First Week of Kindergarten and I Got a New Sewing Machine

My morning routine went as well as it was destined to be, since I went to bed feeling excited to get up at 5 AM to get my day started. Ean decided it was a good morning to get up with me. After reading my scriptures and writing in my journal with countless interruptions, I grabbed my book "Helping Children With Autism Learn" and told Ean to go play or do something else. Surprisingly, he did:

  

As annoyed as I was to share my quiet morning routine with him, this was a sweet moment that I savored. It isn't every morning I have the opportunity to watch him be sweet, quiet, and keep himself entertained. Of course this was the only morning I got up to do my routine, since sharing it with a baby isn't motivating enough to continue. But I at least enjoyed this one. 

 Our first day of school didn't go too bad, thank goodness! I was most nervous about three things: 1) Ira always telling me "no" to everything I asked him to do. 2) Ira getting bored with all the reading and alphabet activities included in the curriculum we are using. 3) Ira not being interested at all in the math and nature activities. All three of my fears were things I ended up not needing to worry about. 

First, Ira did tell me "no" a lot, which is not unusual. Still trying to figure out the best way to discourage that. Anyway, I think because I anticipated him being unbelievably resistant to everything, I was able to keep my cool the times he did. Obviously I wasn't perfect. I did get frustrated sometimes, but I think we both did pretty good.

Second fear addressed: Ira loves the reading and alphabet activities! A little too much, haha. I think it feels comfortable to him to be able to do something he knows the right answer too. No correcting or teaching on my part at all. His big grin when I tell him he is right makes my day! 

And my third fear...well, he loves to be outside and do spontaneous observing all by himself, but he doesn't really enjoy doing the activities I plan on. I think it has to do with him preferring to do activities he is already familiar with. Which I get. I prefer to do stuff I already know how to do, too. So as we do it more, I think he will get more comfortable going out of his comfort zone to try his "super powers of science". He and Asa love Hero Elementary from PBS Kids right now, so when we need to observe anything, and he resists (every single time), I remind him to use his "super powers of observation". Works like a charm every time...at least for right now.  

So the nature part we are still working through, but he amazed me in the math part of our curriculum! He nailed it!  I am excited to get past numeral work, because he aced anything to do with the numbers 1-15. I am still working on to see if he needs to work on any numbers between 16-20, but I think it is just time to start helping him learn how to count past 20. I know he definitely doesn't know how to do that. 

 

 

The first math activity was looking at a number on a flashcard, and being able to count out with objects (we used beans) the correct amount. I showed him what to do, and he took it from there. Asa was itching to try, and did it right all by himself, too. I was so proud of them.

 

 

 

Asa was my photographer here. Matthew has been trying to get me to be more serious about signing time with the boys for a long time. Right now I am starting with basic words from Signing Time. We really need to work up to sentences soon, but until I am in a better routine with school, I will stick to what I know. We received some Baby Signing Time flashcards from a friend, and today instead of watching a video, we reviewed what we could remember from the cards. We were so bad at it we watched the video the rest of the week, haha.

 

 

Two weeks ago I saw this Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood color by number activity book, and thought Ira would love it. I showed him how to do this first one, but he just didn't understand how it worked. He would ask me so many times if I would color another one for him, and I always told him I showed him how to do it, so he needed to do it. Well, he finally figured it out this week. If we weren't doing school, he was coloring in the book. It really amazed me how much better he coloring got after doing this for a few days. 

 

 

 

I went back to get him a new one for when he fills up this one, but they were already all out. Oh well.

 

I had just been talking to mom about how Ira doesn't narrate stories at all, which is, from what I have read, a big part of the Charlotte Mason method. I am by no means a purist when it comes to her method, but there are a lot of things I like about it. The narrating part of it I would love to give a try. But like I was explaining to mom, Ira doesn't do it. I have to prompt him in every part of telling back the story. Well, the next morning I took this picture and sent it to mom:

 

 

 

 

 I told her that I walked into the living room and he said, "Look mommy! I'm Shroeder!" And then started to happily bang away at his little piano. Mom very kindly pointed out to me that this is a form of narrating. It is HIS way of narrating. I am glad that she said that. Just because Ira doesn't do a lot of stuff in the typical way, doesn't mean he isn't doing typical things in HIS own way. So I have begun to look for ways that I see him doing something in his own way, and allow him to just be him. For example, for a STEM activity last week, I was suppose to create simple structures out of blocks and/or Lego's, and have him build a matching structure. I tried three different days, and he just wasn't having it. He just wanted to build tall towers with blocks. Today, he and Asa were building tall towers together, and I decided to let that count, but still continue to occasionally try to see if he will copy structures he sees. I think he will get it soon. Also, I am considering buying a set of basic regular sized Lego's for school activities. We currently use our Duplo's, but I think he might really like the size for a regular set. We will see. 

 

 

To cap off my week, I had to get some things from the craft section at Wal-Mart. I decided to see what options for sewing machines they had, since the brand and model I wanted wasn't available. Well, I was surprised and happy to see 4 boxes of the machine I wanted, just sitting on the shelf!!! Apparently, many people are buying machines, or bought a machine a few months ago, and then they are returning them unused. That is why the website shows they are out of stock. But I don't really care. I finally have a machine that works!!! And this one works like a dream! No more wasting time fiddling with the tension and snapping thread! I played around with all my previous needles and bobbins that go with my old Singer, and discovered they definitely won't work with this machine. That is a bummer. But that is okay! I would rather get some new needles and bobbin over deal with my old machine for one more day! I am so excited to get stuff done on this new machine, that's for sure!!!

A few things that aren't working from this week that I am still working on addressing: first, the boys are still not poop trained. I am working on being better about asking them throughout the day if they need to go, but they, especially Ira, very regularly go in their underwear. I was hoping they would get this down before we go to Missouri, but it isn't looking like they will be. Oh well. I guess it is time for me to start studying some more on how to help children who struggle with this. 

Second, for some reason their eating habits have gotten bad. They don't eat much of anything unless it is bread. I use to offer them a sandwich if they didn't like dinner, but that was back when they would usually eat dinner. Now they almost never do. So I am thinking I might need to stop offering sandwiches. And they also use to eat anything, even if they knew I hid veggies or fruit in it. They discovered I put zucchini in our muffins and pancakes, and so now won't eat them the moment they see a piece of zucchini...but they will gobble down zucchini cake and bread. Desserts. *sigh* This too shall pass, I hope.

Last, I am letting them watch too much tv. Asa loves to watch PBS Kids. I will tell him he can watch two episodes of whatever he wants. But then will let him watch one more, which leads to three or more extra, just because I am avoiding his big meltdown. I need to find a better way of communicating clearly what they are allowed, so hopefully the meltdowns aren't quite so horrible. Ira isn't too bad anymore, but Asa will push as much as he can to get what he wants. I think that communicating clearly before he is allowed to do anything will help with that.