the big show

After several months of preparation, this weekend was the youth chorus's big show. Here's our little man, J, during his solo, belting out "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" for all the world to hear. I took a video with my cheesy little camera, it remains to be seen if it's worth viewing or if I can manage to get it up here on the blog, but I'll fiddle around with it a bit tomorrow and see what can come of it. These really great photos are courtesy of my Dad, with a REAL camera.

The show was fantastic, and had everything a big production should:


Singing...










...dancing...










...drama...














...and a really big finish!!

The kids were talented, the scenery, lighting and sound were fantastic, and the director is just plain amazing.

Word has it there is a spring production as well, and you've got to bet we'll be all over THAT!

winter adaptations

The kids each had classes at the local children's museum this week with the awesome Ms. Sarah, where the topic was how animals adapt for snowy weather. Meanwhile, Mimi sent up this holiday card (our first of the year!), which illustrated the week's science theme nicely!








J in his class, "Migrators and Hibernators", where they played games about migration, hibernation, and getting ready for winter in general, as well as creating a snowy scene where active winter animals are camouflaged.



Zoo Boy played similar games in his class "Do Animals Wear Winter Coats?" In this photo, they are discovering how a layer of fat (in this case a glove on one hand) helps animals stay warmer (than their uncovered hand) when immersed in a bowl of water filled with ice. Just like how seals stay warm when swimming in icy arctic waters.


Here's both of the boys' snowy camouflage scene. J's in on top.













While each boy was in class, the other participated in a "Meet an Animal" program (Zoo Boy met a Chinchilla, while J met a Guinea Pig), and then both boys sat through one more program about a Ball Python, which they can be seen petting in this photo. They also got to spend a bunch of time playing at the museum with other kids, and Zoo Boy tagged along with the rockin' Ms. Rachel as she cleaned and fed the animal room inhabitants, as he often does when visiting the museum. He's lucky Ms. Rachel is so tolerant -- I'm pretty sure he slows her down to about half-pace when he's there asking questions and insisting on being involved. But hey, that's why she totally rocks!

Dear Santa,

the search for the magic lake

Startled from sleep

By the singing sparrows,

Sumac smiled with joy.

A fine fan of feathers,

For far flight they gave her,

To save the sick young boy.

-from "The Search for the Magic Lake", a Incan Fairy Tale (adapted by Enki Education)

After making some adjustments in they way we're doing things this block, we started the week with "The Search for the Magic Lake," a Fairy Tale from the Inca Indians of Ecuador. I used a few of the kids' dollhouse dolls and a handful of silk scarves to illustrate some of the key moments in the story, and the kids did an amazing recall the following day. Here's J's story drawing. My two favorite things about it are the title (wrapped around the helpful sparrow), and Sumac, our heroine, using her magic fan to protect herself from the alligator who threatened to eat her.


Here's Zoo Boy's drawing. He asked me to help him with the background, and had me write the title (too many words for him to even want to attempt it), but the drawing itself is all his. If you haven't figured it out yet, the letter "S" is embedded in this drawing (the shape of the sparrow), and both boys immediately located it when we reviewed the drawing today.


The boys' letter "S"s. Zoo Boy was being silly again, and was obviously having difficulties forming the letter. Not too surprising, given that he still has trouble crossing his mid-lines, and the letter "S" is quite the exercise in mid-line crossing.

J's verse. What's interesting about this is that he started out NOT writing anything. He complained that he was tired. He spent a lot of time adjusting his pencil grip, counting the lines on his page, and dawdling around in general. I asked him what he was doing, and he told me "Thinking about things." I suggested that he COULD think about writing his verse. That got him started, but he was yawning a lot, and being silly in general. After the first two words, which took him about five minutes to write, he was gazing off into space and obviously poised to make no further progress at all. I startled him out of his daydream, by asking "What are you doing?" a bit sharply. He literally jumped and said "Oh, oh, I'll write my verse!" He then wrote the next word in all capital letters, but then settled down and did the best writing he's done since our first block. He wrote at a good clip, formed his letters well, and planned out where he was putting them, and seemed quite pleased with his work. It took him less time to write the entire verse than it did for him to write the little bit of the last verse he did. Interesting. We'll see what happens during our next story cycle.

My story picture. (You'll note my girl is NOT being eaten by the alligator!)

I was well pleased with how this story cycle went. I just wish we were starting another one this week so I could compare. However, given that J has dress rehearsals and chorus performances for the next several nights, keeping him out working hard well past his bedtime, I know better than to try to plan anything that requires concentration for the rest of this week. So it's another half-week for us. Next week we'll wrap up this block.

adjustments

Over the past few weeks, I've seen the need to make some adjustments in how we're doing things. Our last Adventure Circle was producing too much of what you can see in this photo -- J participating in the activities while Zoo Boy watched from his "watching chair" (the designated chair he can choose to sit in rather that participate -- he has two choices, participate, or sit in the "watching chair", so that he at least is not disrupting J's participation). While utilizing the "watching chair" is good for management, my goal is for him to want to participate in at least enough of the circle activities for him to be getting some sensory benefit. And our last circle there wasn't enough he was willing to partake of.

