Easter Quickie update

We are enjoying easter more and more with every year, as the boys become more engaged in the idea of celebrating in seasonal ways. We went for a trip to a park we have only been to a few times, which included a long walk on the boardwalk, the need for splash pants and mittens. Much discussion about snow melting and nature's changes. Spent some much-needed time together, cured a bedroom of a mysterious monster, and watched the boys fall asleep together. Calm, relaxed, and early bedtime. SO and I had a wonderful stew, and we made some new friends. Today we have small gifts and hope to spend some time outdoors (weather-providing). A trip out of town to visit Grandpa soon!

I love to include sensory toys in the easter basket, here is a big hit this year.

                                                                         dizzy bunny

The magic we share and try to demonstrate at easter is the miracle of change. Snow melts, and small versions of intense weather shifts can be seen everywhere.. try imagining global warming, or natural disasters on a much smaller, preschooler's scale. The run-off from the road, falling in the mud. Green sprouts appearing, animals coming out from hibernation, forgotten about during the cold months. Renewal and fun. The rabbit is a symbol, but we don't do the easter bunny. Tomorrow we'll have our own version of an egg hunt.

I gave 'A' an assignment the other day, we played with a potato head and he had to show me the proper places to insert all the pieces. I learned, he knows basic anatomy. No pain, no tears.  Later I showed him the doodle pad and he was interested in the stamps, and scribbled once, independently. We also learned that he likes yoga and martial arts far more than I had ever expected. During tantrums, if you bring your hands together, centering yourself, and as a bonus let out vibrations from deep inside.. he brightens up and giggles.

Practicing mindfulness at the start of spring has brought along so much focus and presence when we play outside. It is helping 'A' acknowledge and interact with others at the playground, when he normally would have avoided them and played where he could be left alone. 'D' is accepting of others whizzing past, and doesn't lose balance or focus on his own intentions. They are joining us very slowly :) I'm absolutely certain it  could be rushed, there are many who frown upon my determination to take this very slow. I have faltered along the way, perceiving the expectations of those around me to have a higher valuation than my understanding of what seems to benefit these guys the most. Overall though, encouraging them to be mindful and ensuring they know they will get their quiet solo time daily, has helped us keep a pleasant equilibrium while helping them to develop their own abilities to regulate emotions.

Teaching 'A' about implementing manners in everyday communication is something I'm tackling ever so slowly. I have always been discouraged from this, even with 'D'. We've never had anything but positive responses from people when its used however. Manners, please and thank you, counteracts many socially inappropriate incidents, which is what I value most when we are in public. 'D' found success in JK without prior experience in a school setting, when he had a teacher that acknowledged and appreciated his etiquette skills. Manners quickly grew to encompass mindfulness of the needs of others, respect of boundaries, and acknowledgement that with age comes understanding, creating respect for elders. We invested an intense amount of energy into this, so that school would be survivable.. it did benefit everyone involved up until values were being taught by the school and not the home. Which brings us here today.

I have experimented with vastly different approaches, methodologies, subject areas, and group activities, hoping for some idea as to what they would be more successful at in a small group setting, with specialized social reinforcement, and what challenges I can truly overcome, disregarding what I have been lead to believe by the service community we are involved in. This aspect I found to be the most telling. To this day, I have not found another family in our set of circumstances, who have made the choices we have made; this creates a brand new journey for me, one which I am nervous about carving out.

hidden treasures

           

Nearly 6 months ago I started introducing the idea of putting toys away. I won't argue (much) with my children, especially when it comes to an exasperating challenging behaviour. In this case, our home looked like the inside of a large toy bin 24/7. Now the messiest toys are locked up in the pantry with a child proof cap on the door handle, and in containers that 'A' is unable to open independently.

We transitioned to this SLOWLY. Step by step, so he didn't have to feel like his 'precious' toys were being taken away, also so that he could tie the two concepts together of tidiness and ease of fun. If we tidy up it's much simpler to bring out another fun toy, right?! It turns out he finally agreed, and now we are working on having him help put toys back in the bin. Huge difference from the days of any container is for dumping, and any decoration was for shattering on the floor.

The best part, is he also has to ask and cannot acquire independently. He is fully capable of making requests, but it has taken us some time for him to generalize the emotional connection of asking for help and it being there when he needs it.

With 'A' we follow a primarily child-led lifestyle of learning and development. He stresses easily, so steps have to be broken down even further than another child, such as 'D' on a good day.

