Story Boxes

Yet another good day at Vision Therapy produced more great ideas from Ms. Anne, Claire's vision teacher! When I told Ms. Anne that Claire sometimes gets grumpy when I try to read her The Very Hungry Caterpillar, she suggested creating "story boxes" for Claire.

A "story box" is a box of items relating to an event that Claire might experience in her everyday life. The idea is to use the items in the story box to tell Claire about the event and remind her of the sensations she might experience.

For example, a story box about bath time would have a wash cloth, a little container of the soap we use, a hair brush, etc. Using the objects in the story box, we would tell Claire about bath time and let her touch and smell the items as we describe them.

A story about bath time might go something like this:

• Every night, Claire gets a bath. (Okay, that's not entirely true . . . but hey, it's my story!)


• The first thing we do is carry Claire downstairs to her bathroom and run the bath water.


• We put Claire in the bathtub, and she always makes a splash!


• Then we wash her arms, legs, and tummy using a soft wash cloth.


• The soap we use smells like lavender.


• Then we wash Claire's hair and Daddy gives her a scalp massage. (Sorry, Brad, had to include it!)


• Then we rinse Claire's hair and lift her out of the bathtub.


• We put a towel around Claire and carry her into her bedroom, where we dry her off, put lotion on her legs, arms, and belly, and put on her diaper and her pajamas.


• Then we lift her up and comb her hair.


• And then she is all clean and ready for a bedtime story!

Okay, so I'm not the best story teller, but the story boxes I'm going to make will be awesome!