Boo at the Zoo

We went trick-or-treating at the zoo yesterday which I have to say was absolute chaos, but the kids had fun.  The lines were horrible.  And the crowds bothered the kids' sensory problems to some degree.  My eldest kept yelling randomly at things like the goose that was on the path that startled him and the wind that bothered him but it was so loud there, I don't think anyone noticed.  My daughter was all quiet and shy and I had to grab candy for her a lot.  Little guy on the other hand loved it and got a huge kick out of putting stuff in his bucket and walking around looking at the animals.  Overall it was a busy tiring but fun day.  They didn't get much candy and the advertisements they gave us got really annoying not to mention the crowds, so I doubt we will be going back next year.  However, they did enjoy it so....

Homeschool Halloween Party

Well today we had our homeschool halloween party.  Basically we played games, did lots of crafts and had cupcakes.  For lunch I made Jack-o-lantern grilled cheese which is pretty much self explanatory but here's a picture.

Unfortunately the "sensory" kids didn't like it at all but my eldest did try it which is better than he would have done a year ago.  My daughter wouldn't even try it.  So they had one of their "safe" foods, bologna.  I love doing fun kid things with the food, but my kids aren't too receptive to people making their food look different even if it is a food that they like.  Tomorrow we are going to be making monster mouths out of marshmallows and apples.  Hopefully that will go better with them wanting to eat it.

Craft wise we made pipe cleaner spiders which I had to help them a lot with.  Apparently it was a little over their head.  And they colored haunted houses and stuck monster stickers all over it for decoration.

My eldest wanted the day off from doing actual school and I told him he could if he did extra work tomorrow but then he got so goofy and silly like he always does when he is anticipating something that he was driving me crazy bouncing around the house.  I decided to talk him back into doing some work and he actually got a lot done on the computer especially in math, but he loves math so that was easy to talk him into.   My little man is adding and subtracting money with decimals right now and multiplying two digit by two digit numbers.  Gotta brag on him a little bit, he's such a smart little dude.  

Oreo Spiders

For snack today, we made oreo spiders.  This is by no means a novel idea in the world of preschool cooking projects but I thought I would post it anyway.  We took halloween oreos and I had the kids stick pretzel sticks in the creme to make legs.  We then used decorating gel to stick m&m eyes on the spiders.  The kids needed some help if their spiders started to fall apart but for the most part, they did the "cooking" themselves.  Here's a picture of the finished product.

This is my little girl's spider.  She has sensory issues and is weird about novel foods, so she refused to eat hers.   She rarely eats our cooking projects.  But she made one and fed it to Daddy.  I gave her a plain oreo instead.  Both my older two children have always been weird about making food projects and eating them.  This is the first year my eldest boy has really gotten into this kind of thing and he really seems to be enjoying it now.  Just FYI to make this project milk free for little guy, we just omit the m&ms and use sweet tarts for eyes.  The oreos and pretzels are milk free.

I Love You

Even though my little one is now 18 months old, he was recently evaluated to have the speech of a nine month old.  It is hard especially after having two early talkers to have a little guy who can't say I love you, and can't even give real kisses yet.  Sign language however has been a life saver and if you have a child who is showing signs of developmental and speech delays, I suggest starting signing as early as possible.  We started when little guy was about 12 months old and still wasn't really babbling much yet.  I just looked up signs online and printed off pictures.  We are up to about 15 signs now, and the newest one is my favorite.  I just recently taught him the sign for I love you and he loves to sign it back to me at bedtime.  It just melts my heart.  Even though he doesn't quite get it right and it looks more like he is just pointing, it is so great to have that little moment with him.  And he gets so excited about it too!  He just loves it when he makes a sign and you know what he is trying to say.  He also recently learned the sign for cookie which of course is his favorite.  :)  He also likes the sign for shoes because it means we are going bye bye.  I am thinking about ordering some sign language dvds for him if he doesn't pick up some more words soon.  He has been attempting words but they don't really sound close to what they are supposed to be yet.  Like every word sounds like a variation of dada or babap.  Thank goodness for signs so we can figure out what on earth he wants lol.

The Strawberry

Now my youngest has a little problem with biting.  Not just biting other people mind you but biting everything.  When he gets mad or frustrated, he takes it out on the closest thing.  Unfortunately that is usually himself.  He has bitten his own arm to the point of leaving bruises and has chewed sores on his little fingers.  We talked to the occupational therapist yesterday and she gave him a chewy tube which is just a rubbery thing to bite on, and she recommended a vibrating teething toy which you can get at walmart.  So off go to walmart to search for this toy.  After scouring the baby section, I find this thing that looks like a strawberry.  It cost six dollars which a thought was a little steep for a teether and it was huge for a teether.  I am not sure a six month old could get their mouth over it, but my little dude has a pretty good size set of chompers so I thought I would give it a go.  If it will save my little guy's arms from bruises it will be well worth the six bucks and I will probably spring for a few more for spares.  

