning technology support!
If you have questions or need additional information, please contact your child's service providers or service coordinator. If you need assistance in connecting with your child's team, you may message
[email protected]
Our program is back in session during the week of July 6, 2020; and we will continue to provide services virtually during our summer session. We will provide ongoing updates, including plans for programming for Fall 2020, as soon as that information is available.
Best wishes for a safe, healthy and restful break!
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Talking to kids about racism, issues, and current events
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DCIU Executive Director Dr. Maria Edelberg, issued a letter to our community on June 5, 2020 in response to the horrific death of George Floyd. To quote Dr. Edelberg, "
Ongoing racial injustice, combined with COVID-19 and the economic impacts, have caused deep pain in all of our communities. In addition to this most recent injustice, we must address the systemic issues, disparities, and racism that exist in our society, causing devastating inequality. Incidents like the one the world just witnessed sparked the battle cry, Black Lives Matter. At DCIU, we truly believe that black lives matter, as well as all other lives. But, sadly, George Floyd’s death is yet another example that demonstrates that black lives, in particular, have not been valued equally throughout the course of our nation’s history. As an educational organization of diverse staff serving a very diverse population of students and families, we recognize that we are all different and we value those differences in all! We strive to treat each person with fairness and equality
". For access to the full letter from Dr. Edelberg, please click
here.
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Early Intervention needs your help!
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Parents,
YOU can help guide the efforts at the statewide and local levels to improve services and results for children and families by completing the 2020 OCDEL Early Intervention Family Survey. Click the link below and let YOUR voice be heard!
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Summer Break
Resources and Activities by Developmental Domain
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Our staff have truly come together to present this MEGA issue of our newsletter. The activities and resources are organized by developmental domain; however, there is SO MUCH overlap and integration with skills. Please take some time to go through the activities and resources and give a few a try. The most important theme in all of the activities is FUN!!!!
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Resources for Early Learning Development
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Attention all block lovers! Check out this resource for using blocks to construct letters, numbers, shapes, and more! A website is provided for free downloads for activity maps.
Building to Learn
Playing dress-up is a great way to work on self-help skills in a functional way, while also providing opportunities to support development of early learning concepts. The
Costume Box
interactive online activity and real-time carry-over activity will have your child more independent with dressing in no time!
Here is an interactive PowerPoint that includes links to a Mr. Potato head activity, a read-aloud, and also suggestions for a Rainbow Scavenger Hunt!
Miss Megan provided us with a recording of one of her weekly circle times. She sings songs for greeting, school rules, and preschool concepts like colors, shapes and the letter of the week!
DCIU Early Intervention classroom teaching assistant Miss Denise is missing her friends! She wanted to read a story for everyone to hear. This is a nice barnyard read-aloud for all to enjoy!
Click here to give your child opportunities to sing along with some popular preschool songs.
Learning Activities for Home Padlet:
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Resources for Speech and Language Development
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Language is probably the easiest way thing to incorporate into all of our daily activities. Click here for a handout on what to talk about during all of your fun summer activities!
Summer Language Parent Handout
Many of our speech therapists are incorporating Core Vocabulary into our students' communication programs. Here is some information on the core vocabulary word "GO" as well as a companion interactive PowerPoint activity:
For more resources on Core Vocabulary Word of the week, click
here
or
here
.
Is your child working on speech sound production? Here is a handout with ideas for practicing sounds while having summer fun!
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Resources for Social Emotional Development
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Now, more than ever, we need to be in tune to the social emotional needs of our children. They have experienced such great changes over the past few months. By modeling the language for different feelings, we can help them to recognize how they're feeling and then to think about things they can do to feel better.
Some of our staff members have created a Trolls' Themed Feelings Book and corresponding craft, using an empty toilet paper roll! Click below for the resources.
Ready Rosie developed a toolkit for supporting families during the COVID-19 Pandemic. There are a variety of resources available for parents and helping parents support the emotions of their children during this time. For more information please visit:
Healthy at Home-Ready Rosie
Books are a great tool for helping children develop and use a vocabulary for emotions. Here is a list of good books to explore different emotions:
Book List
*Note- it may be difficult to get to library or book store during the pandemic; these may be available via 'read aloud' on YouTube.
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Resources for Gross Motor Development
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Our physical therapists have provided us with a variety of activities to support continued motor development of our students. Even better, many of the activities use common household items in addition to items that can be recycled! For example, are you looking for ways to reuse all of those empty paper towel and toilet paper tubes or delivery boxes? Click here for two ideas:
Here are some general activities to support strength and balance:
If you have a child who just loves all things physical, consider giving him or her this "coupon book" where he or she can earn fun gross motor activities for making good choices!