Night and Day

The differences between night and day seem vast, as do the differences between 'A' and 'D'.  Homeschooling the both of them at the same time, is an experience in discovery and understanding. They learn differently, retain differently, and their challenges manifest in completely different ways. 

        

'A' has a tendency to sleep terribly, to be honest he wakes every few hours, comes into our bed, and still wakes every few hours for a drink. If he is sick he wakes twice as often; sometimes calling for an evening nap that stretches nearly to our typically scheduled bedtime. So I've decided to take that well-rested and focused energy and midnight skill training ensues.

His love for balls goes way back, it is the only toy he'd play with functionally as an infant and toddler; we managed to expand on that with balloons, and introducing spinning wheels on trucks as being 'round like a ball'. We are not afraid to use stereotyped stimming activities if it means progress in another area, we're also not afraid to help that game to grow with them.

He has poor attention management skills. So we are working on this. The games usually are, how long can you keep him functionally engaged in an age-appropriate game, regardless of his other skills. This usually lasts about 10 minutes. 5 minutes per game, if it goes past 10 minutes he loses focus, can become dizzy and resulting in a safety risk to himself (pure clumsiness). [we are waiting for an ENT assessment for middle ear issues.]

We play gesture games, he communicates his wants by exchange objects, pictures, or modeling for us to the best of his abilities. His nature pushes the modeling and sign language is something we are starting to find a way to inject into our home life. Not in any traditional means, but as an aide to speech. More importantly he is making increasingly sophisticated attempts at modeling for us to copy for him. He is starting to understand how to copy us in order to get the same results. Marching to his own beat at all times, we're showing him its fun to get to know the music of others and to find the harmony between the two. 

Please, Thank You, and Realness

We don't do this enough, and when 'D' was in school we never did. That is practicing mindfulness. How do you teach preschoolers with an abundance of energy, and moderate to severe autism to meditate, find calm and be mindful??

Our most peaceful activities have been sitting together playing with a toy that required assembly of some kind. I had no idea what this was leading to, but soon enough this sort of intention and activity is what I turn to when we drift apart, need to recover from some bad moments, unwind or celebrate holidays.

Really, any game or toy can be transformed into a medium for connectivity, it really can be that easy. Some simple principles that work are:

• relying on nonverbal behaviours to communicate
• express the need for calm and consideration to others' sensitivities and needs
• a common interest that can be accomplished by all
• desired by all; forced participation doesn't seem to lead to generalization
• intentional interactions 
• sharing compassion without physical contact
• encourage downtime

We teach manners in the same manner, and whenever we are in more energetic and busy activities. Older children with autism and some adults are notorious for having attitudes, expressions, or behaviours that are not socially appropriate, offensive, or just plain rude. Teaching Please and Thank you has given our kids tools to be more socially acceptable in any mood. They still have their moments, but the goal is to express emotions and explain our challenges and behaviours as opposed to acting-out. 

Everything isn't always cotton candy and rainbows however. We do our best to keep the mindfulness intact even when angry or in the presence of meltdowns. After flare-ups or arguments (we do encourage the kids to have a voice, and to respect that right in others) we always calm down and address what happened, with hopes of sorting out the issue in some way. 

Curriculum Material - part A

Our respite worker or my homeschooling EA as I like to think of her, has come back into our lives on a semi-regular basis. So with this I am able to take a more active and unschooling approach to our curriculum.

Thus far our curriculum is consisting of road safety (spring is here, we are going for walks more, and the temptation to run and play increases); reading; drawing; manners and mindfulness; as well as math and arts.

Road Safety is an easy one, we go outside daily, usually walking, practicing following commands, and social games that focus on awareness of the environment. With 'A' we are emphasizing the need to turn to an adult before escaping from his senses by running away or having a meltdown in the street. Much of this is using Verbal Behaviour practices.. often known as ABA nowadays. 

Leapfrog's Tag Jr. reading system

Scholastic's Reading System

For Reading we tried Tag Jr. from Leapfrog and the boys were immediately interested (we love books) particularly because they had some based on Disney movies such as Toy Story and Cars. However that's as far as it went. They were 4 and 3 when we got it, so I am certain that was far too old for this. We appreciate the introduction to independent reading systems though!

Next came the Scholastic's reading system which I found for cheap on kijiji. My oldest loved the pen, but had no interest in the stories. If it's not a cartoon he knows, it needs to be about dinosaurs, wildlife or robots.

Leapfrog's Tag Reading System

I am truly excited about this. I've explored the whole product line for this and am thrilled to say they have an awful lot of resources for a mom such as myself who is homeschooling kindergarteners. 

Tag

Vtech Stencil and Learn Studio

I have actually played with this, a perk to buying new toys for your kids, especially if they have low tolerance to frustration, being able to show them what to do immediately can help alleviate that. I got this to help with writing and drawing anxieties. I'd like to emphasize drawing.. as I might have mentioned before, the perfectly uniform representation of the alphabet has scared off my kids from practicing formation. I don't blame them, wait until they have to read a doctor's prescription.

organized for indoor guided learning systems

Today I finally finished sorting and planning learning activities and lessons for Monday-Thursday. With our scheduler app I have assigned to-do lists for each day, and the reward is the same. video games and movies. 

I have 3-5 subjects to be covered in a day, regardless of how many toys are in the seat. 

The beauty of this is that it can be done for ANY curriculum, if the contents are motivating enough, it can be part of unschooling as well. It's the organizational strategy that I feel is the subject here.

These comfy seats each hold one day's worth of activities, games and lessons. 

Each Day has a focus on one subject area. Although there are a lot of options for the boys to choose from based on their mood. Our goal and plan is to get through exploring the seat by bedtime. [This is Monday's] We have a container of little figurines, some light exercise weights (for following along with mommy) most of our kids books, puzzles and more. 

The way we play when its intentional may be something to be discussed. We follow these principles when playing and learning:

• his fine motor skills might not match his intention
• be careful of distractions, but if some are needed for background stimuli, take note of it
• follow their lead and provide insight or encouragement as they explore
• most of these kids have special interests in line with academics, as well as heightened anxieties
• if you are not having fun, neither will they
• if we make learning fun they will be able to retain it, not lose it.

Some reasons for my organizational system,

• I am prepared ahead of time for a full week
• The contents are carefully selected so that I know I have done what I can in a day if I go through the whole bin
• I have set aside 25 minute increments for each activity, this includes working through emotions and generalisation
• There is stuff in here that peaks the interest of each boy, but we can do together
• I've taken into consideration physio, OT, speech, social, relationship building, generalization, and opportunities for working through frustrations and anxieties. (I'm sure there will be many)
• That being said, the main reason I've restricted adult-guided learning to what is in this bin, is due to the anxieties and communication challenges. 
• If its not reaching them, you're not reaching them.

Tips! if you choose to follow any similar practices...

1.  know your children's interests, toys, skills, talents, and comfort zone
2. accomodate their comfort zone and desire to learn by melding the two, if they will only look at books about lightning mcqueen, that shouldn't stop you from using mcqueen activity books and so on.
3. when they are comfortable, try introducing new concepts or items, depending on their anxieties and sensory concerns.
4. Discover why your child does what he does when he does it. Learn it. Praise it. Move on from it.
5. if you can afford it, provide new items and games in these bins, so you are not using their special toys and you can be sure you are making the most of your time.
6. time wasted on boring toys and books is time wasted. 
7. incorporate the subject into your life as much as you can. if it doesn't fit, then it may be poor timing, and introduce it at another date if needed. 
8. technology is a blessing.
9. If all else fails and math is simply not happening on that day you set aside for it, go out and do something fun, counting the lines on the sidewalk or watching for patterns in life. Math like all other subjects are all around us.

The best part of all of this, is that its hidden away. we are free to play in the room and its all easily stored away... no chance of mess or getting used up during their own play time.If they choose not to participate there are no repercussions, simply no rewards. (would be a good idea to see how motivating and desirable the activities truly are)

If you have therapists or specialists coming to your home, encourage them to utilize what is in these storage bins, not only does it check off your to-do list, but gives you more opportunity to focus on being a parent and having fun.

As soon as you start seriously homeschooling, make sure you have plenty of opportunities to be active and engaged outside of the house. 

Thinking about homeschooling?

Step #1

Give yourself space to deal with your emotions away from criticism, challenge your own inner critic. If you need to stray away from the standard education format, this will be a necessary step eventually.

Step #2

Decide how you want to educate your child. Formal lessons, or life experiences? somewhere in between? a little bit of this and that? how on earth do we decide or label our inventiveness?

Step #3

Find out what the state/province's laws and regulations are about homeschooling. Meld your ideas and these rules together.

