Happy Halloween

It's been a creative day at our house as we prepared for a friend's Halloween Party tonight. Sam was my helper. Well actually, his help was more in a supervisory capacity, but he did help me pick spooky sound effects for a creepy CD I'm making, he directed me how to make his Minecraft Steve costume and he got very excited when I got the hot glue gun out. Actually, I love the hot glue gun too. I think I went through ten sticks of glue making the Minecraft Steve head! In between, Sam had fun with the learning apps on my iPad and we read some stories. Now Sam can't wait to put his costume on.

Hope you and your little monsters have a fun and safe Halloween. 

Clare and Sam

Halloween lights for the trees made of tins. Paint them black, drill lots of holes to let the light out and pop in a tea candle. Easy. I used pipe cleaners for the handles. Oh and the box is for the kids to put their hands in (if they dare) to feel what's inside. In this case it will be a big dish of cold bake beans with little frankfurter sausages. Yucky! I'm sure there will be lots of screams tonight.

Some grave stones to decorate the garden.

 

Sam wanted to go as Minecraft Steve. Thank goodness for the internet. I found a kids' craft website this morning called K-Zone that had instructions and all the images you needed to download and print off. (I've included the link if you have a Minecraft crazy child too.) I printed off double sides of 'Steve's' weapons, glued them together and was waiting for them to dry before I cut them out. Here's what I found when I went to do just that. 'Someone' had crept in when I was not looking and put their mini weapons on the picture. Guess he was just double checking I had got it right.

 

Minecraft Steve cardboard box head and weapons ready to go.

I found Sam taking a break earlier. At least he was playing education games on my iPad.

We read a few books too.  As you can see, Sam is using a little torch to highlight the words as we read. I picked this idea up from an article posted on Facebook and thought it would be worth a go. It can help struggling readers like Sam to focus on the words better. It seemed to work and he loved using it. Another score.

Special is Cool

Who doesn't want to be special? From a very early age, we strive to stand out and be noticed. We yearn for approval, recognition and for people to like us. We seek praise from our parents, teachers and peers.

Special is good, right? 

But what happens when you put the word 'special' with the word 'needs'. Suddenly, being special is not such a good thing. When you become a parent of a child that is a bit different and needs extra support, you feel conflicted about this term. Well I do. My child is special and needs a bit more help than a typical child his age, but that does not make him any less. I actually like the term 'tailored needs', because often our kids can do most things their peers can, they just need a few adjustments here and there. And how about instead of Special Education Units we call them Tailored Learning Centres? Or 'TLC' for short, which also happens to be an acronym for Tender Loving Care. 

I understand that being different can make some people uncomfortable, but in most cases they are not bad or ignorant people, they just don't know how to behave or what to say. I am so proud of my son and will tell anyone who wants to listen about him. I will happily explain why he does not speak very well when they try to talk to him; why he sometimes suddenly squeals, flaps his hands and marches on the spot; why he looks off into space and has trouble looking at their face. I'm OK with that. If I can teach people about 22Q 11.2 and help create more awareness of this syndrome I will do it.  Understanding and acceptance comes from being informed and educated. I'm all for that.

Special can create things never dreamt of before. Special is why we drive cars, build skyscrapers, fly to the moon and why I am sitting at my lap top typing this blog that you are reading on the other side of the world. Special is cool, who wants to be normal?

As we get near the end of the week, Sam starts to struggle. The heat does not help either. Every Thursday we have a Speech Therapy session in the afternoon too, so I try not to overload him in the morning. 

After dropping Zoe off at school we popped into the shops to get a drink and something to eat and then headed to the park. Sam had fun, but the temperature soon crept up to the mid-30's and we headed home. Once we had cooled down, lessons began. Today I added new subjects to our schedule - Science/Social Science and Music. I also thought it would make a nice change to do our activities in the kid's play area on the mat. Sam has low muscle tone so he can find sitting in chairs for long periods a bit difficult. This lead us nicely into our Music lesson because the keyboard is also in the play area. 

Here is what we got up to today.

We sat under a shady tree in the park and had a picnic before playing.

Back at home, we did our lessons in the play area. Here's Sam cutting out the pictures for our first activity. 

Then a spot of gluing. 

And for a job well done, Sam gets a stamp and a sticker. He does tend to go a bit crazy with the stamp and I have to grab it back quick.

Here are our finished activity sheets. I created four scenes - sky, park, under ground and the sea. Sam first cut up all the pictures and then I mixed them up. There were six pictures for each scene titled 'What can you see...?' I asked him to find the pictures of things that you would see in the sky, under the ground, etc. Then we talked about them.

