hide-n-(sensory)-seeking

Yay! I'm so excited! September starts off another year of music for me! This is now my fifth year with the all-volunteer orchestra that I play in. We had our first rehearsal this past week. And this year brings about some great changes! One of the biggest is: no more summers off! I am very happy about this because summer generally spells b.u.m.m.e.r. for me. The oppressive heat and humidity keep me hibernating indoors in the air conditioning.  And while I could easily take out my instrument and challenge myself, I am inherently lazy about playing alone and always have been, so my poor violin barely gets air all summer long. But no more! And bonus! We now get to rehearse twice a month year round. That means nice long quiet drives all by myself (or with friends who need rides and are not fighting over the radio being on, expounding on the intricacies of lucid dreams, or making me sing the same song forty times in a row. That is what car rides are like with my kids,...

We seem to loose a lot of playing cards around here, which means we often have at least one incomplete deck just laying around not getting used. So I have taken a hand full of the number cards and combined them with decorator beads, which we also have dozens of all over the place, to make a simple matching/counting activity. Kit already loves lining up these beads and sorting them, so I think she will enjoy using them to place one on each shape on the cards. Then we can count them together. For the big kids we can use these as math flash cards to practice adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, and even a good visual aide for fractions.

I'm still working out a number of kinks in our school schedule. Last year, the kids had a lot of independence in their school day. I gave them their assignments, if they didn't already know them, and their only criteria was to finish before they could have their screen time after 3:00. We still did some subjects together, and experiments and such, but I didn't regulate their time strictly.  This worked very well last year. It freed me to focus on Kit's therapy and sensory diet, and was flexible enough for the crazy hours that I was juggling constantly. The kids rarely ever had more than 3 hours worth of work, but had all day to complete it, with plenty of opportunities to ask for help when needed. Zak especially responded very well to it as it allowed him to have a lot of control over his own daily schedule. He knew exactly what to do, but had ample freedom to choose when to do it. Grace still needed more help, but she did well too. She is not as much of an ...

For the entire month of August, I just didn't let myself think about it beyond the facts. For the last two weeks, I just focused on anything else that took my mind off of it. Over the weekend I was busy getting things ready, so I was too busy to think about it. Tuesday came. Miss V came. It was a good visit, with laughing and smiling, and questions asked and answered, and Kit played with her, and smiled and made us laugh like usual. But it was different, and we felt it. I didn't let myself go there, because I didn't want to break down, not that it would have been the first time in front of her (nor the second, or third, or even fourth probably.)  And then it was time for her to go, and we took some pictures, and all the kids hugged her, and I held Kit on my shoulder on the steps so she could wave goodbye until Miss V is out of sight like she has every week for at least five months. And then we closed the door, and Kit went on with business as usual, beca...

So last weekend while all of my kids were out of the house, I rearranged and reorganized the kids room, part of our room, and the living room. So school work itself was pretty light this week since I was still doing a number of touch ups on things. In an effort to maximize storage and access to frequently used items, minimize clutter, and keep Kit from demolishing all of the big kids treasured possessions, we made some changes to the bedrooms.  Before After After swapping the girls' dressers, we then had room for lockers. Yup, I found lockers on sale at Home Depot online, and it was a very helpful solution to fix several problems.  1.) They gave me a place to put Kit's school supplies, without it being open shelving, which is irresistible to Kit. Out of sight, almost out of mind, is a very important rule with her.  2.) It gave me a place to put away, but still have within the big kids reach items that Kit is not allowed...

Three and a half sheets of construction paper and a lot of stickers! I folded the sheets in half and drew two letters on each half, book style. I marked a starting point for each letter with a starter sticker. The idea is for Kit to outline each letter with stickers. Though I don't expect her to do them all in one sitting. Even just one letter requires a good amount of concentration, so these are great to pull out to work on a letter or two, and then put away for later.

I found these two articles a few months back, and they were really really helpful in validating some of what I already knew about my kiddos, as well as reinforcing the path we were on with them. And they turned some new lights on for me as well. Just like it's important to know our child's best learning style, we should also get to know how they best understand rules. This may seem straightforward, and in many ways it is. Rules are rules right?  But when working (and especially, living) with individuals on the Autism Spectrum, rules and rule following can get a little bit more complicated. For example we have some hard and fast rules in areas where many families probably get by with fairly simple reminders. Such as? Here are a few of areas I never envisioned having to "lay down the law" in: You WILL shower at minimum on Tuesdays and Saturdays, no later than 4:30 pm. (Zak still pushes this rule nearly every week! Just this past Tuesday, he ended up owin...