Coupon book
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Resources for Fine Motor Development
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Our occupational therapists have provided us with a variety of activities to support continued motor development of our students.
To the left, you will see instructions to use cereal or other food with a hole in the middle to create a "caterpillar" by stringing onto a string, pipe cleaner, etc.
Another activity builds in pretend play skills, and uses aluminum foil to wrap pretend or real food items. Please click the link for more details:
Wrapping with Aluminum Foil
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Resources for Adaptive Development
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Helping our children advance in their self-help skills development is a great way to improve their independence!
Let your children help with chores around the house as a way to continue to develop all skills. Here is some information and ideas for chores that are kid-friendly:
Chores
Have fun with cooking activities with your child's help. Here is a fun way to support your child's development with sequencing, following directions and using utensils:
Making a Parfait
**Parents:
Are you having a difficult time with toilet training your child? This three-week break is a fabulous time to start working on this important life skill more aggressively. Dr. Esther Bubb, Coordinator for Student Services, has recorded a training session for parents to assist with the toilet training process.
Links to the materials are below:
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STEAM Activity of the Week
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Preschool Early Intervention Teacher Megan Gilligan creates STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) lessons for her students and has agreed to share activities for our newsletter! The following links provide information about STEAM in preschool as well as this week's activity, Painting with oil and water! Miss Megan's friends Clarence and David had tons of fun painting with Miss Megan!
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Remember in our last issue where Miss Megan gave us a play dough recipe? In this issue, she guides us through the experience with a video and gives examples, tips, and what to talk about during this shared activity with your child.
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This video is geared towards parents. Miss Megan shares strategies for parents to use at home. The three strategies highlighted in this video include: making choices, giving transition warnings and praise.
Parent Resources Padlet:
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In a time where our lives have been so dramatically changed, it is critically important for us to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of our loved ones!
The following article provides additional information for prioritizing self-care, especially during this time.
We wish you many, many moments of self-care during the next three weeks!
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Upcoming Parent Training Opportunities
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Session 3: Behavior Supports for Parents and Caregivers
Thursday, 6/25/2020
5:00-6:00pm
Session 4: Behavior Supports for Parents and Caregivers
Thursday, 7/9/2020
5:00-6:00pm
Session 5: Behavior Supports for Parents and Caregivers
Thursday, 7/23/2020
5:00-6:00pm
Session 6: Behavior Supports for Parents and Caregivers
Thursday, 8/6/2020
5:00-6:00pm
Login details:
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The DCIU EI program will be on a scheduled program break from 6/13/2020-7/5/2020. Our summer session begins on Monday, 7/6/2020 and runs through Friday, 8/7/2020.
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Reminder for Kindergarten Eligible Families
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If your child is currently receiving early intervention services, and you are planning to enroll him/her in kindergarten or first grade in your school district for Fall 2020, please contact your school district to complete the registration process.
If registration is delayed, your child could be placed in regular education kindergarten or first grade without special education services at the start of school. You would still have the right, however, to request that the district evaluate your child to determine his/her need for special education.
If your child is approaching kindergarten age and you decide not to enroll him or her in a public or non-public kindergarten program, your child may receive preschool early intervention services, if he/she continues to be eligible, during the kindergarten year. If your child is approaching the age of entry for first grade in your local school district, he or she will not be eligible for early intervention services for Fall 2020.
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Do you need tech support?
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Please visit the parent section of our e-learning toolkit for more information and resources for using technology to keep your child connected to his/her early intervention service providers.
Should you experience a technical issue with the tools provided to you as part of the remote education plan, please send us an email at
[email protected]
. Please include your name, phone number, and the best time to reach you. A support representative will reach out to you within 24 hours to assist.
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About DCIU Preschool
Early Intervention
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Delaware County Intermediate Unit
200 Yale Avenue
Morton, PA 19070
Phone: 610-938-9000
Fax: 610-938-9887
www.dciu.org
Follow us on social media!
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General Information
All parents are concerned about their child's development. We can help. Early Intervention through DCIU is designed to help children with special needs from age three to before they enter kindergarten. Every child has both areas of strength and of need. Every child benefits when developmental delays, disabilities and special needs are identified and addressed early in life. Preschool children can receive many types of services if they have an identified developmental delay or disability in at least one of the following areas:
· Adaptive development
· Cognitive development
· Communication development
· Physical development
· Social-emotional development
Contact DCIU's Early Intervention Services (610) 938-2830 ext. 6502 or 6503. A secretary will record some basic information and ask you about your concerns about your child or click here for online intake form.
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