Thursday, September 25, 2008

Day Fifteen - BACK IN THE SWING

Frog took a couple of days vacation at Grandma's house while I attended the Pacific Northwest Institute on Special Education Law and fulfilled many of my continuing education hours.

He was a little cool towards me when I got home last night, but warmed up considerably by this morning. We got Diva off to school with a high 5 from Frog. When we got home, Frog and I played with the air walker swing going fast and slow, bumpy and smooth. When Frog was ready, we did a few of our HANDLE exercises.

We read the book Apples and Pumpkins. Frog was not happy about it. I used Rapid Prompting Method to ask him 1. Do apples grow in an Orchard or in a Store? He picked Orchard. 2. Did the girl pick a Green Apple or a Red Apple? He answered Red Apple (correct). 3. Did the girl find the pumpkins in a Car or in a Field? He answered Field. He was very upset about the whole thing. After several questions about why he was so upset - he said yes to "Are these questions too easy?"

We had a long talk about waving and saying hello and goodbye. About why we wave and what it communicates to the other person. We will keep working on this.

Frog indicated he was ready to get out of the house. We took a drive, got some lunch and headed for Safeway. We got our cart and headed back outside of the store. Frog was hanging onto the cart handle and riding by standing on a rail at the bottom of the cart. I stopped by a large box of mixed fall gourds. I asked him to find a green one. He did. Then I asked him to find a yellow one. He did. Then I asked him to find a really small one. He did. Here are the ones he choose:



I showed him a medium sized pumpkin and asked him to find a really large pumpkin. This is what he choose:




Inside the store I asked him to find the apples, then the bananas, then the grapes. He led me to each item as I asked for it. I asked him if Diva likes strawberries and he clapped "yes." I said let's find the strawberries. He took me there too. I said I needed two boxes. He patted one box and I put it in the cart. He patted another box and I picked it up. He'd spotted a third box, but I told him we had enough and he moved on. The only thing he couldn't find at the store, was the car after we returned our cart - but that happens to me all the time :0)

At home we went into our garden and checked on our pumpkins.



We also picked some squash and some cucumbers. Frog played outside, making mud in his water table, while I put away our groceries. Then we got around to making pumpkin muffins.



While the muffins baked, Frog explored our vegetable table.



I took out his composition book and wrote Pumpkin on one page and Vegetable on the other. I added the letters P and V in the lines at the bottom. I put the book in front of Frog, handed him a small pumpkin and said "Is it a pumpkin or a vegetable?" he set it on the word Pumpkin. Then I handed him a yellow squash and asked again "a pumpkin or a vegetable?" He put the squash on the word vegetable. We worked on the letters P and V, although I think Frog would have preferred to be doing something else ;0).



Frog spent the rest of the day eating pumpkin muffins and playing outside. He told Dad that he had missed school and was glad Mom was home.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great day! I love hearing about what you do with Frog. I've been getting some of the best work out of Daniel by using a composition book like you are doing. He hates it when I read stories to him, so we've been writing short stories (like a sentence or two) about things we've done or what we've seen and he draws a picture and copies what I've written. It's been working well and he lets me read it to him AND he's been requesting more. I wrote about seeing an eel at the aquarium and he wanted to write about more animals that we saw. Very cool! Anyways! I have an award for you over on my site! I love, love your new blog for Frog and wanted to give you an award!!

Frogs' mom said...

Thanks Julie - that is really sweet of you!

Really cool how Daniel will write stories with you - and request more - that is awesome!

Frog never used to let us read to him either - a problem since we use a story based curriculum. I tried shorter stories with refrains and sang the refrains. I read to him in a place where he couldn't leave but had some space away from me (the bathtub). And I persisted.

What I discovered was the first time I read a story - he fussed, vocalized, turned on the water - anything to distract me or drown me out. The next day, in the same place with the same story, he seemed to ignore me, but he played quietly with the water. By the third day, I knew he was listening because he was laughing at the funny parts. He could also answer questions about the story.

