It's often quite hard to convince them about this. However, I know from past experience that they currently lack the skills to self regulate and if left become bored and very stressed. Their sleep is affected and meltdowns happen more frequently, as they find it hard to recognise what is troubling them. I find myself walking a very thin and precarious line at these times, where I doubt myself a great deal.
Often it isn't until activities are set in place again and the house becomes calm that I believe I have done the right thing. I hope as time goes by that the children will be able to recognise and act on their own initiative, to manage their anxiety/boredom, without my input. At the moment, we have reached the stage where they now recognise the need for intervention, once they have felt the benefits of it. It's a big step forward but I do find myself wishing transitions were much easier. So, all though we did well this week, there were times I felt the boys fought me all the way. Despite that we still had great fun and learnt plenty of new skills.
We did lots of maths related activities today...so Buy it Right got an airing and Khan academy was looked at.
Owen is loving his new atlas and it is his current preferred bedtime reading.
More Reading and looking at our new atlas today. We also did an online art class about Cubism and Picasso. At the end we made Picasso inspired dog paintings together. You can find this lesson and 5 others here:
http://carlasonheim.blogs.com/kids_art_week/
The boys enjoyed some play with friends in the afternoon and went to their jujitsu lesson.
Sam was raring to go from 6 am (blergh) by 7 am we had learned a great deal on how the volcanoes, on Hawaii have shaped the entire Eco system.
https://camp.withgoogle.com/activities/week3/what-will-you-find-in-the-wild
We then moved on to learn more about the life in earths oceans. As we were starting to watch Owen joined us and was so engrossed he ate his breakfast whilst it was on.
We talked about what we saw and the boys were really enthusiastic.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008044n
We also had a look at the new window 10 update but I still haven't found my way round it.
Whilst I did a coding course with Future Learn, the children had free play with friends.
Blokey had a few hours off in the afternoon, so Owen and he went into town. Sam stayed home with me.
We started with another art class. After talking about Modigliani we worked on portraits inspired by his work.
The children remembered we had been lucky enough to see one of his paintings at Birmingham Art Gallery and Museum. I explained how he was interested in African face masks..like the ones they saw at Liverpool.
The children then did a portrait of me in that style.
Owen
Sam
Sam watched some Wildkratts about Zebras and something he calls Googly Eyes *snigger*. As I was working with Sam, Owen watched some history programmes, then we all looked at Blue Planet. It was the Deep...they laugh as so many of the weird, bioluminescent, creatures freak me out with their nightmarish looks. Some I did find utterly beautiful and mesmerising too.
Blokey had to go to an early meeting in Birmingham today. He's not happy, he has to have a group photo done and is convinced the camera will steal his soul.
So the boys got up earlier and therefore me too...I am not feeling great this last couple of days and I have used the easier ( on me ) things from our, every growing, list of activities.
We looked at sounds, music and dance with Camp Google. Also watched how to build a sound wave 'machine ' and a speaker. We also saw some people doing some hip hop and talked about what makes people want to dance.
The children are really enjoying the Blue planet series and asked if we could watch some more of that. We learnt about Marlin, Tuna , Sei Whale and Mantaray.
We have managed to book a week abroad on a cheap deal. With this being our first time abroad with the children, they are rather anxious about flying, Sam in particular. With this in mind we decided to visit the Manchester Airport today.
It was a good move, both boys had a ball going up and down on the lifts, tube like walk ways and moving 'pavements'. They thought it was all very 'Star Trek'. We made enquiries about ASD support and the staff were incredibly helpful.
After we had visited the whole airport ( my feet were aching) , we drove into Wilmslow and had a pub lunch. Owen was over tired and rather tricky until we got some food into him. We had a lovely meal and then drove on home where the boys chilled out doing their own things. We had a snack of homemade bread for dinner.
This morning Sam and Blokey went swimming. I wasn't well enough to go today so Owen decided he would rather do things with me. We worked on his coordination with the DVD the Occupational therapist recommended. After that Owen decided to put his Lego kit together.
Normally, this would involve him watching me do it but today he carefully worked through the instructions alone. He asked for help with one tricky bit but was really pleased with himself when he finished the entire project. I was so proud of him, as some parts were decidedly tricky for him to work with.
It's funny because I often think we haven't 'done much' but writing helps me see what processes are working and how we are moving forwards. It's a very useful exercise to keep the Home Ed wobbles at bay because some weeks I feel utterly useless, but on reflection, we have often done more than I originally thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment