J's turn

It only seems fair that I should write about the sorts of things that J is doing these days, given that Zoo Boy was in the spotlight last night.

J continues to enjoy drawing on his magnadoodle, cranking out dozens of pictures a day, which disappear almost as quickly as he creates them, making it difficult to capture them on film. In this particular drawing, he's working on multiple meanings for the same word (one of the current target exercises he's working on in Speech and Language Therapy). Here's two words -- note (a person singing a note of a song, and a note that you would write to someone), and letter (a letter you mail in an envelope, and a letter of the alphabet).

Speaking of SLT -- his SLP and he are both loving working with each other. (In fact, he named her as his favorite teacher recently -- when I said "hey, what about me?" he just laughed and said "you're just a mother!" Hmmmm....) I also adore the SLP, who is gearing up to go for RDI (Relationship Development Intervention, the Autism Remediation program we've used so successfully with J) Consultant Training. I've given her complete freedom to try out any RDI concepts on J, and she seems to be having a blast with him. And I couldn't ask for a more compatible approach to J's lingering language issues.

More and more J's art projects are veering away from simple drawings and "flat" media to 3-D creations. Origami is one of his big favorites -- here's a combination of methods -- he folded an Elephant's head out of paper, then added a drawn body.



He's also taken his magnadoodle drawings into new realms -- here he put the magnadoodle in the sunlight coming through our front window, and he's drawing the outline of the shadows created by objects on our nature table. The finished picture was interesting, but I thought the experimental process of getting the picture was even more fascinating.




One of his big interests for the past 6 months or so is astronomy. He reads in his "Atlas of the Universe" almost daily, and regularly follows up on project suggestions from the book. (I'm not sure the age level the book is intended for, my guess is Grade 6 and up. But he's having no problem at all with the content, and honestly, I've learned a lot from him retelling me what he's read.) His interest in all-things-space has also spilled over into his art work -- here is a magnetic mosaic creation depicting the stars and the Milky Way Galaxy. It's the actual structure of space that he's interested in -- the stars, the planets, the galaxies -- and the legends that surround the constellations that relate directly to the lore of peoples on our planet. He's not shown much interest in space travel or the possibility of life on other planets yet. He's very much looking forward to a meteor shower that will take place in August (or so he tells me -- The Map Man has confirmed that it does indeed happen then, so I guess we'll have to arrange that). He's already said that he wants a telescope for Christmas, and I have no doubt that Santa will manage to get one under our tree.

So I mentioned his reading. His writing is also taking off and getting stronger and clearer every day, without any formal work on it at all yet. (That will come this coming school year.) Math-wise he's got a great grasp on addition and subtraction, and a rudimentary understanding of multiplication and division (although he wouldn't know what those words mean if you were to ask him -- but he understands that to group 12 items 4 ways, you'd have 3 items in each set, or that it takes 4 sets of 3 to make up 12). All of that will be addressed formally this coming year as well.

He can also count money and make change (although he still has no particularly interest in accumulating money, or using that which he has to buy anything -- I guess that's kind of unusual for a 7 yr old, but he doesn't ever really want anything, he's always quite happy with whatever he has). His musical interest is, for the moment, on the back-burner, although of course he still sings daily. I have no doubt that his passion for musical instruments will return and we'll cycle through another musically-intense period of time at some point in the near future.

And here's what J likes doing the very best of all these days. Lying in the grass with a buddy (in this case his friend R), looking up at the sky, seeing pictures in the clouds and daydreaming.

And honestly, I don't think it gets any better than that.