These are pictures of the school room, some of the children’s books and the crafts/resources for school.

I am using the first sheet to help with their overall day and to write down any great things/issues we had for the day. At the end of the day they bring this sheet to Daddy so he can see how well they did. The other sheet I use as a physical schedule to show Daniel so he can check off what we have done along with taking down the picture from the schedule board. It seems to help him solidify what is going on and make smoother transitions to the next thing we are doing. I also use it to write down what I did specifically for sensory, if there were any specific books they enjoyed, the science experiment we did, if it went well or not and any other things that would be helpful or good to remember. All three of them like these sheets and they like having direct interaction with what they are doing with their school work. We talk about our day, what we liked best and what we didn’t like, that information also goes on these sheets. There are a lot of other pages that go along with these sheets. I am keeping it simple though we are only in Kindergarten.   I found these sheets here:

http://www.autism-society.org/site/DocServer/School_Handouts_2.pdf?docID=15401

http://www.autism-society.org/site/DocServer/Handouts.pdf?docID=15381

The daily schedule only changes if I need to add that we are going somewhere, I keep breakfast, lunch and dinner all the same. If we are going to Church I will add the picture right after the breakfast so they know we are leaving after breakfast. If we are going to class on Wednesday night, I will put that picture after dinner so they know we will go then. Things like that. I keep it next to the calendar because I also put up pictures on the days on the calendar that we are going somewhere. I have an additional calendar underneath to help me remember what the date is. The school schedule I keep pretty consistent with the picture sheet above but add things to it as well and show that to all of them so they understand that I have changed something but that we will still do everything on the list from the sheet.

The chore charts! These have been great in getting Daniel involved in doing chores. Ariel and Joshua were already doing it because their obsessions have gotten out of control and we told them that we were not going to buy them all the things they wanted to collect in world. We opted to go for “earn money” and buy it yourself. They have been really good about this but now that we have the new charts they are really excited. Daniel now has an interest in helping out, cleaning up toys, clearing off his dishes, helping with the laundry and many other things that he just would not do before or he had no interest in until he started doing it with Ariel and Joshua. Including him in things that I hadn’t before has made a difference in his attitude also, not in a bad way, he is actually telling me to let him do it and to stop helping him. I think that is a huge for him, especially since a few months ago he would refuse to do hardly anything himself.

There you have it our schedules and the school rooms. Pretty exciting stuff! I think these have made a huge difference for all of us. I haven’t gone into detail about Ariel and Joshua but they are thriving on this system as well and they all seem to be very grateful to have it bring more order and comforting in knowing what is going to happen each day. I don’t know if other people are having the same issues as we did with the pictures, the clip art/cartoonish pictures not working, but if you are and have given up I say give your own pictures a try to see if that works. Keep on thinking of new ideas, not the norm, think out of the box and keep looking/researching in places you never expected answers. There is no set way of reaching our children we just have to reach out to them and try to understand what gets them motivated and interested.

I have pictures of them doing school from last year so I have used them.

They are working very well and now that the actual pictures are mixed in with the clip art pictures Daniel has been able to visualize himself doing them. I also found chore charts at Target for $1.00 each and printed out pictures of chores, how much they are worth and a tally sheet under each of them so they can see the amount of money they have earned. Also in each denomination so they can see how many $.25, $.50, $1.00 etc… they have earned to help them with some math skills. I placed Velcro on each picture so as they get older I can  change the pictures of certain chores or add different ones as they are capable.

These seem to really help Daniel and Ariel has now turned into a tyrant about following the schedule.

I decided to try something else new also,  to try to help us get through school days without as many rough patches or these guys loosing interest. Ariel loves school and will go all day but the boys, well it takes a lot more effort to keep them into doing it. My plan? Well I decided that we would get up and get ready as if to go to a “real” school. We have to have breakfast, teeth-brushed, clothes on and waiting on the bus by 8:30 am. (We are doing good at 8:45 or a little later but it’s a goal.) Then I put on my bus driver hat and get into my pretend bus, driving around the house while Daddy is waiting at the bus stop with the kids. I pick them up and we go to the front rooms, that is our school and they are greeted by “Miss Angel” their teacher. It took a little while for Daniel to comprehend but he gets it now and thinks it is great. They all love it. They raise their hands and say “excuse me, Miss Angel”. I think it is a great way to help with the imaginary play.