This was our under the ground scene. 

Ready for our music lesson - 'Old MacDonald'. Sam loves singing this song. I found a song sheet with letters rather than musical notes and I stuck letters on the keys. I helped him follow the letters and play the notes. Once he is confident doing it this way, I'll introduce notes on the staff with the letters and then hopefully we can drop the letters and he will just read the notes.

Sam LOVED playing the keyboard. He picked up the concept very quickly. It was great to see him doing something easily and not struggling.

Click here for the video.

Workaround Teaching

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, the term 'workaround' means this.

"A workaround is a bypass of a recognized problem in a system. A workaround is typically a temporary fix that implies that a genuine solution to the problem is needed. But workarounds are frequently as creative as true solutions, involving outside the box thinking in their creation."

Throughout my working life - before the kids - I was always one of those employees you could throw a curly problem at and as long as I knew what the desired outcome was, I could usually come up with a solution. Sometimes, these solutions were a bit different and not necessarily the way most people would do it, but in most cases they worked. In my last job at a vet practice, my boss and I loved finding different ways to get around our very user unfriendly clinic software to achieve the outcomes we wanted. The software designers obviously had no clue how a vet practice worked in real life and we wondered if they had ever actually set foot in a practice. We joked about our workarounds and believe me, there were quite a few.

Today it occurred to me that what I am doing with Sam is exactly that. Creating workarounds. Sam's condition, 22Q 11.2 distal deletion syndrome, has resulted in a number of systems issues. He is not wired like a typical child and that means to achieve the same educational outcome, I need to think creatively when devising a teaching solution. The Wikipedia workaround definition does go on to say "Typically they [workarounds] are considered brittle in that they will not respond well to further pressure from a system beyond the original design. In implementing a workaround it is important to flag the change so as to later implement a proper solution."

Unfortunately, there is no permanent solution to Sam's system problem. He is the way he is. We can't replace the missing genetic pieces. So the workarounds I create with him - in daily life and at school - will be true solutions. I need to think 'outside the box'.

After a trip to the park this morning, we worked on our Sight Words, which also involved a cutting exercise. Sam had to say and match the sight words with the sheet and then glue them on.

I had written sentences using the sight words and we read them together. Then I asked him to find any sight words in the sentence and highlight them.

He really did get 100%. He got every one!

Next, we worked on Days of the Week. I had created a story page and a page where he had to trace the day names.

Sam has struggled grasping the concept of different day names. I needed to work on this.

We played a Days of the Week app from LudoSchool.com. It's a simple app, but he loved it!

He got all the questions right...on his own. And you can see how excited he was.

Time for Maths...with Minecraft. Sam is crazy about Minecraft, so I downloaded images and found a Minecraft font.

Adding with Minecraft :)

I made a Minecraft counting book from 1 to 20. We did 1 to 11 today. I found 'tracing fonts' so Sam can practice writing his numbers and letters.

And here is adding with Minecraft. I rely on Sam to tell me who all the characters are.

Dream a New Dream

This is a print that I bought at Eat Street Markets on the weekend. It is on the wall of my renovated home office. 

Today as I was swimming in the pool with Sam (yes, it was another 40 degree celsius plus day), I felt a wonderful sense of calm. I watched Sam having fun swimming and it suddenly hit me. What I am doing with Sam now will impact on the rest of his life. Having kids is a great responsibility and we all want them to be safe, excel and be happy. If you have a child like Sam thought, you realise that for them to achieve their potential, you have to really be involved. He does not learn like typical children. He does not see and feel things like typical children. Nothing about Sam is typical.

I was gifted with a variety of talents. I'm artistic, I love to write, I sing and I love to perform. A part of me has always felt frustrated that I did not use these talents to pursue a professional career. My dream was to be a cartoonist, author, musical actor. For most of my life I struggled to accept that my life did not follow one of these paths. I felt like I had failed. Why was I given these gifts if I was not going to doing something special with them? It has really only been since Sam started school that I appreciated how much extra help he would need. Even then, it took his health issues in term three for me to see that Sam needed a different approach. Since then, I have discovered that the talents I have can help Sam. The key to unlocking his potential could just be the gifts I have. Perhaps these gifts were not meant for me, but for Sam...and Zoe. As I learn more about helping Sam I am also learning to be a better Mum to Zoe and I can 'feel' the difference my attitude is having on both of my kids.

I still have my dreams...I want to write children's books. And I love singing and performing with my amazing friends in community theatre. Right now though, my talents are focused on the real gifts in my life...my children. Soppy I know, but it has taken me a long time and a good deal of therapy (another post on that subject), to figure it out.

