What's in the sensory bin?

We are fortunate enough to have been given some resource funding for Lachie. In particular, I really wanted to get started a sensory and fine motor bin. After a few test runs of sensory items, this is what we ended up with in the bin.


A kaleidoscope

A bendy man

A pop eyed dinosaur

Micro Charger Cars

Scooby Doo Whodunnit figures with trap and changeable heads

A light ball and some squidgy squeezy things one looks like the cartoon character Blue and the others are like koosh balls, and a handball.

It is all stored in a Blue Itty Bitty Bin

Although we got the funding, on the exception of the Scooby Doo toy, these can all be picked up fairly inexpensively. It is worth the peace and quiet we have had today and he is developing his motor skills without even realising it.

Washing Little Hands

After noticing Aria's fascination with the bathroom and becoming frustrated myself with Lachie's refusal to use a nail brush, I came up with this Montessori inspired practical living activity. The children each have a tray complete with a tub of warm water, a face washer, a nail brush, mirror, and a towel. Lachie has a container of foaming hand soap but I squirt Aria's into the tub as she tends to paint the house with it. This is the first day I had the mirrors, I picked them up for $1.50 at a new discount store. Not only is the warm water calming but it encourages self care and I don't have to hold Lachie down to scrub his nails. It turns something that is difficult due to sensory issues into a fun game. The children are responsible for drying any drips off the tray. This activity meets with the basic Montessori principle of controlling for error.

Both children loved the mirrors

 Lachie sat back for a while and contemplated the activity while looking in the mirror

 Aria used materials to clean the mirror too

To Fight or not to Fight

Lately I have been having some conversations with a not for profit agency that are helping survivors of bullying. Through listening to other people's stories, I have  felt the feelings of injustice over the bullying my ASD children have endured well up again. Although, Gi Joe is okay for me to share his story, he does not want identification or a "big deal" made out of it. Out of respect for the space he's in, I won't go into detail. I will say though that the sheer fact he feels a need to hide what happened makes me realise how ashamed he is of what happened to him and how he is still scared it will happen again! So herein lies my conundrum, kicking up a stink might make me feel better and raise awareness but it may very well re-victimise him. As a mother, of course I want justice but it comes with a price. This is the place that bullies put the family of their survivors in. Schools, workplaces and sporting teams need to understand this. Unfortunately, the issues tend to end with the survivor leaving the school, workplace or sporting team. It should be the other way around. Early intervention with those most at risk of being bullied and being bullies is key.

It was The Best Post in the World

Well, I follow in the footsteps of Tenacious D (without the devil and music and stuff...oh and fame). I was all poised to write an epic post and my blogger wouldn't let me sign in! I have no idea what I was going to write but I'm sure it was the best post in the world. Instead of the best post in the world, I'm just going to settle with some reflection of our term.

Some days the self doubt creeps in and I think I'm not teaching Lachie anything. I have been thinking about that and I think that's a little unfair to both of us! He has achieved so much this term and I just need to look back on these posts and see that. I read (or saw) something, somewhere on Facebook (gets a bit like that) about self dialogue. I decided to pay attention to Lachie's self dialogue (which he often verbalises) this week. I was hoping to hear that he felt he had done well this term, I was sad to hear, "I'm not a good boy" "I can't."  Who's responsible for this? Us as his parents mostly I think. I need to change it and model positive self talk to him. So no more doubts!

This term Lachie has loved The Gruffalo, The Rascal Series, The Very Cranky Bear, The Lorax, to name but a few. Through texts he liked I was able to engage him beyond what I could with a stock standard activity that he found meaningless. My approach next term will definitely be deep exploration of texts he chooses himself. He's only engaged in what he's truly interested in and I need to embrace that. After all, adults tend not to continue with something that they find boring for too long. We do have to do some things we don't like but he is a child and I need to help him to treasure his childhood for as long as possible. All in all I feel we achieved a lot this term. He's well and truly de-schooled. I'm still looking for a good school for him, I don't think he shares the same view so we need to tread carefully when we talk about school. I don't want it to be a punishment if we do send him back. We are taking it day by day at this point.

Being THAT Exhausted

If you follow many blogs about Autism, especially ones that originate from the USA, it's difficult not to have been touched by the story of a mum of an ASD teen who attempted murder suicide. After a final blow, a withdrawal of support, she did the unthinkable. I'm not going to write a lot about the specifics of the case, others have done that.  I'm not going to harp on about the need for support, I've done that. I do want to describe being THAT exhausted. I have felt it before, especially in the younger years with Gi Joe. I have seen it before and very recently. It's inevitable.

