by Adventures in Neuroplasticity - Our Journey with CVI

Let’s go Strawberry picking! 🍓

We are very fortunate to live in a beautiful part of the world where our Winters are filled with many warm sunny days…and opportunities to do so many fun things like Strawberry picking!

I have to confess: we have been living in this gorgeous part of the world for 9 years now and the Strawberry Farm is ten minutes from our house…but I have never been 😲 It’s obviously not something you do every weekend as the price to pick your own strawberries is fairly steep (about $18/kg; which would cover people eating the strawberries as they pick which is a big no-no) but it is a fun family activity to do every now and then. And if your kiddos are anything like mine, they have a keen interest in gardening including how fruits and veggies grow. Unfortunately for my 2 however, I do not have a green thumb, so we take any opportunity to show the children how fruits and veggies grow! 🤷‍♀️🤪

For our CVI kiddos, an activity such as this is perfect! 👌 The Strawberry Farm we visited is fairly relaxed in allowing families to roam free in the fields they ask you to pick from (I would assume most are like this), and the fields are huge, so it was a great opportunity to walk slowly amongst the field without bothering other patrons as we were stopping often to talk about the salient features of the strawberry plant:

  • The round green leaves with bumpy edges
  • The narrow green stems holding the strawberries
  • The white flowers with yellow buds in the middle
  • The small green strawberries starting to bud from the white flower
  • The red strawberries ready to be picked
Pointing out the white flower to Eva.
It wasn’t difficult for Eva to focus on the juicy strawberries, they were a beautiful bright red

The fields to walk between are narrow but Eva was happy not using her cane as there was enough contrast for her to see where to step so. Following on from our Zoom Consultation with Eva’s Orthoptist, Natalia, we started using Proprioception to help Eva visually attend to smaller objects such as the flowers blooming or the small green strawberries that can be difficult to see against the green leaves.

By definition, Proprioception is the perception or awareness of the position and movement of the body. By helping Eva point to the object we want her to look at, it helps her eyes direct to it as well.

The narrow fields had enough contrast against the soil for Eva to navigate carefully using her vision.

Another fun activity completed incorporating visual lessons! I would love to hear what family fun activities your family do that makes using vision fun 😊

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