Preliminary Checklist:

• review your child's latest records from the school
• review your child's latest records from any therapists or specialists
• immediately begin contacting those services to see what can be done for homeschooling (in most cases this is treated as a separate scenario altogether).
• make sure you have informed the school and the school board
• inform any other services that are involved, and don't be afraid to be loud about why.
• prepare some school materials to start experimenting with lesson ideas and your child's skill set

Now Smile :)

rebound from a bad day

Today I want to share something about bad days, days which follow major meltdowns or escalated behaviours where anyone involved is not equipped to deal with in a proactive manner. These days can be daunting to us, postponing progress on current goals by 3 to 6 days at least, and sometimes those goals get lost and we have to change up the pace. So today I decided that this doesn't work if I am going to be actively homeschooling and being therapeutic. The bad day was yesterday, it does not have to be today. I have found an awesome way to capitalize on special interests and rewarding the positive behaviours. We can look past the mistakes and meltdowns if we just create more positivity.

I recently found a sticker collection book at the drug store, licensed for Angry Birds (convenient!). Now for remarkable feats of good behaviour (unexpected and/or self-initiated mindfulness of others) 'D' gets a sticker in his album. He is the type to be very possessive over his belongings, and needed a collection. This seemed like a good start in both directions. Currently he is quietly examining this book and all of its empty squares numbered for further stickers. This is his first one, and he has the personality that will get more in there as soon as he realises what was the catalyst in himself, by then I hope to have enough in supply.

Another part of his day, his renewed interest in retro cartoons. So we sit together and chat about what is happening. An admirable trait he has is that he will converse but in doing so he gives questioning looks, hoping for a correction of his vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. He wants to be understand of course. So these moments of togetherness and a subject ahead of us, gives plenty of opportunity to have these conversations where the material is concrete, there is a story being told, and we have images. Perfect for our fairy tale creative little 'D'.

1st Grade Math

Here, we have our introduction to first grade math. He would be in first grade come September, so I'm eager to see how he does with this over the summer. With academics he's usually on target with skills and age appropriateness, so if he goes beyond that, we will all be very impressed. Particularly if he retains his creativity and imaginative play.

to know if he understands, is a very different world.

Most importantly, the apps we use to communicate back and forth are crucial to our everyday life, and has encouraged more speech!

mytalk tools

The really nice thing about this AAC app is that its as versatile as any of  the more expensive ones, but you build it yourself from the ground up. starting from one or more squares per board. 

Choiceworks by Beevisual

a schedule board, feelings board, and waiting board maker

can be used as a to-do list where the child chooses their own reward.

Teacching preschool 2013

How do you encourage ABA styled learning but at home, on a budget, or without the strict structure of intensive intervention programs. Well, I use my son's ipad. Or, to be more honest, he does. Here are 'A's learning apps that he uses right now.

autism pioneers 

Webteam Corporation: Shanesh Colours
Look on itunes under webteam and I guarantee you will find an entire collection of apps supporting the knowledge base that is expected of children 0 to 6-8.. or more depending on your state/province's curriculum guidelines. The alphabet, colours, multiplication, even social skills training.

Super Why! 

It's such a relief for all of us, that 'A' can now interact and respond to those teaser questions the characters pose, but nobody has been able to truly respond to via the tv.

Pepi Bath

awesome priming tool for toileting readiness, brushing teeth, bathing, and laundry. 

it's also fun to play and is a current calming activity.

Aim for more than you are being told

I am definitely not an expert, barely an expert on my children (they know why they do what they far better than I ever will) but these resources get me through. I strongly encourage anyone to check these out, and become familiar to what may work for you and the vocabulary to seek out what you need.

• AIM - Autism Internet Modules. A FREE resource do-it-yourself certificate based program that contains all the most commonly used clinical and not-so clinical treatments and therapies for teaching a person with autism.
• MAT - my autism team. The social networking and support building site for everything and everyone related to autism, in north america. A personal favourite of this blogger. *cheers to anyone reading this blog from that site. 
• AutismSpeaks - a great resource to sample toolkits for your biggest challenges, news source on biomedical interventions, and inspiration to proper care and treatment for your individual with autism. So much more.
• CBT - a massive resource for treatment of anxiety issues through cognitive behavioural therapy. Regardless of diagnosis, I am absolutely certain this site will be of some use to either yourself or someone you know.
• PositivelyAutism - This one I frequent often, even if I haven't used the resources, I get great inspiration from their free downloads of social stories, motivational and behavioural tools, not to mention they offer courses in many behavioural issues, directed towards caregivers and parents, as well as support providers.
• Floortime/DIR - the place to get all the information you'd want on implementing a play-based and child-directed program, intended to function with all other therapies you have going on. The principles behind this program follow through to adulthood.
• TEACCH - a well recognised physical and visual assistance treatment program for any and all ages or severity or autism.
• AutismWeb - a well organized resource to help any parent sort out the confusing mess of  therapies, and to go back to time and time again.