They seem to have a different respect for me as well while I bear the name “Miss Angel”.

This has been going very well, along with the schedules it has made a huge difference for Daniel in his school day. He has completed all of his work each day, has been sitting still and listening. He has been asking me if he can go get a toy instead of just running off and leaving us with no explanation, he is even coming back and sitting with us again. The other day he was fixated on a toy and I couldn’t get him to stop so I decided to use the toy. We were creating things out of geometric shapes, Daniel wouldn’t join us so I asked if I could see his toy, reluctantly he did let me see and I suggested he use it to create something with the shapes. I then started it for him and he said “No, mom I do it”. And he did,  for the remainder of that time he created things on his toy while we created things on the floor and ready-made design sheets. I am now recognizing when he has hit his limit with work and I just wrap up school for all of them at that point.

I do a pretty scheduled school in the morning and then after lunch I go with the kind of Montessori method.

I basically just read my kids, their moods, their interests, and then I use those things to push them and guide them. If they want more, I give them more,  if they are tired of doing something, then we quit. Trying to force them is not good for any of us. I am really pleased with the results for all of us. We are all much calmer and enjoying ourselves much more. I do know that it will probably change and that nothing is set in stone. However, I am amazed at how much Daniel has been so receptive after changing the schedules to actual pictures of them doing things. I tried before and gave up on picture schedules because he would look at them and stare. I would explain it to him and he did not want anything to do with them. What I been doing is using verbal schedules and then showing him pictures of the actual thing we were doing or where we were going.

I noticed he was much more responsive to this.

By doing that, adding the social skill curriculum which involve video and pictures, I ultimately came to the conclusion that I should do picture schedules as well using our own pictures. The social curriculum’s are doing wonders. Daniel has started talking much more and having conversations with David, Ariel, Joshua and myself. My mother came and took him out for a little while the other day and she said he talked to her the whole time. He asked me what exclamations points were, what periods were and why were they at the end of sentences. I have to tell you that is another thing that I never expected. There are times when I come to the point of thinking his form of communication is not going to include talking to us and then he pulls things like that out of no where. He amazes me every time. I am thankful to have him use his words.

I am also very thankful that he is beginning to be able to express his feelings.

Since the social curriculum, he has started to comprehend some of the things he is feeling and able to tell us what upset him. The social curriculum has helped all of us. I am learning  just as much about my feelings and how other people express theirs as the kids are. Who would have thought a singing dog could help me to understand that “It’s ok when things don’t go my way”. LOL! It’s not just a singing dog, we are using some pretty great resources that I have already written about in my post Social Skills and Autism Learning Helps . I also know that many boys who have Asperger’s tend to show improvement by the age of 6. Daniel will be 6 in a couple of months and I believe this past year has been very crucial for him to learn to communicate and for us to understand his way of learning, communicating and expressing himself to help him be able to communicate with us as well.

Actually, every year will be crucial, I am still learning how to live in this world.

Art is a very large part of my life even though I do not draw or paint very well I guess my art would be writing.

Not that I have achieved any kind of professional sense of writing in my blog or with my poetry it is still a creative avenue for me to express myself and I consider that to be art. I would say any form for a person to express themselves, is art. My mother is a painter, seamstress, she crochets, restores anything, can create some thing amazing out of a card board box. I did not receive those  genes. My father is gifted in music, he taught himself to play keyboards, guitar, bass guitar, the drums, along with other instruments (those are the ones he uses most though) and learn to play without reading music.

I did not inherit that gene either.

But having them be such amazing artists gave me respect and the understanding that the arts are very important. Ariel has naturally picked up the paints and any form of drawing instrument, then creates some very imaginative works of art. All of her art whether on paper, construction paper, wood or rocks all have very detailed stories and reasons behind the creations. Joshua does as well and he is now beginning to use paints and drawing instruments also. It used to be only through Lego’s or blocks, though he still does use them he is expanding with his art forms.

