This 'n' That

It's been such a long time since I wrote that I'm a bit overwhelmed by the idea of catching up! A few highights:

We took a ten-day trip to visit our old home in Pennsylvania, and friends and family were all very impressed with Tom's progress. We even made it all the way to DC, and visited the Lincoln Memorial and a few other "sights." Sara revisited her old friends and school; Tom adamantly did NOT wish to see kids he'd known - which was just fine with us! Instead, we spent plenty of time with various folks he DID want to see, and avoided worrying our heads about explaining homeschool to Tom's old teachers!

I set up a homeschool visit to the home/studio of a weaver in Cataumet (Bourne, just north of Falmouth). It was a surprisingly good experience, and Tom really enjoyed it. In fact, despite the fact that he said he WOULD NOT try weaving, he DID try weaving on the big loom - three times. Came home with a little blanket for Lizard! I was proud because this was the very first time I'd set up a successful homeschool happening that included a number of families (I think six families came) - and it turned out to be a positive experience for all. Whew!

We worked hard on a series of paragraphs about the Human Body, and supported our reading and writing with some hands-on experiments (not especially well-received, but I gave it a shot); a few videos and websites; and a trip to the Human Body exhibit at the Science Museum in Boston (below). Gotta say that what he REALLY loves at the MOS is the amazing Rube Goldberg device (balls moving through an incredibly complex and beautiful contraption); a few dioramas; and of course the traveling exhibit on ... reptiles! Still, we did get a chance to explore the body a bit.

Once we had three paragraphs on various systems of the body (I used graphical organizing templates from various websites) I realized I had the makings for a proper five paragraph essay. We did produce one, and he does understand the content - but I'm not at all sure that the structure makes a whole lot of sense to him. Still, it's a start - and a legit sample to include in his portfolio...

Did read the Daniel Tammet book you all suggested (Born on a Blue Day). Fascinating guy, but NOTHING like Tom. Tom is so arts-and-music, where true aspies seem to be all structures-and-math... Tom is story-and-sound effects, no interest in systems... that's why I just don't think Asperger syndrome fits him.

Meanwhile, thinking a lot lately about the whole notion of community and friendships... a friend down the road said she wanted to present her aspie son's IEP team with the idea that she wants her son to have "a community." I really had to wonder - can ANYone guarantee a community? And if "anyone" can - should that anyone be a public school? I myself have rarely felt "in community" with more than one or two people at a time... somehow doesn't seem like a basic entitlement like learning to read is...

More on this soon, I hope!

Next Steps: Planning for Spring

I'm starting to feel a bit more confident about my planning abilities... though there's still SO MUCH to learn. A few ideas:

Tom's a very concrete thinker, and we need to spend some time on colonial America/Native Americans. These are fairly concrete topics, but a little "heady" so I'm combining the two into one six week program of study. I'm trying to focus on what/where/when content as opposed to "what is religious freedom" content (though getting a little bit in there) :

• maps/geography (from Enchanted Learning),
• readings with comprehension questions and writing prompts (from Edhelper),
• hands-on activities (indian weaving; colonial crafts);
• a few field trips (Plimoth Plantation, and probably Sturbridge Village).
• The plan is to go to the Wampanoag Pow-wow in the summer.

We've already attended a presentation by a Wampanoag educator at the local children's museum (though quite honestly I think Tom got almost nothing out of the experience; I think it was too "talky" and there were too few hands-on opportunities).

For math, we're just continuing with Touchmath, and adding in some hands-on activities and the like that I've picked up from various sources. Right now we're working through the second grade curriculum: word problems and multiplication. I'm also supplementing with pages of add/subtract problems.

Reading will continue with novels of interest; just finished James and the Giant Peach, and we're about to start Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I'm hoping we can do a Laura Ingalls book as well (he doesn't know the story, but it fits in so well with American history!).

For writing, I think it's time to get more serious about organizing thoughts. I've downloaded a trial version of Kidspiration Software (concept mapping), and we'll see if that helps. If not, we can try more basic outlining... need to get him to move from stream of consciousness to the idea of real communication, and that's going to be a real process. If we can get there, though, it'll be WELL worth it!

For arts: continuing with clarinet and piano (I'm looking for simplified versions of sheet music for selections from Little Einsteins -- found Fur Elise, but that's the only one so far!). He and his Dad visited the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and I'm guessing we'll go back for a program. And... we are planning our very own homeschool art show! (wish us luck...)

Science will get serious with units upcoming on The Human Body (also health, of course), and Oceans -- later in the spring.

What do you guys think? Thoughts/suggestions welcome!

Perspective-Taking and the Written Word

In the last few days, I've asked Tom to do several "perspective-taking" writing projects. It turns out this is remarkably easy for him - especially given that kids with autism are supposed to have a TERRIBLE time with perspective taking. Hm. Maybe it's easier for him to take the perspective of fictional characters than of real people?

The first project was a little piece describing the experiences of Mike Teavee, a character in Charlie and the Chocolate factory. No prob. Tom immediately plunged himself into Mike's P/V, and wrote in the first person about his adventures. It seemed clear that he could have written a good deal more if he'd narrated rather than physically wrote - but he did squeak out a few paragraphs (we're still working on what a paragraph IS, so he needed some help with that). He also needed some prompting to get out the details (what does Mike like best? etc.).

