Ross's Blog

First week back to ‘normality’ no Cy, no Dad, just us at home.  So more temper than usual and not keen to get back to doing any work at all.

Had a busy week too, hospital appointment, swimming lesson, play session and met a new Home Education group.  Also a Birthday party on Sunday.  Not sure if it was too much.

Swimming lesson, Ross coped with standing in a group of children he didn’t know, and jumped into the water when asked, but refused a float and almost had a fight when the instructor tried to push it.  Eventually just bounced around with the group but at least did what was asked. I will take him earlier this week so we can have a swim first, and see if I can encourage him to take a float.

Play session at the Children’s Centre was interesting, until now Ross has growled and got angry at anyone who has got close to the toys he is playing with.  This time he played with a ball and actually seemed to cope with the children getting close – there were less children than usual and it was quieter.  He actually started to involve the other children, showing them what to do with his ‘game’.

The HE group on Friday was nice, we had a hall and outdoor space and the children were very relaxed (different to children ‘in school’).  Ross was able to mix with all ages and only had one incident where he got possessive over a toy.  However I was more worried than either the parents or other children – perhaps I should have left him although eventually another parent helped me remove the toy.  Ross played happily, sometimes one to one and sometimes as part of a group, but never for more than 5-10 minutes before moving on.

The Birthday party on Sunday had a Lego theme, and most of the children played happily with a pile of Lego on the floor.  Ross sat at the table and ate for at least 5 minutes, then left happily and went back to the Lego while the others ate.  Ross would not get involved in any party games but played happily and had a good time.

Still really pleased with his bunk bed, although he’s back to not wanting to go to sleep until at least 9pm.  No matter how tired he is.  Slept twice during the day this week, both times for over an hour.

Have put up planets and glow in the dark stars, Ross has labelled all the planets.

I have stopped the Iron tablets again – lets see how long before he is really tired and ill again.  The NHS seem determined that I should make him ill to satisfy their little rubber stamps – if I made him ill myself no doubt Social Services would be complaining at me, so why is it OK for the NHS to force this on us?  There excuse is that they have no ‘evidence’ – my word goes for nothing again.

I’m a little concerned that Ross is hungry at night and has some diarrhea, no idea what has caused it.

Good long Easter holiday, not done any ‘work’ but have done lots of interesting stuff.

Visited Ribble Steam Railway, very good museum where they had bits of engines we could handle and working engines we could get close to.  Volunteers at the museum were very keen to talk and teach – we will go back.

Also been to the beach.

Met some friends (yes, that is snow)

and got Ross back into his room

Phew!

This week Ross has been rough again, behaviour has deteriorated and he is constantly tired.

Interesting as I bought a diluting apple juice for him which has 50% juice in it as he is asking for apple juice all the time.  Such a shame as he reallt likes it.

Anyway, we went into Manchester on Monday and he was running around for most of the day unable to sit still or concentrate, he eventually fell asleep and as I had (luckily) taken his pram he slept in the Trafford Centre for over an hour.

Tuesday we stayed at home as part of my ‘plan’  Ross did some colour by numbers with adding up.  I let him have 15 minutes of games and then we paused the game for some more maths.  I’m not sure if it was a mistake or not, Ross was fixated with doing enough maths for more computer time and rattled through a whole lot of addition problems.  Then I had to let him have more games as promised.

It certainly shows he has no problems with that and I’ll have to find other things for him to do.

Wendesday

Morning at an indoor playbarn as I wanted to take him to the Children’s centre play in the afternoon.  We managed an hour before a couple of 3/4 yr olds upset him to the point of growling and hitting out.  I managed to calm him down but within a few minutes of playing it was obvious that he was not calm.  We gave up and came home.

Children’s centre in the afternoon.  Ross played outside for a while, which I was pleased at because he was still not calm, after about an hour of playing mainly by himself we were ushered into the centre’s sensory room.

I’m not sure whether the dim and ‘sensory’ lights and toys helpd Ross calm down, or whether he got involved in playing with the Fibre Optic cables etc. (which he knows about) but after an hour in there he was a much happier boy.  I also had a chat with a Speech therapist, very nice but yet again tried to persuade me that Ross should be in school.

Thursday, at home, very active, very angry, did not want to do anything.  I did bring out the phonics footprints but Ross got really upset and angry so I gave up.

Went shopping in the afternoon and Ross fell asleep in the car.

Friday

Ross said he was tired as he climbed into our bed at 8am  Protested all day that he was tired and didn’t want to go out.  Eventually managed to get him out at 3pm and went to a local park with children he knew at preschool.  He found someone with toy guns and actually played with one of these for at least 45mins.  There was a little interaction with the other children but not much.

Eventually the other child went home (with guns) within 15 mins Ross was hitting another child and we had to leave.

7.30pm Ross has just had 30 minutes of PC games as otherwise I think he would have done damage, we managed to make him wait until after dinner.  Got him to switch the game off without too much trouble and he has spent a few minutes on his feet SPINNING. First time I have seen this.

Currently sitting watching TV. He’s just asked for more dinner which confirms the comments on Apple juice at the top of this post.

We’ve joined a local Chess Club, Ross played 3 games tonight, didn’t mind loosing and behaved very well.

Concentrated but also looked around him and really enjoyed it all.  I sat and read and tried to keep out of the way.

Had a lovely sunny walk around Anderton Country Park, gave Ross the camera for a few minutes while we had lunch and these were his results, I have used an Auto levels setting to sort out the colour and contrast, but not changed anything else, very good photos we think.