What does it look like? Different in every person I suspect. It's often the people who you give advice to, they will come back with a frustrating, "tried that, tried that, tried that..." If that is frustrating for you, imagine how frustrating it is for them.  The ones who are numb, the ones who stop caring about themselves, the ones who over analyse their situation, the ones who cry a lot, the ones who have given up, the ones who avoid.  I have been this person and I have been THAT exhausted. Once I was THAT exhausted I thought about driving my car off the freeway, my son was in the back. I didn't because I saw an out, my partner, my other kids, the special school.  The thought went through my head though. This one thought makes me no different from those who followed through. I felt I had an out, but I had the thought. They maybe did not feel like they had an out, had exhausted all their outs. It is hard to know and something we may never know.

What do you do to get through it? In order to help parents feeling this, asking if they are okay might be a good start, but then what?  Yes people need to help themselves first before they are any good to their children.  How? If you are it? How do you take a break? I am lucky, I'm not it, I can take a break, not always straight away but it happens. I don't really know the answers. It is going to take a lot of vocal hard work to change systems, mind sets, and to promote a greater understanding of the needs of Autism families. I hope that this post might help one person to recognise THAT exhaustion in a friend.

Marble Maths

Today we trialed 10 minute "table work." Lachie has become a little bit reluctant to engage and lovely home school gurus and my aunty suggested that I do 10 minutes at a time on a learning activity, interspersed with 10 minutes of a favourite activity. This past two weeks, watching Minecraft on You Tube has been all consuming. We had 30 minutes of table work and he did great. There was complaining about the computer but he ultimately completed the activity without complaining.

This activity is effective for Lachie as he loves to describe how the marbles feel in his hands. The concept is designed to support him to get used to operators and to understand addition rules such as doubling. He loves that he can see the numeral and feel and view the corresponding amount of marbles for that numeral. He also has the extra challenge of not having the marbles roll away and there is fine motor development in the need to place each marble in the section individually.

Smelly, Slimy, Clean

Today's sensory activity was designed to get Lachie to interact with different smells and to record his reaction to them. It seems that Lachie cannot smell his own body odour but has no issues detecting other odours which he finds unpleasant.

First I made smelly playdough, here is the recipe:

One cup (250ml) of plain flour
1/4 cup of salt
1 cup of boiled water
2 tbsp of cream of tartar
2 tbsp of oil

For smells, cocoa, rosewater, peppermint, jelly crystals. For colour, non-toxic paints, natural food colours, glitter or whatever takes your fancy!

Place the flour, cream of tartar and oil in a saucepan along with your chosen colour. If using paint I wait until the mixture is cool. Although I use non-toxic paints,  I thought it was better not to experiment with heating them.

In a jug place your boiled water and salt. Wait until salt dissolves.

Mix your salt water in with your saucepan ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon. It will look runny and lumpy.

Keep stirring until it is starting to look smoother and thicker and it comes away a bit from the sides. Remove it from the heat. Different added ingredients mean different quantities of flour, judge it by how it comes together, not necessarily how sticky it is. When it is a good consistency to pick up and knead, it will still be a bit sticky at this stage and depending on the added ingredients may not come cleanly away from the pan (cocoa is a really sticky one).

Place the playdough on a floured board or in a slice pan (this is a neater way of doing it) and knead and add flour as necessary to get a smooth consistency. Place in zip lock bags in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

Lachie was quite unimpressed by the smell. He tolerated it because he was interested in the rocks. He made different rivers and islands using grass, river rocks we bought from the reject shop for $4 and sticks. I wanted Lachie to be able to explore this activity without interruption so Aria stayed inside with Daddy.

The minion (AKA: The Me) and the Macca's man made an appearance in the play of course. We had the sensory tub set up but he wanted to use the messy mat instead.

After the activity it was time to clean the play dough off the rocks. The warm water and soap is calming and the slippery soap makes handling the rocks a challenge. This activity was also for Aria as she love to clean things.

Spot the Macca's man. As the bubbles grew so did their ideas about what they wanted to put in it. Of course, Aria engaged in the activity for longer than Lachie. She enjoyed the slimy rocks a lot more than he did.

Lachie was keen to dry the rocks and Aria got in on the action. There was a bit of push and shove here because they shared the same bucket and container but they worked it out in the end.