The Bumpy Road Way: I Can't Do It!

"I can't do it," cries Sam as he looks at a math activity sheet I had copied for one of his lessons. "Next week." Meaning, that looks really hard and I don't want to deal with it. Let's leave it until next week and then maybe you will forget about it.

This may surprise you, but these words are music to my ears.

Twelve months ago, when Sam started Prep, he had very little expressive language. He could understand a lot more than most people realised, but he was not able to verbalise his feelings and needs very well. This lead to frustration and behavioural problems. He would cry and physically try to avoid situations he found difficult. Today, he can tell me how he is feeling and I can help him with my words and actions. I tell him that I know it may seem difficult at first, but I am here to help him and we will do it together... and we do.

Last week Sam worked really hard. I was very proud of him and wanted to acknowledge his effort. At school, students' efforts and achievements are recognised with rewards, e.g. Student of the Week awards. I see parents posting pictures of their kids holding their awards, beaming and a little part of me feels sad. Sam misses out on that. So I decided to create my own reward system and last week Sam received my 'Star Student' award for 'Being a Great Learner'. He was chuffed.

Here is what we did last week.

More sentence building. I found this activity online. The coloured words make creating sentences easy and fun.

We practised matching our number words and numerals.

We spent time practising our addition skills (and writing.)

Shape activity sheets also helps with our writing skills.

We learnt about where rain comes from. Sam loves the You Tube video and song I found called 'The Water Cycle'. He can sing along with it now.

This week we started looking at shape patterns.

And in History, we looked at Sam's Story. Then...

...and Now. We talked about how he has grown and changed. Each year of his life had a story and a picture. Sam cut out the pictures and we matched them to the correct story to create a picture book.

His sister was off school sick one day so she joined in this activity. We created more art from our weekly sight words.

Beautiful.

This was a really fun art activity I found online - marble painting. You drop a couple of marbles into different coloured paint.

You drop the marbles onto a piece of paper in a baking tray...

... then you roll them around.

Marble masterpieces! Easy.

More sight word practise. This time he wrote them on the chalk board.

I wanted to assess Sam's understanding of letters and the sounds they make. His speech difficulties affect how he responds when I ask him what sound a particular letter makes, so I made an accommodation and turned the activity around. Each line had three sets of letters. I asked him to circle the letter that makes the sound....E.g. 'ah' for ant. Doing it this way, Sam was able to correctly match the sound and letter for each letter of the alphabet.

More number recognition practise. I shuffled the plates, placed number '1' on the ground, then asked Sam to find the next number as I sorted through all the plates in my hand. When I came across the correct one, he shouted out 'Yes', pulled it out and put it on the floor. Whilst he still has difficult pronouncing '13', he recognises all the numbers and knows what order they follow.

Making patterns a bit more interesting. We had toy soldiers and blocks to play with. I would start the pattern and then ask Sam would finish it. This meant he had to identify the pattern first. Not a problem.