Anyways, I bring the thing home and show little guy what it does and he was hugely impressed.  It vibrates when you bite on it and is supposed to soothe teething pain.  We were hoping it would give him some needed sensory input in his mouth.  He even slept with the thing last night and has been dragging it everywhere.  He did seem to bite less today, but that could be a coincidence and weird thing is he started hitting his head on the floor again.  Which I had just told the therapists he had stopped doing that.  Hmmm...little guy is a puzzler sometimes.  We haven't tried out the chewy tube yet since he was so impressed with the vibrating strawberry but I intend on keeping it in the diaper bag for when we are out.

Hokey Pokey

We were reading a book for preschool and it mentioned the hokey pokey which the girls of course thought was a hilarious name for a dance.  So I of course had to show them how to do the Hokey Pokey which made for a good break from the norm.  And that lead to all sorts of movement games like Simon Says, Ring around the Rosie and follow the leader.  It overall made for an interesting fun day and the bonus was they weren't dragging a bunch of toys all over the place or fighting.  It made me really want to try to remember more of those games we all played when we were little that kids just don't play anymore to teach to my kids.  Unfortunately my memory isn't the greatest, so comment if you read this and have any ideas!

Sensory issues with online learning

Well, we just started using Time4Learning.com which is an online curriculum with interactive tutorials and games.  I will post an actual review after we have used it for a while since today is our first day.  Anyways, my eldest has always had "issues" with the song "Happy Birthday" literally his whole life.  When he was little we had to whisper the song at birthday parties or listen to him scream bloody murder.  This was actually one of our first clues that he might have autism.  Now for about two years now, he has been able to tolerate the singing at parties and even has started to sing along within the past year.

Now here comes this interactive tutorial about President's Day....The tutorial starts off by loudly singing guess what?  "Happy Birthday" to the presidents.  Having that song sung unexpectedly threw my big guy into a meltdown.  He turned the laptop around and yelled at it in tears.  Thankfully none of the other music or animation on the site has bothered him thus far, and he did calm down after it was over and I gave him a hug and turned down the volume.  We will see how it goes from here on out.  He seems to enjoy the other parts of the program.  It's just a reminder that he might be getting better at managing certain issues related to his diagnosis, but they are still there lingering in the background waiting to catch him off guard.  It is also a reminder to take your child's sensory issues into consideration when choosing a program or curriculum.  Bright characters and colors might look fun but may be too much for your child to process all at once.  However, I do think this program looks awesome, and he does seem to like most of it.  We also may be able to adapt using the mute button on such occasions in the future.

Dairy free Slow Cooker Pumpkin Pie Pudding

Here is my Slow cooker Pumkin Pie Pudding recipe.  It is completely milk(casein)free.  To make it gluten free as well, I think you would just omit the biscuit mix.  After going out of the way to make this recipe milk free, my little lactose intolerant dude doesn't like the texture at least today.  We will try again tomorrow.  And the other two won't even try it, but that didn't surprise me.  Seriously though, this recipe is awesome, and if your picky eaters won't eat it, then more for mom!

Ingredients

• 1 (15 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin
• 1 (12 ounce) can coconut milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup biscuit/baking mix
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
• 2 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients and transfer into a greased slow cooker and cook on low for about four hours.  

It's Pumpkin Time

Well we had our first experience carving a Jackolantern.  Now it all went pretty well, except I managed to delete some of the cute pictures I took thinking they copied to my computer.  Apparently only some of them were transfered.  Darn!  Anyways, we decided to go outside to take more and this is when all hell broke loose.  My little one's "issues" were in full swing when he decided he for sure did not want to sit by that pumpkin for the life of him!  Here he is on my shoulder while I was taking cute pics of the other two.  :( 

I finally got him to sit by the pumpkin if it was in the wagon moving.  He loves the wagon!

Here's the other two with their pumpkin family!

All in all it was stressful to try to get them all in on the fun, but it was worth it!  We have had to compromise with halloween for years now.  When my eldest son was little, we couldn't get him to wear a costume so we had to settle for sweatshirts that kinda looked like a costume.  My daughter was the same way, we had to stick to outfits that kinda looked like costumes, but last year they both did better.  We had a Clone Trooper, R2D2 and baby Yoda!  It was so fun to see them all dressed up!  Hopefully this year goes just as smoothly.  My daughter has changed her mind on costumes about a million times and my son is sticking with the Star Wars theme as he has a problem with change and is literally obsessed with Star Wars (it's an aspie thing).  Now little guy is going to be a little pumpkin and my husband and I are dressing up to match!  It will be so much fun!  

