Bagels = Zeros.... and Some iPad Love

In case you didn't know....... bagels look like zeros. ....Reid told me so. 
A week or so ago while making bagels Reid shouted out, "Mom..... ZERO!!" while proudly holding up his bagel. I stopped and looked at his little face.... and realized he was connecting that a bagel is shaped like a zero, therefore it was a zero and....well, I squealed.... yes, like a girl.... no, more like a very happy momma that was celebrating that her child had made this connection and then picked that little guy up and twirled him around. These little connections are BIG connections in our world! I didn't even know he knew zero yet.
So what do you do when your child brilliantly declares bagels look like zeros? Well.... you plop him on the couch and document it baby!

and then you eat those zeros bagels!

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One of the BEST investments we have made for Reid..... which we have seen contribute to much of his progress in number and letter recognition is the iPad. I love this thing, absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it.  He is so independent with it and navigates himself around to the apps he wants to work in that day and I feel ZERO guilt because he is playing and learning all at the same time. 

If you have thought about getting one for Christmas or are on the fence..... my advice? Get it. The advantage it gives our little ones with special needs is HUGE. In my opinion it is worth EVERY cent!

The app Reid is working on below is the iWriteWords app (it also has a # section) and I believe the one with the letters is from his Starfall ABCs app.... both are must haves. 

Other items worth mentioning are the Big Grips Frame shown below in blue and the Just Mobile stylus. The Big Grips Frame goes without saying... you want to protect your investment and we have found this one to be perfect for Reid's little hands. We had our iPad about a month before we bought this and we had too many close calls with falls so I feel much better with this on! The stylus is something we decided to purchase to help him with gripping an item such as a pencil or crayon. This is also one of his IEP goals so this stylus is helping us achieve that I think. We bought it in yellow to resemble a pencil but they have lots of different fun colors. He loves using  it to trace letters and numbers on the iPad... and sometimes you will even find my goofball with it behind his ear to be, well, ahem ....a goofball. 

Reid Shoots His Own Video.... on the iPad

We recently bought Reid an iPad for therapy purposes...and I must say it has been THE BEST investment we have made. I will post more about it later...but wanted to share this video real quick that HE made that we had no idea about until this morning..... We've had the iPad for about 2 weeks and he is very self sufficient with it so often we will prop him up in our bed or on the couch with it safely secured on his lap....so we are not always with him when he is playing on his favorite applications. Well this morning we kept hearing the same sound being played over and over again this morning from our room.... we walked in to discover that he was re-playing this video that he must have shot last week sometime because I cannot even remember when he had that sweatshirt on last! We just stood there and looked at each other and then busted up! So...... not only can this guy play independently on his favorite apps and is becoming quite good at them...but apparently he is a budding videographer to boot!
So...here goes our Reid, taping his own mini video with his family none the wiser in the other room! .....little stinker!! :)