Daniel has yet to really get involved with art for a long period of time.

On most occasions he does not create things without my prompting other than graphics on the computer, although he has surprised me a couple of times. Even though he has not taken it on he has overcome many sensory issues through doing arts and crafts. I believe he will be more of an instrument guy, he loves music and his favorite instruments are the guitar and violin. I am hoping to get one of those soon for him. Our plan is to save for guitars for all three of them. I am sure I will be writing my music curriculum at some point as soon as we get the resources. Currently we are using music and making our own instruments.

This leads me to some of the curriculum items that I am using.

We purchased this last year and it has proven to be a great investment. http://www.madcaplogic.com/

We ordered the online edition. Not only are the characters  funny and enjoyable for the kids, but it also contains curriculum that goes along with each section. I use the short clips and the projects then expand with doing other art activities or expand on information about the artists. We all like it and we recently purchased the Art Studio as well it is from Crayola. We got it on sale at Amazon. We find a lot of deals on Amazon from our gluten-free foods in bulk to books that are really cheap. Along with the online art items we have several books.  I like this book because it uses books with it and I use it not only with books but also along side with the Creativity Express.

Teaching Art with Books Kids Love

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Amazing-Art-Activities-Williamson/dp/082496795X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282057065&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Great-Artists-Hands–Children/dp/0935607099/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282057150&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Storybook-Art-Hands–Children-Illustrators/dp/093560703X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282057112&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-101-Animals-Green/dp/1842297406/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282058700&sr=8-1

I also use the web for whatever theme pops into my head, I just google my thought with “craft/activities” behind it and away I search. I also have these books that I found at garage sales. They may have them at half.com or goodwill online auctions.

They do have it used at Amazon pretty cheap. http://www.amazon.com/Book-Crafts-Better-Homes-Gardens/dp/0696216922

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Arts-Crafts-Grades/dp/0769685579/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282058138&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Kids-Arts-Crafts-More/dp/0743932005/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282058262&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Usborne-Internet-Linked-Childrens-World-Cookbook/dp/0794500986/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282058455&sr=1-2-spell

I put the cooking one up as well because cooking is as art to me also. Each culture has such a variety of foods and I find it fascinating. Though I do not try a lot of different foods, on occasion I will. I have been trying to venture out more though to help the kids try new things also.

I don’t think we paid full price for any of these. I have my wish list on Amazon and then I go searching various web outlets, garage sales, thrift stores and home school sales. There are usually home school sales around here in the summer, along with the library’s book sale and teachers also pull together and have book/curriculum sales. I check as many of those out as possible. I do have quite a hefty collection of resources but I am not just stocking up for now, most of these can all be used at least up to second grade, some further on. I do have to confess here,  it is one of  my special interests to research curriculum and I do stim by searching out bargains for my wish list. I usually do not pay more than $3.00 for a book, with the exception of the autism resource books we can find them at pretty good prices but they are still a lot more than I like to spend. However, they are not things we can live without so I have to get them.

We are currently using Aha! Math and I have it posted on my Back to Home School post as well but Daniel does really well with it and he is able to focus longer on it than if I use worksheets. I am really impressed with the EasyTech lessons also they are really great.

I have been using this site for several months and I do like everything I have tried so far. They give some great insight as well.

http://autismclassroom.com/home/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

We currently have this book on order which I found on their site. They are on Facebook too and give great resources through that.

http://www.amazon.com/Classroom-Students-Autism-Para-professionals-Administrators/dp/1442175915/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270955942&sr=8-1

We have not purchased this one yet because Daniel is so much of a visual thinker but he also loves music so we are trying out other ones first. It still looks like a great resource.

http://www.songsforteaching.com/store/tuned-in-to-learning-volume-1-social-skills-pragmatics-cd-boo-c-420-p-1-pr-1353.html