I also think the circle was too long (took about 45 minutes), and didn't have enough proprioceptive activities to meet my kiddos needs. Hence, I stayed up late one night at the beginning of this week and wrote a new adventure circle (which I posted yesterday), about 20 minutes long and chock-full of proprioception, to try to better meet the kids' needs. Given that Zoo Boy said "Can we do this adventure circle forever?" after doing it the first time, I'd say it was a success.

I also changed the perspective of the story -- I made it a 3rd person tale (starting with the familiar "Once Upon a Time" from their Fairy Tales) rather than 1st person. That is something that I remember being recommended in our Enki Education Guides, but initially my kids seemed to respond better to a more direct first-person approach. Even with the 3rd person approach, J quickly identified Zoo Boy and himself as the "two boys" in the story, but it seemed like an exciting discovery for him, and I like the effect.

I also implemented another adjustment that I had been toying with the idea of, but was actually pushed along by the kids themselves. When I sat down to read them our story this week, Zoo Boy said "I liked it when you used the pictures to tell the story that we didn't understand, " referring to the retelling of The Evil Giant when the boys didn't "get" the story after the original telling, at which point I used silk scarves and a few dollhouse dolls to illustrated the tale as I retold it. At the time The Boy has commented "it's like I can see pictures!", and it occurred to me that this might augment comprehension for both of the boys, but there is a danger in "helping" too much with the comprehension -- after all, what we're striving for is developing their ability to create their own "pictures" in their head from hearing the story.

However, once Zoo Boy requested it, I decided it was time to try it out again, this time with the first telling. So I did. And during recall the next day, Zoo Boy was a very enthusiastic and active participant -- the simple illustrations I provided (and believe me, they were SIMPLE) obviously had a huge effect on his comprehension, which was as I suspected. What I didn't anticipate was the effect it had on J -- not in story recall (which he has been doing just fine with), but with his approach to play after I had read the story. He immediately gathered scarves and dolls and acted out the main themes from the story. Not exactly the way I had told it, more his own version of creating the tale from the base storyline. Which caused a huge light bulb to ignite over my head.

In RDI, we refer to this type of assistance as scaffolding -- providing just enough help for success to be achieved, but not so much that there is no individual development. Clearly, my use of the silks and dolls to aid in telling the story helped J devise his own creative play. And given that creative play is a weak point for many kids with Autism (and J is no exception), sometimes it needs a bit of a "boost".


I've seen this type of play from J before -- in this photo from this past weekend, he is using his stuffed animals to put on the show that the Youth Chorus he sings with is performing at the end of this week. But I've not seen as much in relation to our curriculum stories.

So I'm going to continue to use simple "props" to help tell the stories to the kids. It's scaffolding story comprehension for Zoo Boy (who naturally would have a bit of trouble understanding stories designed to be listened to by 1st graders), and it's scaffolding creative play for J. A win-win situation if I ever saw one! The only thing I need to be careful of is to make sure this is serving a developmental purpose and does not become just entertainment for the kids. As with all scaffolding, my goal will be to fade this type of "aid" as time goes by so that they are eventually processing the stories on their own simply from listening to them.

perfect gifts adventure circle

Here's the details on our new Adventure Circle. I'll explain why I switched circles so soon in a later post, but for now I just wanted to get this posted in case others can use any ideas from it for their own holiday circles -- I'm kind of proud of this one.

All verses/songs are from the Enki Education Movement curriculum, either the Kindergarten, indicated by a (K), or 1st Grade, indicated by a (1G)

Call: Round and Round (K)

Once upon a time there were two boys who wanted to find the perfect gifts for the people they loved.

Opening: Simple Gifts (1G)

So one bright December morning, the boys set off to their grandfather’s house to see what he might need.

Repeating Verse: Over The River (substitute “Grandfather” for “Grandmother”) (K)

(Move to kids’ room during verse)

Upon arriving at their grandfather’s house, the boys found him shivering in his favorite chair by a weak fire. “Oh, it is just SO chilly in here, I just can’t seem to get warm!” their Grandfather said, as he added his last few twigs to the fire. The boys realized what would be the perfect gift for their grandfather, so out they went to the woods.

(Walk down hallway to living room)

Midline: Woodcutters (K)

Once the boys had enough trees cut down, they rolled the logs down the road to their grandfather’s house.