Now his complaint is that I read stories that are too babyish - so we are moving on!

tracey (aka rainbowmummy) said...

Mine likes to read his choosen book but as he has been getting books home from school e have to find ways for him to read them, I tried filming myself read a book.

The problem is the books he is coming home with, 2400 words??!!??! He is still at the very hungry caterpiller stage and his bedtime story has 500 words.

Anywayhope you had fun and I bet you are glad to be back in charge!!

Frogs' mom said...

Hi Rainbowmummy,

2400 words?! What are they thinking? Does the school have no interest in or no responsibility to see that he is able to access their curriculum and a meaningful way and actually learn from it? Is this just what all the other kids in his class are assigned so he is expected to keep-up?
If he is truly only able to tolerate the hungry caterpillar at this point - the other seems like a waste of his time - (Not to mention yours) - time that could be used to help him work up to an ability to handle a 2400 word story in the hopefully not too distant future. What do his teachers say about this? Do they see him reading at this level at school?
I am all for and appreciate a school who will have high expectations for a child with autism. But you have to support them to reach their potential, not set them up to fail.

Happy Elf Mom (Christine) said...

Hello!! Thanks for visiting me and leaving a comment! I *really* need to visit some of these links and peruse your blog a bit more when I get some spare moments.

Frogs' mom said...

Thanks Mrs. C,

I'm enjoying your blog too!

tracey (aka rainbowmummy) said...

Hi Frogs mom,
Just to point out, I am to read it to him...(he cannot read yet, but is doing well with letters, and we have learned that if I say the letters together b-u-s he can get it, hooray!!! and today he was telling me the first letter of each word in a picture book, more hooray!!! We do the sounds of letters, instead of the letter name.)
I know it is mad, after I pointed this out I got told that it was a choice exercise...I explained that fine he chose the book, eg he picked it up, but I am to read it to him, he is to do a book review on it, where knowing him he will say he liked something even if he hasn't looked at it. I got told tat they are "working on concentration levels..". WTF?! HE IS FIVE!!! The last two times he has come back with a much shorter book, and he has actually let me read them!! But thay have been soooo boring and use so much lang that he doesn't understand..We will see. I will hopefully be meeting with the teacher soon, I missed the parents evening, spent the whole night crying about that. My whole life has been on the last week. It has mixed up a lot. I must admit I am fussy with books, I sit in the shop and read everything, no one has bought him a book. The in-laws tried, lol. They soon learned,lol. Thing is I am not perfect but I do buy him books he likes, you know? I am sure it will all work out in the end. The funny thing is the book they are working on in school is Mrs Honey's Hat which I am unable to get, so I will need to send for it, is the perfect book. So I feel like saying "ok you read him 2400 and I will read him this and we will have fun, and do lots of activities from it", but if I say that they will tell me to homeschool, and like I said that is not for us, and it is a good school, just bad homework, lol. Oh I found a really cool blog, I shall send you the link, it is from a montessori teacher, pre school but I have found that I am desperate to try out the ideas with son(thinking of "egg" named after one of his first toys, not sure) and thought you might like to take a peak..
http://mymontessorijourney.typepad.com/my_montessori_journey/

Wow longest comment ever!!

Sue said...

Hi! I am so glad that you commented on my blog, so that I could find yours! You have such great information in your side bar, and I can't wait to check it out more as time allows.

I love the way you share about what you are doing with Frog each day. I got some great ideas. Your love for him really shows -- ust beautiful!

Frogs' mom said...

Hi Sue,

Thanks for the compliment. I'm enjoying your blog too.

Hi Rainbow Mama,

I assumed you were reading to him (although with some of these kiddos it is never safe to assume anything!) Still, I don't think Diva sat still for a full 500 words at a time when she was 5 - and she LOVED to be read to. It sounds like your son is doing really well with letters and listening all things considered. I hope you can work things out with teacher so you can read the "interesting" books at home!
:0) Nothing worse than boring homework - no matter what your neurology has to do with it !!!!!