These books are all on their way.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1885477910/ref=oss_product

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1931282811/ref=oss_product

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470434082/ref=oss_product

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470230800/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Also awaiting arrival is this dvd that seems like it will be a bit of fun for the kids.

http://www.noteabilities.com/

I have looked into to this one as well but currently we do not have the funds to do it. We can find books pretty cheap but  we have to budget for subscriptions. I do like that they give free video clips each week that give ideas, how to’s and tips.

http://www.rethinkautism.com/default.aspx

I have looked into this one as well. It looks very good but we just do not have the funds for it.

http://www.watchmelearn.com/

I am constantly researching and looking into resources and curriculum to use and I feel that it is very important that I do so. I guess at some point I really should write reviews on them but I really wouldn’t put them on here unless I thought they were worth wild. I also may not agree with some of these points of view about autism but to me that really doesn’t matter any longer. I do not have to agree with people to use their resources that are very good and can help my child. I believe that even though there may be different points of view about the autism issues, we all have the same goal, to help our children and do what is best to help them have a wonderful life. My two cents and now here is another resource link.

http://autism.lovetoknow.com/Lesson_Plans_for_Autistic_Children

I have used this one on several occasions.

http://www.positivelyautism.com/links.html

We found books through National Geographic that are awesome!

Now that I have all of this curriculum I have to put it all together for the year and make individual plans for each child. I really enjoy doing that but I do get overwhelmed when I start to put it all on paper. I don’t get overwhelmed by the work, I get overwhelmed by the not knowing if the kids are going to get it. If they don’t then what? It actually seems a ridiculous question because all of the kids are up to their grade level and above, when I did their assessments that proved that to me but for some reason I have these thoughts that they will lose it or something. I don’t know what it is really, I just get concerned that I am not teaching my kids the best and the truth is right now it is the best for them to learn from home. I am more than willing to let them go to school if we find good ones, but where we currently live it is not an option. I know I can do better and the kids are thriving, I just have a little doubt once in a while.

Now on to the curriculum.

Last year we used Sonlight and I really liked that as a core and we decided to get that again. I like how they use literature rich teaching and the Kindergarten core is focused on history. It uses time-lines and maps to connect the countries and adds different cultures. I respect this Christian curriculum because it does not make a focus on evangelizing, they incorporate multicultural ideas, their religions, children stories from the different cultures and moral tales. It is very important for children to know that there are other faiths and cultures out there, especially children on the spectrum, even adults. I have had this really click for me in the last few years through reading to the kids and stepping out to learn about different faiths or even no faith at all. We want our children to understand this and respect others, you cannot care for a person if you automatically believe that they are wrong or that you have to convince them of your beliefs. That can actually apply to a lot of things not just beliefs.

We really like Sonlight’s Science also because it is Science focused.

They have focused on critical thinking skills and implementing the Scientific Method. We like that they do not throw a scripture in there and say God did it all, that is all you need to know. They are really teaching Science for this age level. David being a scientist is a real stickler about it and of course we will be supplementing with more science activities, the kids really love doing experiments. Then we have the language arts and reading. They have some really great reads in there. A bunch of Dr. Suess, 1 2 3 Reads, My Father’s Dragon which I have been wanting for a very long time and many other books. Ariel is already reading at level 1 and she picked up one of my books the other night and started reading from there. Now she didn’t understand it all but that was a first step. Then we also got several Calvert curriculum items, reading books, math and intro to computer/skills. We also got several art and music items. Along with the social skills set I think we will be doing pretty well. I have more things I do for the social skills. You Tube has a ton of videos and autism sites have clips or free resources and I am using those as well. I am pretty excited about this year, I get so excited watching our kids learn and connect to their world.

It is even better when we all connect to this world at the same time and have a family “Aha” moment.