Math for Fine Motor Delays

As I have said before, my son is somewhere between third and fourth grade when it comes to most subjects, and math is the biggie that he is most ahead in.  He is currently doing multiple digit multiplication, like 4567 times 53.  The problems is, he is fine-motor delayed and has the handwriting of a preschooler, maybe a kindergartener on his good days, and he simply can't write small and neat enough to complete his worksheets.  Now, I was shopping at Target and saw these peel and stick dry erase boards.  They are like wall stickers that you can write on.  I came up with the idea of mounting one directly to the top of his desk.  It worked wonders and even has the large lines on it like a kindergarten writing notebook.  So I write each problem out for him larger and use another colored marker to draw columns so he keeps everything lined up easier.  He does so much better this way and I can even re-use the worksheets if I want to.  Next thing to conquer--Long Division.

Dairy Free PB and Banana smoothies

Got a picky eater?  If you have a kid with Autism or SPD I'm sure you do!  My youngest little dude who has speech and sensory problems has been getting pickier by the day and isn't gaining weight.  Now there was a simple solution when my daughter went through this at the same age--Pediasure--a meal-replacement shake for toddlers.  We also used Carnation instant breakfast added to whole milk.  Now here's the problem, my youngest is severely lactose intolerant to the point where he can't have any bit of milk product or cross-contaminated stuff.  Even though pediasure is lactose-free, it has whey in it which is a milk bi-product that he reacts to and Carnation has powdered milk in it.  So what to do when he has days of literally eating nothing?  Well, I came up with the idea of making soy smoothies.  So yesterday, I got out the blender and threw in a banana, a cup of soy milk and two tablespoons of peanut butter.  It made about two toddler servings.  He loved it, so today I added a very small amount of carrots and I hope to increase the veggie amount and vary the fruit over time.   I tasted it and didn't notice a difference with the carrots.  Awesome idea for picky eaters.  Now mind you, we did try this for my daughter and the thick texture totally turned her off, but little guy loved it and bonus is it has far fewer preservatives than pediasure anyway.

Preschool Halloween fun

Okay so we are gearing up for Halloween!  Yay!  Makes for fun activities and what not.  We are doing one letter a week with the girls for preschool and we just happened to fall on Gg this week and Gg is for Ghost.  My favorite thing we have done so far is to make hand print ghosts.  I took white paint and had them do a hand print on black paper.  After it dried, we turned it so the fingers were facing down and used black markers to draw faces on them.  They really enjoyed it and it took very little prep-work.  I also cut large and small ghosts out of white card stock and put capital letters on the big ghosts and lower case letters on the small ghosts for a literacy matching game.  For math, cut out a haunted house shape out of construction paper and made ghost counters out of felt and rubber-bands.  I then took index cards and wrote simple math problems on them and they used the ghost counters to solve the problems.  We are also working on learning the life cycle of a pumpkin with some sequence cards I printed off online.   I just love holidays because I find so many creative ideas that center around each holiday.  Next week we will be doing Hh is for Halloween so we can throw in all kinds of pumpkin and bat projects and maybe a black cat or two.

Intro To my Family

And now to introduce the crazy bunch that I love so much.  My eldest son has Asperger's syndrome and can be a real handful but he is truly brilliant.  He is seven years old but working somewhere between 3rd and 4th grade level, thus the homeschooling.  He is pretty much brilliant but quirky and really impulsive.  He kinda has the maturity level of a four year old but the intelligence of a ten year old which is really an interesting combo.  Thus we get instances of him hitting his sister or cousin because they are not playing chess correctly.  He is hugely into video games and it takes some work to balance him in those areas.  He also enjoys Tae Kwon Do and likes to watch Star Wars.

Now my daughter is four years old and has Sensory Integration Disorder.   She is the pickiest eater on the face of the planet and has been on pediasure for three years now to keep her putting on weight.  As it is she only weighs 28 lbs but she is short so the docs say she's healthy as long as she keeps gaining.  She's funny because she is starting to read but she looks like she's only two or three so I get shocked looks from strangers!  lol  She is a super tom-boy and loves super heroes and wearing boy clothes and playing with cars and trucks although she has her babies she plays with too.  

My youngest son is 18 months old and possibly on the Autism spectrum.  He has been seeing therapists through early intervention for 6 months now.  He is severely speech delayed and has some major sensory feeding issues like his sister.  However he is very social so the therapists are hesitant to put a label on him.  It feels like we are going in circles at times when it comes to figuring him out.  They have said he may have apraxia or autism, they aren't sure yet.  He is a super smart guy as well though, and is doing a good job matching up shapes and knows a bunch of baby sign language. 

Me and my husband have been married three years now.  My husband works a full time job that is weekends only so he is home a lot during the week which is fun for field trips and stuff.  I stay home and babysit my niece who is at our house all the time so it is almost like we have four kids.  I am teaching my eldest who does mostly third grade work and the girls who are in pre-school.  And that is pretty much our family.....Wait we also have a chihuahua and a cat!