Most popular TV Today

Typical of this time of year, I'm wanting to get out of the house and be busy and active, while the boys want to hunker down and wait out the last cold snaps of the seasons. They will most likely clamber to go to the park and play outside 2 or 3 times a day when the snow has melted and it is warm enough to wear a sweater without a coat or jacket. For now though, we try to meet in the middle and go out when necessary, and rediscover summer fun indoors, with slides, and swings, and beach toys. 

Another issue that comes up this year is their reluctance to be social outside of immediate family, particularly if it means going outdoors to get there... 

We do however, and I have found some necessary tools in myself again (rediscovered every year and with every challenge) to help soothe the transition of spring again. Spring and Autumn can be hard on them, but with many more outdoors homeschooling adventures in the near future, we will curb that, and be able to hold onto that information for next year.

Leapfrog (Math Circus)

I adore this series, as much as I adored the toddler and infant toys they grew up with. If you find something that works, and happens to grow with your child, why not do what you can with it. 

Waybuloo

This became more popular in our home when they both hit preschool age, way too young to understand or accept the possibility of self-regulation, but this has helped. We will be going to kids yoga very soon.

Magic School Bus

Intro to Science at home for little 'D', a little bit too advanced in language, but we will be introducing another big kids science show very soon, meet their developmental ages in the middle.

Lazy Friday

When they were young, I found cartoons and shows for the dvd player to introduce concepts, social values, and academics. Now that they are older, I often appreciate what resources we've found over the years, and bring us back to basics again. Not regression, but simplicity.

So today I feel as though I need to pay homage to the few selected kids shows that have literally coached my children (and myself trying anything to make those skills come out).

Super Why!

So engaging, helped me teach 'D' his alphabet and encouraged him to want to read, speech therapy and anxiety deterred him so often, but special time with mommy watching this brought giggles every time, would snap him out of his stupors. stories and play are not always enough.

Bo On The Go

Just last week I saw an ad for this amazing kids program in a ParentsCanada magazine. When APD and reflux symptoms sprung up on 'D' as an infant, this would put him to sleep. As a preschooler with his toddler brother, this got all three of us on our feet, giggling, and most importantly, certainty that we are all interpreting the messages on the same level. 

Pocoyo

When 'A' was young, this was his favourite. This would be his special program we'd all join in on, and he could demonstrate interest and would cause so much discussion in our house. Made an appearance on his 2nd birthday cake. 

Spring is Here

A big part of my plans with homeschooling is making sense of the lessons they are learning. If I'm not following their lead, I'm offering examples of what we can learn, in our own home life. Being adventurous with what we have, is turning out to be a magical lesson for all of us.

Here is today's natural science experiment.

Tiger is modeling for us today! in 5-10 days we'll come back to this. What a way to introduce digestion with animals, nature, and plants.. I wonder which area he'll be most interested in, I suspect we'll be learning about cats a lot over the next few weeks.. and the magic of spring as well.

Multitasking Mario Bros.

Today is an off day, little 'A' has slept much of the day, but he sure seems to feel better for it. There is a nasty congestion and headache bug going around, I myself had trouble getting out of bed this morning. But I am more inspired daily with the success and the growing comfort of homeschooling that 'D' is having with me. He is finding that he is more 'able' than his insecurities have been letting on.

What we did here is we had a colouring page, where we covered the lines with playdough for a bumper rim, and coloured by number. He could focus on the skill and not what colours go where. He did amazingly well. He wanted to be more creative, but realized the lesson was about confidence and colouring, not whether he can connect marker tip to paper. I tried to take it a step further by labeling body parts but he said that was 'too much'. My cue to give him a much needed break. But hey, we did math, colours, and fine motor in 20 minutes.

A week at a glance

	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
Morning	-----------	OT	ST	OT	ST	OT	PT
afternoon	ST/PT	SI/ST	FT	SI	FT	ST	PT
evening	FT	PT	ST	PT	OT/PT	SI	FT

I've read that unschooling children with autism can be a beautiful and peaceful experience, which makes sense because they tend to be very strong willed with their interests and goals. If you go against these, you face meltdowns or worse. I've witnessed my children in both 100% adult-led or child-led environments, and scenarios; neither of which had positive results, however may seem so at the time. My oldest attended school in a contained class with a higher level of structure than is seen in typical kindergarten classes today. We saw him come home exhausted, dissociated from family life, and uninterested in anything but video games and tv. I've also read about how many children with autism crave structure and cling to it for personal security.