We had purchased the Pre-K and K Handwriting Without Tears this last year. It has worked well for the boys Ariel has been writing for two years and she has it down pretty well. Now she just practiced writing words a lot. The Calvert items include several Houghton Mifflin Reading books, Kindergarten and Grade 1, Computer skills and applications Kindergarten and Grade 1, McGraw Science Text Grade 1 and a Math manual. I am looking for their music curriculum set at a good price right now it’s a bit too steep. We found a lot of these items on Ebay and got really good deals. I like Calvert and Sonlight both very much. Where one is lacking the other seems to have, our plan is to combine them as much as possible to get a well-rounded education for the kids.

Some of our other finds.

Through Home school Buyers Co-op we are using Aha! Math and EasyTeach. The kids love them! These are used in the Calvert curriculum, but they are good on their own.

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Book-Everything-National-Geographic/dp/1426203373

http://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Visual-History-World/dp/0792236955/ref=pd_sim_b_2

http://www.amazon.com/Theories-Everything-Illustrated-History-Science/dp/0792239121/ref=pd_sim_b_4

http://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Essential-History-Mythology/dp/B003V1WE3G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281451890&sr=8-1

I am beginning to understand that I cannot make people understand what I mean so let it go.

Most of the time I cannot articulate what I want to say anyway in physical conversation, I do much better in written form. I have been learning about this whole social underworld that is going on and has been going on right under my nose for my entire life. I had no idea that people were saying things with their face or their arms or that they do not tell you what they really are thinking. I mean I had my suspicions but to read other people’s words describing these rules that I was unaware of but knew something was causing me confusion, has made a lot of things make sense for me. It has also made me very aware of my inability to understand these things and teach my children about them. In the past few months it has been more obvious that both Ariel and Joshua are on the spectrum and I would venture to say that if we took them in to be evaluated they too would be placed somewhere on the spectrum.

The older they get the more obvious it is that they do not understand the social cues nor do they see them.

As I have been observing this, I realized how I need to do something to help them. I have been researching social skill curriculum for a while but never really understood the point. However, after seeing the kids around other kids and adults it has made sense now. As a child I was taught certain things that were a social must from my Grandparents and my mom. My Grandparents were the picture of Ozzy and Harriett and they taught me those kinds of things. I was demanded to respect my elders, say hello, be polite and when I said things that were inappropriate I was punished. I learned from that, I didn’t understand why but I understood that I would be punished someway. I have not done that to my kids. Of course I do not allow them to talk back or be rude but I also understand that there is a difference from truly being rude and saying what you see or feel.

The problem is the world doesn’t think that way.

SO I have taken small steps, one of them was the dvd curriculum from Model Me Kids and I like them so do the kids. We are also getting Social Skill Builder to help with this stuff. We decided that learning social skills in our family is just as important as any other curriculum. As I have considered these things I have taken a look in my past and even now, I now understand that during my school years a lot of my issues with school and learning had to do with my social stresses. I skipped school, I quit school (I went back), all through elementary school I was tardy over a 100 days each year and missed at least 10 or more. It’s a good thing that they didn’t send a truant officer back then! I did well in school when I didn’t have social stress but the majority of my school years were filled with social anxiety and confusion. I believe had I been given these kinds of skills I would have been better equipped to do school and do well.

I want to give that to my kids.

I know that I am only capable of teaching them from my perspective and that will not help them understand how this world of social underlining works or how to behave when people act a certain way. One of the things that has helped me is to finally understand that people are not purposely mean and many of the things that I feel are mean or unjust they do not. I may not understand it but now I know that, which has helped me to let things go much easier and quicker. I am finding that the social skill books and curriculum are helping me as well. I have tried social stories, free ones right now but I have looked into them and used them on several occasions. The problem that both Daniel and I have are that they use pictures that are cartoonish or like clip art. He has a hard time transferring himself into the situation so to him it is just a story with a picture and it has nothing to do with him. I totally understand that, what is the point of telling me a potty story using a bear??

I have decided to take the stories and use pictures of Daniel.