The second project was a letter to James of James and the Giant Peach, offering James ideas on how to get his aunts to treat him better. With NO prompting, Tom wrote a lovely note explaining that James should get away from those aunts and go to New York City! Again, he had a lot more ideas that could have been included had he been narrating versus writing.

He's a good writer.

Now the question is - do I work on grammar and structure? Detailed story-telling? Perspective-taking in real life? Typing versus handwriting? Do I let him narrate while I type? ALL of the above?!!

Or... do I back off of writing (since he's already pretty good, after all) - and focus extra time on math, social skills, fine and gross motor (his weaknesses)? If only the answers were clear cut!

Writing: Meet Lizard

Tommy has a dear friend named Lizard. As you can see, Lizard wears ladies' underwear. Outside of that unusual quirk, Lizard is quite a guy. He's a social butterfly; an entrepreneur; and an adventurer. Lizard's best friend, Frilled Lizard, joins Lizard daily for a glass of watermelon juice at a table at Lizard's restaurant. Other patrons include various bobcats, siamese cats, lions, and characters from almost every movie and book Tom has ever seen or read. Lizard caters to them all.

The restaurant is on the bottom floor of Lizard's building, where he has a penthouse suite. The view is wonderful: he can see his own boat, train, and car.

Today, Lizard and his friends took the houseboat to Nova Scotia, where they met up with the Harbor Master from the Theodore Tugboat series. There, they had a long chat about provisioning the boat; compared the merits of various research subs; and got directions to the nearest butcher's shop (where Lizard could purchase sausages for his cat friends aboard).

I think they're heading out to sea, but I'm not sure.

It occured to me that we could combine keyboarding with fiction writing by turning Tommy loose on the computer to write Lizard stories. So far, he has been very enthusiastic about this - though his handling of the narrative arc (not to mention spelling and grammar) leaves a great deal to be desired.

I have a feeling that, after another couple of weeks, we will be in desperate need of illustrations. So far, for example, Lizard and friends have taken a "pop car" on a "huge mettal thing" to the 7th floor, Room L. I'm not quite sure what that means - but I am absolutely sure that Tommy has an amazing, rich, and wonderful imagination!

Reading and Writing: A First Step

Tom's always been pretty good at decoding phonics and words - and has been at about grade level in his ability to read aloud. Thus, based on the usual "focus on deficits" approach so common in public schools, Tom has never been asked to do much reading at all. In the county program, teachers used a Harcourt reader exclusively, along with the accompanying workbook.

In fact, the readings in the book were pretty good - as far as they went. But at age 10, Tom had never read anything more challenging than a picture book selection in a Harcourt reader. What's really worse, though, he had never been asked to WRITE anything more challenging than a one-page book report (fill in the blanks template). We occasionally got assignments from the Harcourt workbook, and I realized that whoever wrote the templates had not actually read the stories.

Tom had worked for weeks on a story about Balto, the sled dog who led the team that brought vaccines to Nome Alaska during a snowstorm. He loved the story (it was a good one), but there was no attempt to discuss the story, connect it to a map of Alaska, or write about it. Instead, he had a fill-in-the-blank template that asked "what is the problem in the story?" Hm. What IS the problem? Is it the sick people in Nome? the snow storm? the problems encountered along the way? In fact, the question made no sense!

So... in an attempt to instantly surpass public school, we started Tom reading chapter books right off the bat - something he'd never done.

He really enjoyed his first selection - "The Worst Witch," and had no problem reading through each chapter. He had no problem remembering what had happened in the prior chapter. He had a little trouble with the cultural differences in the book (the writer is British).

BUT.

In the book, the heroine one-ups another little witch by doing a better job on a spell. The other witch, jealous, casts a spell on the heroine's broom. As a result, the heroine makes a muck-up of a big event, embarrassing herself and drawing anger from her teacher and head-of-school. Distraught, she decides to run away - only to discover a secret plot by evil witches to take over the school. She turns the bad witches into snails and brings them back to her head mistress. She saves the day! Meanwhile, the jealous little witch sees the error of her ways and repents.

Tommy undertood approximately 10% of this story. He didn't grasp the idea of one-upping a classmate. He didn't grasp the jealousy motive. He couldn't figure out why the heroine didn't know who put the spell on her broom. He knew that she was sad because she had mucked up the event, but didn't understand why she wanted to run away. In short, his autism - and social delays - made even a simple chapter book too complex to understand.

He did write a book report - and I used a premade template from the Education World website (never again - but it helped get me started!). He could do the basics: author, illustrator, main characters, setting, "what is this book about" with minimal prompting. He could outline the basic plot. But he really couldn't go much further than that.

Since then, we've turned to simpler characters and motivations in books that are actually a little too "easy" in terms of reading level, but about right in terms of complexity: Magic Treehouse Books and simple chapter books like "The Littles" which are all plot and almost no character development.

My challenge: how to build an intellectual scaffolding so that he can begin to identify and at least make sense of subtler characters than "bad guy" "good guy" - even if he can't fully empathize with their feelings and motivations.

Suggestions are requested!