(Roll down hallway)

Then they split up the logs (mime) into firewood and stacked it in their grandfather’s woodshed (stack stuffed animals), until the woodshed was full, and they knew that their grandfather would have enough wood for his fire to stay warm all winter.

Next the boys went to see their uncle.

Repeating Verse: Over The River (substitute “Uncle” for “Grandmother)

(Move down hall into bird room.)

When they got to their uncle’s house, he was not in the house at all. They called for him, and finally found him down at his barn. He was looking up at a big hole in the roof, and explained to the boys that a big tree limb had fallen through his barn roof during a wind storm last night. The boys realized what would be the perfect gift for their Uncle, so they picked up their saws and hammers.

Midline: The Barn (1G)

Once they had enough wood gathered, they crawled through the rafters and nailed them in place.

(Crawl up and down hallway, pounding ground with fist here and there.)

They patched the hole in the barn roof, so that their Uncle’s hay and horses and cows would stay dry all winter.

Next the boys went to see their grandmother.

Repeating Verse: Over The River

(Move down hall to living room)

When they got to their grandmother’s house, they found her in the dining room crying. “Look at my beautiful sweater!” she moaned. In her hands was her favorite sweater, which she had torn that morning on the garden fence. “How will I stay warm this winter without my sweater?” she cried. The boys realized what would be the perfect gift for their grandmother, so they went to the attic and pulled out her spinning wheel.

Base/Vestibular: Spinning Wheel (1G)

While they were spinning wool to make a new sweater for their grandmother, they saw another spinner busy at work in the corner of the attic:

Base/Proprioceptive: Spider Web (K)

After the wool was spun, they boys knitted it (mime) into a warm sweater for their grandmother so that she would stay warm all winter.

Finally, the boys headed to their four little cousins’ house.

Repeating Verse: Over The River (substitute “cousins” for “grandmother”)

(Move down hallway to bedroom.)

When they got to their cousins’ house, they found all four of them in their living room, arguing over the last popcorn ball. The boys realized what would be the perfect gift for their cousins, so they started a fire in the fireplace and put some popping corn in the kettle.

Finger play: Popcorn (K)

The boys popped more and more popcorn, until the kettle was full of popcorn.

(Jump on bed making popping noises.)

They left their little cousins happily munching on popcorn, and headed for home, knowing that they had found the perfect gifts for all of their loved ones!

Closing: Jingle Bells (K)

(Skipping up and down the halls, winding up in the living room.)

Closing: Sun is Rising (K)

week #11 (3rd week of 3rd block)

The kids play a sensory-enhanced game of Twister, wearing their body socks while playing.

Ok, so it was only a half week. We did schoolwork on Monday through Wednesday, and took Thursday through Saturday off. Thursday of course was Thanksgiving, which we celebrated on that day with The Map Man's family at his brother's house, and again on Saturday at our house with my family.

We only had one story cycle, reading and working with the classic Fairy Tale, "Rumpelstiltskin". We continued with our Canoe Trip Adventure Circle, although this might be the last week that we use it, as I'm not certain it's fulfilling the kids' needs as well as it could be.

Monday homeschool classes is on a break until January, so we had extra time for building and playing, which always seems to serve my kids well.



I took the opportunity of all this time off to finish up my holiday shopping (insanely early for me!), and to work on our photo holiday cards. The Map Man weaseled his way into my extremely amateur photo-shoot with the boys. The cards came out cute (and did NOT include The Man!), but you'll all have to wait to see them! (neener, neener!)









My brother, Big J, making a pig out of himself at our holiday dinner on Saturday.

Story Time stories for this week were Goose Moon, by Carolyn Arden, illustrated by Jim Postier; The First Thanksgiving, by Jean Craighead George, illustrated by Thomas Locker; and The Great Canoe, A Karina Legend, retold by Maria Elean Maggi, illustrated by Gloria Calderon (and I have to highly recommend this if anyone is looking for a "great flood" story outside of the Judeo-Christian traditions -- amazing parallels between this story and that of Noah's Ark).


It was nice of our favorite pilgrim, Tom Brady, to drop by for dinner -- and look, he even brought us a turkey!! (Don't think too much about this one, it's only in here to amuse Christine!)

We continued reading our current chapter book, A Cricket in Times Square, which we are all enjoying -- progress is a little slow because we're including The Map Man, so we only read when all of us our present, which means no reading at rest time. So it'll take us a bit longer to get through our books from now on, but I think The Man is enjoying the stories as much as we are, so it's worth it!

Now, after a few days off, I am in danger of falling into the pit of non-existent rhythms. Already it's nearly 3pm on Monday of our 12th week, and we've done nothing resembling school work yet. There's still time!! But in order to accomplish that, I actually need to get off my butt and DO something...there's a story somewhere waiting to be read! But first, we're heading out for a walk to enjoy this most unusually mild first day of December....