I've been busy here at the pond dividing my time between home schooling, starting a business, and working with the IEP team to get Frog a new school placement by January. We were also feeling a bit under the weather last week so everything took longer than it should have.

Here are a few of our home school highlights:

I'm outing Frog on this one, but I thought using the letters he's been writing to write his name was a reasonable and important goal. I have a magnetic alphabet fishing game and we used it to "fish out" the letters in his name an put them in the right place. I sang about the letters in his name as we fished.



He was supposed to follow up by connecting the dots to write his name - but that was more than he was willing to do this first time out. I'm hoping as we continue with this game he will become patient enough with it to actually teach him how the game is supposed to be played.

We continued reading Coyote's Rain Song from our ENKI fairy tales. Frog seems to enjoy this story. Our composition book was not handy, so we used a sheet of tag board. He was able to identify the word CLOUD from the two words on the sheet. He copied the letters C and R with support and resistance.



We made a rain stick to shake while we sing the rain song from the story. I had Frog put the letter C in the Cloud (with support from me after we practiced making the letter C together). I had him put Coyote under the rain cloud. Finally I had him put dots (for rain drops) falling from the cloud (I helped him hand over hand with this). I had already partly assembled the stick, and had him pour the beans into the tube. I finished tapeing the ends and putting his picture on the outside.




Later in the week we read a new Baba Yaga story -



a Russian version of Cinderella. It is a rather long story, but Frog has listened to it twice already. I'm hoping to interest him in a little doll making before we move on from the story.

There has also been a lot of play time, running in the wind, and making music together. Today we went to Frog's new school and met his new teacher and the rest of his team. It went very well. We will see how things go in January when there are more rules and expectations to stay on task.

Day 35 - Back to Frog School

We started the morning with a decision. We had 4 more days left on our medication trial. I had reduced Frog's dosage back to 5mgs last week to see if having more time to adjust to the way his perceptions changed would make a difference. He continued to cycle between clam/lethargic to sensory overload melt down with prickly feet, large red itchy splotches, lots of tears and the need to go to his room and sleep it off. He also has gone quite manic every day around 4 or 5 pm, running and yelling non-stop. His therapists were very happy with his session yesterday, but still reported red itchy splotches and discomfort. Frog and I have really not had any quality home school time since we started the medication trial. This morning I decided we have had enough. So today was school without meds.

We started the day with Frog choosing pancakes for breakfast. He ate a little bit before we had to leave to take Diva to school. He ate a granola bar in the car. With a little prompting, Frog gave Diva something between a high five and a wave goodbye. At home we finished breakfast then headed downstairs for some Floortime. Frog wanted to climb up the mats against the wall. We turned it into a climbing and sliding game with an anticipatory 1, 2, 3, go! Later he moved to his swing. He let me move my body into the swing and add additional pressure for proprioception. We used the setting for requesting and working on the ee sound - with the choices "eat sweet feet?, squeeze knees?, or kiss please?" There was lots of Frog laughter, twinkling eyes, requests (offering me the body part he wanted pressure on) and ee sounds. We moved on to music and took turns strumming the guitar and singing/vocalizing into the karaoke machine.

Frog decided he would like to take a bath. This fit well into our school day, as stories work best for Frog when he has water to play with. Since today is a very rainy day and there are at least 4 more days of rain forecast, I thought rain would be a good subject. We re-read It's Fall and talked about the changes we've seen outside this week. Then I read Coyote's Rain Song, a Native American story from our ENKI folk and fairy tales. I had the pleasure of taking Diva to see According to Coyote at the Seattle Children's theater.



Gene Tagaban , the gifted story teller, brought Coyote to life for me. At the time, I really wished that Frog had been able to see the show with us - but I knew it was still too much for him. I must admit, I heard Gene's voice and saw Gene's mannerisms in my head while I told the story today. Frog and I both enjoyed it. (side note: If you ever get the opportunity to see According to Coyote performed or to see Gene Tagaban perform or speak - do not miss it!)

After I finally talked Frog out of the tub, we opened up the windows and doors so we could hear the rain. We also listened to the rain pounding on the skylights while I got our art supplies ready. Then went outside in the rain (and got almost as wet as Coyote) to do our art project - rain painting. I put a few drops of food coloring onto white paper plates and we took them outside into the rain. The rain bounced off the food coloring and splashed colors around the plates. Frog did not want to stick around for the "art" but rather ran around and experienced the rain bouncing off of him. He did come back and checkout the finished product.



After the plates dried in a warm oven, we used them for our lunch. Frog actually ate half his lunch today - including some yogurt WITH A SPOON (but only a little - he didn't want more if he couldn't use his fingers).



Frog also has a new box from Grandpa C.



Today, instead of using our composition book, we got out the markers and made lines and scribbles on the box.



We also discovered that when you push the box against the window, the box has a smaller window to look through - another perspective on the yard.



We finished off our school day with some more Floortime, including throwing and catching a ball - to musical rather than verbal cues. It is now 2:30 and Diva will be home soon. Frog is not having a melt-down and does not appear to be heading for a nap any time soon. Since we have had a week of sleep problems, I'm hoping this is another sign that stopping the medication is the right thing to do.