Right. How did we do at homeschooling today?

Sam did really well. I also finally got around to getting rid of the Coco Pops that were encrusted on my coffee table, so  I would call that a successful day.

As it was another scorcher, we started off in the local library. 

At home, we kicked off with some tracing exercises.

Great job Sam!

We followed this up with some letter writing practice - E to H.



I read somewhere about using a highlighter pen to help guide early writers. It works well.

And then we tackled the dreaded sight words. I had an idea to cover them all up...

...then reveal three at a time. Too much information can distract Sam. It worked!! Sam was engaged and we worked on the letter sounds and blending. He was getting it and sounding out the words. Yeah!

To finish off I let him play with the 'Talking ABC' app on my iPad and he typed in all the sight words.

He loved it. A great way to reinforce the sight words and have fun.

Good job Sam!

I tried a different tactic for Math today - counting and matching numbers and number words 1 to 20.
(Excuse Sam's hair. We went for a swim between English and Maths.)

Sam had to match the number ping pong balls with the number word on the white board.

I made him close his eyes and swirl the balls around then pick one. He thought that was a laugh. 

Another great effort. 

To finish off we had a go had subtractions. We used wooden coloured rings to work our the answers. I pretended they were donuts and Sam was the donut seller. I would buy them and then eat some. 

No calories gained and we got our answers.

Zoe and Sam swimming after school.

It's Week 3 - and very hot!I

Today was a stinker! I don't mean the 'smelly' kind of stinker, I mean the hot, hot, hot kind of stinker. Do you want to know how hot it was? Robyn Williams as Adrian Cronauer in 'Good Morning Vietnam' (1987) says it so eloquently I think. Check out this clip.

It is Spring in South East Queensland, but today we hit 40 degrees celsius in our area. This does not bode well for our Summer. I am originally from the UK, but my parents immigrated to Australia when I was nine. I grew up not too far from where I live now. Back then, when the temperature hit 40 degrees celsius we were sent home from school. We didn't have the benefits of air conditioning, not even ceiling fans! 

This morning, instead of a playing in the park to start off our day, Sam and I headed to our local library. As we were driving my daughter Zoe to school, the temperature was already 27 degrees celsius. The park has shade structures, but I knew it would still be very hot. As it turned out, the library was a great choice. Firstly, it is air conditioned. Secondly, I discovered they have free charging stations for mobile devices and as it happened, my iPhone needed charging because I had forgotten to do it last night. Thirdly, and most importantly, you can use the library's computers to access a whole range of websites, including kids' learning sites! You log in using your library card number and then you have a 45 minute session. Sam chose a website called 'Literacy Planet'. They use it in schools and I had been looking at it for him to use at home, but there is a cost involved. At the library, we can use it for FREE! Great. They have a mixture of activities - learning, stories and games. So we used the 'one for me, one for you' method. Sam got to play a game, but first he had to do a 'learning game' of Mummy's choosing. We also read lots of stories.

When we got home, I let him have some chill time while I set up for our next lesson session. Like last week, I headed out to our entertainment area. Sam grumbled and protested for a few minutes, but I got him to work with me and considering how hot it was, he did really well. I decided that our next session, which was Maths, would be inside. Thankfully my home office renovation is 90% complete and all the desks and computers are set up. Sam loves Math activities, so this always goes a lot smoother.

We finished the day with a swim session. Thank goodness for the pool!

Today working with Sam confirmed my concerns with Sam's learning. Sam really struggles with letter recognition. He also finds it hard to connect the letter and its 'sound'. This really impacts on his ability to read. He is also very weak retaining his 'Sight Words'. I did note that he seems to connect letters with pictures E.g. if I show him the letter 'A' with a picture of an 'ant' and ask him what the letter is, he says 'ant'. Numbers come much easier to Sam and there are less protests from him when we do Math activities. He can match the numerical version of a number, E.g. 4, to the word 'four' very easily. He is picking up the concept of 'addition' quite well too. I really need to look at different types of language activities that will engage Sam and improve his understanding so that we can advance his reading.

I know Sam's speech and language delays have a huge impact on his ability to learn and communicate his understanding. He knows more than he is able to show us. 

Today we practiced our Sight Words.

And we read this book.

Sam playing on a Shapes' app.

Working on our Maths inside the house. Today we practiced our numbers 11 to 15.

 

Then we did some 'Addition' exercises. 



I let him play with the calculator and he loved finding the numbers.

Our last Math activity was a kind of number bingo.

Sam picked ping pong balls with numbers 1 to 20 out of a bowl. He then had to match them with the written word in the cupcake and say the number. He got 100%.