Some pics to share...then an update

Ok, I promised pics of yesterday's lesson, so I am now delivering. :)

Kids hard at work:


Jacob's interpretation of the first day of the Creation: (ok, I have to cut in here and explain some things. LOL Keep in mind this is only his first day of the first grade. ;) He was told to write that God made the Earth and then on the bottom write "And God saw that it was good." His handwriting was way too big and he ran out of room, so he decided rather than re-write anything, he'd just stick the words wherever he could fit them. LOL Can you tell he HATES handwriting? And nevermind the misspelling of the words Earth and Made - he thought my letter a looked like an O. I guess I need to work on my own handwriting. LOL)



Joshua's:


Cassidy's:


Today I let them all do coloring sheets that I found HERE, and Jacob will be drawing a picture of his own this evening. We also briefly discussed comets, asteroids, the Milky Way, stars, and planets. Tonight we will finish with a science experiment that helps show the importance of oxygen. I have to wait until Silas gets home and can keep the baby away from the open flame that we will be using. Scary!

Today also was our evaluation with Ms. G. to find out how Josh did with his second session of socialization classes. They worked this session on greetings while making eye contact and making it a habit each time they see someone for the first time in a day, noticing things about other people (which I have a funny story about in a minute), and being able to discuss the immediate past.

The last one is something Joshua needs a LOT of help with. Like she said, it is not only a socialization matter, but a matter of being a safety issue as well. That is something that has always concerned me a bit. Right now we work on trying to get him to tell us things that happened during the session or an activity right after it happened.

Greetings aren't really too much of an issue lately. He walks up to people on the elevator now and tells them hello. Until the other mom mentioned her son never really having a problem with saying hi to an adult, I was thinking along the same lines...I haven't really given much thought to whether or not he does it with other kids, so I will be paying more attention. Ms. G. said it is not as scary for them to talk to the adults because they aren't as unpredictable with movements and such as compared to a child...makes perfect sense! Anyhow, since we have been doing pretty well with the greetings, she said to start working on ending some playtime activities by saying something to the effect of "It was nice playing with you today". We also can work on getting him to not have a fit if someone says they can't play right now...we should work on getting him to say something to the effect of "That's ok, we'll play again later". It is so hard sometimes to try and remember he isn't going to figure these things out on his own like my other kids.

We then had individual evals given seperately. Ms. G. and Ms. N. both said he does really well with the structured activities. The sessions that he broke down crying usually he got over it really quickly once they began their established routine. We will be adopting the color coding system they used to help keep him organized with school work as well. :) Both of the ladies mentioned that food is a great motivator for Joshua and that when he knew he would get a treat after doing a task, he really tended to focus better. So, we will be having snacktime as well used as our motivation technique. LOL

Our other thing to continue working on is playing with other kids and getting away form the parallel play. He has actually been doing really well with this at home. I'm proud to see the progress in this area. So, hopefully he will keep it up. :)

Ok, now my funny story. Ms. G. had told me early on that one of the things they worked on in class this time was noticing things about people - what they are wearing, how many people were wearing stripes or a certain color, etc. It is apparently working very well with Joshua. LOL About 5 minutes into our talk, he came around and asked her something and she wrinkled her forehead a little bit. All of a sudden he blurted out "You have stripes!". LOL I about died! He pointed at her head and said it again and we realized that he was talking about her wrinkles on her forehead! LOL She was really funny and did it a few more times for him. How embarrasing! LOL

I am glad that he is learning to be more observant now, and I had noticed it a few times lately when he would yell something that he shouldn't. Last week he was playing with a little girl while waiting for therapy. All of a sudden I heard him say something about her bleeding on her face and then I heard her get a bit upset and yell that it was a birthmark. He didn't understand and said it again that she was hurt and she got so upset about it...he didn't know what the problem was and thought she was hurt, and she thought he was making fun of him and got her feelings hurt over it. I felt horrible and tried to explain it to her older sister who had come over to protect her from him. I didn't get into any details, but I did mention to Ms. G. that I had noticed that sometimes he is a little too observant. She said when he does blurt things out like that, just redirect him to talk about something else, like the person's striped shirt. Thank goodness he catches on quickly to things!