I have made several books with his picture and pictures of actual places or things that we use or go to and make a social story. He really likes this. I have taken pictures of him with a great big smile and used it to apply to social stories that he has anxiety about to help him apply that emotion to the experience. It has worked with the couple of them I have made. I am going to make a potty one next. I couldn’t understand why the social stories wouldn’t work at first because all of the things I read the people claimed that the child finally got it or it had changed their lives and brought great understanding but not for us. Needless to say I was discouraged a bit but then it dawned me that as I read them and looked at them I found myself rolling my eyes at the pictures or thinking this is silly. Those thoughts made me question why and I discovered that the pictures were a problem for me, I couldn’t envision myself with those pictures so I thought that Daniel may feel the same way.

And he did.

I have been trying to be creative in teaching these guys so another thing I have been doing is video taping our family time and role playing situations. I am making videos of us taking turns playing games, meeting someone new, doing school those kinds of things so that alongside the other curriculum that shows other children and families doing this they can all see us doing it too. I believe that this will help Daniel be able to envision himself. I hope so. I watched a video of a mother who had done this and thought it was a very good idea.  I have been making videos since they were born and they all love to watch themselves so I figured we could video tape our family being ourselves and use it to teach social skills. I am hoping this helps our children gain the knowledge of the social goings on that I never knew about and the ability to understand that not everyone thinks like them and that it is ok.

I also hope to instill the courage in them to be able to say ” I just can’t socialize today” and to feel perfectly fine with that too. (I am working on that one still.)

After their creations had dried, we set up our room and had an exhibit ready for showing.

David was our guest of honor. All of the kids were so proud of themselves and loved showing David around and telling him how they did it and what inspired them. They named all of their creations and I made cards with the titles and their names. I dressed up and served chocolate covered bananas and water, we are on a limited budget. We are a museum in need of serious funds.   This was a great day and I plan on keeping with the theme each month doing a new exhibit, next month I think we will be doing a dinosaur exhibit or maybe Lego’s, I haven’t decided yet. Maybe I will ask the kids what they want to do and go with that.

As we did each project I was amazed at how much Daniel really wanted to participate.

He did have to take a break for a while then come back and we all hit a bit of a sensory overload because of all of the textures, smells, drawing, gluing, and cutting. Overall though it went very well. There was a moment when I felt helpless watching Daniel trying to draw his butterfly. He was trying so hard and getting frustrated. He was using a picture diagram to help do the drawing, the struggle between his brain and his hands was both familiar and painful. He almost lost it but I rubbed his back and told him that it was alright we can try again and I turned the paper over and asked him if he wanted to try on this side. He did and I have a picture of his butterfly below. I told him how proud I was of him for trying and it was a great butterfly.

Here are some photos of the exhibit.

I am very excited to see what he does next.

This leads me to what I think has been huge helps for him, the homeschooling that we have done and the many books that have played a role in helping me mesh a plan for us as family. I believe all the different factors have made life for Daniel much better and he seems a lot more happy and he is definitely more involved. Before I list the other books that I have been reading, I want to share another experience. I have always read to the kids and for a while I felt that I did not read enough, so last month I decided to start a monthly calendar tally of the new books we read, not the re-reads they don’t count, and every day we put the number of new books we have read on it. Then at the end of the week we see our total and at the end of the month we see our grand total.

I found a take home sheet from a school for parents to be more involved with their child, they suggested 5 books a month.

You have got to be kidding me! Five books a month, I thought to myself, I read that in a day if not more. I know I am a home school mom, so I have more time than other parents but still only five a month, that seemed to be very little to me. That is what prompted me to make a monthly calendar, I wanted to see what we average on our new book reading spectrum. Last month we read 62 new books, not including the re-reads, with the re-reads we were well over a 100. This month so far we are at 52 new books. We have already jumped up because the kids love this. So we are reading new books and doing activities along with the books and making up our own stories, talking about the characters, we are all really getting into this and I think that has helped Daniel want to be more involved in all of this as well. Not to mention giving them larger vocabulary to add to their repertoire, Daniel has increased verbally since I started this. The difference is that I got them actively involved in the book picking and activity process. Before I was telling them what we were doing, now we all participate.

I just thought it was interesting and I plan on continuing my experiment to see if it is just a word spurt or if Daniel truly has decided to take on a more verbal role. We’ll see.

