April 2012 Updates: School Holidays at home It might be hard to believe, but the last 3 presentations were only three days out of three weeks of holidays... After such a busy long weekend, Hahgoot started the school holidays in a shocking mood, in constant meltdown and very difficult. I cancelled most of our plans and started again, as she seemed too stressed.

Hahgoot kept screaming that she wants to go back to school, so I built her a mock classroom and we learned about cats. She designed ads for cat toys and accessories.

Another way to beat her awful behaviour was constantly feeding the pair, and varying the places they ate in.

Hahgoot got a lot of time to do free play and explore her interests, alone or with Alma.

A marble run game turned into a blocks tower building challenge

The marble run reminded Hahgoot of the “mouse trap” game.

I bought the girls another felt board, about the farm, but couldn’t get Hahgoot to share her play with Alma. She sees no reason to share her static pictures, while Alma prefers a much more dynamic game.

Another way to combat the emotional state of mind Hahgoot got into, was a wild and abstract obstacle course, that was very successful.

As usual, the very valuable methods I learned at the OT sessions has paid off.

Ahoy there, mates! Beware of the fierce pirate sisters!

The pirate game developed into a Floortime session, where I was the crocodile. In the story I cut myself on the pirate’s sword and burst into tears. After Hahgoot managed to tend to my wound I decided not to eat them (now that they helped me) but I was still hungry. So the two girls sat down to make a menu so I could eat other things at their restaurant. It was great flexible and empathic play, and a signal that Hahgoot’s “stuck mode” was over and we could move forward.

So we went camping...

This went so well that Hahgoot asked to fall asleep at night in the tent and succeeded! Alma, of course, had to try that too...

In our next presentation: School holidays artistic adventures