Also a few I took

At home, asked to clean up his scooter and then hosed everything else, the garden was dry before he started!

Had some time in the museum with Granma Williams who was up for the weekend.  The museum was very busy and noisy as they had some chocolate activity on.  Ross was anxious as soon as we arrived and we left earlier than planned.  Ross did enjoy what he saw though and is very interested in Egypt – we will go back soon during the week when it’s quiet.

Photos taken by Ross:

Continued with an educational week, Ross gained at least 2 tokens per day, and is really enjoying the challenge, even if I have to push him a bit.

17 March

I’ve been using pages from here  http://www.beam.co.uk/uploads/mompdf/Footprints.pdf and I’ve found them very useful.

This is a number search, ‘footprints’ hide numbers on the page, the game asks players to find a number and mark the paper, luckily we have plastic bingo counters with numbers so we can complete the grid:

We didn’t do all 100, probably about 25 before Ross got bored.  He can’t do them easily, and seems to mix up whether a number is 25 or 52 (for example).

This may be James May’s least favourite game, but Ross loves Escape from Colditz.  There are lots of rules to follow (eg. only pick a card when you roll a 3, 7, 11) and lots of cards with instructions.  I brought out our pennies so Ross could add up the numbers on the dice – dice themselves are easy.

18 March

This is a great phonics game, footprints with the endings of 3 and 4 letter words, and cards with a picture and the first letter of the word.

A number of interesting things:

Ross could guess the word from the picture, and say the word out loud and was happy to walk around the footprints while I said ‘hot’ and ‘cold’, however it was a real struggle for him to get the right phonic, he could pick a footprint with one correct letter, but not two.  When he got frustrated he would pick and footprint and seemed not to be able to recognise any letters.

As he got each word (with a lot of help) we blu-tac’d the word to the phonic, later I wrote the word on the footprint and removed the picture.  Ross really struggled to match the picture (and first letter) to the phonic with the word written on it.  He reversed words regularly got very confused over ‘p’ and ‘d’.

19 March

Lazy day, spent the morning in Polar Palace which was noisy with a music group,  Ross had a look but did not want to join them.

Came home having only had a couple of incidents with other children.  I persuaded Ross to do some painting although he now says “I don’t do messy”.  As can be seen he has managed to keep the colours clean (although he didn’t use the green) which I would not expect from a 4 yr old.

Tuesday was a good day, I printed out ‘Tokens’ for Ross to earn, each one gives him 15 minutes computer time for games.

This let me get past the initial refusal, so I was able to build some confidence and show Ross he can do it.

Second time we’ve done this sheet, but this time Ross put pennies out and actually counted out the answers by himself.  Answer of 5 = red, 8 = yellow.

Not a problem, he was really pleased  with himself.

He did work out the pattern and started just saying the colour, but we continued using the coins and he continued to get them right.

Matching phonics with pictures, very basic but as Ross has refused all literacy before I was please that he even did it, he can read the difference between ‘map’ and ‘mat’ and ‘pip’ and pan’.  We will continue and try to build his confidence.

Wednesday had a lazy day playing in the sunshine as Ross had a late night.  Also went to a play session in Northwich.

Ross found a nice building block set and started building himself a ‘Television’ with a toy tool kit he went and found.  Unfortunately other younger children got too close and of course wanted to touch what he had, which annoyed him.  Ross turned the TV into a wall and set up all the tools as weapons.

Eventually Ross put all the blocks away in their box, carefully stacking them symmetrically.  He played outside and calmed down, refused the snack as before and left happily.

Again Ross stands out in a group as being very different, staff and parents all noticed.

Good day today, went to Quarry bank mill and spent the whole day there, there were groups of school children but always at a distance.

They had lots of interpreters and all the staff were friendly, so Ross had lots of interaction, some for extended periods of time.  In the main he was pleasant and listened and interacted with them, we had no real problems over the whole day.

We got a lift in their on-site buggy back to the Car Park as I knew he was tired, and he slept for at least an hour in the car.

After dinner at home we went out to try and find a local Chess Club, we found the right location, but unfortunately only one member was there as they were competing at another club.  We will go back next week as unlike the clubs I have phoned the nice person I spoke to didn’t think Ross was too young.  Ross was a little unhappy not to have had a game of Chess, but happy to think we are going back.  I hope it works out.

I’m thinking that one day out and one at home is a good routine to get into, so tomorrow will be a home day.  Over the weekend we printed out ‘Tokens’ that Ross can earn by being good, doing some Maths or English.  Each Token gives him 15 minutes of games.  I’ll see if this might encourage him to allow me to do some reading with him.

Oh, one bad thing.  I tried playing ‘Eye Spy’ in the car on the way to QBM. Ross instantly got angry and said it was a boring game, although after a lot of encouragement could easily give me the first letter of any item I chose – no point in asking him to look for things as he wasn’t interested.  I can only think that school played that game – I’ve not tried it before today.

Went to Ikea on Friday after a trip to Toys R us for a new scooter.

Ross likes the indoor play area but often gets upset at the other children, however this time we were there before the school children arrived so he had a chance to play.

He seemed to settle and coped well with younger children in his ‘space’.  I think changing what I say to him is helping: “It’s not your job to tell them what to do”.

This is what he built, quite a feat as the little stools are plastic and have lovely rounded feet – not designed for balancing wooden blocks on.

He was building when a brother and sister arrived, the asked if they could help!  And although he was unhappy at first he tolerated them before they were called by their parents (for food).

We had a happy trip round the showroom which Ross has always liked as he insists on opening all the doors of any ‘room’ we go in.

We also have to stop at every map on the way.