Here are some great resources I have been reading.

http://www.amazon.com/Color-Autism-Toni-Flowers/dp/1885477570/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271072662&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/OASIS-Guide-Asperger-Syndrome-Inspiration/dp/1400081521/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271085676&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Books-Grow-Childrens-Everyday-Challenges/dp/0974802573/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271085896&sr=1-1

So here are some pictures of our week and some of the things we have created together.

There are some of Ariel’s paintings, our valentines that we created, Lego village that Joshua made, Daniel’s invasion of the kitchen table with all of his possessions that he needs surrounding him, (it is driving me crazy, complete chaos) and then our story adventures. This makes me happy. We all had a lot of fun and looking at these pictures helps to remind me to not be so serious all the time. Just sit back and enjoy life. (click on the images to make them bigger)

Simple is good and I just have to get to the point where I accept that there are some questions,  that just cannot be answered and I cannot allow other people’s ignorance or lack of wanting to understand take hold of my life. I gave this post the title for one very important reason, I really like saying “chick-a chick-a boom boom”, it makes me laugh. The best thing is when the kids and I march around the house reciting this book and make up our own chants as well.

Chick-a Chick-a BOOM BOOM!

The hardest thing for me is that the sensory input that Daniel needs happens to be the very things that sends my sensory issues into a tail spin. It has been really getting to me lately hence my expression of hate toward chalk. I want so much for my issues not to effect my children and I try very hard to do what I need to so I will not be irritable and have a melt down myself. I prayed the night before “God please help me spend the whole day with the kids, please help me just sit and be able to focus”.

My prayer was answered.

I was able to just sit and focus most of the day. I caught myself a few times running over to the computer and getting sucked into researching something but then I would realize what I was doing then get up and walk away. There were differences throughout the day though. Such as Daniel playing with Ariel and Joshua in the morning while I was getting breakfast ready. He continued to play with them after breakfast. Then he had enough and asked for a bath. After his bath he took a little break on the computer.

Ariel asked me to read a bunch of books that was not on our school schedule, I chucked the school schedule and went with their flow.

Joshua had asked me to play with him with his action figures and we all did. Daniel was still taking a break during lunch but he continued to come out and play a little then go back. During this time David had found a really cool online art program and we purchased it. (I have been looking for art curriculum and supplements.)
Here is the link: http://www.madcaplogic.com/index.php It was fantastic we all sat at the computer and learned about hue,variation, saturation, Issac Newton and how he used music notes for color. And on and on.

Then came the spinning color wheel.

Daniel wouldn’t stop and he started to get a bit aggressive so I had to stop the art lessons. I had Ariel and Joshua play together then I took Daniel to his room and sat with him. He was angry and hitting me so I just started to sing and clap “what does Boo want mommy to do, huh?” Over and over again I sang it and he jumped on his bed then he started laughing. He ended up singing it with me. When I could see he was going to be ok, we went into the living and played with Ariel and Joshua.

He snapped out of it!

The great thing is he can tell me colors on a color wheel and knows that if you mix colors you get other colors. We will work on the fact that the color wheel is not just for spinning but the big news is he was able to come out of it and let the color wheel go. All of that plus we had an adventure at Target too!

Side note: I really do not like sharing about Daniel’s melt downs. It breaks my heart that he goes through them I have been able to discern the difference between a melt down and a tantrum and I am handling them both the same way. I try to get a sense of his feelings that day and either just sit with him while he works it out, sing, get him focused on a spinning thing, or some other toy. I do whatever I can to help him get back to the state where he can show me what he needs or let it go. As with everything some days work better than others. And we take it one day at a time. He is such a sweet boy and afterwards he feels so bad I just try to support him as best as I can. He does not mean to be agressive I sometimes can see him struggle with trying not to.

I can totally relate because I have done the same thing my whole life. I wish I would have had some one help me during those times instead of fueling my fire. David is an incredible support for me and has helped me a lot in this area. So I guess you can say I have learned how to help Daniel through David’s love and patience.