MOSAIC MOMENTS

I am writing today via gasoline generator. We live in Texas and although we are about four hours north of Galveston, where Hurricane Ike hit over the weekend, our small town has the worse electric service in the country! Our damage was very minimal–two limbs split on one of our trees, so it isn’t the damage that caused the power outage, but the bad service that makes us loose power at the drop of a hat. All surrounding towns have power–they use different electric companies. We are told that our town might have electricity in three weeks. Who knows….I hope it is sooner.  So, I am briefly able to write to you through a borrowed generator that I wont have access to tomorrow.

During the storm and lack of power, we worked to entertain our boys throughout the day and into the evening. We played board games most of the day and were able to bond in a way that modern technology often strips away from families. Every now and then we take an “electronic vacation” where we have no video games or television for a week. However, we usually have air conditioning, so at least we are more comfortable.

Last night we played “The Game of Life” by candle light (I was hoping to land on “get electricity” but they didn’t have that square on the board) and learned some good strategies throughout our game. I have always used board games with all of my children to teach mathematical strategies. No matter how old or young your child is, they can learn math through board games. For the young child, they can count the dots on the dice to learn counting and adding. When they get older and are learning subtraction or multiplication, you can subtract or multiply those numbers. Because children with Down syndrome and mosaic Down syndrome often have big problems with mathematical concepts, this can be very helpful in teaching them.

Last night, when we were through with our game it was time to add up our money to see who the winner is. My son, Tim has always had some difficulty with math, but has always stayed at grade level. However, simple concepts that we take for granted as common sense, seem to be a big issue with Tim. As each of us was counting our money I looked over at Tim and instead of separating the bills out and then adding all the $100,000, $10,000, and $5,000, he was attempting to add them up in his head with out separating them first. So, I gently showed him how it would be best to separate the bills into categories and then count each stack at a time. I also explained that we could count by 10’s for the $10,000’s and by 5’s for the $5,000’s. After showing this to him, he was able to quickly count up the money himself.

I think it is important to remember that even though a person with Down syndrome or mosaic Down syndrome, may need a little direction to help them get going, they still can do a lot on their own with the right direction.

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