Anyway, Thursday was probably the most challenging day of the week. It was gray and drizzly, and since I hate setting alarms it was the only day this week that we both overslept. It was just so dark and cozy in the bedroom that I didn't wake up until 10am... Which really threw off our day. Add to that my planning all our outdoor activities for the day and you can kinda see where this is going.
After morning circle, we had planned all of the large motor running and walking of the letter A outside. I wasn't sure how that would go, but I brought out some flour as suggested, (max usually loves playing with flour), but today he wanted nothing at all to do with it. I really couldn't interest him in the running or walking A's at all. Even trying to set it up as an obstacle course or race track didn't get him into it. So I went back inside and got some sidewalk chalk, figuring I could at least get him some practice making large motor letters on the ground. And it worked! He did really well. I found the trick was to half complete the letter and make him cross it or make the upside down V shape and let him cross it. A few of those and we happily drew a path of letters a's down our front walk. (He's the blue and I'm the orange)
I also tried to get him interested in drawing A's in the dirt, but after half heartedly drawing one A, he wanted to just play with the leaves and stick in our dirt area, so I went with it. A cute moment occurred when he wanted to make and "plant" a baby tree. Even though he kinda gets the whole thing about plants coming from seeds, he still kept asking why just putting a stick with leaves tied to
it wouldn't make a new tree.
We went back in and had a little bit of time trying out the beeswax modeling clay oak meadow had suggested as part of their craft kit. Now maybe I'm just not working with this stuff the right way, but man was that stuff frustrating. It took me so long to warm it up enough to where it could be sorta worked with that by the time we had done that it was time to clean up. And my hands were seriously
sore. I don't think this is really a good material for max, he has such a hard time with underdeveloped hand strength that this is really not a medium he can be independent with.
After lunch we tried to talk about the fall seasonal table project. Unfortunately Max doesn't handle abstract planning very well and since none of the leaves have turned in our area and none of the stores are selling pumpkins yet, this project was kinda flat for him. After much prompting I managed
to get a short list of things he thinks of during the fall together. In an effort to make it more real for him (and since one of the items in his list was ghosts) I tried to make a couple of tissue paper ghosts with him, but when I made the mistake of suggesting he draw the face on his, he had a complete
meltdown. This was epic. He even threw himself on the floor and pounded his hands and feet. Thankfully his ABA therapists have given me some good techniques for dealing with this and after about 10 minutes he had calmed down enough to draw the face with assistance. Not wanting the
ghosts to be a bad experience for him, I managed to salvage things a bit by getting a good game of fly around the room going with them.
Last but not least we had some great creative play time making an obstacle course for his kittens to go through out of his foam building blocks. It had a jet plane and everything!
Friday was a bit better, but still thrown off a bit with our schedule because his ABA therapist comes to our house in the afternoon and we had spent a little too much time on our morning project. Instead of doing puzzles again, max had been on me all Thursday night to finish drawing and writing his
most recent book. (I think I've mentioned before that making homemade books is his favorite thing in the universe). He's on a big Minnie and Mickey Mouse kick right and had written this fairly elaborate story about a Christmas party, that at least makes sense to him!
After the book I tried some music and broke out our scarves and ribbon wands, hoping to get us moving after sitting and drawing for so long. However I made the mistake of turning on some music he has never heard before that had kinda an African beat to it. By the second song he was holding his
ears and yelling for me to turn it off. Oh well. It's so hard sometimes for him to try new things with such a pronounced auditory sensory issue. Sometimes I forget that.
Anyway, we had a lovely rest of the day. His therapist helped by working side by side with him on his summer drawing... And he did wonderfully!!!! I am so proud of him, it actually looks representational. I can't tell you how huge that is for him! Next week, we will try me being the side by side drawer with the therapists help and see how that goes.
We ended the day by playing zoo with blocks.
Whew. I'm not sure if I can keep up with daily blow by blow posts. I thin maybe I try for a highlights reel next week!
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