This here is the framework I'm starting with to ensure that we cover all our autism-related treatments throughout the week. Notice there are no times listed. That's because we must stay flexible in our home. If there is a meltdown, it could take some time to cool things off. If a child is having a sick day, activities and lesson plans need to change.

* FT stands for Floortime. This is when we play With them, and make it as engaging, comfortable, and a learning experience. In this area I include activities such as playgroups and home group games and play. Also for expanding their adaptability to different ages, personalities, and roles. Learning to express in traditional extroverted ways, that are generally acceptable and understandable by everyone.

* SI stands for Sensory Integration. (my anxieties typically revolve around this aspect) This is where we focus on sensory issues, and living normal lives in and out of the house, gaining awareness of self and regulating responses to the environment. This is a big deal, no matter where they go they will always be around people or environments that will not agree with them. Positive responses, respect, and expression of needs.. HUGE challenge, but so worth it.

* ST stands for speech therapy. This is a given, we work on expressive language, social skills, and reward with receptive language skills (story time, cartoons, music, etc).

* PT stands for physio therapy. This is simple. Being active, and conversely being calm.

* OT stands for occupational therapy. We all know this one, the dreaded fine motor skills. Some kids don't mind it, mine have the strongest aversion to this.

I use this system as a reminder of what area of play or learning I need to focus on training. This is the autism part of my homeschooling program.

A break from life.

"look mommy!... mommy come look!" a muffled voice came from the toy bin of stuffies. When I got to him, I found an upside down child with feet wriggling in the air asking for help while giggling.

My kids, beyond the typical experiences of children, are measured on their knowledge and emotional well-being. It's unfortunate that such invasions occur, but not a whole lot we can do about that.

So far some strategies I've used is to arrange craft sessions and try to motivate them to participate. For the most part this has failed. They are boys true to the cliche. It's Tonka trucks, block constructions, or physical activities, or you just don't get to be a part of their personal space.

I've followed a lot of principles and practices passed on to me by the teachers at the school, from ABA providers and even educational assistants. I feel like I wasted my time on these efforts. I want to know what is IN them so I can help them get it out and grow in that way. So back to the drawing table. If I'm going to help make assessments more comfortable for both the therapist and my children, we have a lot of work to do. Simply put, they have so much life in them. They have so much focus. They have so much social energy; for their intentions and desired learning curve at the moment.

Back to basics however. We are of course doing math problem sheets, reading books, getting exercise, and learning language; This doesn't mean we spend our day doing just this.

I wish this were as far as the complexity goes for me. I am seriously considering putting both my children in IBI. My oldest is waiting on the next child to be discharged, so he may take their place. During this time, I am meeting with officials and therapists from all corners and levels of the community's publicly funded ABA providers. At this point in time, I'm getting informed on the program, this particular center's services, and of course what this means for us as a family and him for his education, well-being and future. I don't foresee many obstacles to his future, he has very few challenges, but those few make matters quite intense for him much of the time.

an assistant for me to help make measuring up, fun.

Here is today's math/fine motor work. My first personalized homework. May not seem like a lot, but building confidence over time is important to me. He wrote half of this independently, I'll make the next sheet more motivating. 

'D's - D! Paint is an awesome adhesive, great for limiting mess, and avoiding mess-related sensory challenges.

It's not Diggy Diggy mommy, it's Minecraft.

I last posted in September. So let's catch up. Way back when (feels like a year or more already) little 'A' was pulled out of school for poor transitional skills. We are still unsure what happened, our investigation was short-lived and unsupported by the school, hence why we simply brought him home and have continued our skill-building here. He hasn't gone back. We are in discussions with the school board in regards to re-integration for both of my boys, yes I said both. We decided to pull 'D' out for poor adaptability and signs of regression. The start to Christmas break was a momentous time for me, in January, after failing to get cooperation from the school in regards to our minimal requests of constant communication, we signed the papers for the school board, and he's been detoxing since then.

Many days went by, I cried tears of frustration, sadness, bitterness at the world, and some of joy. Ironically, all because I couldn't bare seeing my children go through that alone themselves. I spent countless hours googling every curricula known to modern man, as well as many approaches to connecting autism and society, some weird and wacky, others more traditional and dated, and everything in between. Over the past few days I find myself exactly where I started when I was considering enrolling them in school for the first time.

Our homeschooling adventure begins here.